Barely 1.12

I would also recommend: Authentic Shadows.

Related to performance: Barely is quite lightweight (~150 mods). You should not encounter any issue in single player, as I can run it to an playable extent in my ancient notebook with 4Gb reserved.

So, you may ask, what did I do to try to emulated that feeling? Well..

General aspects:

• Check the images section for visuals.
• The default crafting table and the furnace are gone. To sum up, I removed a lot of stuff, changed a lot of recipes, and highly configured some mods, due to balancing and theming reasons.
• Choosing the mods took into consideration how well they play and look together, while also trying to avoid too much overlap.
• This isn't even close to a kitchen sink pack, as I chose to follow here the idea of not letting obsolescence plague the less viable options to do "X". The focus is set on more immersive tools and roundabout ways of achieving "stuff" (and not always having an easier way of doing "it").
• The natural progression ladder expects you to deep dive most mods included here.
• If you are curious, this idea was born after I noticed that my play-style became a "fake user automation block simulator"... I had become addicted at throwing some of those at all the problems I confronted. So I tried to change my pace, and, after a long time, here is where I arrived.

Detailed aspects:

• Pyrotech: The early-game has been re-balanced (kinder) to replace vanilla's default, rather than become a step prior to it. And the mod also never fades out because of obsolescence, working as the backbone even in the late-game.
• Tinkers' Construct: Hegemony. All non-essential tools and armors were removed except for Tinkers and Armory. I mean, what is really overpowered if you have nothing to compare it to? In addition to that, casting is used in some custom recipes.
• Storage: Pyrotech -> Simple Storage Network -> Refined Storage. The recipes were changed to build a dependence chain. All the blocks similar to the default chests have been removed.
• Automation: Abundance of options has been avoided, giving spotlight to less optimal set ups. Examples: Less options to transport items and fluid; No one block that farms a big area; etc.
• Food: Nutrition is included with a variety of food mods. Roasting is exclusively done by means from Pyrotech. Many complex recipes are done using Rustic's Alchemy Condensers (needing some fluid). Some oddballs recipes were implemented using some more unconventional ways, check JEI.
• Thaumcraft: Cut a lot of it out, included mainly for the Golems, Infusion Altar, and Rifts. Research has been obliterated, so you should find it much easier to get to Golems. The research book has been edited to show those changes since they were very big ones (and I was able to do do so with a newish mod I found). This will be in no way close to the default TC experience, but I modified it like that to fit well in the pack.
  
  • Botania: You are expected to build a system that can generate a high volume of Mana, because the ingots needed for progression requires a lot of it (crafted on the Runic Altar). Not much was removed from the mod since this pack follows a similar philosophy.
• Mekanism: Control Circuits has been chained to an ingot progression ladder (check image tab). Some stuff has been removed, but things were mostly made way more expensive as a late-game achievement. You are required to build various tiers of ore processing, the Control Circuits requires it (up to quadruple output).
• Immersive Engineering: Main engineering blocks requires Mekanism's Control Circuits. Like with Botania not much was removed since it already fits well.
• Energy generation: No mod focused in RF/etc generation is included, if you don't follow Immersive Engineering's path, you can use Botania Fluxfield or Thaumcraft Vis Generators. Such restriction is there for a purpose... And that may be because I love solar panels (passive generation) too much and wouldn't use anything else.
• Water: It is finite in non-water-rich Biomes. Waterworks included (it has a pump). Other mods' overpowered pumps have been disabled.
• Pollution of the Realms: Filters were modified to use materials from the core progression ladder (includes texture and name change).
• SimpleDifficulty: Useful canteen recipe added to Pyrotech's Soaking Pot. Armor Underwear included. Support added to most modded drinks.
• Dynamic Darkness: Default torches removed. It gets really dark if you don't plan ahead and act careful, so walk around with some source of light available.
• Mobs: Animania, Grimoire of Gaia, Mowzie Mobs, Fish's Undead Rising, and others. Be careful of whatever you choose to walk up to. Although the focus wasn't in making this hardcore, I tried to create some sense of lurking danger which is around even in daylight.
• Generation: Biome O'Plenty, Dynamic Trees (+addons), YUNG's Better Caves, Nether Ex, and others. I included the most improving visual/gameplay stuff that I could, but I have a potato.
• Others: Some smaller scope mods are included to provide support on your endeavors, like Scannable, Totemic, and Nature's Compass. So make sure to look around in JEI.
• Core Progression Ladder: Wood -> Mansory Brick -> Refractory Brick -> Iron Ingot -> Steel Ingot -> Stabilized Metal -> Reinforced Metal -> Void Metal Ingot -> Gaia Ingot.
• And if you decide to try this out, a couple of JEI's bookmarks are included to help you with the beginning of your journey. Have fun!

• Play testing: I developed and tested this alone, so if you find something intolerantly difficult or maybe even actually impossible to achieve, let me know (I may have missed it or changed something I shouldn't have as I was getting it all ready to publish this here.).