suggestion: journal

[jaywalker]

I have mentioned this in the research points thread, and I've seen others mention it here and there, but I think this one deserves its own thread.

This game could really benefit from a journal. Whether it is something we would have to make via papyrus or something we start with I think it would be great addition to the game.

My previous suggestion was that every new item placed in the research machine would get a journal entry, and that animals/creatures would get entries when related items were placed in. So spiders would get an entry from silk, bees from honey, beehives from honeycomb etc.

I think that the style of entry should be very sketchbook as well. Every new item would have a little concept sketch from Wilson as well as a handwritten comment or two about the item.

I think a journal like the one in spelunky for instance where it shows an actual picture of the item would not fit the atmosphere of this game as well, though that would be fine to

So guys would you like a journal? What kind of things would you like to see in it?

Some other random ideas:

Every 5-10 days of survival with the same character results in a journal entry about how they feel about being stuck on the island. Wilson's could be a slow dark descent into insanity, while Willow could write about how much she loves fire. It would be an interesting way to learn the characters back stories as journal entries may give insight into their previous lives.

The journal could have a death record in the back that shows statistics on how you have died while playing. It could have information such as how long you lasted and what killed you.

It could contain a daily accounting of activities. How many of whatever thing that you have killed. How many pigmen you have fed. How many pigmen have died while working for you. How many berries you have eaten etc It could have totals as well as what day you did them on. It would be interesting to look in your journal and see that on day 20: 57 pigmen died for you. and that on that day you killed 300 spiders or whatever. You could look back on that (sitting pretty at day 365 and be like "oh yea I remember that battle bwahahaha lets do it again", or perhaps you could just see how yur diet has evolved over the past year

[Toaster Fu]

Aside from statistics I think the journal would have to have a huge verity of pictures and notes to br worth it in the long run. Otherwise after a few play throughs it would just become repetitive and slightly boring.

It would also be a lot of work to write. Let's say you had ten deferent entries for each animal in the game right now, that would be 130 unique stories. That's quite a lot of writing, and that's only animals.

It seems like it would be really cool the first few times, but after that it would just get less and less interesting. If you find a way to make it work I would be vary interested.

[501105]

I have to agree, the idea has potential but most of it would require a enormous amount of time better served on extra content in my opinion. That said, being able to have statistics in a journal about your kills and favourite type of food and what not sounds doable.

[jaywalker]

I don't think you would need 10 entries per item for it to be worth it. One would be fine. Just a picture and a couple of comments not pages and pages of notes. 130 entries on the animals would be nuts.

The cool thing about a journal is filling it out for the first time. You unlock some extra art and background. As for being repetitive I don't see why someone would want to try and fill the entire journal more than once, and like research points it would likely carry over between lives.

A journal would also give all those crazy completionists out there something to do. Say the entire thing has 100 entries and they have 99 of them the completionist would be crazy motivated to find the one thing he has never found and stuff it in the research machine

[Toaster Fu]

Yes but that's one of the draws of this game and games like it, you never know what to expect.

[Thebadvoodoo]

I mentioned this in the research points thread too, but I'll expand on my thoughts here:

The addition of something like a journal would have to solve a problem or drastically improve a feature that was already in the game and core to the experience. I think it could be a great way to consolidate the location of incoming information - namely the map and crafting menus. It'd also be a good place to put in any narrative developments that we see in the future that help detail the world that we're in and what's going on.

As it stands though, I don't know how useful a journal would be if it simply served the purpose of pretty pictures and descriptions of monsters. There aren't an abundance of monsters or things to interact with, and even then there's not much useful to say about them. "Birds drop seeds and you can catch them with a bird trap" - I don't feel like that's too much information to keep track of myself, and it doesn't really warrant an entry in a journal to help me make heads or tails of how I should interact with them. While I do agree that it'd definitely help reinforce the aesthetic of the game, I don't think the game is lacking in that particular department.

[mobius187]

Yes, I think it would be interesting to combine the map and journal into a single selection that would also pause the game when the player interacts with it.

I'm not yet 100% sold on merging in the crafting system. The pros involve saving on screen real estate, since having an open screen in Don't Starve is very important. It always feel like I can't see far enough. Another pro is the fact the invention tool bar doesn't always minimize back to the base level after I craft, which can be distracting, but resolved by allowing a plyer to simply exit the journal view to hide it. The con is that right now crafting is "live action", meaning players need to factor in crafting time, even if it's just 1-2 seconds, into their strategy when in difficult situations, like combat or their last torch is about to extinguish. Another con is that currently when you craft a new item it appears in your inventory, but with placeables (i.e. chest) or items you don't have room for in your inventory, they end up in your cursor. This would mean that the game would need to dump you out of the journal whenever you encounter one of those two situations. That might bother me... not sure.

Also, as we discussed the invention process could be tracked or handled inside the journal. What method works best is debatable. I suggested the collection of words that, when combined logically, would create new ideas/words and/or actual invention schematics. However even I'm not sure that's the best approach.

I wouldn't mind if the journal could track the player's progress, statistically on one page, but also chronologically. Of course in order to create a worthwhile record system it would need to be interesting and that's generally the problem. It would be neat if you could invent a camera and take B&W photographs in-game and store them in your journal with player entries. In fact, maybe the whole journal could simply be player content... I mean why not? Say you want to keep a journal of your progress, you click on the Journal icon and select "New Entry". Then the journal would flip to a blank page and display the current day at the top of the page. The player types whatever they want and exits the page. If photos are later included maybe these could be attached to journal entries.

For the player who doesn't want to record journal entries they can ignore that feature and just focus on using the map and invention system.

Edited November 7, 2012 by mobius187

[jaywalker]

mobius: I love the idea of the journal having/being player generated content. A game that has a popular system for this (though way more complex than would be needed in this game) is the Sims. Many sims players spend hours/days/weeks creating screenshots and doing in game story telling.

All it would really require in this game is the ability to take in game screenshots and give them extended captions in a nice looking journal and players could create extended stories that they could share with others online. Reading like field notes/journal entries. It could be a great way to extend the games lifespan as well.

[mobius187]

...Many sims players spend hours/days/weeks creating screenshots and doing in game story telling.

All it would really require in this game is the ability to take in game screenshots and give them extended captions in a nice looking journal and players could create extended stories that they could share with others online. Reading like field notes/journal entries. It could be a great way to extend the games lifespan as well.

I vaguely recall a game with a photograph mechanic. Basically you selected the camera and it creates a "framed area" beyond which everythign is shaded in grey (i.e. not in the photo). As the character always stays in the middle of the screen there wouldn't really be a need to move the framed area, however maybe a zoom function? In case you only wanted to snap close-up photo of your character versus the character and their immediate surroundings. Of course the photos should be black and white... or brown sepia tones. Then after you snap the photo (bright flash, ect) you could write a short caption on the photo, as you suggested and it would be placed on, or across from, that day's journal entry page.

So if players feel like writing in their journal, they can do that or not. If they only want to snap photos, they could also do just that too. Let them decide how much they want to do... or not do.

[Toaster Fu]

There's a zoom function already in the game, removing one more step to make that work. *mindlessly thinks coding is easy*

[Kaliflour]

I have to agree, the idea has potential but most of it would require a enormous amount of time better served on extra content in my opinion. That said, being able to have statistics in a journal about your kills and favourite type of food and what not sounds doable.

This makes sense to me. I'd much rather see much more content than have a bunch of pictures and flavor text about a little content. I'm not against a stats screen either, and having the map be part of the journal is great, but beyond that I think it would just become a time sink for the devs if they decided to implement it.

[mobius187]

This makes sense to me. I'd much rather see much more content than have a bunch of pictures and flavor text about a little content...

...but beyond that I think it would just become a time sink for the devs if they decided to implement it.

Which is why we've suggested that the journal's content all be player created. If you're a player who doesn't care about recording journal entries then the journal wouldn't have any entries and only serve as where you access the map, stats, and invention creation pages. If though you're into blogging or have a personal interest to record your day-to-day survival the journal would serve that need.

Again, if photography is included then black and white photos could also help illustrate your survival in the journal entries.

[Kaliflour]

Which is why we've suggested that the journal's content all be player created. If you're a player who doesn't care about recording journal entries then the journal wouldn't have any entries and only serve as where you access the map, stats, and invention creation pages. If though you're into blogging or have a personal interest to record your day-to-day survival the journal would serve that need.

Again, if photography is included then black and white photos could also help illustrate your survival in the journal entries.

I see, it appears I've misunderstood. For some reason I thought you were talking about user-created content in addition to included journal content. Yes that does sound like an interesting idea, something akin to Minecraft's writable books. I actually like to have that degree of personalization in my games.

[501105]

Agreed, then you can decide for yourself wether to make notes or not.