Don't Starve Revisited

[Jovo]

If you'd have a chance to create another iteration of DS, what would you keep, what would you re-frame or change? Using DST as a base so to speak.

I think they are struggling a bit with "overall arc", ultimate goal of the game, and some shabby dog plot-lines.

 

IMO there doesn't have to be a major boss or major "event", in fact - one of the strengths of DS is that bosses operate in parallel with each other and their existence is guided by different rules, that's great why not keep it that way.

 

Top Tier Bosses

 

Since there are common parameters for all characters (health, hunger, sanity, strength) - have their respective counterparts as in-Universe version of four riders of the Apocalypse.

 

1. Charlie - She is a shadow creature, not of this world, and a shape shifter i.e. she can take any form we encountered thus far (Crawling Horror, Terrorbeak, Shadow Piece, Bishop etc.), and her native shape of course (which looks like shadow version of Charlie from promo pictures).

 

[When it comes to graphical design I would keep it less Disneyesque and wholesome and more Tim Burton style, in particular - from animated feature Nightmare Before Christmas (and Corpse Bride).]

 

For combat with Charlie you have to be completely insane and her sanity drain is absolute! That awesome animation from Fuelweaver fight (where shadows completely surround the player and screen nearly becomes all dark) belongs to Charlie fight. Finally when you defeat her, you defeated the darkness and the reward is "crown of light" - the exact same thing you get from Cellestial Champion.

 

I would scrap Cellestial Champion completely, whilst lunar island could be reused - after all Moon light is the enemy of darkness, and it's integral part of the game since the early days (on Full Moon you can operate without light source). Enlightment - no. On Lunar island it's Full Moon every night, that's it.

 

Old professor and good old lady (comfort giving NPCs), with silly little tasks, meh, kind of breaks overall atmosphere, I would take that out too. Perhaps, you can find professor on some remote location and obtain some blueprints, should not be omni-present and omni-potent character.

(If NPCs exist they should be able to die, and if that happens they never re-spawn.)

 

2. Ancient Fuelweaver - As Charlie is counter-part to sanity, Fuelweaver is counterpart to hunger, in-Universe version of Famine. He is nearly perfect as it is - reanimated skeleton, using bones as weapon, yields bones armor and helmet. I would just tone down sanity drain, move darkness animation to Charlie fight and introduce hunger drain! When fighting Fuelwaver you are getting hungry and fast! Hunger belt (otherwise not too practical) could play important part in this fight. There are only few foods that can sustain you in that fight.

 

3. Nightmare Warepig - Counterpart to overall health, in-Universe version of War, pure combat challenge. Fine as it is, with perhaps toning down overused sanity drain, and add some more fighting patterns. Reward is great, perhaps add some offensive weapon alternative (armor and helmet are both defensive).

 

Anyway, DST is overall very interesting game, with well executed game-play, can be expanded in may ways, but they are now at the point where they can make it or break it (or jump the shark). I hope they choose well.

[Wawchik]

I really dislike the idea of Charlie being a boss or a playable character or that one stoopid "TO GET HER" joke, it's just... Cringe 

[Echsrick]

you mean like a new game? dontstarve game? or just a survival game?

if its just a survival game having differend characters with there own special thing is a must for certain people

bosse...not realy mostly optional stuff

setting? hmm....purgatory of some sort...something something you are send in a demi plane of some kind for unknown reasons

story? you are john mc survivor (or someone else) kidnapped by a evil something or someone for his own amusement and you try to get at him defeat him to a way back home...or dont...maybe just rather build stuff instead

locations are varry from deep forrest to small isles with jungles, or caverns...deep dark places...trying to find the dimensions gate to get closer to the evil person that put you into this mess

enemies typecal things like giant spiders or other monstrous things...maybe even other generic survivor alsol sent to the...land of the survivings...and then at the end of story mode you will face off against evil person and maybe return home

if dontstarve we need all the characters from dst of course...and i dont know....more new ones i guess...and add shipwreck to the game i suppose i dont know

[NoodlemanNed]

Charlie being a final boss would be perfect. After all, the game is called dont starve to get her

[Jovo]

7 hours ago, Echsrick said:

if dontstarve we need all the characters from dst of course...and i dont know....more new ones i guess...and add shipwreck to the game i suppose i dont know

Yes, expanding the land base if always a safe bet. A bunch of remote southern islands/reworked and improved Shipwrecked, with the boats from DST of course.
After a long, long journey, where you have to survive at sea by fishing, unwrapping bunch of painstakingly prepared bundles and what not you arrive at the fertile land.. or is it..

Speaking of southern lands here is another little area I would do differently:

The Summer

One big issue in DS is that 100% wild-fire rate for the active screen, while rest of the territory remains mostly intact.
(It's that enemy that emerges behind the crate, just right after you approach it...)

So how do you fix it, and without making it easier? I think they created absolutely awesome winter, and thought that summer could be just the reversed version of the same - it doesn't work that way, and it's a good thing that it doesn't.

Unrelated directly to this issue, some randomly generated bioms just don't belong next to each other, i.e. desert can be sandwiched by 2 northern bioms on the sides and things like that.

Enter - belts. Let's say the entire land mass has 3 belts - northern, central and southern. Furthermore, there are 3 smaller belts inside each major one, so there are 9 altogether. It is only at the most southern (9th belt) that wild-fire is 100% - meaning, regardless of the active screen the entire belt is burnt to a crisp during the summer. (The exception of course are areas covered by contraptions such as flingomatic.) 8th belt has wild-fire rate of say 70% and so forth. (Most-northern belt has wild-fire rate of 0%.) Now the desert biom where Dragonfly dwells can be in 8th or 9th belt only. Northern bioms with forest turf and pine trees can not be located in the most southern belts. Eskimo/MacTusk house can be located in 2 most northern belts only. Of course, winter would have to be even more severe in most-northern belts whilst if you are in the south it will just complicate things a bit (kind of like a rain season).

Overall, belts would not only resolve those 2 major issues but would facilitate traveling and making of different strategies (depending on the season), giving players more things to do and add to overall debt of the game.