Ardwick

Ardwick is a survival overhaul that removes degenerate solutions to gameplay and improves the world's atmosphere. If a data pack can change a feature, it has likely been changed. The final pack feels like the golden age but with modern biomes, blocks, quality of life features, and redstone mechanics.

The zip is a data pack and companion resource pack. Put a copy in both your resource pack folder and your world's data pack folder. The resource pack changes are minimal but necessary, and should sit above other resource packs you use.

Celestial Order Fix is available as a Vanilla-like companion shader to improve the visuals of eclipses.

Spoiler warning

Progression is taught in-game via advancements, read ahead at your own peril.

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The world

Time and seasons

• A day lasts 50 real minutes.
• A year lasts 28 days split into Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring.
• Day length varies throughout the year, with a 2:1 split between day and night at the Summer solstice, and 1:2 split at the Winter solstice.
• Light, sky, fog, clouds, and water vary their colour and intensity smoothly by season.
• Stars are brighter during winter and bees stay in their hives.
• The vanilla weather cycle is disabled and replaced by a seasonal cycle.
• Crops grow fastest in Summer and slowest in Winter.
• Some biomes/seasons are cold (slowness/mining fatigue). Warm up by a fire. Coldness only increases when exposed to the sky so that your base/underground is safe.

The Moon

• The orbits of the sun and moon are decoupled.
• Moonlight sets a floor on how dark a night gets whilst the moon is in the sky, reducing mob spawns on well-lit nights.
• Slime spawning peaks at the new moon instead of the full moon.
• Wither skeletons can occassionally spawn in the overworld during new moons.

Eclipses

The sun and moon align every 25 in-game days at noon on a new moon. You can expect the first eclipse on your seventh day. Hostile mobs, including wither skeletons, begin spawning as the sky goes dark.

Warning: Shader packs are built to override atmosphere changes so can disable the visuals of the seasons and the eclipse. For the full effect, use the Celestial Order Fix shader pack so that the Moon appears in front of the Sun.

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Progression

Tools and mining

• Stone tools removed. Wood harvests copper ore. Copper harvests iron ore.
• Every pickaxe mines at roughly half its vanilla speed (except wood).
• Gold tools have hidden silk touch.

Steel

• Diamond tier removed and replaced with steel.
• Steel is produced by blasting iron.
• Flint and steel requires steel.

Furnaces and fuel

• Ore smelts in blast furnances and has variable fuel cost depending on ore tier.
• Food cooks on campfires and the smoker has been retried.
• Fuel costs for most recipes have been increased. Always mine coal you find.
• Dried kelp removed.

Ores

• Lapis removed.
• Gold removed from overworld.
• Redstone and copper ore blocks drop one item when mined.
• Ancient debris is spread flat from y0 to y127 and generates exposed to air. 5 attempts per chunk.

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Survival

Hunger and food

• Hunger disabled.
• Sprinting disabled.
• Natural regeneration disabled.
• Food heals via a regeneration effect healing one health point per vanilla hunger point.
• Food applies a short duration of slowness so that you can digest your meal.
• Raw meat and fish heal nothing and poison you.
• Carrots, potatoes, and beetroot removed.
• Glowberries provide night vision for 45 seconds when eaten. This effect can be amplified by brewing them.
• Cookies provide speed for 20 seconds when eaten.
• Tooltip added to food to indicate the hearts it will heal.

Baked goods

• Wheat dropped in water, or in a filled cauldron, becomes dough.
• Dough bakes on a campfire into bread.
• Dough + sugar + cocoa makes cookie dough, which bakes into a cookie.
• Vanilla bread and cookie recipes removed.

Health, death, speed, and respawning

• keepInventory is on.
• Dying reduces your maximum health by a heart.
• Eating a golden apple restores a lost heart.
• Your minimum maximum health is determined by your progress. You can't lose all your health before you're ready and able to restore it. You start with a floor of 8 hearts and lose one for your first: steel ingot, gold nugget, golden apple, nether wart, blaze rod, ghast tear, netherite ingot.
• Injury slows you by 1% per missing health point.
• Armour slows you by 1% per armour point.
• No weapon cooldown.
• Campfires provide regeneration and set your spawn.
• Beds no longer set your spawn but still allow sleeping through the night.
• Beds speed up time rather than skipping it, exit when you like (capped at half a day).
• XP gives a small speed and haste boost. Breaking ores sets a minimum speed/haste effect to account for the ores that don't give XP.
• Walking on snow layers reduces speed by 5%.
• Pearl of returning (Wither Star + Ender Pearl) will teleport you home and refund the star.
• Campfires only work to set your spawn and provide regen in the Overworld, Soul Campfires only set your spawn and provide regen in the Nether.

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Mobs

Spawning

• Slime spawning peaks at the new moon instead of the full moon.
• Wither skeletons can occassionally spawn in the overworld during new moons (replacing 1 in 4 skeletons) and during eclipses (replacing 1 in 2 skeletons).
• Creepers only spawn in biomes with lots of trees.
• Witches only spawn in swamps.
• Spiders prefer jungles, swamps, and dark forests.
• Endermen only spawn in deserts and badlands.
• Breeze spawning added to windswept biomes.
• Phantoms don't spawn.
• Raids don't spawn.
• Patrols don't spawn.
• Blazes spawn throughout the Nether, most often in crimson forests.
• Cats spawn in many locations with variants tied to biomes.
• Dropping an amethyst shard into a soul campfire summons an Allay.

Loot

• Creepers always drop at least 1 gunpowder.
• Endermen always drop 1 ender pearl.
• Ghasts always drop 1 ghast tear, and no gunpowder.
• Blazes always drop 1 blaze rod.
• Zombies and drowned only drop rotten flesh.
• Iron golems no longer drop iron.
• Fish mobs drop nothing at all (fish is obtained via fishing).
• Witches, evokers, pillagers, and ravagers drop nothing at all.
• 100% drop rate for Wither Skeleton Skulls from Wither Skeletons.

Behaviour

• Farm animals can't be bred.
• Baby zombies have half their vanilla health.
• Creeper fuses are 30% longer.
• Wither skeletons get 100hp.

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Removals

Structures

Only ancient cities, mineshafts and nether fossils generate. No villages, strongholds, fortresses, bastions, trial chambers, monuments, mansions, outposts, ruined portals, shipwrecks, buried treasure, temples, igloos, abandoned camps, trail ruins, or End cities. Dungeons, desert wells, fossils, and geodes still generate. Ancient cities and mineshafts are twice as common.

Enchanting and trading

• Enchanting is disabled.
• Anvils are disabled.
• Enchanted mob loot is removed.
• Enchanted books are removed from all chests.
• The enchanting table recipe is disabled.
• Villager trades and piglin bartering give nothing.
• Wandering traders don't spawn.

Ore

• Lapis ore removed
• Emerald ore removed
• Diamond ore removed
• Gold ore removed from Overworld

Other

• Spawners deactivate permanently once you deactivate them with light.
• Gravel never gives flint when mined. Flint is obtained by blasting gravel.
• Fishing only ever yields fish.
• Name tags are uncraftable and unobtainable.

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Farming

• Wheat crops always drop one seed.
• Breaking grass with a hoe always provides one wheat seed.
• Breaking ripe cocoa always drops two beans.
• Melon and pumpkin stems always drop one seed.
• Melon blocks give one slice.
• Pumpkin gives one seed when carved or crafted.
• Half of chicken egg drops replaced with feathers. Feather drops fail if picked up by a hopper.
• Crimson roots drop netherwart when broken with a hoe.

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New recipes

Item	Recipe
Elytra	8 phantom membrane in a chestplate shape
Shulker box	8 phantom membrane around a chest
Phantom membrane	leather + ghast tear
Enchanted golden apple	apple surrounded by 8 gold blocks
Chest	iron ingot surrounded by planks
Barrel	iron centre, plank columns, slabs top and bottom
Blast furnace	furnace surrounded by 8 smooth stone
Chains	5 iron in a diagonal cross makes 6
Chainmail armour	from chains
Light grey bed	3 planks with 3 phantom membrane above
Any coloured bed	any bed + matching dye
All netherite gear	netherite ingots in the usual shapes
Horse armour	7 ingots in an H shape
Conduit	8 nautilus shells around an empty centre
Crying obsidian	obsidian + ghast tear
Breeze rod	ghast tear + blaze rod
Mace	crying obsidian + breeze rod
Bundle	leather + string + iron ingot
Powered rail	copper instead of gold
Clock	copper instead of gold
Jukebox	amethyst shard instead of diamond
Firework rockets	paper + 1-3 blaze powder
Leather	campfire cook rotten flesh
Flint	blast gravel
TNT	gravel works in place of sand
Potion of Haste	Potion of Swiftness + blaze powder
Potion of Night Vision	brewed from glow berries
Dough	throw wheat in water
Cookie dough	dough + cocoa + sugar
Bread	campfire cook dough
Cookie	campfire cook cookie dough

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Advancements and journals

All vanilla advancements are hidden and replaced with new advancements that teach the pack's progression.

36 of Ardwick's journals are scattered through mineshaft, dungeon, and ancient city chests as moderately rare loot. They can be read in any order. Ancient City maps can be found in Mineshaft/Dungeon chests to make locating them easier.

A secret ending that provides no persistent gameplay advantage is hidden at the end of Ardwick's story.

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Known issues

• The sun passes in front of the moon during an eclipse. Unfortunately the data pack cannot fix this but a shader is in the works to fix.
• Stars also pass infront of the Sun/Moon (most noticable on the Moon). Shader pack to fix in development.
• Food doesn't immediately stack after creation.
• Infinite lava as a fuel source is still viable.
• Dropping eggs on a chicken has a 50% chance of turning the egg into a feather. This is a result of the way chickens are programmed to shed their feathers. Its a fun type of jank so I'll leave this in.
• Similarly eggs layed onto a hopper will never become feathers. Leaving this in to prevent automation.
• Wither skeletons replace regular skeletons. When the regular skeleton is replaced it drops its loot.

To do list

I'm in the process of doing a full playtest. As I discover tweaks, I note them down and update the Beta release available on the mod page. These notes are written for myself but published in case you're curious.

Gameplay

• Shield slows you 5%
• Fatigue system. Sprinting is reenabled but every tick of sprinting reduces your speed by 0.1% exponentially. By not sprinting, fatigue is recovered. Makes parkour/getting away from Creepers possible but walking is still the primary mode of transport.
• Winter is less harsh and chat messages informing players they're getting cold have been removed.
• XP from blasting/smelting removed.
• Gaining XP now gives the player Strength I for a short time.
• Dropping Amethyst Shards into water converts them to Prismarine Shards.
• Speed, Haste, and Strength effects hidden so that they don't clutter gameplay. Effects fade smoothly so that FOV doesn't change too rapidly.
• Awkward potion + Amethyst shard brews a Bottle o' Enchanting that can be thrown to give speed, haste, and strength boosts.
• Fix food not stacking properly.
• Fix food heart sprites.

Other

• More playtesting and tweaks to follow.
• In future Minecraft version (past 26.3), incorporate new datapack functionality to expand what is achievable.