The RubidiumQuest Restoration Project

Minecraft is a game that needs no introduction - beginning as a niche indie game in the early 2010s, it quickly became extremely popular for its wide-open sandbox-style gameplay and is currently the best-selling video game of all time.

What very few people know, however, is that Minecraft is actually not an original title. Those who followed it since its early development would quickly chime in to respond that it was inspired by Infiniminer, and had early stints as seemingly-placeholder games such as "RubyDung". The truth, however, lies deeper than that:

Front Cover	Back Cover

Long story short: Back in mid-2020, fueled by COVID lockdown-induced boredom, a small group of retro gaming enthusiasts stumbled upon an incredibly obscure video game titled RubidiumQuest: Gateways to Infinity, which released for the original PlayStation in October 7th, 2001. Thanks to extremely troubled development, it never released outside its native Finland and Sweden (despite being a PAL release, it lacked German, French and Italian localizations, and had an extremely rushed English localization), and very few CD copies were printed out before the studio behind it went bankrupt.

When playing the game and streaming gameplay footage of it, we quickly found out two things:

1. The game has a striking resemblance to Minecraft, both visually and mechanically, which is unusual considering this game was published eight years before Minecraft's development begun;

2. The game is very, VERY buggy. Game-breaking glitches were common, the game ran at a slow framerate and took many minutes to load levels, and upon dumping the CD's contents into a digital .ISO file, would not run in even the most accurate PSX emulators.

Nevertheless, the curious appeal of an obscure game bearing stark similarities to another game that only begun its development almost a decade later was too strong to ignore, and we informally decided to datamine the game and attempt to create an unofficial patch to fix the absurd issues, finish the English localization, and get it to successfully run in an emulator.

A screenshot of RubidiumQuest's title screen, which is significantly more truncated than Minecraft's - only three buttons are available (Start, Co-Op, and Options), while a preview of the player's username and appearance is shown in the left side of the screen.

The prospect, however, turned out to be far more complicated than we expected it to be. Although RubidiumQuest is now safely playable in the DuckStation emulator after nearly four years of hard work (provided a specific configuration is followed), the process involved unearthing a lot of bizarre and, in the words of the lead programmer, "downright creepy" things buried deep in the game's code.

To claim the game is haunted would be disingenuous, but... many members of the group effort have since refused to work on this game, as they believe it to be so - whatever we have done while fixing it made the game start changing itself. The original build of RubidiumQuest was fairly straightforward in accessing new worlds that look like your standard natural Overworlds from Minecraft, but now it frequently creates worlds that are extremely artificial and unusually creepy-looking. Sometimes you can still find normal worlds through it, but it's also equally possible for it to take you to bizarre alien landscapes, or to just shattered-looking structures floating in black voids.

This is merely the tip of the iceberg - the consensus among people who worked on the fan patch is that they are worried the game may have somehow turned into a virus of some sort. Even those who don't think the game itself is dangerous still felt too uncomfortable to continue working on it due to its odd nature, and the popular consensus was to simply abandon the restoration project.

However, I disagree.

Not only were four whole years spent on reaching this far in restoring RubidiumQuest to a playable state - years I refuse to let go to waste - I also firmly believe that there is more to this game than this. There is a story to be told here, and everyone deserves to know what truly happened in 2001. I am likely burning my bridges with the many friends I've made in the last four years by going against their backs for this, but it's something that needs to be done.

I urge you to solve this mystery, and give this game closure once and for all.

Gameplay Tips

RubidiumQuest functions similar to Minecraft most of the time, but differs in some key aspects:

You will always spawn on a fixed structure containing three paintings, which will lead you to other worlds;
Strongholds do not exist - the sole portal to the Night Dragon is located in the structure you spawn on;
Tools and armour do not have durability, and you never lose your items in death;
Post-Stone gear progression is different - instead of Iron -> Diamond -> Netherite, it goes as Fool's Gold -> Palladium -> Rubidium -> Obsidian;
- Note that Fool's Gold pickaxes, similar to Gold pickaxes, are only as strong as Wooden pickaxes and cannot mine ores - use them only for their fast mining speeds;
Several items have different crafting recipes, which are listed in the Gallery tab;
Worlds have a size limit of ~800 blocks;
Hunger is not a factor, and sprinting instead consumes stamina;
Enchantments and Villagers do not exist;
Piglins, Ghasts and Spiders are Passive instead of Hostile, and Cave Spiders replace Spiders when underground;
Beds are only used to set your respawn point, and cannot skip the night;
You have a Respawn Charm that can teleport you back to your spawn point, if you're in the same world as it, and once lost, cannot be obtained again.

Modpack Information

Out-of-Universe wall-of-text incoming! Also has spoilers for the modpack!

Background

So, first of all: RubidiumQuest is NOT an actual game, and this is not a real PlayStation 1 game, merely a Minecraft modpack designed to resemble one.

RubidiumQuest was heavily inspired by two Minecraft ARGs I am a huge fan of - Minecraft Alpha 1.0.16 Versions, and Minecraft: PSX Edition. However, both of them have things I'd have done differently were I their creator, and I liked imagining how they'd have been like if they were combined. I've been mostly busy working on an unrelated big group modding project for another game, and was dealing with a writer's block on it, so I decided to work on RubidiumQuest as a side project to help stimulate my brain.

It was originally going to be a private pack for me and a few friends of mine to play with, but over time, I noticed I had put so much work into refining it and making it feel cohesive that I felt it could be nice to share it publicly.

Design Philosophy

While the description likely comes off as one, RubidiumQuest is not necessarily a Horror modpack. While it does feature creepy moments, and many of its levels and features are designed to make you feel uneasy and on edge, horror is not its primary focus, with its scary elements being purely environmental - it does not, and will never feature jumpscares and/or Dwellers.

It is primarily designed to be a modpack that focuses on the feelings, aesthetics and mysteries commonly associated with Liminal Spaces, lost betas and obscure/abandonware/bootleg video games, and empty/abandoned worlds in general, where you frequently feel you are being watched, but can't tell for sure. Because of those factors, RubidiumQuest heavily borrows features from Alpha and Beta Minecraft versions, seeking to evoke some feelings of nostalgia that players acquainted with such versions may have, as well as some of the uneasiness many of us experienced whilst alone in those old worlds.

The omission of Villagers and even villages in general was a key feature for this, as it's done not only to minimize the ability to acquire easy food and loot, but to reinforce your sense of loneliness - you will seldom see other intelligent lifeforms in the game, barring few exceptions (as Piglins are still present).

These factors mean that RubidiumQuest will likely only appeal to a certain set of Minecraft players - if you prefer faster-paced gameplay, stronger focus on horror, and/or don't care much for Old Minecraft nostalgia, you will probably not like this modpack. And that's okay. It was designed for a pretty specific set of interests.

If you do enjoy atmospheric games, "lost media"-style ARGs, and gameplay elements of older versions of Minecraft, RubidiumQuest was likely designed for you, and I sincerely hope that you enjoy it.

Known Issues & Glitches

Unfortunately, there are a handful of issues with the modpack that I cannot fix, due to them being issues with a mod it is using and thus out of my control.

They are generally manageable if you know what you're doing, so please keep them in mind while you play:

It is possible to place blocks in the starter structure, which you will then be unable to mine/destroy. This means you could easily softlock yourself by blocking exits with dirt blocks. Avoid placing blocks in there at all costs.
Likewise, it is possible to destroy the paintings that take you to other worlds. If you do so, you will need to manually place them again and ignite them with Flint and Steel or a Fire Charge.
Because it is currently impossible to set a global configuration for the Controlify mod, you will have bad default settings if you play with a controller. For the intended experience, go to the Controller options and set button prompt guides to show on the Bottom half of the screen, and disable the on-screen keyboard (which currently does not work).

There are also some other unfixable issues that I decided to roll as "features", because they are mostly cosmetic. I'd rather you not check them out to keep the mystery, but if you really want to know:

"It's not a bug, it's a feature!":

Sometimes, the sky becomes black. I don't know how to fix it, and decided to roll it as being an in-game "event".
It is not possible to sleep, because Minecraft never advances the time of day if you sleep in a dimension other than the Overworld. One of my beta testers suggested to roll it as a feature via a mod that displays messages when you try to sleep. It also helps keep the night challenging, as you can no longer skip it.
Occasionally, the game will try spawning Villagers in houses you build, which will then immediately die, creating footstep sounds and a puff of smoke. I have no clue what is causing this, but it really fueled my paranoia and feeling of being watched, which is exactly what I want, so I decided to keep it.

Credits

Naturally, as a modpack creator, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, as the heavy lifting was done by modders and resource pack creators far more skilled than me. I urge you to check them out:

Mods

Affectionate, by LambdAurora
Animatica, by FoundationGames
Apathy, by quaternary & whizzball1
Architectury, by shedaniel
Bedrockify, by juancarloscp52 & lonefelidae16
Beta Nether, by Pigzone00
Boats on Lilypads, by JuanTonio
The Bumblezone, by TelepathicGrunt
Calm down, dog!, by F14M3
CIT Resewn, by SHsuperCM
Cloth Config, by shedaniel
Cloth Gamerules, by Estecka
- Preferred Gamerules
Collective, by Serilum
- Cave Spider Spawn
- Crying Ghast
- Custom Credits
- Difficulty Lock
- Double Doors
- Healing Campfire
- Inventory Totem
- Mooshroom Spawn
- Mooshroom Tweaks
- No Animal Tempt Delay
- No Hostiles Around Campfire
- Overworld Piglins
- Passive Shield
- Random Sheep Colours
- Starter Kit
- Starter Structure
- Surface Mushrooms
- What Durability?
Communism, by trash-panda
Console Sounds, by Hattozo, continued by TechSupportRed
Controlify, by isXander
Convenient Mob Griefing, by Neecko5b84
Convenient Name Tags, by Mim1q
Copper Nugget, by Mars
The Corners, by LudoCrypt
Cubes Without Borders, by Kir_Antipov
Dimensional Doors, by StevenRS11, Waterpicker & others
Dimensional Weather, by crafter312
Disable Custom Worlds Advice, by rdvdev2
Disable Villagers, by Stratecide
Dungeons and Taverns, by NovaWostra & Walls
DynamicFPS, by juliand665
EmuNO, by RyanCaoDev
Enchantment Disabler, by pajic
Energizer, by Gaura
Entity Model & Texture Features, by Traben
FabricSkyboxes, by AMereBagatelle
FancyMenu, by Keksuccino
- Drippy Loading Screen
- Konkrete
- Melody
FerriteCore, by malte0811
Friends & Foes, by Faboslav
Ghast Direction, by Roundaround
GolemF, by StoneLabs
Ice Boat Nerf, by supersayansubtlety
ImmediatelyFast, by RK_01
Indium, by comp500
Inmis, by Draylar
Insomnia, by moehreag
Inventory Pause, by umollu & Yipeekiyaay
Iris, by coderbot
Necronomicon, by ElocinDev
- Item Obliterator
Kiwi Library, by Snownee
- Nimble
- Per-Dimension Game Rules
LambDynamicLights, by LambdAurora
LazyDFU, by tuxed
LIMBO Dimensional Datapack, by Reppeti
Lithium, by jellySquid & 2No2Name
Log Cleaner, by altrisi
Magic Mirror, by quitrin_dev
MidnightLib, by TeamMidnightDust
Mob Filter, by pcal
Mod Menu, by Prospector, haykam821 & TerraformersMC
Model Gap Fix, by Mehvahdjukaar
Moderner Beta, by BlueStaggo & bespectacled
Multi World Borders, by Potatoboy9999
NetherSheep, by An Sar
No Bed Explosions, by DerpDerpling
No Chat Reports, by Aizistral
No LAN Cheating, by bl4ckscor3
No Menu Music, by ItsProfessional
No More Purple, by Pepperoni__Jabroni__
No More Ruined Portals, by millennIumAMbiguity
No Night Vision Flickering, by semper-idem
No Portals, by Kevinthegreat
No Resource Pack Warnings, by Space Walker
No Stronghold, by mineLdiver
No Telemetry, by kb1000
No Void Structures, by Quidvio
Nostalgic Tweaks, by Adrenix
No Wither, by Dev0Louis
ocelotfix, by Partonetrain
OptiGUI, by opekope2
owolib, by glisco, BasiqueEvangelist & Noaaan
Paperdoll, by tr7zw
Path Under Fence Gates, by Steveplays28
Pickup Notifications, by Roundaround
Pling, by haykam821
Polytone, by MehVahdJukaar
Postmortal Particles, by Superkat32
Presence Footsteps, by Hurricaaane & Sollace
Red's More Structures, by redstonegamesb
Remove Bloat Stones, by MultiBana
Rotten Flesh to Leather, by CrebboElodie
Silk Touch-less Enderchest, by Walls
Sit, by bl4ckscor3
Snuffles, by Suel_ki
Sodium, by jellysquid3
Sodium Extra, by FlashyReese
- Reese's Sodium Options
Sound Physics Remastered, by Sonic Ether, vlad2305m & Max Henkel
Sparse Structures, by MaxenceDC
StepItUp, by spoorn
Timeless, by Rader
Tiny Item Animations, by Trivaxy
True End: Out of the Dream, by JustMili
YetAnotherConfigLib, by isXander
YOSBR, by shedaniel
YUNG'S API, by YUNGNICKYOUNG
- Paxi

Datapacks

Dungeon Revamp, by ProGameBot
From the Fog, by Lunar Eclipse

Resource Packs

Alpha 1.0.16 Versions Textures, by the AlphaVers team (making them), Bolternon, Marioood & Lylythii (arranging them in a modern Minecraft-compatible resource pack)
Golden Days, by PoeticRainbow
Border Makeover, by WaveAOE
Pumpkin Head Iron Golem, by memostardust
TNT-Head Creeper, by piramiduss
Illager Humanoid Models, by arkfeathers
Illager Knight Textures, by DarkNinja887

Shader Packs

Minecraft PSX Shader, by Ninjamike & ckosmic

Box Art Design

hazelnot

Datapack Command Assistance

Eir
Wonder
Alice

Beta Testing & Writing Assistance

MissAlexis
PanDulce

RubidiumQuest Restoration Project

Compatibility

Minecraft: Java Edition

Platforms

Supported environments

Creators

Details