Essas the Skunk (Art done, need to commission an animator and a programmer!)

[Nofew]

So, this may seem like a crosspost, but it's not. The original topic's over at http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/48586-essas-the-skunk-commission/ , but I was mainly looking for an artist there. I wouldn't have minded getting an artist who can also animate and code, but I wasn't expecting that and thought I could handle the other two myself.

 

Nope!

 

I thought that I could learn three languages at once. I thought it'd be a great idea to learn MPI, MUF (basically Forth) and LUA. This was a terrible idea. A very terrible idea. It'd be a safer idea to hug Maxwell. Seriously. I learnt fast that I can't learn even two languages at once. Fortunately for me, I got MPI down in a day, but MUF is taking way longer since it's got around 200 primitives I need to memorize. I'm afraid I'll start forgetting what I've already learnt about MUF if I start learning LUA at the same time.

 

So, now I'm looking for an animator and a programmer!

 

Please understand where I'm coming from here! I don't want to do any programming on this myself right now, not because I'm lazy, but because I'm trying to learn a dead programming language from the 1970's and that's actually rather high-priority right now. I don't want to try to learn LUA, forget half of what I know about Forth, and make Essas garbage in the process. I want this done right the first time. I understand that some of the programming and animation is dead-simple and some people may want to tell me to save my money, but with everything else I have going on, I'd honestly rather just spend it. On top of this, Klei's forums have a "search for uploaded content" button on user profiles. It's kind of hard to find the button, but it's there, and it helps a lot when I wanna check out if people really do make quality mods for Don't Starve, or if they're just saying they do to make a quick buck.

 

Please also understand that I'm a little worried about asking for a commission considering my experiences in Don't Starve Together. Although the general community from in-game hasn't carried over to Kleilist, Kleilist is under the single-player forum. This is being posted under the multi-player forum. If I seem to obsess over people "having a record" of making good-quality mods here before, that's why. I'm not trying to be offensive or nit-picky, but, I'm sure you've all played online before and know where I'm coming from. It's really easy to tell who's going to be nice and actually help, and who's going to be a jerk and just burn everything down. Trust me that I'll recognize a good person when I see them!

 

Disclaimer for Klei: I fully understand the risks involved in commissioning a mod. I fully understand that it may or may not turn out how I want, and that I may or may not be ripped off. I understand how to use the Search feature to locate old posts by users and judge the quality of their past work before committing money to avoid being ripped off. I understand Klei will not step in and help me if things go wrong. I'm pretty sure I don't need to say any of this considering you guys ran the Beta Key Depot for a while, but better safe than sorry.

 

In other words, please don't fill the replies with stuff like "Oh, but it's so easy to do what you want! Just open such-and-such.xml and add this line and tweak that line.." -- You go try and learn your first ever stack-based language when you've done procedural languages your whole life and see if you feel like learning LUA at the same time. It's easy!™ Just MOV, EAX JMP... (Okay, fine, that's Assembly. Still, it paints the picture.)

I'll summarize anything big that we learn while on this project in this post so people can learn from it later. Just please, please, please, don't make fun of me and say I'm lazy or something! It took me sixteen hours to wrap my head around Forth's syntax! x.x...

 

For those who are still convinced that I can eaaaasily manage learning two languages at once, here's what I'm currently working with: 

 

$def cathedral #2460$def default #492$include $lib/character  : markme @ location cathedral dbcmp if "^RED^You are already in the Cathedral." .atell exit thenloc @ "_IC?" envprop swap pop loc @ room? and if     me @ "lastICPlace" prefix loc @ setprop     " " .tell     "^GREEN^Your location has been saved." .atell     " " .tellthenme @ greet movetome @ location loc !{ me @ " warps in." }cat .otell;: restoreme @ "lastICPlace" prefix getprop dup if     dup room? if          me @ swap moveto     else          pop me @ default moveto     thenelse     pop me @ default movetothenme @ location loc !{ me @ " appears!!." }cat .otell"^YELLOW^>>^AQUA^ You have been returned to your last saved on-grid location. If there is an error with this warp, go back to the ^GREEN^Cathedral ^AQUA^and type ^GREEN^IC #reset" .atell0;: maintrigger @ name "ic" instr if restore exit thentrigger @ name "cathedral" instr if mark exit then; 

Yep, gigantic non-standard libraries and all. The original guy who wrote all this left. He didn't comment anything. There is no documentation. None of this is Googleable since it's not used anywhere but on this one very specific project. Anything that appears Googleable actually isn't. The Helloworld's on Wikipedia don't even compile. I've essentially been tasked with reverse-engineering a 30-year-old dead programming framework. The project is absolutely massive and even with access to all the source code, maintaining it isn't easy.

Anyway! I'll cut to the chase twice, once for animators and once for programmers. If'ya want full details on the character's concept (background, balancing, and so on), please read the 3,000 word, 25,000-character post I linked to above. (Not that this one came out much shorter, but still..)

First though, price! If it's not already obvious from the kind of framework I posted earlier, I know what it takes to program. I won't give someone $5 after they work their butts off on this. I'm afraid to say what my actual budget is (Again, the in-game community might be watching x.x..), but I do feel safe saying that someone who does very good-quality mods here won't be disappointed. (A full-time professional might -- Don't expect $400 or something. <.<')

 

 

~Animators~

 

I'm trying to make Essas look as much like Klei made him as possible. I described his design to the original artist as "Klei with Essas influences, not 'Essas, Klei-style'". Please keep this in mind when designing animations! I do understand that there's already somewhat of a disconnect since he's covered in furr, but it worked in this case!

 

I want his movements to look as reasonably similar to Wilson's as possible. Of course it'll have to vary a little, but I almost exclusively play him, so he's what screams "Don't Starve" the most to me.

 

The tail isn't like Woodie's beavertail. Essas' goes up in the air behind him, since it needs to cover an odd alignment issue when his back's facing the camera located between his head and torso. (This isn't the original artist's fault! I asked for really long hair that goes down past his torso, but Don't Starve forces the torso to be on top of the head when a character is facing away. It's a subtle thing, so I figure a wagging tail should be enough to distract people from the overlapping.)

 

I don't know if this falls under animation, but Essas has a few special weapons. They're supposed to be chloroform bomb-like things, and I don't know if it's considered animation or programming when he throws them. Programmically I'd like them to act pretty much identical to sleep darts, just with a different skin. If it's possible, I'd like there to be a smoke effect when they hit someone, but I'm pretty sure Don't Starve doesn't have particle emitters.

 

Some of the artwork is attached to this post so you can see what you'll be working with. Please excuse my poor alignment skills x.x... It's only from the front since the art came out really really good and I'm trying to make a really really tough character to play. Most mods make the game easier, so I'm worried that if I post all my assets publicly, someone might steal them, make an easier mod, then claim they made Essas first. As a roleplayer, that'd feel like stealing part of my soul! (Again, I'm sure you've all played online before.)

 

 

~Programmers~

 

I'm trying to make Essas as balanced as possible (read the post I linked to if you want my thought process behind balancing in Don't Starve!), so please keep that in mind. To make a long story short, I see every character as harder to play than Wilson. Any "perk" they have somehow backfires. I want to keep with this pattern!

 

The main mechanic behind Essas is him always going insane, but needing lots of Nightmare Fuel to make his character-specific items.

 

First, I need him to go insane all the time. Always. Forever. A drain equivalent to a dead player in Survival mode should work great! I know this sounds crazy-unplayable, but I've been in a world where there's two dead players and I only occasionally dipped below 50%. I'm crazy-good at being uncrazy when I want to be!

 

Next, I need his sanity limit to be around 400. I know it sounds a little strange considering what I just said, but the idea is that he can become so sane for a short while that he essentially disables his pitfall. In doing so, however, he also disables his perk. Rather than writing tons of code for this, I think it's far more reasonable (both programmically and for players to understand) to simply give him a high sanity limit since he depends on Nightmare Fuel. On top of that, it gets rid of the need to worry for the first day or so on a new game.

 

Considering Essas is covered in furr, I'd like him to freeze slower in Winter (and overheat faster in Summer once RoG comes out). I figure this is balanced since Wilson already does this. Think about it: Have you ever met an experienced player who shaves Wilson's beard before Winter? It's exactly the same, except Essas' furr can't be shaven for the Summer, and can't be shaven at any point to regain sanity.

 

 

Due to his background, all of Essas' character-specific items revolve around chloroform. For balance reasons, they all act almost identically to sleep darts. I figure it's possible to copy most of the code from them, but with a few changes. I'll go over each item below.

 

"Chloroform bombs" (name highly subject to change. I'm very open to suggestions. x.x...) are basically weaker versions of sleep darts. Optimally, I'd like them to work the same way, but only have half the sleep duration. The idea is that they're only supposed to be useful for breaking aggro, not for evening an unfair fight. If the duration can't be halved independently of other items, I'll just increase the recipe cost. Each one acts like a blowdart in that it takes the appropriate equipment slot, stacks to 10, and each toss takes one away. They should take one or two Nightmare Fuel, one Rope, and one Silk or Papyrus (depending on balancing) to craft.

 

"Chloroform staff" (name equally subject to change!) is basically the same thing as bombs, but works off of durability. I figure 20 uses is a good starting point. Additionally, the sleep duration shouldn't be halved, and each shot should count for two darts (if that's possible!). This is meant to be a more offensive-facing weapon. I do see some potential issues if an enemy requires an odd number of hits to be put to sleep and the second hit causes it to wake up, but I don't know for sure if that'll be an actual issue. If it turns out to be, then doing some damage (about 30-40, somewhere near the damage of an axe) should work good too. If sleep can't be combined with damage, then doing as much as a spear does might be a good compromise. We'll see if it makes Don't Starve too easy or not! It should take ten Nightmare Fuel, a Twig or a Log, three Rope and some Silk or Papyrus to craft. (If recipes are limited to three individual items, ignore the twiggylog.)

 

"Chloroform mine" (name super-duper subject to change!) is one I've come up with just now. It's a Bee Mine, but filled with chloroform. It should put people to sleep rather than doing damage. Area-of-effect is not required, so part of the code can probably be taken from Tooth Traps. Unlike the traps, these should not be re-settable; once they go off, they should be destroyed. It should take around four Nightmare Fuel, one or two Rope and some Silk or Papyrus to craft.

 

 

In the case of the Staff and Mine, area-of-effect damage would be appreciated, but I highly doubt this can be implemented sanely, especially in Don't Starve Together. I'm not set on any of these weapons affecting more than one entity at a time. If it doesn't seem possible, you don't even have to bother trying to make it happen.

 

If possible, I'd like the recipes to re-lock as soon as they're unlocked, thus forcing Essas to be near an Alchemy Engine any time he wants to make these. For balancing reasons, this is supposed to keep him from being able to just run around and make these wherever; he has to be near a semi-permanent location to craft his special weapons. Furthermore, crafting a bunch in a row would bring his sanity back up, thus forcing him to get Nightmare Fuel in big bursts rather than letting it trickle in and being able to produce these items "on demand".

 

If possible-possible, I'd like his Staff to be non-transferable or otherwise useless in anyone else's hands. (Canonically, Essas is a magic-user, but he's only able to do weak stuff like light gusts of air. Of course this is extremely helpful when making and using chloroform, but not much else. His staff's basically just a loosely-woven bag filled with chloroform stuck to a stick that he can swing to release minor amounts of liquid. In that quantity, the gas is too weak to do anything on its own. With magic, though, it can all be directed into someone's lungs.) -- The ultimate would be being able to give the staff to other players, it still using durability when swung, but having absolutely no effect on anything. To help players who don't know anything about Essas (Eg, everyone who isn't me), some line of dialogue like "I don't know how to use this.." whenever they equip it would be awesome! Alternatively, that can just be what they say when they examine it.

 

If that can't be done, making it non-transferable would work too. It'll be easy to mark it as "not food" so it can't be put in an Icebox, but I don't know about other chests, dropping it on the ground, or simply giving it to other players. Outright destroying it is an option too. It'd be a bit trickier to explain plot-wise, but it's important for balance reasons that only Essas is allowed to use the staff. I'm worried that if every player had a staff, even things like Varg and Ewecus would become way too easy.

 

If none of that can be done, making it wildly expensive would be the last resort. It'd be like a Night Light in that it'd only be made when someone's doing really well and just wants to make the game harder on themselves.

 

 

Now, above is everything I think is "reasonableish" to implement. If'ya want bonus points and superhugs, then we can go a step further..

 

Essas, again, is a magic user. When he uses his staff, if it's possible to summon clouds of gas that act like Killer Bees targeted towards whoever the staff is used against, that'd be flat out breath-taking! (Er, excuse the pun..) -- Heck, that might be a way to fake area-of-effect stuff. Take Killer Bee beehavior, spawn two, use gas cloud PNG's rather than Bee PNG's, and it'll look like Essas is using his magic to move clouds of chloroform around! The clouds should be deleted after about fifteen seconds, to keep them from trying to pollinate flowers and stuff. Furthermore, it'd make the staff infinitely more useful in evening out fights since the clouds would take aggro and provide a temporary distraction while trying to get someone to sleep, and since they're Killer Bees, if anyone is still nearby when the first guy falls asleep, they'll auto-target and go for the next one!

 

Likewise for the chloroform mines, if they can get the same beeeeehavior when Essas is within a screenlength away, but otherwise act like Tooth Traps, that'd beeeee awesome! (I'm sorry, I really like puns. x.x...)

 

Again, this stuff is just for bonus points. I think it may be possible to implement these bits, but it'd probably require a programmer who's intimately familiar with Don't Starve.

 

Art assets for all the items exist already. The smoke hasn't been created, but I figure it's a very easy thing to draw up and would only cost me five bucks or so to go and ask the artist who drew everything else for some smoke.

 

 

Footnotes:

 

Although I don't feel like I'm able to learn LUA right now, I'm reasonably sure that altering recipes, how much sanity Essas can get, and other things like that should be pretty simple as long as everything's there. I don't think I'll be able to write the lines myself, but if they exist somewhere and are in the correct place, I shouldn't be have a problem editing the contents.

 

Likewise, provided I have a template, I can do the dialogue myself.

 

While I do not have a firm deadline for when this needs to be finished, I don't want to be waiting for half a year. From what I understand, if someone already knows how to do all the things I've listed here, it should take two weeks at the most. Someone learning might take two months. I'm totally okay waiting that long with someone semi-new to modding if someone well-known in the community says what's possible and what's not, and says a few of the trickier things are doable. If none of the tricky stuff can happen, then I'll expect this a bit sooner regardless of anyone's skill level. Of course, if I'm totally wrong about how hard the tricky stuff is to implement, I'll believe people. (I mean, come on, I'm learning Forth right now. If there's anyone who can sympathize with professional programmers right now, it's me. x.x... Just as long as whoever's telling me stuff is or isn't possible has interesting stuff when I click "search for uploaded content", I'll believe them!)

So, hopefully some talented and ambitious people come up! If you fit the bill, either reply or send me a PM and we'll see what happens!

Edited January 12, 2015 by Nofew