Minecraft Survivalism Mod, Hunger, Thirst and More...
Are you bored with Minecraft? Looking for a new style of game play to spice things up a bit? Well this is the mod you're looking for. The Survivalism mod adds a host of new requirements to surviving in Minecraft, it's no longer enough to simply build a shelter and hide from the zombies and creepers, now you have to eat to avoid hunger, rest to avoid fatigue and drink to stave off thirst (yes, finally, a mod that makes a nod to the extreme liquid needs of the average human being).
But wait, that's not all! This mod has several modes, which provide various conditions for survival. On the normal mode, you have several 'lives'. This is a common paradigm in many video games and nothing earth shatteringly new. What is new, at least to Minecraft is the fact that if you lose all your lives, you'll be locked out of your save file entirely. (Yes, it is possible to unlock the file if you're prepared to do a little legwork on the file end of things.) For those of you who want to find themselves battling real death, on Hardcore mode, losing all your lives doesn't just lock you out of the save file, it deletes the save file if you die. Staying alive has never been so important – or so challenging.
This isn't a new concept entirely. A wee while back I wrote about the hunger mod, which required the player to eat reguarly in order to stay alive, and if the hunger bar dropped too low, the player would start to take damage. If this Survivalism mod sounds a little too hard for you, then you might want to check out the hunger mod for a 'lite' version that won't lock you out of your save files or delete anything.
Fatigue is an interesting need because it is effected by sleep, food and water. It's a general requirement that also happens to be a very hard taskmaster. What's fun about all the needs bars is that they decay faster the lower they get. In other words, the first halves of your hunger and thirst bars will last a great deal longer than the second halves. Though this is mostly a mod that effects game mechanics, there are a couple of new items, including a waterskin that you can drink from.
It's possible to edit the mod files to make it more or less demanding depending on your style of gameplay. The methods by which you can edit the mod are made pretty clear on the offical thread, so I won't go into them too deeply here. It is also possible to change the difficulty of the mod through the shiny new in-game 'Mod Options' tab, so check that out when you install.
