Video Game / The Twilight Forest

The Twilight Forest is one of the largest Game Mods for Minecraft, and one of the oldest mods for the game still being actively updated. It adds a new Realm along with the Overworld and the Nether: the Twilight Forest. The Twilight Forest is a vast forest where it's always dusk, but never fully day or night. A titanic canopy blocks out the sky, strange beasts roam the land, dungeons are scattered across the land. There's treasure to find, monsters to slay, and other such good stuff.

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The Twilight Forest contains examples of:

• Action Bomb: Unstable Ice Cores normally attack the player in melee, but when they die, they explode.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The Questing Ram, which gets increasingly more technicolor as you feed it more wool colors.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Chests often contain sticks, coal, and food, allowing a player who has run out of torches or food to continue exploring.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Death Tomes are living books.
• Battle Trophy: Beating a boss or completing the Quest Ram's side quest will award the player with a head that primarily serves as this. However, you will need one to open a Goblin Stronghold.
• Beef Gate: The mod "soft gates" biomes by applying a debuff to players that wander in before they've completed the prerequisites, but it's still possible to traverse those areas and grind certain resources out of order if you can nullify the debuff (or just buck up and tank it).
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Twilight Forest is home to various types of Spiders and Beetles, as well as Towerwood Borers, who will attack the player, much like the spiders in the original game would do.
• BFS: The aptly named Giant's Sword. It deals a lot of damage, but it is slow to use since it is so massive.
• Bright Castle: The Final Castle, in spite of its hostile inhabitants (and unfinished state), is a gorgeous structure of clean white stone and colorful runes.
• Broken Bridge: As opposed to the Beef Gating of biomes, dungeons and boss arenas are surrounded by a magic barrier that prevents block-breaking and makes monsters invincible within. For example: while a vanilla fire resistance potion can allow you to infiltrate the Fire Swamp without eating Meef Stroganoff, the Hydra Lair at the center is non-negotiably protected, making it impossible to defeat the Hydra before the Minoshroom.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: The original game had swamps before, but the Twilight Forest also packs their own dangerous swamps which must be traversed. Fire Swamps mix this with Lethal Lava Land.
• Cosmetic Award: If the Immersive Engineering mod is installed, defeating a boss will have them drop a shader based on their appearance, alongside a random one. These shaders can be used to customize certain items in the aforementioned Immersive Engineering mod.
• Cultured Badass: The Lich, judging by the magnitude of books and paintings contained in his tower.
• Dash Attack: The Minotaur Axe weapon facilitates this, dealing extra damage while you are sprinting.
• Dirty Coward: When you kill one member of a pack of Kobolds, the rest panic run away from you.
• Dungeon Bypass: The Labyrinth dungeon is made out of Mazestone, which can be mined through, but uses much more durability from picks. However, it has a surprisingly low blast resistance, meaning it can be blown up by TNT, something acknowledged by some chests in the labyrinth having TNT inside. There also exists the secret Mazebreaker pickaxe, which lets you break Mazestone.
  • The Dark Tower takes steps to avert this, with Ghastguards patrolling the outside to attack players who try to tower up through the dungeon, and anti-builders in some rooms to force the player to use the Carminite Builders to progress.
• Elite Mook: Several ordinary Minecraft mobs and mobs within the mod have tougher versions of them.
  • Redcap Sappers, Goblin Knights, and Block And Chain Goblins for Redcap Goblins.
  • Hedge Spiders and King Spiders for Swarm Spiders and Carminite Broodlings.
  • Maze Slimes for Slimes.
  • Carminite Ghastlings and Carminite Ghastguards for Ghasts.
  • Towerwood Borers for Silverfish.
  • Ice Cores and Unstable Ice Cores for Blazes.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Labyrinths and Goblin Strongholds.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Ur-Ghast. Take a normal Ghast (which mind you, qualifies as eldritch on their own), make it at least 3x bigger and give it even more tentacles, the ability to launch clusters of fireballs and to weep acidic tears.
• Epic Flail: The Block and Chain Goblin enemy uses one. The player can use one themselves by crafting one from Knightmetal.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: You can find Rainbow Oak trees in several dungeons and the Enchanted Forest, and naturally can obtain saplings and grow them anywhere.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Lich Towers. Dark Towers are a variation that happens to be bright red and on fire.
• Fantastic Flora: There are a couple of magical tree saplings that can be found inside of dungeons and grown:
  • The Miner's Tree brings underground ores to the surface.
  • The Sorting Tree sorts items in chests around it.
  • The Tree of Time speeds up crop growth near it.
  • The Tree of Transformation changes the color of the ground around it.
• Flaming Sword: The craftable Fiery Sword, which sets enemies on fire on hit. There also exists a pickaxe variant that auto-smelts items that are mined with it.
• Fling a Light into the Future: Bumbling into a zone that you haven't "unlocked" yet will cause a Kobold to appear carrying journals written long ago by a fellow adventurer, relaying what they managed to learn about that area.
• Flunky Boss:
  • The Lich summons in zombies during his boss battle.
  • The Snow Queen spawns in Ice Crystals to attack the player during the fight with her.
• Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Trees in the region around the Dark Tower always have orange leaves.
• Fungus Humongous: There are Mushroom Glades that contain Giant Mushrooms.
  • There's even giant castles made of mushrooms. They're still a work in progress right now though; if you go inside one you'll be very disappointed.
• Giant Mook: The aptly named "Giants". They also happen to look just like the player, only bigger.
• Giant Spider: Now in a variety of different flavours. Collect them all!
• Glass Weapon: The Glass Sword, a weapon that deals 40 damage. Once.
• Golem: Carminite-powered ones are found in the Dark Towers.
• Hedge Maze: This is one of the structures that can generate in the dimension. The mazes use hedge blocks for their walls, which damage the player if they attempt to break or stand on the block. There is no center of the maze, instead there being several open spaces containing chests and a spawner for either spiders or hostile wolves.
• The Hedge of Thorns: The Thornlands. To progress, you'll need the lamp of cinders to burn the thorns.
• Homing Projectile: The aptly named Seeker Bow fires these projectiles, which can home in on their targets.
• An Ice Person: The aptly named Snow Queen is an ice powered enemy found in the ice-cold Aurora Palace. The player can get in on this too with the Ice Sword, Ice Bow, and Ice Bombs.
• Ice Palace: The Aurora Palace where the Snow Queen resides.
• King Mook: King Spiders and the Ur-Ghast are larger versions of Minecraft's spiders and ghasts, as well as being larger versions of the Twilight Forest's own variants of these mobs.
• The Legions of Hell: The Carminites are infernal beings that can be encountered in this dimension, and can be quite aggressive to players.
• Lethal Lava Land: Fire Swamps are a more fiery variation of the regular swamps, creating a molten environment players must traverse in their journey through the dimension. Dark Towers are these turned into vertical structures.
• Lock and Key Puzzle: Several doors in the Dark Tower require a number of Tower Keys hidden throughout the dungeon to be opened.
• Long-Runners: The mod has been under more-or-less continuous development since 2011, making it one of the oldest Minecraft mods still kicking.
• The Lost Woods: They were definitely going for the aesthetic of a mystic fairy tale wood, and it works. It actually contains several biomes, most representing a different flavor of the Lost Woods. The regular twilight forest, enchanted forests, mushroom forests, snowy forests, dark forests...
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Goblin Knights carry a shield that weakens attacks from the front. You can break it by hammering at it for a while, but it's easier to just jump around behind them.
• Mage Tower: The location where the Lich resides.
• Magic Staff: The Lich wields one, which can be used by the player if they are defeated. The Scepter of Twilight has a Projectile Spell, the Zombie scepter spawns zombie minions, the scepter of Life Draining drains life from enemies, and the scepter of fortification creates a shield around the user.
• The Maze: Hedge Mazes and Labyrinths. The former are mainly optional, the latter are larger and required for progression.
• Mystery Meat: Experiment 115, a strange, cake-like food found in the Dark Towers. When placed and dusted with redstone, it regenerates into a full "cake" over time.
• Ominous Cube: A few enemies, such as the Roving Cube and Harbinger Cube, have this theme, though they are unfinished and do not attack the player. The impossible-to-get Cube of Annihilation is one that can be used by the player, being an upgraded Block and Chain.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Wraiths just sort of float around and damage you if you come to close. They also wear crowns for some reason. The Knight Phantoms on the other hand are much more aggressive.
• Our Goblins Are Different: There are Goblins who live in the Hollow Hills. They come in to types: Redcaps and Redcap Sappers. Goblin Knights live inside underground strongholds.
• Our Kobolds Are Different: The Kobolds in this game resemble small blue teddy bears. They're also vicious and often attack in packs, but are also very cowardly.
• Our Liches Are Different: The Liches are really just humanoid enemies with a few fancy abilities.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: The Minotaurs who live in the Labyrinths.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Is there any particular reason to have a Minotaur that's half Mooshroom instead of Cow? Uh... not really.
• Polar Penguins: There are Penguins that live on top of the Glaciers. They don't really do anything, but they're adorable.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Naga and the Hydra are giant reptilian bosses that have to be fought by the player. The naga can eat through blocks, but loses segments as it loses health, while the hydra retains its ability to regrow two heads should it lose one.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Ruins can often be found and usually contain a chest with items.
• Scenery Porn: Many environments seen in the Twilight Forest are visually pleasing and quite spectacular to see.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • You see that cube in the Ur-Ghast's tower? The one that has redstone blocks to push in? It makes diamond and gold blocks! Until you realize that you can't mine the blocks... and the room starts to disintegrate around you...
    • Played with in the modpack Sevtech: Ages, where you need the cube itself for progression. You still don't want to activate it, though.
  • There are also some chests in the Labyrinth that are actually trapped, and will explode when you try to open them.
• Side Quest: The Questing Ram serves this role, not being required for progression in the mod. However, it gives you rewards if you supply it with every color of wool.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Snowy Forests and Glaciers are both ice environments that players will encounter in this dimension, very cold and very challenging.
• Star Scraper: Dark Towers are *monstrously* huge; they start from ground level (which is at Y=~32 in the Twilight Forest dimension), and the boss arena at the top will be within twenty blocks of the build limit (Y=~240) ^note Both the Aurora Palace and Final Castle also go up to similar heights, but they start from elevated plateaus instead of ground level and so are only about half as tall in total. Often, the distance fog will obscure the far end of the Tower when standing at either extremity. What's more, the wrecked state of the arena implies that the Tower used to be even taller before the Ur-Ghast showed up. Not bad for something made entirely out of half-burned wood!
• Temporary Platform:
  • The Timed Platform version appears in the Dark Towers. Reappearing blocks will temporarily become intangible when the player right clicks on one or they receive a redstone signal. While they are mostly used in lieu of doors in the Dark Towers, they are used this way in a few areas, with pressure plates on both ends, meaning an unobservant player will end up falling through the trap. The player can take these blocks with them for their own use too.
  • A different variant are the blocks formed by Carminite Builders in the same dungeon. When activated, they will place temporary blocks in the direction the player is looking, which will disappear after some time.
• Tennis Boss: During the first part of the fight with the Twilight Lich, it is protected from damage by a rotating ring of shields that are broken by deflecting it's projectiles back to towards it (in a similar way to the Ghast's fireballs).
• Totem Pole Trench: The Goblin Knights are actually two small goblins stacked on top of each other.
• The Undead: Skeletal Druids, Wraiths, and the Lich.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The aptly named Final Castle. Not that there's any boss yet.
• Trick Arrow: Several bows fire various types of arrows, while using normal arrows as ammo:
  • The Ender Bow shoots arrows that swap the positions of the target and the user.
  • The Ice Bow shoots arrows that slow down enemies.
  • The Tri Bow fires a Spread Shot of three arrows.
  • The Seeker Bow shoots a homing projectile.
• Turns Red: Some bosses have a second phase to their battles:
  • The Lich dispenses with his clones and starts summoning zombie minions once his shield is broken.
  • The Ur-Ghast throws a tantrum when it takes too much damage, crying tears of acid that rain down below it. It keeps doing this until you grab it with a Ghast Trap, then it goes back to the first phase until you damage it again.
  • The Alpha Yeti also throws tantrums when you hit it, stomping up and down in a rage and knocking icicles down from the ceiling until it gets tired.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: The Twilight Lich boss drops one of their magical rods on death, each of which (except the Life Draining Scepter) references an attack the Lich uses.
• Wolfpack Boss: The Knight Phantoms are fought in a group of six.

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