Making a "Don’t Starve Together" Companion App - What Do You All Think?

[Soufi]

Hey fellow survivors!

 

I’m Soufi, a big Don’t Starve Together fan and a dev (web and mobile). I’ve been messing around with an idea for a free, open-source companion app for Android and iOS—something I’d use while playing and maybe share with the community. I’d love to get your ideas on it and figure out how to take it forward!

 

The Plan So Far

It’d be a go-to info hub with things like:

• Stats for mobs, bosses, and characters
• Details on items, weapons, and what they do
• Character skill trees and abilities
• Seasons, biomes, and how they mess with you
• Crafting and Crock Pot recipes
• Some calculators (buffs, character stuff, etc.)
• Works offline so you’re covered anywhere
• I’d keep it updated with game changes

 

What I’m Thinking of Using

To improve user experience, I’d love to pull in:

• In-game images (like for items or characters)
• Descriptions straight from the game

 

The Monetization Part

I want it free for everyone, but I was thinking of adding ads to help with upkeep and updates. Not sure how that’d go over, though—what do you think?

 

Questions for You Guys

• What features would you want in an app like this? Anything I’m missing?
• How do you feel about ads? Any other ideas for keeping it running?
• Naming it something like “DST Companion” or “Don’t Starve Together Helper”—any suggestions?
• Any tips on getting Klei’s okay for using game stuff (images, text, etc.)?

 

I’m stoked about this because I love the game, and an open-source thing could let us all pitch in to make it awesome. What do you think? Any cool ideas or advice on how to pull this off?

Thanks for chiming in—can’t wait to hear what you all say!

[BezKa]

When I read the title for a moment I thought you meant like an AI boyfriend companion, and I just imagined having Woodie as your man on the phone constantly cheating on you with an axe. Or Wilson ghosting you because he's busy doing science.

As for your actual questions, I personally wouldn't use something like that because 1. Why app for everything

2. That's just the wiki?

I think your efforts are better spent helping improve the wiki pages on https://dontstarve.wiki.gg/wiki/Don't_Starve_Wiki , I bet there's lot's to do on there, including mobile experience improvements.

If you still want to make your own app, all the luck to you, I am no app enthusiast so I can't really give feedback on that front

[Soufi]

5 minutes ago, BezKa said:

When I read the title for a moment I thought you meant like an AI boyfriend companion, and I just imagined having Woodie as your man on the phone constantly cheating on you with an axe. Or Wilson ghosting you because he's busy doing science.

As for your actual questions, I personally wouldn't use something like that because 1. Why app for everything

2. That's just the wiki?

I think your efforts are better spent helping improve the wiki pages on https://dontstarve.wiki.gg/wiki/Don't_Starve_Wiki , I bet there's lot's to do on there, including mobile experience improvements.

If you still want to make your own app, all the luck to you, I am no app enthusiast so I can't really give feedback on that front

Don't worry it's definitely not an AI love app, but hey I guess that's another idea there.

As for "Why app for everything". Well its more about convenience than anything else, just trying to reduce the effort of navigating thought multiple pages and having to wait for loading times for every page. Something the wiki is trying to do is to be as complete as possible, including lore, various DLC's, patch histroy, etc, when I'm only looking for how much meat does a beefalo drop (I know I'm horrible). Not to mention that a native app not only will be faster but also can work offline.

And for your second question. I'm planning on implementing features that aren't available in the wiki and some that aren't viable due to technology limitations, like buff calculations, bookmarking, filtering, sorting, recent searches, etc.

I understand the wiki has its perks also. But that's simply not what I'm aiming for here

[Mysterious box]

5 hours ago, BezKa said:

When I read the title for a moment I thought you meant like an AI boyfriend companion, and I just imagined having Woodie as your man on the phone constantly cheating on you with an axe. Or Wilson ghosting you because he's busy doing science.

For some reason I imagine one where you convince Woodie to leave Lucy only for a short time after she chops into the door saying "Here's Lucy you two timing pile of lumber!"

[Evelo]

So you want to make the Don't Starve Wiki? Not to rain on your parade but it seems pointless. But hey if it makes you happy then that is what matters most and I wish ye luck!

[The Starver]

I would totally use this! It sounds like a great idea, and I think you should do it!

[Crestwave]

I think this would work really well if you use exported information from the game as a baseline. The wiki is manually maintained, which results in slow updates and quite a few inaccuracies. Generated information like the scrapbook (but souped up with more information) would be much more consistent as well as allow for automatic updates.

You could also do cool things like rendering actual interactive skill trees, while the wiki just has a screenshot of the tree with the details listed below it.

There's lots of useful little things to implement as well like a planar damage calculator.

For bigger undertakings, you could even add a base planning feature in the future, allowing you to arrange structures according to their actual spacing values wih the total required materials listed below. Bonus points if it exports to Base Projection.

A server browser could also be a future thing so you can quickly check if your favorite pubs are active.

Not a fan of ads, but I suppose I could just build it from source to avoid them.

For permissions, I think a message to @JoeW or @nome would be your best bet.

[nome]

That's a really interesting idea @Soufi - I'll try to get folks together to discuss it on Monday. In the mean time what does everyone envision such an app would offer over just a webpage though?

[webberer]

29 minutes ago, nome said:

That's a really interesting idea @Soufi - I'll try to get folks together to discuss it on Monday. In the mean time what does everyone envision such an app would offer over just a webpage though?

Chinese communities included? How about have a look at bilibili’s comment page first?

[Sapientis]

18 hours ago, BezKa said:

When I read the title for a moment I thought you meant like an AI boyfriend companion

Now I crave an AI boyfriend companion 

[Soufi]

16 hours ago, Crestwave said:

I think this would work really well if you use exported information from the game as a baseline. The wiki is manually maintained, which results in slow updates and quite a few inaccuracies. Generated information like the scrapbook (but souped up with more information) would be much more consistent as well as allow for automatic updates.

You could also do cool things like rendering actual interactive skill trees, while the wiki just has a screenshot of the tree with the details listed below it.

There's lots of useful little things to implement as well like a planar damage calculator.

For bigger undertakings, you could even add a base planning feature in the future, allowing you to arrange structures according to their actual spacing values wih the total required materials listed below. Bonus points if it exports to Base Projection.

A server browser could also be a future thing so you can quickly check if your favorite pubs are active.

Not a fan of ads, but I suppose I could just build it from source to avoid them.

For permissions, I think a message to @JoeW or @nome would be your best bet.

The features you mentioned are great and definitely will be on my todo list. Thank you for suggesting them.

Generating information directly from game files will be tricky, but I will look into it down the road.

13 hours ago, nome said:

That's a really interesting idea @Soufi - I'll try to get folks together to discuss it on Monday. In the mean time what does everyone envision such an app would offer over just a webpage though?

Thanks for the reply! Looking forward to more from the team.

[Biskit]

22 hours ago, nome said:

That's a really interesting idea @Soufi - I'll try to get folks together to discuss it on Monday. In the mean time what does everyone envision such an app would offer over just a webpage though?

Hey Nome, firstly thank you and others at Klei for being supportive of the community, I really appreciate it! 

And alsk thanks to Soufi for bringing this into light.

Alongside what others mentioned, here are some ideas:

Personally, I still find myself checking my phone quite often, for farming stuff, like:

- Plant registry (which crops favor which seasons for example)

- Crop combos

- sometimes also a Farming Simulator (like the one from Erocrizs: https://erocrizs.github.io/dst-farm-planner/ )

 

There's 3 crockpot apps for Android, but none are really complete, like only 1 has an option to filter out Meat/Non Meat dishes. I also often use these apps as a portable cookbook and specially their crockpot simulator.

 

I think adding these could also be cool:

- Trivia

- Character quotes (I know wiki has them, but unorganized and incomplete) implemented in a more fun way, like Wilson or your chosen character(s) sitting and saying a random quote of themselves

- Game soundtracks with good quality (maybe even an option to use them as phone alerts? lol)

- A game calendar or calculator (I haven't been able to find one, but like which day of which season day 1584 is)

- Could also implement if there's any Drops (+duration) and Ambassadors that are live, which would direct to their stream in the Twitch mobile app

- If official, could implement mini games, maybe daily/weekly quiz, like trivia or things like the mini games in DST with maybe random rewards, like Klei points, in-game skins

- could also have the hidden kitty pet from the game in the app, to pet and feed for fun

- could have the owned banners or vignettes to set as phone wallpapers, like the recent rosey trap banner (maybe at a better/original quality)

- Could have a wardrobe, that people can make outfit sets and share them there with everyone, and people can give them a heart  (maybe sorted based on the character and popularity) maybe top of each month can get a little award as well, if official

- Last but not least, something I really wish it existed, is being able to recieve notifications, mostly things from the forums, directly on the phone. With having options like: Updates, Replies, Followed Topics, Announcements, new Klei games, Offers, new Reward links and etc.

 

Thanks for your time and consideration, would really love to see these personally, and I'm sure others would enjoy it too 

[flamboyant wolf]

14 minutes ago, Biskit said:

 

- Last but not least, something I really wish it existed, is being able to recieve notifications, mostly things from the forums, directly on the phone. With having options like: Updates, Replies, Followed Topics, Announcements, new Klei games, Offers, new Reward links and etc.

 

Oh, this would be awesome.

[Edible Coal]

the only way i can see that this app works better than just typing in a search bar is that the app knows ur ingame status, like constantly show mob info in your area. or you can quickly click on surrounding mobs

[Hollow soul 3]

Maybe a crafting item calculator? Add items into a list, and it tells you how what you need to craft the total