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Pitch Dark Hardcore

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Pitch Dark Hardcore

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A hardcore lighting overhaul that enforces pitch-black darkness, desaturates unlit areas, and limits visibility to a customizable radius around the player.

Adventure/Exploration
QoL & Tweaks
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Forge
Minecraft

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Project Details

Type
Mod
License
All Rights Reserved
Latest Version
pitchdark-1.2.0.jar
Authors
CurseForge
Modrinth

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Description

Pitch Dark
Experience true, unforgiving darkness.

Pitch Dark is a hardcore lighting overhaul for Minecraft 1.20.1 Forge. Vanilla Minecraft's nights and caves are often "bright" enough to navigate with your eyes closed—Pitch Dark changes that by enforcing realistic, pitch-black environments where light isn't just a convenience; it's survival.

Key Features
True Black Environments: Unlit caves and moonless nights are now genuinely pitch black. High-gamma settings and "fullbright" cheats are rendered useless by a custom rendering mixin that strips away ambient light in the dark.

Desaturated World (Grayscale): As the light fades, so does the vibrancy. In dark areas, the world loses its color, shifting into a haunting grayscale aesthetic that heightens the sense of dread and isolation.

Personal Visibility Radius: Even in the deepest void, you aren't completely blind. You carry a subtle "internal glow" that allows you to see blocks in your immediate vicinity (default: 5 blocks).

The Wall of Shadows: Beyond your visibility radius lies a wall of impenetrable black fog. No more sniping mobs from the safety of the dark—nothing is visible until it enters your small circle of light.

Hidden Celestial Bodies: By default, the sun and moon are hidden from view, creating a truly disorienting and immersive darkness experience. You'll need to rely on other cues to track time.

Configuration
After running the game once, a config file will be generated at 
pitchdark-common.toml
. You can customize the following settings:

# Intensity of the darkness. 1.0 is pitch black, 0.0 is vanilla lighting
intensity = 0.6

# The radius around the player where blocks are visible (in blocks)
# Set to 0 to disable the visibility radius entirely
radius = 5.0

# Whether to show the sun and moon in the sky
# Set to true to restore celestial bodies, false for maximum immersion
showSunMoon = false
Recommended Presets:

Hardcore Mode: intensity = 1.0, radius = 3.0, showSunMoon = false
Balanced: intensity = 0.6, radius = 5.0, showSunMoon = false (default)
Atmospheric: intensity = 0.4, radius = 8.0, showSunMoon = true
Vanilla+: intensity = 0.2, radius = 16.0, showSunMoon = true
Compatibility
Designed to work with vanilla rendering. Note: Shader packs may override some of this mod's custom lighting effects.

Technical Details
Version: 1.20.1
Loader: Forge
Side: Client-side only (can be installed on servers, but only affects players who have it installed)

Pitch Dark Experience true, unforgiving darkness.

Pitch Dark is a hardcore lighting overhaul for Minecraft 1.20.1 Forge, inspired by the classic "True Darkness" mods but with a unique, atmospheric twist. Vanilla Minecraft's nights and caves are often "bright" enough to navigate with your eyes closed—Pitch Dark changes that by enforcing realistic, pitch-black environments where light isn't just a convenience; it's survival.

Key Features True Black Environments: Unlit caves and moonless nights are now genuinely pitch black. High-gamma settings and "fullbright" cheats are rendered useless by a custom rendering mixin that strips away ambient light in the dark. Desaturated World (Grayscale): As the light fades, so does the vibrancy. In dark areas, the world loses its color, shifting into a haunting grayscale aesthetic that heightens the sense of dread and isolation. Personal Visibility Radius: Even in the deepest void, you aren't completely blind. You carry a subtle "internal glow" that allows you to see blocks in your immediate vicinity (default: 5 blocks). The Wall of Shadows: Beyond your visibility radius lies a wall of impenetrable black fog. No more sniping mobs from the safety of the dark—nothing is visible until it enters your small circle of light. Customizable Experience Everything is tunable via the pitchdark-common.toml config file:

Radius: Adjust your personal visibility circle from 0 (total blindness) to 64 blocks. Intensity: Control exactly how much natural ambient light is stripped from the world. Compatibility: Designed to work with vanilla rendering. (Note: Shader packs may override some of this mod's custom lighting effects). Technical Details Version: 1.20.1 Loader: Forge Side: Client-side only (can be installed on servers, but only affects players who have it installed).

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    2026-04-24_16.16.40.png 2026-04-24_16.16.40.png
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