Essas the Skunk (Commission?)

[Nofew]

I'm going to kill this editor. I wrote about 2,500 words, then accidentally hit back.

 

Lazarus, a magical addon for Chrome that automatically retypes forums in the event one accidentally hits back, doesn't save this because it doesn't see it as a forum, presumably because it's all uber-custom and stuff. Ugh.

 

Anyway.. On with the post! Again!

 

 

PREFACE: Bare with me. I know this sounds like one of those "remove mod support!" posts. It's not. I assure you, at some point, I do actually request a mod!

PREFACE II: Please excuse me if I sound a little rough around the edges. I'm not terribly active on the forums, and so far, almost all of my experiences with Don't Starve Together have been very negative. The fun days were very fun, but mostly, they're filled with people who've never played the game before, run in, eat all the food even though their bellies are full, pick all the flowers by the bee boxes and, when told to STOP, they just ask "y" and keep doing what they're doing until I explain which then, of course, means everything's too late. Their only reply is "o" or, if I'm really lucky, "sry", which isn't terribly sincere since they do it three or four more times in the next ten minutes anyway, all while cursing their heads off, yelling racial slurs and calling me harsh, intimate names. I've read a few posts in the forums and I'm pretty sure that this attitude doesn't carry over, but I'm still a little scared. 

PREFACE III: Seriously, can we get a voteban feature, please? I'll give Klei imaginary cookies! .w.!

 

 

So, I had a bathroom moment. 'Yaknow the kind? The ones where you're in the bathroom and have the best idea EVER? That happened!

 

Before I can explain my idea, I need to explain why I don't like most mods for Don't Starve. Yes, this is totally one of those posts with the information absolutely burried in it. (Hey, I mentioned money in the subject line! This is one of the easiest ways to sort out those people who just half-butt everything because MONEY!)

 

 

So, I grew up in the 90's. Know what we didn't have in the 90's? Casual games. The closest thing we had to a "casual" game was one where you only stayed up half the night trying to get past that one level.

 

I do not like casual games.

 

I like Don't Starve. Don't Starve is not a casual game. Mods, however, often try to make it one and, unfortunately, succeed more often than not.

 

I'd like a mod. Said mod will not make the game casual. If anything, it'll make it optionally more difficult, just like every other character.

 

 

Since I grew up in the 90's, I tend to over-analyze games. In reality, from a design perspective, this probably isn't over-analyzing. Regardless, let me explain what I see when I look at the various characters included in Don't Starve.

 

I divide them into three categories: Removal, Linear and 'Hundred. Bare with me here..

 

Removal characters tend to be favorited by newbies since they remove an element of gameplay. Willow's a great example here, considering she comes with a bottomless lighter, essentially making Darkness irrelevant.

 

Linear characters may appear to change, but the gameplay is cyclical. Wilson's the archtype here; although he grows a beard, any experienced player will always grow it out fully until and through the first Winter, then shave as soon as it's over, and repeat this every year.

 

'Hundred characters are "one-in-one-hundred" characters. Although anyone can choose to play them, just like any other character, only a very small number of people will actually use them effectively. Wolfgang's probably the most well-known character in this category.

 

I need to go deeper. Really, I do. If I don't, I wouldn’t be able to rip off That One Famous Movie Within A Movie. With that, let me go over each character..

 

Willow. Removal (Darkness/insanity). Comes with an infinite lighter and gains sanity when standing near fire. Lights fires right under her feet when even a little bit insane, thus essentially removing Insanity as well. Fire hazard.

 

Wolfgang. 'Hundred. Can attack 1.5 times as strong as most other characters if well-fed. Hunger drains faster, especially while Mighty.

 

Wendy. Removal (Fighting). Comes with a partner that inflicts AoE damage. Can't well fight directly.

 

Wilson. Linear. Increased insulation. No pitfalls.

 

WX-78. 'Hundred. Starts weak, gets strong. Lightning makes robots cry.

 

Wickerbottom. Removal. Doesn't need gold. Especially useful during multiplayer where gold may be limited. Can't sleep.

 

Woodie. 'Hundred. Transforms into a magical epic-awesome beaver that levels forests and solos Spider Queens. Wakes up starving. Can be skipped by sleeping, thus causing him to wake up starving anyway.

 

Wes. Linear. Every pitfall, basically no perk. Hardmode character.

 

Waxwell. Linear. Stereotypical "why couldn’t this be the first character?!" character.

 

Wigfrid: 'Hundred. Epic at fighting. Fighting is required right from the get-go.

 

Webber: Removal (Hunger). Can eat monster meat for a full 26 hunger with no penalties, and spawns with infinite meat. No pitfalls.

 

 

There's a pattern here, and a good pattern. A pattern that anybody from the 90's ought to recognize: the first character is, for 99/100 people, hands-down the best for any non-specific situation. Every other character appears to add an awesome perk, but the pitfall outweighs it almost every time. This plays into the "terrible, horrible" atmosphere Don't Starve has.

 

This sensation is important. It's what makes Don't Starve feel all Don't Starvey. Without it, Don't Starve would be Sugar Smack-Starve, or some other popular trademarked match-three game.

 

 

Now, some people may want to argue that I'm wrong here, and that their favorite character has to be better than the others. Well, they may be right, sort of.

 

All 'Hundred characters fall into this dealo: If they're being played by someone who deeply understands how to play that character, they will genuinely be way better than Wilson. Crazy-nutty-awesomer-better. Similarly (except not at all), Waxwell and Webber are for cheaters. Seriously. End of. They're fun if'ya just wanna mess around and relax, but they each take away one of the main challenges Don't Starve provides. Seriously, if someone dies in a fight as Waxwell or starves to death as Webber, chances are they walked away and forgot to hit pause or something rather than legitimately failed.

 

Every other character, EVERY other character, is worse than Wilson. Willow can't make her own base because if she looses 20 sanity, it's going to burn to the ground. Wendy can't fight worth squat and the ghosts moves too slow, forcing Willow to tank and making it flat-out impossible to kite anything. Wickerbottom always needs sleep at the worst possible times. Woodie's werebeaver forces him to almost starve two nights in a row every two weeks or so, curse or no curse. Waxwell and Webber are cheating, so they don't count. 'Hundreds are all worse unless they're in the right hands. Wilson's the best way to go, and he's the very first character everyone has. Everyone else that the game makes its players work for is a total lie and, really, a mean practical joke.

 

It's awesome.

 

To complement this, the general feel of the game is identical. Remember your first day? How'd you die? Thought you found something that'd be nice and helpful, and it killed you. Thought you went somewhere safe, tallbird happens. Hit one pig, suddenly all of them attack. Beefalo mating season right over your firepit, sudden tentacle in the swamp, frogs, bees, actually starving.. It's all stuff that probably gave you a massive "oh poop" moment moments before that same fecal matter hit a series of rotating blades and splattered around your domicile.

 

Eventually, you survive. Suddenly the game gets brighter! Whiter! New birds fall! Yay! You're winning!

 

Nope! Winter.

 

Don't Starve, the only game that can make the screen brighter and happier, and suck even more hope out of your soul.

 

Did I mention this game is awesome?

 

Add Reign of Giants content and Spring comes. Happy music! Happier land!

 

FROG RAIN, WETNESS, BROKEN BUNNYHOLES!

 

Summer! Happier music! Frantically happy music!

 

DRAGOOOONFLY!!

 

Best. Game. Ever.

 

And then fall comes, and you think you know what's coming, and somehow it surprises you again anyway, no matter who you're playing.

 

 

Enter mods.

 

Suddenly you're running at twice your normal speed (what character mod doesn’t do this?), or your hunger's going down half as slow (or not at all! Seriously!), or you hit for four times as much damage, or you start with twenty Purple gems and a pre-fabbed Shadow Manipulator, or you get a Gatling gun, or you can survive nuclear explosions, or you can look at enemies and make them disappear, or you don't need grass anymore, or you can click anywhere on the map and teleport there at no cost forever.. Or maybe all of that at once!

 

Do you see a problem yet? I do.

 

For the most part, mods take everything I ever knew and loved about Don't Starve and rip it away from me, steps on it, spits at it, then flushes it down the nearest toilet, which some other mod just added. Not cool.

 

I have not come up with one of these mods.

 

 

Switching gears! Before I can explain what I thought up, I need to explain a little bit about myself, and a little bit about Essas.

 

I roleplay. I've been doing it since I was eight, and it's not a game to me. Furries say I take roleplay too seriously. To me, roleplay is a way of life, not a game. I regularly spend weeks making characters. Some characters have taken over two months to design, including their personality, appearance and background. Random NPC's that only appear for ten minutes for a total of one post typically take two hours to design. If you disagree with this line of thinking, then you don't know what passion really is.

 

Essas is a primary character. This means that I've put a lot of detail into him (even compared to what I usually do), did a lot of work making sure he's very balanced, fits into the realm he's being sent to, and that there's no missing links or gaps. Primary characters take me an average of two to six months to fully produce. Most people spend about a week on their primary characters.

 

 

Essas is a skunk. Well, I suppose that's obvious considering the topic.. Anyway. He's in a steampunk-like realm, circa 1920. The time period is quite important here; this isn't 2015.

 

He used to be a nice, shiny, run-of-the-mill skunk. Had a really good friend, did stuff with him every day. One day, he died. Right in front of Essas. After Essas maybe-sorta-kinda-accidentally pushed him off a cliff. ...Okay, fine, it was a steep hill in the forest, he tripped, fell, and hit his head. Regardless, he died, and Essas was right there.

 

Obviously, that's going to do some stuff to him. Even though he didn't actually push him, he feels responsible that he didn't catch him in time. He could've. Easily. He just reacted a second too late.

 

Grieving didn't work. He felt the need to atone for what he felt was his own mistake, and began doing research to try and bring him back. Of course such a thing isn't quite possible, but that didn't stop Essas from trying!

 

As the years went on, he began to loose his morality. Eventually he began killing other people and experimenting on them, just in case he only has one shot to try things on his friend. Around the time he started killing people he also ran out of rational ideas and began mixing random chemicals together, in hopes that he'd just get lucky one day.

 

He did, except it didn't bring anyone back. One day, he accidentally created chloroform. Fortunately he takes notes during all his experiments just in case he happens to stumble upon that life-giving formula, so he gave himself a formula for chloroform. Considering the time period this is a pretty big thing, and he's been selling vials of chloroform to discerning people for hefty sums of money which was promptly used to finance more experiments and draw in more soon-to-be-dead bodies. Every failure causes him to go further into hysteria, and sniffing his own fumes probably isn't helping him.

 

All of this fits into the "terrible, horrible" Don't Starve atmosphere. Every bit about Essas is an exercise in futility, and it'd only take a gentle nudge from a certain radio to get his attention.. So, that's how Essas and Maxwell met!

 

 

In Maxwell's land, Essas still has access to his chloroform. He doesn't spawn with any, but he knows how to make it; he just needs an Alchemy Engine's help to get the job done since electrolysis is involved.

 

The recipe calls for ten Nightmare Fuel and a Blue Gem. This seems overly expensive, but it makes twenty vials of chloroform. It works identically to sleep darts, except they're twice as effective; each shot counts for two darts, though the sleep duration isn't doubled.

 

Unfortunately for Essas, being told all sorts of Forbidden Knowledge didn't help his madness. He goes insane all the time, even during broad daylight. This makes getting Nightmare Fuel easier and, as far as Essas would have you believe, there's no drawbacks. None! Science requires sacrifice, after all.

 

All of this makes him a 'Hundred character. Let me explain a bit more out-of-characterly..

 

So, the sanity drain's nothing to sneeze at. It's equivalent to the drain placed on players in Survival Mode when someone dies. I personally have little trouble surviving with this, but I know that that's almost only me. Typically, it's a huge deal for everyone else and means instant death for anyone who isn't me. Furthermore, getting to actually exercise Essas' perk requires going through his pitfall first, just like every other 'Hundred character. Sure, it's possible to get ten Nightmare Fuel by other means, by not in any appreciable amount of time.

 

I'm considering a few other ideas for balance. Lemme go over them below..

 

The obvious concern is that, if each vial of chloroform is an individual item like a blow dart, then it can be split up and given to other players. This would be canonically correct considering they're vials of chloroform, but it may make Essas more useful than he should be. If his perk is something that can be made too easily and distributed so often that every player has ready and unlimited access to it, that's a problem. Every character that has a perk anywhere near this powerful has a single-spawn item, like Willow's Lighter or Abagail's Flower. I don't foresee this being a huge problem, but in the event it is, I have that covered..

 

Essas uses magic. Very weak magic. He's able to make small gusts of air which, on its own, is almost useless unless it's a hot day. Combined with chloroform, however, the effectiveness skyrockets. If sharing vials of chloroform is a concern, perhaps it could be balanced by having each vial function identically to a single sleep dart with half the duration (since it dissipates in air rather than getting injected) and made with a single Nightmare Fuel and Papyrus, but a second item in the form of a staff (or something better. Essas doesn't canonically use staves.) with 10-20 durability can be made instead, with the ten-fuel-and-gem recipe. The catch is, if the staff ever leaves Essas' inventory, be it by placing it on the ground, giving it to another player, putting it in a Chest or feeding it to Chester, it's destroyed, and the staff is the only one that fires two shots of sleep at once.

 

For even more balancing (and further canonicalness!), making the recipe temporary might help, too. What I mean is, Essas would need to be near an Alchemy Engine to craft his chloroform, but as soon as it's invented, it's re-locked. This forces him to be near an Engine any time he wants to make more, thus preventing him from just running around, farming the resources whenever and making it on the spot. Engines are expensive, so he'd have to be in a semi-permanent location. Making chloroform would also raise his sanity rather quickly, especially if he made vials, thus forcing him to farm nightmare fuel in big chunks rather than when he needs it little-by-little. This fits canonically as well -- Making chloroform has a calming effect on Essas.

 

 

 

 

I'm trying to give this concept the same treatment I'd give any of my primary characters. Obviously I'm still months away from a finished product, but I think this is a pretty solid start. I need help, though.

 

I can't draw. I mean I really, really can't draw. Considering how much thought I put into the mechanics, though, I don't want Essas to look lousy in-game. I said it before and I'll say it again: Roleplay is not a game to me. It's a way of life. I want Essas to look like Klei thought of him themselves and added him right on in. Most character mods for Don't Starve turn out like http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/26930-custom-character-esko-the-skycat/ . I'm not saying that whoever made that is a bad artist, but it just doesn't look like Klei drew it up. Yes, it works. Yes, Esko's cute and I kinda wanna hug him, but it just isn't what I have in mind for Essas. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=368228088 is part of what inspired me to think all this up, partially because I've seen him before elsewhere and I'm incredibly jealous. I'd love to get something as well-made as that, and I'm willing to pay for that level of quality.

 

I can see on Vergence that there's an outline for his head, it's symmetrical from the front, and basically has two big splotches of color. From there, the eyes, nose and mouth are all separate. Based on how the game works, I know that doing it this way is practically a requirement, not a suggestion. Similar things are goin' on from the side and rear perspectives. I specifically want minimal shading, just like Vergence, and just like every other base character in Don't Starve. I don't want over-elaborate shading, I don't want crazy photo-realistic effects, and I don't want awesome-nutty-crazycool animations all over the character like some mods have. I figure this can be realistically done in about a week, or maybe over a weekend if someone's super into it and really crams it out. I'm not an expert here and I fully understand that I can be entirely dead-wrong about what I'm assuming, but I've been ripped off before. I once got roped into paying over $200 for what should've been a $15 project. I think I've done my research since then!

 

Now that you've read through about 17,000 letters, here's Essas' description!:

 

 

Essas is a male skunk of the striped persuasion with a thin, lightly-toned build, standing about six feet tall. His fur is black and, on closer inspection, doesn't have a stripe! Yet it appears that he does.. His hair is quite white and quite long, easily reaching down to his waist. It's bound into many straight strands using white beads, causing it to clump together as if it's wet before falling down over his back. At a glance, it's a very convincing stripe.

 

Down lower, his tail has an actual stripe!.. But it's backwards; most of it is white, while a strip of black runs down its middle. Like Essas' hair, his tail's lengthy fur is held together with numerous beads. There's so much fur and the beads are so close to his skin that it's almost impossible to see them. The end result is a look of perpetual wetness.

 

Essas' fur is so attention-grabbing that it's easy to overlook his face at a glance. It's not terribly unique; with only green eyes and no scars or other markings to speak of, the only interesting thing about it is how some hair covers his face. There's a single white stripe running from his nose and into his hair, though it's hard to pick out with all the hair beside it. It spreads further as it passes over his nose and forehead, but it doesn't continue down his back like it should.

 

Essas is wearing a formerly-white rag around his waist. It's fairly clear that it's supposed to be white, but it's been dipped into some sort of liquid so often that its color has shifted strongly to grey. Despite the lack of further clothing, there isn't a foul smell coming off the creature..

 

 

I don't think I can include the image that inspired him in this post. I don't remember the page I got it from, and I'm fairly sure I'm not allowed to repost it. Sending it over Skype or something is probably acceptable, though.

 

 

In my head, I'm expecting the process to go something like this: Shiny artist makes shiny post! --> Communication happens through the forums! --> Communication eventually happens through Skype, Steam, or some other instant-messaging service! --> Yayness occurs! Jiving happens! Confetti is thrown! (Okay, maybe we can skip the confetti..) --> A sketch is provided! Considering the simple nature of the artwork, a "sketch" should probably be "a screenshot of Essas in-game from the front". --> Provided the artist sounds sane, doesn't sound like one of the aforementioned people in Preface II, and gives a reasonable timeframe, money happens! --> More sketch-screenshots of Essas from other perspectives are provided! More happies ensure! --> Pictures of Essas' items are provided! Suddenly everyone falls asleep. Maybe. --> Minimally-functional mod is sent over, just enough to get Essas to appear in-game. Chloroform items should be their own dedicated item, but actual functionality can be blank. Just as long as all the files are there in a minimally-functional way, I'll probably be happy!

 

 

 

So, bam. Giantpost is giant. owo. Is anyone interested?

 

 

Footnote: Gah! This is only my second-longest post! Missed it by that much! xwx...