Nook of the Dead

They built a world, block by block. The dead remain.

Nook of the Dead is a zombie survival add-on for Nookworks. Throw the dice at the If Mirror and step through, and the other world is one where it all went wrong: a civilisation of Minecraft players, fallen long ago. Towns packed with houses, farmland gone to seed, the players’ own workshops left standing – and the dead, everywhere.

NeoForge 26.3 · requires Nookworks 1.x, 1.1 or later · English, 日本語, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 한국어, Español, Русский, Português · free to use in modpacks · 1.0 · Player guide · Source

1.0: the whole road

Out of beta. Everything from the mirror to the end of the road is in: the fallen town and the country round it, the seas and the mountains, the galleries under the streets, the institutes and the tower into the sky – and far out, the capital, its castle on the crag and its crows. Gone over by three reviews and a round of play.

And a last round of fixes: the castle’s towers wear their roofs, every covered market faces its street, the vaccine takes the crows too, the thin-air zombies feel Smite, Esc skips the films again. All of it in the changelog.

New in 0.6: the sea and the mountain

The land opens out. Now and then out in the country there is a small sea – an inlet ringed with sand, seagrass in the shallows and kelp in the deep, a boat or two left pulled up on the beach, the old tracks running on into the water. And in the wilds a mountain stands up out of the woods, bare rock above the trees and snow at its top.

And more: most of the capital’s houses gabled now; the desert’s edge no longer a straight line, nor any region’s; all eight languages read through again; and the source is now public on GitHub. All of it in the changelog.

New in 0.5: the fallen capital

Far out from the mirror stands one great city. A moat and a wall round it, and inside, tall houses wall to wall along lanes that wind and meet and never run straight; a river through it in a deep gorge, a bridge of shops across it; and on a crag in the middle, the castle. The king who shut its gates is still up there.

Every house lived in, every room left. Shops and workshops on the street, kitchens and bedrooms above. The great hall, the chapel and the keep’s rooms of state; the cathedral where the people came for sanctuary and barred the doors; the council’s hall where it was decided what to tell them. Its story is told only by what was left – thirteen diaries and five proclamations found nowhere else.

And more: carrion crows wheeling round its spires; an infected cow that looks the part; more left in the town’s buildings; and it works with Nookworks 1.2. All of it in the changelog.

New in 0.4: what the town left

The town remembers. On its flat roofs, the camps of those who kept off the streets, a white rag on a pole for anyone who might see it. In the open ground, a dry well with a ladder down to the shelter the townspeople dug. A church where they knelt to one of the dead. Streets fallen into the galleries below. And a covered market whose booths still hold what they sold.

More to read. The town clerk’s record book, the doctor’s case notes, a child’s adventure book – and diaries that belong to where you find them.

The difficulty counts. Easy is gentler. Hard and Hardcore bring bigger crowds, sharper ears and bites that cost more.

And more: Infected Cats that leap where the dead cannot; the refuge past the Vandal lived in, and sealed until it falls; the sky base a climb of its own; short films at the road’s turns; and a guide that sets out the road step by step, for when you want it. All of it in the changelog.

New in 0.3: the road goes on

Past the Vandal, it does not end. The last of them left a note, and a way on: to a second institute far out in the wilds, and from it up a tower into the sky – by lift where it still runs, by stair and ladder where it does not, resting at its relays on the way. At the top, above the clouds, stands what they built to finish their work. Whatever they finished is still up there.

New dead. Up there the air is thin, and it changed the people who worked in it. They hear you through walls, and they leap. The iron guards that kept the base keep it still – against you.

Something grew in the sewers. It does not move. Do not stand where it can reach.

The ruins, filled in. With Nookworks 1.1, books lie where they were left – on desks, in rows on the shelves, fallen in the corners – and among them the notes the people wrote. A library gone to ruin, a scrapyard, a camp walled in rusting sheet metal; barricades of scrap and bales; windows sheeted over where people held out to the last.

And more: a short film the first time you go through, and another at the end of the road; suppressant that lasts fifteen minutes, and a thirty-minute brew; a Vandal that must be fought hand to hand; a taller If with a sky of its own. All of it in the changelog.

Before you go through the mirror

The If is no longer a fresh world to build in, and it does not forgive.

Go prepared. Your best armour and weapons, food, light, and blocks to wall yourself in. The dead come as soon as you are through – more of them than you can fight, and faster than you expect.

Find suppressant. You are infected the moment you step in, and only a suppressant holds it back. You cannot make it, not at first; you can only find it, in what people left behind. When it runs out, so does your time.

Be ready to lose everything. However well you prepare, you can die there, and dying there is not like dying at home. Decide for yourself how far you dare to go.

What waits there

Streets of empty houses, shops and clinics, a hospital and a railway station over the roofs. Overgrown farmland, wilds with caves where people hid, the walled refuges they built, old galleries under the ground where some held out a little longer. Diaries, the things people kept, and sometimes the people themselves.

They don’t walk. They hear everything. They see only what is in sight and hear the rest – sneak, keep to carpet, keep walls between you. Ring a bell, and every one of the dead near it comes: to call them away, or down on yourself.

A town the sand took. Dunes over the streets, buildings worn to their footings, sandstorms in place of rain. The pyramids still stand, the dead out here are husks, and even the camels and scorpions have turned.

And somewhere, a research institute. The scraps of a map lead to it. Something waits at the bottom, and stone walls do not stop it. Past it, the road goes on – further, and higher, than you would think. At its end there is a way to end this – if you can keep it going.

Find somewhere to hold out. Find what you need. And if you can, find out what happened. The rules for staying alive are in the player guide; what happened is not – that is for you to find over there.

Built on Nookworks

Nook of the Dead needs Nookworks, a vanilla-style decoration and tech mod: café lights on Thin Rope, posters from a Printing Press, furniture and a working kitchen, Storage Barrels, and a workshop of Motors, belts and machines. Build your home there. Then step through the mirror and see what became of theirs.

FAQ

Does it work without Nookworks? No – it is an add-on. Install Nookworks 1.x (1.1 or later) as well; the CurseForge app adds it for you.

Which versions? Minecraft 26.3 with NeoForge 26.3.0.76 or later, Java 25, and Nookworks 1.x for 26.3 (1.1 or later), with its If left on (it is by default). Needed on both the client and the server.

Just want to jump in? In a world with cheats on, /nzw start strong skips the preparing: it takes you straight into the If in a full set of heavily enchanted Velarium, with suppressant, grenades, ender pearls and food, the mirror home right beside you. /nzw start does the same with a light kit.

Can I play with friends? Yes. Keep each other alive: a friend who dies over there gets up as one of them.

Does it change my world? Only the If changes; everything else is as Nookworks leaves it. Parts of the If you have already visited stay as they were – /nookworks if reset makes the If again from scratch.

Is it finished? It is a beta, but the road now has its end. Numbers and rules may still change, and a beta world may not carry over to later versions unchanged – back it up before you update. Coming from 0.5: what is new appears only where the If has not been made yet – to see it in an If you have been in, make it again with /nookworks if reset.

Can I use it in a modpack? Yes. It is MIT licensed – no need to ask.

Tell us what you think

What helps most: where it felt unfair, where it felt empty, what broke, and what you would want next. Every comment is read, and fixes come in the next update.

How this mod was made

Nook of the Dead is made with AI (Claude, by Anthropic) under the author’s direction: the author decides what goes in, plays it and judges it; the AI writes the code and this page, draws the buildings to the author’s brief – some of which the author built or reworked by hand – and made the trailers (0.2’s music too; 0.3’s is “The Most Shocking Halloween Trailer 10” by Sascha Ende, ende.app, CC BY 4.0). The pictures are real in-game captures with the Complementary Reimagined shader pack, cut from the trailers and graded as they are; the last is Nookworks’ own.

License

MIT. The mod’s own textures are drawn by scripts kept with the source; no vanilla images are included.

日本語に対応しています。イフの姿見の向こうは、すべてが終わった世界。くわしくはガイドをどうぞ。

支持简体中文。如果之镜的另一边，是一切都已终结的世界。详细内容请看玩家指南。

支援繁體中文。穿過如果之鏡，那邊是一切都已結束的世界。詳細內容請看玩家指南。

한국어를 지원합니다. 이프 거울 너머는 모든 것이 끝나 버린 세계. 자세한 내용은 플레이어 가이드를 참고하세요.

Disponible en español. Al otro lado del Espejo del If, un mundo donde todo salió mal. Más en la guía.

Доступен на русском. За зеркалом Ифа — мир, где всё уже кончилось. Подробнее — в руководстве.

Disponível em português. Além do Espelho do If, um mundo onde tudo deu errado. Mais no guia.