Custom character idea from a modding noob

[lilgizmo838]

I've never gotten into modding, but I've looked into some tutorials on character templates and I was seriously considering turning this idea of mine into a character worthy of Don't Starve!

Basically, I noticed Wigfrid's eating restriction, and I thought that I would enjoy a vegetarian playstyle in Don't Starve much more.

From that simple eating restriction, I came up with this:

Sunny, the Flower Child
"Don't be, like, such a bummer, man!"

-An ally to nature
-Certain things bum him out
-Has a drug problem


Health:130
Hunger:150
Sanity:230

-Loses sanity from murdering or otherwise killing innocent creatures
-Loses sanity from chopping trees, but gains half as much back for each one planted
-Uses crafted drugs made from shrooms, cactus flowers/flesh, and forest seeds/twigs
-shrooms and cactus(peyote) "bums him out", lowering his sanity by a base amount when taken, consumed like a food item.
-Pot  is made from pine cones, seeds, and a structural material (grass or stone. The idea is that he is weeding out the good strains. It is held in the hand slot, providing a very small amount of light, "calming him down" increasing his sanity, but lowering his hunger in the process, ticking down like a torch

2 of each shroom to make the shrooms dose, a cactus flower and two flesh to make peyote, and two seeds, two pine cones, and four grass or two cut stone for joints or a pipe respectively.

-Damage multiplier of .85, increased to 1.25 by the shrooms, his health also increased to 150
-Peyote gives a speed and health regen buff for it's duration


Some unique crafting not related to his drugs:
-1 spear, 20 flowers, and 2 nightmare fuel: "Flower Staff": bees won't attack you while you hold it, even as you break their hive with it's infinite attacks and no damage modifier. 10 uses to charm a group of bees into followers for a while
-1 spear, 20 pine cones, and 4 nightmare fuel: "Treeguard Staff":Just what it says. Summons a neutral medium treeguard from anywhere, or manually turn a tree into a neutral treeguard of whatever size the tree is.
-2 rot, 1 manure, 4 grass: Compote: really great fertilizer, able to fully grow a crop in an improved farm
-Crock Pot: Fruit value 1 or greater, vegetable value 1 or greater, and a watermelon no meats: Fuit salad, to try and compensate for all the best crock pot meals either containing meat or putting you to sleep.


Any advice on modding, balance, art, or anything else you guys can think of would be very appreciated! 

Thanks for taking the time to read about my idea

[TheShadeofTheNorth]

I think everything aside the   events (killing innocent creatures , chopping trees and the shroom power) are in the getting started topic. It's a pretty cool idea , if you can draw it , would be awesome! If you need help with these things, i'll gladly help, i'm no expert myself, but we can always learn , right?!  I'm developing a character too, and learn new things is pretty neat.

 

Edited July 12, 2015 by TheShadeofTheNorth

[lilgizmo838]

Well I watched a basic tutorial on an extended sample character template. I know the bare bones on how to do it, but I've not actually dug into anything or started the process. I appreciate any and all effort/opinions offered . Any balance ideas of any sort, or any help of any kind. I was thinking of him looking kind of like Woodie, so I imagine it would be much easier to use his existing art and edit the stuff. The tutorial I saw showed how it can be done quite easily with Paint.Net and Spriter in the mod tools in steam. I was thinking the innocent creatures thing could be flexible. I was gonna just give him an adverse sanity reaction to combat as a whole, but I figured that would REALLY take a toll on some of the bigger bosses and creatures with powerful insanty auras. I guess it could still work with the staffs he can use. Again, I'm welcome to all sorts of ideas. My main gimmick for Sunny is: "he uses pot to turn hunger into sanity, and uses others to turn sanity into favorable buffs." I don't know if timed effects on consumables is something possible, but I imagine his shrooms buff working similarly to Wolfgang's hunger change, changing only his damage modifier and health pool. 

[ColorfulStan]

It seems like quiet a lot to do you have there.

For starters It would make things easier if you would categorize all the things that have to be created.

 

Split them up into things that can be created and extended seperately and identify where you want to extend already existing things within the game instead of creating them from scratch.

 

I think I would start with the base character with the vegatarian approach and the pot idea and extend from there (thats already a character mod with art to be created + a new recipe with the corresponding item and its effects, that´s some work already)

 

Can't fully commit to it already but starting with the end of upcoming week Ive got quiete some time on hand and I like the idea.

Let's just talk somewhen and see if we want to get something going.

[lilgizmo838]

I entirely agree, Stan, no reason to try and rush the entire thing all at once, incremental steps are important. With the joints, I would assume would be very easy to alter from a standard torch's data. Give it the light radius of Willow's Lighter, and give it a sanity boost/hunger drain similar to a garland. Hell, the image for a torch could just have the branch whited out, shrunk down, and plopped into the character's lips and bingo bango, you are done. I'm not sure if you'd have to include the craftable stuff in other downloads and have it all be a sort of package for the character, but I figured character specific recipes were somehow included with the character code, like Wickerbottom's books, Webber's spider eggs, and Wigfrid's gear, along with other character mods I've seen including a slew of custom items. 

[TheShadeofTheNorth]

Yeah, agree  with Stan, start from the basics. About the recipes, yes you can create new ones in the character prefab itself.