Core Loop

Core loop

Matriochka repeats one loop ten times: make the way into a world, open it, survive its rule, beat its boss, take its core. This page explains each piece and the exact rules the code applies.

The loop

1. Gather the ingredients of the next world's way in.
2. Craft it at the Matrix Workbench. The recipe stays hidden until your group has beaten the previous boss.
3. Perform its rite: World 1's Seed is planted on tilled World Soil 0 by water; every other world has its own object, set down where its rite asks (see The way into each world).
4. Enter the World Block and discover the world's rule.
5. Build the world's station and gear, explore its structures.
6. Beat the boss in the arena. It drops its core, which opens the way into the next world.

The way into each world

World	Object (item id)	Ingredients (Matrix Workbench)	Rite
World 1	World 1 Seed (seed_1)	1 Guardian Core, 16 Iron Ingot (vanilla), 16 Oak Log (vanilla)	Planted on tilled World Soil 0, with water (any water block) within 4 blocks horizontally and 1 block vertically of the seed.
World 2	Ember Heart (seed_2)	1 Queen Core, 8 Sporite, 16 Spores	Set down within 3 blocks of lava, with at least 4 Ashrock around it.
World 3	Jailer's Key (seed_3)	1 Titan Core, 8 Ash Ingot, 16 Blazing Rock	Set against an iron door, with a redstone signal (a lever, a button).
World 4	Storm Rod (seed_4)	1 Jailer Core, 8 Dungeon Key, 8 Sealed Fragment	Set on top of a lightning rod under the open sky. Opens during a storm, or at once when fed a Storm Essence.
World 5	Black Lantern (seed_5)	1 Storm King Core, 8 Storm Essence, 8 Celestial Crystal	In complete darkness, with at least 4 Spent Glow within 2 blocks.
World 6	Twin Mirrors (seed_6)	1 Light Eater Core, 8 Shadow Shard, 4 Diamond Fragment	Between two glass blocks facing each other, two blocks away on either side.
World 7	Abyssal Pearl (seed_7)	1 Double Core, 8 Unstable Alloy, 4 Inverted Crystal	Dropped into water at least 3 blocks deep.
World 8	Sapling of the Four Seasons (seed_8)	1 Leviathan Core, 4 Pressure Pearl, 8 Abyssal Salt	Planted on grass or dirt. Opens at dawn or dusk on the overworld clock: time 22500 to 1500, or 11500 to 13500.
World 9	Seismic Stake (seed_9)	1 Seasons Core, 8 Temporal Sand, 4 Season Fragment	Driven into stone or deepslate below y 40.
World 10	Traveller's Matryoshka (seed_10)	1 Terrain Core, 1 Terrain Heart, 1 Key of the Last Doll	Anywhere. Ready at once.

Every use is checked by the server: there must be room (air, or water for the Abyssal Pearl), the spot must be the one the rite asks for, and your group must have defeated the boss of the previous world (the Block Guardian for World 1). An object received from someone in another group cannot be used unless your group has the same progression. Waiting, feeding and what to do when a world does not open: The way into each world.

World Soil

• There is one World Soil per world, numbered 0 to 9. Only World Soil 0 opens anything: the World 1 Seed grows on it. World Soils 1 to 9 are the decorative soils of their worlds.
• World Soil 0 comes from the Block Guardian (4 per kill). The bosses of Worlds 1 to 9 drop no soil.
• Every soil can be crafted at the Matrix Workbench once the matching boss is beaten: 4 Dirt and 1 Bone Meal (Soil 0) or 1 Spores (Soils 1 to 9) give 4 soil.
• Till it with any hoe. Tilled soil goes back to normal if a block other than a Seed is placed on it, or if something lands on it from a fall of more than 1 block.

Hatching

• Set down, a rite object becomes a rite site drawn as that object; the World 1 Seed becomes a planted Seed. Both work the same way from there.
• While the condition is met, the site builds up progress, one step per tick. It needs 200 steps (10 seconds). Progress pauses, but is not lost, when the condition stops; smoke puffs show that it is waiting, and a rite site tells its planter, when within 24 blocks, what it still lacks (an overlay message).
• If the spot stops being right (the soil under the Seed is no longer tilled World Soil 0, the lightning rod under the Storm Rod, the grass or dirt under the Sapling, or the block under the Seismic Stake is gone), it pops back out as an item.
• At 200 steps the site turns into a World Block owned by the player who set it down, after a short ritual of particles and sounds; each rite has its own sound while it works and a swell when it opens its world. The soil under a Seed is untilled.
• While it waits or hatches, the planter's group can feed it: calm offerings (flowers, honey, berries, moss) or wild ones (gunpowder, blaze powder, rotten flesh, bones, spider eyes, magma cream), together with the blocks within 3 of it, decide the world's variant. At karma +100 the world is Hallowed, at -100 Cursed. See World variants and mutations.

World Block

• Use it to enter its world. Only members of the owner's group (and creative players) can enter.
• It has a huge blast resistance and cannot be pushed by pistons, but it can be mined.
• Breaking it expels every member of the breaker's group who is inside that world, without harm, and drops a Cracked Doll tied to that world and owner.
• Right-click a block face with the Cracked Doll to put the World Block back anywhere, with no soil needed. The world inside is unchanged.
• Every World Block of a given number leads to the same place for your group, so crafting its way in again reopens the same world.
• A small turning island of its world floats above it, tinted by its variant. The block leaks its world within 8 blocks, shakes during a boss fight inside, and what you build around it changes the rule inside: see Effects between the scales.
• After a New Cycle, the World Blocks of the old cycle crumble when used.

Parcels

Each world is a fixed dimension shared by all groups. Every group gets its own 3000 x 3000 block parcel in each world; parcels are 13000 blocks apart along the X axis. Walking past the edge of your parcel pushes you back with the message "The edge of your parcel. The doll holds you back."

Threshold and arena

• The first time a group enters a world, the mod builds a 7 x 7 platform of Lacquer Blocks and Painted Wood with a Threshold in the middle and four lanterns. Roofed worlds (3 and 5) get a ceiling; it is built at y 48 there. In World 7 you arrive in a diving chamber on the sea floor instead: an air-filled glass dome around the Threshold (see World 7).
• The boss arena is built at the same time, 160 blocks south (positive Z) of the Threshold: a round floor of radius 18 made of the world's stone, eight pillars topped with lanterns and the Arena Altar in the middle. A line of lantern posts leads to it in the open worlds (not in worlds 3, 4, 5 and 7).
• Use the Threshold to leave. You return to the World Block you entered from.

Return Thread

Crafted at the Matrix Workbench (2 Wool Thread and 1 Ender Pearl give 2), or bought from the Doll Peddler. Right-click it inside a world to go back to your World Block from anywhere. It is consumed.

Cracked Doll

See World Block above. Setting a Cracked Doll down somewhere else moves the World Block, and the world inside quakes for ten seconds (see Effects between the scales). In the hardcore mode a broken World Block deletes its world instead.

Cores

Each boss drops one core. The core is the key ingredient of the next world's way in (it opens the way into World n + 1); the World 10 core is only a trophy. Cores cannot be purified or devoured at the Soul Altar.