Making Falling Blocks Crush Items or Blocks with Lychee

Understanding the Crushing Interaction

Lychee supports interactions where a falling block (such as sand, gravel, or an anvil) lands on an item entity or a block below and triggers a result. This is the mechanic behind things like turning stone into cobblestone or crushing ore blocks into dust, but you define the pairs yourself in JSON.

Building the Recipe

Create a JSON file in data/<namespace>/recipes/. Set the recipe type to Lychee's falling-block crushing interaction. Specify the falling block that must land, the block or item entity it lands on, and the resulting output — either a dropped item, a replaced block, or both. If you want the falling block to be consumed, include the appropriate flag; otherwise it will remain after the interaction.

Testing the Crush

After /reload, place the target block on the ground and drop the falling block above it, or spawn the falling block directly over the target. Watch for the output to appear. If the interaction does not fire, verify the falling block ID matches exactly and that the target is the correct block or item entity. Check the log for recipe errors, since Lychee will report malformed JSON there.