New mechanism for sanity: psionic crafting recipes that can be unlocked only by "going crazy"

[Pop Guy]

Recently I'm playing Starbound, with the wonderful expansion of the Frackin' Universe.
Still recently, in the mod the research branch of "madness" has been exploded:
"Strange entities populate the universe. In the cosmic darkness, in the black mantle among the stars, strange consciences manifest themselves fleetingly, in their leaping between nothingness and existence. Being is in everything and everything is to be. meanders of madness, widen the horizons of your little brain, let these otherworldly entities suggest true science..."
In practice, in the current phase of the game in which I arrived, I am making my character more and more crazy: I visit worlds made of meat and tendons, maximum evolution of biological life. I go into the meanders of the Arctic, exhuming ancient experiments of pre-human civilizations idolized by crazy alien occultists. I consume exotic drugs and practice autopsies on corpses of various races and nature, using their brains in strange devices that seem almost endowed with a life of their own.
In short, the Frackin' Universe is giving me the most interesting and fun madness I've ever found in a game.
I think that Don't Starve should do the same, to evolve the sanity parameter. Wilson then seems perfect to dissect corpses and do strange experiments with brains.
In short, I would like the "magic" (or better, third-level science) to be something more pathological and difficult. I wish I had to stay crazy for days and days, doing more and more strange and unhealthy acts, to the point of attracting the attention of someone of "them": only then, the voice of something beyond the stars, which lights up a light bulb in the brain and detects how build something that previously seemed impossible.

Edit: However I would insert three types of madness: one, normal madness, the one that leads to seeing shadows.
Then, a "ravenous" madness, which can be found only in some specific places (The ruins during the peak of the cycle, perhaps?) The character hears voices on the screen that incite him to eat, to eat more and more raw meat. Hunger falls exponentially and all foods that are not meat give back only 1/2 of the hunger, while if they are cooked meat, they give back only 2/3.
Finally, could there be a "heart attack" madness due to specific isolated single objects (such as the nightmare lamps?):
staying too close to these objects causes the character to tremble first and then die from a heart attack.
I think the secret to evolving madness is to add more types of madness, depending on the situation! In fact, Frackin' Universe has 4 different types of madness.

[Pluschi-Cal]

12 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

Recently I'm playing Starbound, with the wonderful expansion of the Frackin' Universe.
Still recently, in the mod the research branch of "madness" has been exploded:
"Strange entities populate the universe. In the cosmic darkness, in the black mantle among the stars, strange consciences manifest themselves fleetingly, in their leaping between nothingness and existence. Being is in everything and everything is to be. meanders of madness, widen the horizons of your little brain, let these otherworldly entities suggest true science..."
In practice, in the current phase of the game in which I arrived, I am making my character more and more crazy: I visit worlds made of meat and tendons, maximum evolution of biological life. I go into the meanders of the Arctic, exhuming ancient experiments of pre-human civilizations idolized by crazy alien occultists. I consume exotic drugs and practice autopsies on corpses of various races and nature, using their brains in strange devices that seem almost endowed with a life of their own.

Yeah I thought I was reading an Edgar Alan Poe poem for a second there

[minespatch]

7 minutes ago, Plushical said:

Yeah I thought I was reading an Edgar Alan Poe poem for a second there

If we're going AIP logic, then we'll be mixing Edgar Allen Poe with H. P. Lovecraft:

 

[Starlogy]

you sure you werent playing it cause of the summer sale exploit?

[Terra_Zina]

[laughs in willow main] Arise, my sisters! Our time has come!

But nah for real. Sanity is a pretty controversial topic. One of the arguments being that 'insanity is better than sanity' or that 'insanity is too easy'. (Freddo Films did a great video on this)

It would be pretty good, however, if insanity became more and more severe the longer you are insane. You'd see more stuff at the corners of your eyes, more visions and hallucinations. New Shadow Creatures would spawn and attack, annoy you or support current Shadows. While this is all happening, your own shadow becomes longer and longer, and eventually bursts out of the ground and attacks you, like a mini boss fight.

Once your own shadow literally attempted to murder you, you've reached peak insanity, and unlocks new crafting recipes that you can craft anywhere, but only when insane.

 

I'm just brainstorming.

[Starlogy]

or make sanity more draining on your character, causing them to lose access to crafting recipes over time?

[Ressayez]

no no no no no no

no game should take any advice concerning balance from starbound, not even a heavily modded version of starbound, it is the source of all that is wrong and evil in this world and we cant allow it to sink its tendrils into any more minds than it already has

[Pop Guy]

10 hours ago, Terra_Zina said:

[laughs in willow main] Arise, my sisters! Our time has come!

But nah for real. Sanity is a pretty controversial topic. One of the arguments being that 'insanity is better than sanity' or that 'insanity is too easy'. (Freddo Films did a great video on this)

It would be pretty good, however, if insanity became more and more severe the longer you are insane. You'd see more stuff at the corners of your eyes, more visions and hallucinations. New Shadow Creatures would spawn and attack, annoy you or support current Shadows. While this is all happening, your own shadow becomes longer and longer, and eventually bursts out of the ground and attacks you, like a mini boss fight.

Once your own shadow literally attempted to murder you, you've reached peak insanity, and unlocks new crafting recipes that you can craft anywhere, but only when insane.

 

I'm just brainstorming.

Maybe the shadow of each character could have unique abilities, related to the aforementioned character. A sort of "unique" boss per character. Very beautifull!
However I would insert three types of madness: one, normal madness, the one that leads to seeing shadows.
Then, a "ravenous" madness, which can be found only in some specific places (The ruins during the peak of the cycle, perhaps?) The character hears voices on the screen that incite him to eat, to eat more and more raw meat. Hunger falls exponentially and all foods that are not meat give back only 1/2 of the hunger, while if they are cooked meat, they give back only 2/3.
Finally, could there be a "heart attack" madness due to specific isolated single objects (such as the nightmare lamps?):
staying too close to these objects causes the character to tremble first and then die from a heart attack.
I think the secret to evolving madness is to add more types of madness, depending on the situation! In fact, Frackin' Universe has 4 different types of madness.

[Daniel86268]

11 hours ago, Terra_Zina said:

It would be pretty good, however, if insanity became more and more severe the longer you are insane. You'd see more stuff at the corners of your eyes, more visions and hallucinations. New Shadow Creatures would spawn and attack, annoy you or support current Shadows. While this is all happening, your own shadow becomes longer and longer, and eventually bursts out of the ground and attacks you, like a mini boss fight.

Once your own shadow literally attempted to murder you, you've reached peak insanity, and unlocks new crafting recipes that you can craft anywhere, but only when insane.

Hot damn, I like that idea. Instead of having to craft and having to stand next to a station to craft, complete the challenge and be insane to craft.

[AdventZen]

First of all, your writing is delightfully well-articulated, I love how gothic it all seems, and that really helps to sell the idea.

Second, I wholeheartedly agree that Sanity needs to play a bigger role in-game, and while the Lunacy from the Isles does present a similar vein as your suggestion, I feel like it is too cosmetic. This is somewhat out of place, but I believe the Structures and Animals from the Isles should only present their characteristic behaviour (Crafting Tab appearing, Carrots become Carrats, Dragonfruits becoming Saladmanders, Spiders crystallizing and Hounds reviving) when Lunacy is high enough. That would present a fairly good reason to be Lunatic, or at least have someone insane alongside you to reap the benefits, and add a thin layer of questioning: which version is real? what is true madness?

TL;DR: The Lunar Island should only have a crafting station/plant-animals/mutated mobs when you're Lunatic, Otherwise reverting to a boring island with weird trees and observably rocks. The tech is already implemented, and Bernie is a good example of Sanity-based transformations.

[Hunter863]

I think the heart attack part is a bit "too" extreme. This isn't Darkest Dungeon where, if someone dies from a heart attack, you only lose the character instead of having to restart. No matter how good they are, the game can still continue, so permadeath features like this should only be implemented in certain ways that would only have you to be at fault for, such as drowning. Nightmare lanterns might need to be used if your lantern ran out and need to fight, so being instantly killed by them would make me feel cheated. However, I think insanity should be more extreme, and I agree with having more extreme effects the longer you are insane. Maybe making fake hounds appear that vanish after attacking or being hit? Or maybe make it so shadow creatures get higher stats for each day you are insane. Finally, maybe certain characters will have unique downsides when insane. Maybe Wolfgang could be put into a temporary lock for being insane too long, possibly the same amount of time as his transformations take and could be hit out of it. But seeing more added to insanity would be great.