A Craft of Mine's developer here! I'm not sure if I'm part of the downfall or the end of the good old days, but I'm glad I get to be either 😎 nice video xd

>sees an original mod >copies its code >copies its model > “reskins it” (makes it a darker shade and add blood) >adds “fully custom” sounds (taken from the internet) >”yea I cooked with this one” > “this NEW minecraft horror mod is going to change EVERYTHING” SwayleMC mindset

I've always felt that the silence is incredibly overrated, jumpscares and loud sounds every 3 seconds isn't scary, it's just lazy

I liked the simplicity of the first cave dweller, like he would leave you if you look at him and not directly chase you

It's sad that when the original cave dweller mod was released, a ton of mods derived from the same theme were released much later, and none of them gave credit to Gargin, the original creator of the "cave dweller mechanic". These guys don't know how to make a horror mod that doesn't have jumpscares or chase moments, it's practically Ctrl + V all of Gargin's work and making small additions just to "differentiate".

Sometimes Horror is what we *DON'T* know. You can technically never be in real danger, yet have a horrifying experience. Exploring a "Dead World" that has a lovely sunny atmosphere, but absolutely no signs of life anywhere, even in towns and cities, would be scary. No music, no gore needed, just a world that was clearly lived in...Till it wasn't. *And you will never know what happened to everyone*

TBH it wasn't the milking some other horror mods like "The One Who Watches" cause thats a good horror mod. It really came down to Swayle, and his crew. Who not only copied and paste bombed the same type of Dweller 15x, with just a different sound and texture. But also stole other mod creators content and retextured their horror mods and claim it new or updated.

The thing Minecraft horror lacks is subtly and build up in its horror, and I can't believe I'm using this movie as an analogy, but The Shining is a brilliant example of Subtle horror and build up, and despite the fact the movie itself is a ghost story taking place in an isolated hotel, I think Minecraft horror mods should take inspiration from its methods, i.e. slow build up with implications and changes in the world of what's to come, before a sinking feeling, and the payoff taking place

Minecraft horror can work. It just needs to work with minecraft, not against it. You cant just make a horror mod that doesn't look like the MC style and works against the horror people already feel when playing the game. The Warden works because it kinda plays into the mystery of the ancient city, the unknown and the lonlyness that people can feel when playing Minecraft. The original dweller was a good idea, but the trend just went in the wrong direction. Minecraft can be scary, it is just a difficult thing to achieve!

I said it before and I'll say it again. There are horror mods that exist that are A- Underrated, B- Unknown to the wider community. The Dweller Trend has sort of hidden those golden nuggets, and also ruined the Horror genre in modded Minecraft. It's really a shame. I just wish people could explore more of those mods, and focus less on used and reused mods that do mitosis every week.

Honestly the cave dweller is innocent in all this. It started just as someone's headcanon on what's making the cave noises and honestly does a decent job at being scary. It's not perfect, but it getting lumped in with its copycats that just ride off of its success feels wrong

From the fog mod absolutely DUNKS on the dwellers

Horror creators need to figure out how to make their own original stuff, we see this happening everywhere with dweller mods and mascot horrors in general, theyd rather take whatever seems popular, spend as little time as possible making it, and expect to make millions

Creator of Whispers of the Wendigo speaking. Some of the mods mentioned including mine aren't directly dwellers but they work off a mechanic similar to one where you're getting stalked and then attacked. I'm trying to break out of this system and create an entity that feels sentient and like a living creature. Something more like the manbear that actually stalks you, doesn't rely on spooky sounds to scare you and it's whole thing won't be sound-chase-despawn

at this point, yeah. everything is getting less and less scary. i'm not even scared by my own mod, the starved stalker, anymore. we need horror to get back to its good days.

The knocker mod is actually pretty cool compared to others.

The thing that mostly gets me with Dweller Mods is the fact that 1. They're all the same 2. They don't stop hunting you, it's all for KZfaq clicks and stuff, not even for actual creativity. If I were to make one (I may) it's not gonna be a chase every second, it's gonna be unique to a biome and it'll have actual drops, actual gameplay added to it to make it truly unique, not just copy paste slop for KZfaq-

I think the Apollyon isn't that bad. It has a lil cutscene thing when it's spotted. And i love animations.

Okay, we all can agree that Jenny's Mod was THE best horror mod

I feel like Knocker has some solid potential The One Who Watches also is unique Man from Fog is Awesome Swaley Dwellers cannot be saved

Steps to make a good dweller ass entity. 1.make it fit vanilla,no corny ass screams or long limbs or mandela catalogue syndrome faces. 2.make it a completely silent entity that attempts to outsmart you in many ways (setting up traps,catching you offguard,ambushes you in low light levels,camouflage,etc) 3.Have it show up really rarely so the suprise factor doesnt go away after i shows up in the first 10 mins of a world. 4.make it completely unnapealing to children so youtubers cant milk it. 5.just make a good herobrine or white eyes mod for gods sake.

The most scariest thing is darkness. Because you will never know what its lurking in it or there is nothing in there. We fear the unknown.

One of the best "scary" mods I played was fish's undead rising, which funnily enough is not even a horror mod but a simple enemy expansion. It really explores the fear of unknown while staying true to the original game. No loud noises, flashing lights or "spooky" monsters. Just new enemies that you've never seen and have no idea how they behave (which also are balanced in a way, requiring a lot of practice to beat but not being unfair like most dwellers). While this mod never made me scream or jump it was the only mod so far that made me feel like I'm playing minecraft for the first time again and feel scared of the night.

i need a monster thats only there to scare people in the dark. no chasing, no killing, just spooks you a little (and if no other mobs around, makes you drop your current item!)

18:38 *Number 12, a man URINATED on another plane passanger* aah music

The Weeping Angels from Doctor Who are perfect for making the game’s experience feel more tense.

Why did you add the weeping angels they were made into a mod like 10 years ago 😭

"Goatman can pipe me" is crazy

Let’s hope KZfaq likes this one, it’s slowly going up but it NEEDS to peak

ngl the most horrifying thing in all these horror mods is the fov they make you play at

18:36 bro i laughed so hard at this part 😭😭

You know these would have been absolutely cash at the height of the creepypasta era back in like 2013-2016 back when the rake creepypasta and other tall thin men in the darkness making weird noises was considered the scariest thing around but unfortunately they arrived way too late to actually be scary beyond a slight bit of startling horror.

13:19 weeping angels always scare the crap out of me

I kinda agree with you, that horror mods have had a major downfall, the only mods that are actually ok are the, Man from the fog, From the fog, the cave dweller (normal or reimagined) and the pale hound (i like the pale hounds model) Most other dwellers are just noise makers they yell and scream 24/7 never shuttin up. I love calvins series as he actually has good content.

I actually like many of the dweller type monsters, but they have to have their own MO (so not flame dwellers). The One who Watches is earrapey sure but I think his redlight greenlignt invisibility mechanic is cool and the dev's stages update definitely took some of the pain out of the experimence. Obviously the Cave Dweller and reimagined versions are classic even for their relatively short times being around, same with FtF. I also enjoy all three entities made by the Man From the Fog dev. You can tell all of them had some thought in care plus actually pair up decently well with eachother, the Man being a constant oppressive force while Apollyon and the Knocker are dangerous but still fairly manageable threats which arent meant to be overly challenging in comparison. Some of the other mods off the top of my head from this trend I approve of is Dangers in Darkness, Creeping woods, eyes in the dark, Beware the Rain, and a few other more niche less dwellerish monster and horror mods. There's also the entirely unrelated mods like Born in Chaos and Graveyards which I'd love to see more like. Spooky creepy atmospheric and world building mods which give real content to work with beyong just a monster is always fun and desireable. To sum up my thoughts, I like that this trend did happen but oversaturation and cheap copies plague it like many horror trends in many medias. Its up to the community to steer it on the right track and encourage creativity and good game design over just KZfaq bait. There's multiple very promising projects in the work at the moment such as the works of IDKsomeguy, Kihec's Siren Head, and the creator of TOWW's Slender game mode. There's more I could list like the updates to the Silence or the upcoming mods from the dev of Sadface but this should make the point. Let's criticize what should be criticized, and appreciate what has something to offer. Throwing everything under the same umbrella rarely ends well.

that stupid edited sound at 13:38 scared me more than the fucking entity itself

They milked the cave dweller so much that things with the word dweller in them are not scary

dweller mods are so boring lmao

Swayle is ruining Minecraft horror with just reskins.

I have a specific idea for a horror mod that feeds into the isolation part of Minecraft as opposed to just "GIANT SCREAMING MONSTER AAAAAH" but I can't code in Minecraft Java for shit!

If I urinated on my keyboard, would that make a better Minecraft Horror mod then all of these mods combined?

Super tempted to make a Minecraft Horror Mod that simply makes each hostile mob feel like they're from either Silent Hill or Amnesia but sadly I can't code at all I can prolly try to make concept doodles

I think the real problem with these mods is there is no “surviving”. There is no goal you’re given that is motivating or even achievable. They’re just annoying and extremely op half the time and can kill you in one hit. They stop being scary after the first jumpscare and immediately turn into a nuisance.

18:44 "erm that just happened" ah kill

Something that I always wanted is that there was a Mod that would add to an Intelligent Mob, something like that instead of being a Dweller that despawns and does not deliver anything important, I would prefer a Monster that is smart, like a Hunter, that searches you and above all reacts to each Player act, something like a Werewolf Villager that camouflages itself in the Villages, a Monster of the Woods, a Ogre who Hunt and eat the Villagers or giving you a more believable and interesting Monster Slayer Experience.

One thing that worked with the cave dweller is that it's spawn conditions were specifically only in the caves. A lot of the copies don't have any specific spawn conditions, and are pretty much omnipresent. If you wanna have spooky mobs, give them specific conditions in which they appear, like locations, biomes, player actions, time of day, etc. So as to have a promise of safety waiting for you somewhere.

If you want to play with some kinda good horror mods, the best choice is probably herobrine, cave dweller and maybe the man from the fog 1) it is actually uneasing, his ai is a lot better than most of the dwellers 2) He is the original, like you can't call him typical dweller, because he literally the first of them 3) More controversial, but after update he has got a lot better, with few behaviors types and actually has an unpleasant atmosphere at nights Edit: my english sucks, sorry

The only problem I have (other then the ear splitting eye breaking jump scares) I JUST hate how over modeled they are. I just don’t like it

18:37 hello there.... (I wanted to make an Obi-Wan Kenobi reference)

Hearing about old Minecraft horror makes me feel old as hell. Its certainly true though, dwellers aren't really that scary anymore since the AI/mechanics didn't truly evolve, just remained the same

there needs to be a night dweller mod but instead of the generic thingy, its something far more scary and worse... a british man

"goatman mag me pijpen" nawwww i didn't know you liked the mod this much 😭

ah yes, it's so scary when the monster makes loud roars every five seconds to indicate that it exists. It's not like horror is based off of the unknown or anything.

I liked that the weeping angels were more scary unlike the first dwelling just being annoying

I honestly feel like Zonko's Monsters did "Horror" mods right, just a little bit of scary on this guy, a bit more on this one and then some mini bosses that can catch you off-guard in the early to mid game, it conserves Minecraft's spirit and feels Vanilla+ even if the monsters are something Mojang wouldn't add if the studio depended on it.

What you saw at 13:19 are called weeping angels, they are entities that feed off time energy, these are humaniod angel creatures. They are actually in a show called Doctor Who and has a nickname of "The Lonely Assassins." Apparently they date back to the start of the universe.

a craft of mines monsters 1. spider thing that for some reason becomes a lever on death 2. motor engine 3. black goop

Yea all the AI is basically the same, when they do change it, it makes it so much worse.

The exact meaning of a sighting I by video but in game. He doesn’t shout or chase you, he won’t scream he just watches. Progressively as days go by he will appear closer before errors appear warning texts and so much more. Herobrine is in this world. The fog.

Well. I mean this is just more milking tbf. 'Dwellers are ruining minecraft horror' is just as much of a trend as 'dwellers woah episode 1'. Been tons of popular videos with that premise as well. Like, no shade or anything. I wish you success in your endeavors. But to take the premise literally, they aren't ruining anything. Horror ARGs and the like still exist. They're practically a whole other genre. The people that do them don't do 'loud monster runs at you' mods. Entirely different skill sets. Are they largely shallow, based on jumpscares with little going on? yeah. Just loud noise, move fast, do a lot of damage. The worst part of them is entirely the theft and unimaginative copying and pasting, I entirely agree. ... but they aren't like, an existential threat to anything. They just are.

Gargin cooked with the original cave dweller and everyone and their mother wanted to piggyback off of his success. That's basically the entire story in a nutshell.

Y’know what would be a really funny idea to spoof and satirize how out of hand this Mod trend has become? Put in the Cave Dwellers From The Spongebob Episode “Chum Caverns”.

I feel like i get horrified with mods that arent even supposed to do that , like the run and escape parasites, that shit is downright scary to me 💀

You know, a horror mod that borrows inspiration from Voices Of The Void would work wonderfully with Minecraft. Like, you're just going about your business mining, farming or whatever and there is a small, random chance that some sort of weird unexplainable event happens. It could be a small, harmless thing that makes you tilt your head before going back to what you're doing or it could be the prelude to a genuinely terrifying and threatening event unfolding and you could never be completely sure which is which.

Derp, the stone angels you saw at 13:10 or something are actually called "Weeping Angels" they're a story/legend about stone angels that when you look away come closer. They are humanoid creatures that date back as old as the universe apparently. They're also a entity in a show called, Doctor Who were they feed off time energy. This is just a small fun fact for you!

18:36 is actually pretty funny. Just: "Let me in." *Can't open the gate.* "No." *Smacks with a sword.*

In my opinion Minecraft is already pretty scary at times. Endermen, spiders, wardens and creepers are pretty freaky on their own. Especially the concept of how monsters appear in the dark and it's up to you to stop them. The Cave Dweller should have been similar to a spider (imo the Minecraft spiders are terrifying) and it is able to alter caves and make traps in them, not just a lankier zombie. It does chase you, but it will "leave you alone" once you get far enough from it... And it settle with making traps and altering the cave in order to kill you.

I wish there was a sort of invisible infection mod that contained avoidable (with enough precaution) enemies that scaled to your armor and pitfalls to drag you further into caves to still keep the wonder and stress of vanilla caving.

18:35 *"NUMBAH 12, CAULK"*

One of the scariest mobs I’ve seen if the cave centipedes in the Forge version of better minecraft, those things are terrifying

bro is tweaking with the lever💀

Minecraft horror mods have unfortunately been ruined. I don't blame the guy that made the cave dweller mod, but the cave dweller was supposed to stay the cave dweller. All these other "dwellers" are complete bs. It's just reskin of cave dweller.

From my work on the Great Silence mod pack I've realized that horror mods are almost all unbalanced or not fair gameplay wise. Balancing them has been really fun cause the play tests are always really fun. Horror needs to be designed with players that don't know the entity in mind. They need a chance to learn or be able to intuitively do the right thing be it running, Fighting, weaknesses, etc. then the entities need to be interesting or fun afterwards in a way that enhances the experience. My approach has been to embrace the survival aspects with both single and multiplayer.

Still scares me when they randomly appear

Geniune video, no scripting no roleplaying no bullshit, you’ve earned a new sub :]

Apollyon is kinda cool tho considering how it smiles so wide and points at you before attacking u mercilessly

The issue with why Minecraft isn't scary, unsettling at best, but not scary is two fold. 1) Minecraft mechanics don't facilitate the vibe of a horror game. I mean you see this in your and other videos where you literally can build a wall to defend yourself from a monster, I can guarantee you that Amnesia would be ten times less scary if MC could just build save haven for himself or mine away from surface into safe dirt. And 2) Minecraft doesn't have a story or even lore to facilitate horror. Good horror, heck even horror that uses jumpscares usually has a story and lore that also facilitate atmosphere of horror, Minecraft doesn't have it. Those two points combined provide very confusing, dazed, aimless experience of Minecraft. And horror mods suck because they refuse to tackle those issues, they don't add horror mechanics, nor do they add a story/lore/goal for you to strife for. They just throw some mob at you with "scary" model and go "BOO!" It's basically Minecraft version of jumpscare, fast and strong mob. I think a simple way to actually make all of them more scary is adding realism mods, like add a mod that makes your MC asphyxiate due to lack of oxygen if you build yourself a dirtcage for defence. Edit: Another idea, considering it's a Minecraft horror mod, one way to make all those mobs scarier is to let them do what other mobs can't, *mine* towards you, but don't make it too fast, the issue with even good horror games is that if you die to a too strong of an enemy, the horror dissapates too fast, make them mine slower, or have limits or weaknesses. Obviously don't make it too weak but also not too strong, just enough to make you unsafe in small hut made of dirt with no doors, that way you're constantly forced to be on the move. Basically horror mods can only be good if they do a huge Minecraft overhaul, be it mechanics vise or add a story/lore of some kind and give player a goal to strive for to create horror atmosphere

While I agree with you I think you didn't go much into why the eras have such a difference in quality. It makes it seem like "old good, new bad" is all you have as a point, when it's clear you have some more nuanced takes on it. Unrelated but I had a fun mod idea, though no idea how feasible it is. It's a monster that disguises itself as other mobs and spawns in groups with them with visible seams in the model so you can tell them apart if you look closely. When you get close or attack the seams open and inside is a mouth that has a tongue that attaches to the player and sucks away their hunger rather than health. It's just a spur of the moment though tho.

so what was your entire modpack? i wanna know just what mod it is that changed the perspective of your character like that

The Silence is the worst type of horror, no buildup, random jumpscares and just pisses you off

I like some of the dwellers when they have their own gimmick.

I feel like a good scary mod is allowing the player to feel 'safe' inbetween the threatening parts. But not like, TOTALLY safe. If that makes sense, like the player needs to feel insecure about what little relief they have from whatever threat is in the mod. I'm an idiot when it comes to horror stuff but the better you are at tricking the 'it's just a game it can't get me' reflex I feel like it's going to be more effective.

There are a lot of things I dislike about those mods with all of their copy/paste appearance included, but I think what drags them down the most is they all hinge on this gameplay loop of them harassing you constantly everywhere you go until you develop ways to consistently keep them out which defeats the point. If you make them too powerful, they become random death events that grind progression to a (very irritating) crawl which just kills fun. The way they are implemented ignores the fundamental pillars of minecraft gameplay and is just a jarring and annoying mite crawling around on an otherwise enjoyable fruit, which is why they should be more conditional. Mining, crafting, exploration... you know, things that it should have some relation to... Then again, a lot of these are youtuber/streamer bait that they don't want to have to wait or make effort towards because attention span is lost on us.

I think the main reason dwellers are taking over is how much easier it is to just make 1 mob that chases you around than to create an immersive environment. What I would really like is a more fleshed out backrooms mod as so far they all seem a little too empty and pointless. The idea of "levels" in the backrooms may have been taken way too far but at the start it was alright with just like 3 or 4.

I've always said that the cave noises are scarier than the dwellers.

the problem with most horror mods i think is that they try to convince you to be scared instead of scaring you

Minecraft horror is best done with immersion and a further play on the unsettling loneliness of the game... Get the player introduced to the world in a deep and unsettling way right off the bat, immerse them in the situation they are in, and then start changing what they believe to be normal... Minecraft worlds, especially older versions, are desolate yet somehow unnervingly alive. The original dweller played on that by introducing a threat that lets you enjoy the tasks you commit to above ground, but when venturing into the depths, you are leaving your comfort zone, the 'natural' world you feel safe in... It doesn't attack right away, but it lets you know that you aren't alone down there... The part where it actually goes to kill you, while spooky, isn't scary... You jump, shake a bit as you try to get away, hide, or fight it, but weather or not it actually kills you or lets you go, it's over and you don't feel as spooked by it anymore... The dweller was far more effective at being scary by just existing in the world, stalking your every move, causing indirect harm, and inducing paranoia each time you ventured into the caverns below. Horror is best done when it doesn't try to kill you. But ultimately you are powerless to stop it.

Minecraft Horror has become a Lable that people just put on things

I never liked the idea of the cave dweller. Sure they are scary the first few times but they just seem like an annoying obstacle that gets in the way of what i already think is the most boring part of MC (mining)

I do like the knocker, but yeah it definitely needs improvement. Also at the time of me watching this IDKsomeguy has made another new horror entity and so far it's pretty unsettling, plus someone made a mod called Vital Deprivation, worth a look at, though it's still in development from what I can tell.

Can I ask what mod you used for the biome with the dead trees? That wood type looks really cool...

21:07 that was so uncalled for

18:37 "number 19 mouse in baked beans"

I mean... there's the Wolfman but its more for psychological horror, same as the soon to come manbear except the manbear is way creepier

This just makes me wonder if people will like my mod that I am working on...

The knocker is honestly scary ngl Literally stood up to get get a bottle of water after getting his jumpscare.

What if there was an entity who’s only goal was to steal from your base. It would look ghoulish and unnerving, but never directly attack the player. It would learn to open doors and ways to hide in what it deems the player’s base(maybe it recognizes the coordinates the player frequents the most/sleeps in).

What is the music in the background at 12:47 ?

these things happen, look at friday the 13th, the market gets flooded due to demand but then the demand evaporates, oops! all dwellers! i’m sure we’ll be seeing some new entries as time passes though

As someone who, has admittedly never actually PLAYED a horror mod, I feel like there is still SOMETHING good in every mod…sure some aren’t that scary when you know how to counter them, and a lot of dwellers are repetitive, but if you can find one that’s just right, and aren’t actively looking for problems, you can still have a good time…but again, maybe that’s just me