Secret Crock Pot recipes, and other hidden features

[Cubemx]

I think it would be really cool to add a few easter egg- / secret recipes to the crockpot.
Like Peptic Salve, Green Eggs and Ham, Every Flavor Beans, Lembas, or Minny's Chocolate Pie.

What makes a recipe 'secret' could be that ingredients need to be added in a fixed order. And that a secret ingredient – that wouldn't normally be addable to the crockpot – has to be added once three of the normal ingredients have been added.
For instance to make Minny's Pie, you'd need to first add an egg to slot 3, then add butter to slot 1, then add honey to slot 4, and only then you'd be allowed to add the last ingredient, manure to slot 2.

A functionality like this could be extended to all kinds of game mechanics, from secret potions, too bio-weapons (mutant bee's or whatever haha).

Keeping these recipes truly secret would be quite hard since Don't Starve runs on Lua. But even if these recipes aren't truly secret, they would be fun nonetheless.
It would be possible to truly hide recipes, if you'd use some work arounds like hashing recipes, but that might be considered to much work, read this post for more technical details about my proposal.

TL;DR
Please add some cool new hidden recipes for a few funny or powerful Crock Pot "dishes".

[RyanandLink]

Awesome idea  

Though the recipes would probably be put on the Wiki once discovered, you would still have to remember how to make them (unless someone is planning to have the wiki/lua files open at all times for all recipes haha)

[Cubemx]

I might have actually thought of a way Klei could actually keep recipes secret for a very long time if they wanted to. But it wouldn't be easily implemented, so I'd think the developers of Don't Starve – if they ever decide to add the feature I suggested above – might decide to implement it the simple way and just let players extract secret recipes from the Lua-files if they want.

However, I could see some benefits to implementing this feature the absolutely secret way. First of all, the implementation itself can be build upon to add a multitude of possibilities. It would allow for the developers to easily implement other code they want to keep secret (for a time). For instance a hidden character or 3rd layer of caves. 

The reason this secrecy is a good thing is that, for me, the magic of exploring Don't Starve decreased somewhat after I discovered the Don't Stave Wikia and the Lua-files. Of corse, a wonderful world of modding opened up. So, all in all Don't Starve being written in Lua is a wonderful thing. In my opinion the freedom Lua givers is definitely an important reason Don't Starve can stay interesting for so many years.
But, playing Don't Starve since 2012; after properly playing it for hundreds of hours, and modding for thousands. It would me really cool to play this game, knowing there are secrets to discover no man not working for Klei has ever laid his eyes on.

So, I think implementing this would be a good thing. It would allow for longtime players to enjoy the game with a new sense of wonder. And for Klei to possibly further interact with players on social media and in-game, by dropping hints or teasing hidden features.
Also, I don't know of any of Klei's other games are Lua-based, but if so, time invested in this would pay of outside Don't Starve too.

 

If you are interested in the technicalities of how 100% secret recipes might be implemented:

Assuming there is some non-Lua core to Don't Starve, and I assume there is, to communicate with Steam etc. That core could pull the Lua-code associated with the secret dish from the server, only after a valid recipe has been submitted. To hide the recipe's themselves, they could be hashed.
In this case the Crock Pot checks the recipe with code similar to this:

If HASH(four items submitted by player) is found in list "hashes of all secret recipes",
THEN
	Request all Lua-code associated with the secret dish to be send from the server.
	Execute code from memory if possible, otherwise store encrypted.
ELSE
	Treat user submitted items like a normal recipe

There are about a billion possibilities* for secret recipes, assuming the mechanics I described in my previous post. Meaning hashes could be brute forced relatively easy.
*) estimate based of the 53 food items currently processable in the Crock Pot without DLC, as listed here. As well as all items listed here, excluding character specific items and a few other exceptions.

To circumvent this problem, you could instead do something like this:

If HASH(first two food items submitted by user) is found in the list "hashes of the first two ingredients of all secret recipes".
THEN
	Request HASH(all four items) to be checked against a database on the server.
	If hash was found in database on the server.
	THEN
		Server: Send Lua-code associated with the secret dish.
		Player PC: Execute code from memory if possible, otherwise store encrypted.
	ELSE
		Server: Throttle access to server, stopping brute force attempts.
		Player PC: Treat recipe like a normal recipe.
ELSE
	Treat recipe like a normal recipe.

This way, only one in ±34 000 (random) recipes make it to the server, radically reducing the server traffic Klei has to suffer as a result of implement this feature. A person trying to brute force his way, to secret recipes (and let's be honest, that would be me, once I'm too curious about that speculated 3rd layer of caves you guys added a year from now) could very easily obtain the first two ingredients of a secret recipe. That's because those hashes are stored somewhere on the players computer. The player wouldn't however be able to obtain the last two items required for the dish. Because the server has to confirm those hashes, and the server will only allow a specified amount* of hashes to be checked per hour.
*) This can be very low, a player – playing the game like it's meant to be played – is very unlikely to ever submit one of the 29680 recipes that need checking. Unless it's a 'secret' recipe already publicly known. In which case this there is no longer need to keep recipes hidden behind this extra layer of security, code associated with that dish can be instead stored encrypted on the player PC, making it only accessible to players that either look up the recipe online or have a lot of time on their hands.

Lastly after secret recipes become public, with an implementation like this Klei has the option to immediately change recipes, or not, the option at least exists.

Well that's it, I'v been writing for long enough, 100% secret is a bit of an overstatement but we are dealing with recipes here, not passwords. I hoped I persuaded someone to implement this.

 

TL;DR
Keeping some Lua-code completely secret to the player, should be possible with some workarounds.