NPC idea: Sherlock Ham, Hamlet's legendary detective

[iamSpacedad]

Sherlock Ham - An interactive NPC that the player can join with on quests, or become their adversary.

Sherlock Ham can be found wandering the city, or (during dusk) inside the Sherlock Ham Detective Agency building playing his violin and pondering while smoking his pipe.  (Which emits violin music that can be heard from afar.)

Porkson Mode - The 'good/neutral' way of approaching Sherlock Ham, provided you don't have hardly any accumulated naughtiness - you become his Watson and assist him on cases and apprehending suspects.  He will refer to you as the nickname 'Porkson' regardless of which character the player is playing as.

If you've stolen from townspeople, Sherlock Ham will consider you too suspicious a character to go with him on quests, until you've paid a fine for your crimes to the mayor.  If you've killed townspeople, Sherlock Ham will refuse to do any business with you for the rest of the play run, and instead attempt to track down and apprehend you.

New item: 'Suspicious evidence.'  (Represented by various random items - they could look something like tokens from Clue, for example.) The player can turn these in to Sherlock Ham for a small amount of money.

-When the player has given Sherlock Ham a sufficient number of 'Suspicious evidence' the player is prompted with the option of joining Sherlock Ham on a caper to solve a murder, or catch a thief.  (If the player turns down the prompt they can approach Sherlock Ham again later - this is so the player can be well prepared to join Sherlock Ham on his adventure.)

-When on a caper, the player must follow Sherlock Ham to marked map locations and gather evidence from the surrounding area, and talk to witnesses. (Such as the scene of a murder or a theft.)  There might be a simple minigame mechanic here where you can decide who among the witnesses is the culprit.  (i.e. which one gives a description of events that sounds out of place with the evidence the player has gathered.)  Or for some crimes you might just need to gather enough evidence to make chase.

The Game Is Ahoof! - When the player tracks down a suspect, they must chase them down and subdue them.  (You don't kill suspects if you attack them, you automatically subdue them for capture when they reach 0 hp.)  Fleeing suspects can be extremely difficult to catch, so it is advised to come well equipped.

When you successfully complete cases working with Sherlock Ham, you'll be paid a great deal of money by the mayor for your services.  You also might gain access to unique special items, such as a deerstalker cap and a craftable violin that increases your sanity when played, a little bit like a tent.

New crafting station - police lab - The police lab allows you to create various useful items useful for solving crimes, or processing evidence before handing it to Sherlock Ham to start a case.  As well as various tools that will assist you in the apprehension of fleeing suspects.  You can also craft yourself a sturdy police bobby hat and billy-club.  (There might be a police lab that becomes available inside of Sherlock Ham's Detective Agency once the player has turned in enough evidence to win Sherlock Ham's favor.)

Policing the Hamlet - When you've been deputized by the Mayor for your good service to the city, you can patrol the streets searching for bandits to apprehend.  Nabbing a suspect will produce 'stolen goods' that can be redeemed to the mayor for good money.  Some bandits also drop evidence that you can share with Sherlock Ham to send you off on new cases.

New item - Police Whistle - When you blow on a police whistle, nearby guards will come running to your aid.  Additionally, any bandit nearby will attempt to flee from you rather than steal from you.  (The whistle may also briefly stun or slow the bandit so you have a chance to catch them.)

 

Porkiarty mode - This is if you would rather be a nemesis than a watson to the great Sherlock Ham.  In this mode, when Sherlock Ham sees you, he will refer to you as 'Porkiarty.'

By gaining naughtiness status (through theft and murder) you eventually gain the ability to recruit bandit pigs and create/use a bandit hideout in or near the town.  (Which functions as a player house that also is a safe place to hide from guards etc.)  The bandit pigs can follow the player like a posse, and can be directed to fight guards, mug/attack townspeople, or loot houses in town after night.

The flipside to this is that you gain the attention of Sherlock Ham - he will be following your every step and examining every trace you leave behind, to catch up to you.  You can throw him off your trail with a number of bandit tricks like 'false trail' and 'phony evidence' that you can leave at the scenes of the crime.

If Sherlock Ham sees you, he will alert all guards nearby to your presence and chase you down.  (Sherlock Ham will also be accompanied some very strong town guards, and be very strong to fight against.)

It's virtually impossible to kill the great Sherlock Ham - if bested in combat, he will throw a smokebomb and escape, only to resume the hunt for the player once again after a time.

Criminal caper - The inversion of Sherlock Ham's crime-solving mode; you carry out dastardly missions of theft and assassination.  It is advised to be well-equipped before embarking on these missions of extreme difficulty.  Examples of possible missions include; assassinating the queen, the mayor, or certain citizens.  As well as stealing jewels from the rich or from the Queen.

New crafting station - dastardly lab - The dastardly lab assist you will all manner of criminal deeds - from forging evidence to throw Sherlock Ham off your trail, to creating tools of the criminal trade for stealing from Hamlet's good citizens, to forging deeds of houses, to items that upgrade your bandit crew's effectiveness, to disguises that let you pass incognito among Hamlet's townsfolk, to a compass that can tell you where Sherlock Ham currently is on the map, to cosmetics that let you really live up your role as criminal mastermind.

[mr.Hazard]

The masked pig gives me jack the ripper vibes. A detective hat would go nicely with my magnifying glass

[JosePapp]

Seems lit but Hard to implement.

[iamSpacedad]

2 hours ago, JosePapp said:

Seems lit but Hard to implement.

If just 10-25% of the ideas I suggested here were implemented it could add some nice flavor to the game.  Like, if the idea were scaled down to an NPC you turn in certain items to for rewards, or who chases you and alerts guards if you have pretty high naughtiness from harming villagers.

4 hours ago, mr.Hazard said:

The masked pig gives me jack the ripper vibes. A detective hat would go nicely with my magnifying glass

There could be a jack the ripper type villain you and Sherlock Ham both track down over the course of multiple cases and chases.

There might be a kind of rogues gallery of suspects you can apprehend - they might even be on display in an ingame jail cell area. (The same place a player might be imprisoned in for a period of time if arrested for certain crimes, rather than just killed on the spot.)  If imprisoned in jail, they would serve like trophies.  Although at random points, they might occasionally break out and you & Sherlock Ham will have to hunt them down again.

Opening up the possibility for a rogues gallery of villains might let the Klei creatives flex their inner Batman or (Richard)* Tracey. There's potential for stuff like pranksters, lupin-like master thieves, arsonists, serial killers, organized crime bosses, etc.

*Klei forums censored the first name of one of the greatest comic book detectives of all time, lol.

Another idea I didn't talk about much is the idea of being a master thief with a heart of gold - a new stat would be introduced called 'dashing-ness.' It works in conjunction with naughtiness.  You leave calling cards of your crimes and surprise townspeople with roguish flash and flare during your crimes. You also give away a large portion of your riches to the poor people of the town. (Possibly by giving it to a pastor pig in a church, who distributes the stolen goods to the poor.) Doing so converts your naughtiness to 'dashing-ness.'  As you gain more dashing-ness, the non-wealthy townspeople are likely to cheer you on when they see you and not alert guards to your presence.  Sherlock Ham would still pursue you in this mode, but not quite as aggressively as when you were a murderer.  (Probably out of grudging respect for a vigilante gentleman thief.)

There might even be corrupt town officials you can publicly humiliate, such as abusive guards bilking the townspeople for money.

I didn't add that to my original post because it seems like a third wheel to the concept. But it could potentially also work in its own way.  Although town officials becoming corrupt could also be one of the types of cases you and Sherlock Ham can crack.  (Exposing the mayor for bribery etc.)

[ImDaMisterL]

Sherlock Hams*

[geatatat]

tbh, this is the most beautiful thing i,ve ever seen 

[Thieverpedia]

This right here is a top quality suggestion. Really gives the feel that the DLC wouldn't just be Don't Starve on a different map.

[DatShadowJK]

Quick! Klei! Implement this before a modder does!

[inferjus4]

Man, that would actually make Hamlet worth those money!



PS Do not kill me for saying this, I will probably change my mind when Aporkalypse will come out.

[daduhweewah]

1 hour ago, inferjus4 said:

Man, that would actually make Hamlet worth those money!



PS Do not kill me for saying this, I will probably change my mind when Aporkalypse will come out.

If you cant justify 7$ for this/deem it not worth the “hefty” 700 penny tag, then I feel bad for you lol. If you get 3 hours out of it you go your moneys worth. Dirt cheap. Hamlet is already crazy cheap for the work they did. 

 

Not trying to troll/poke at you. In todays gaming landscape youd be better paying 7$ to ban yourself from playing games that are literally pay to win/littered with microtransactions to acquire additional story/quests or items that cant be acquired otherwise. Hell klei didnt even do that in DST which they could have (and faced backlash like all games that do this of course)

 

Give klei your 7$ as appreciation if you havent imo. This games already worth the 7$ if it has just the pig town biome along with access to sw and rog. Klei is everything (integrity wise, or ‘tegridy wise) I wish EA or 2K or Bethesda or Ubisoft was. 

[inferjus4]

1 hour ago, daduhweewah said:

If you cant justify 7$ for this/deem it not worth the “hefty” 700 penny tag, then I feel bad for you lol. If you get 3 hours out of it you go your moneys worth. Dirt cheap. Hamlet is already crazy cheap for the work they did. 

 

Not trying to troll/poke at you. In todays gaming landscape youd be better paying 7$ to ban yourself from playing games that are literally pay to win/littered with microtransactions to acquire additional story/quests or items that cant be acquired otherwise. Hell klei didnt even do that in DST which they could have (and faced backlash like all games that do this of course)

 

Give klei your 7$ as appreciation if you havent imo. This games already worth the 7$ if it has just the pig town biome along with access to sw and rog. Klei is everything (integrity wise, or ‘tegridy wise) I wish EA or 2K or Bethesda or Ubisoft was. 

SW is cheaper than Hamlet, then why Hamlet has less content that SW? And why you insult me because I think that 7$ is a lot to me? Also do not compare Klei to other game studios with bad politics because it is not a good comparision (you should be angry at those studios for their awful politics, not saying Klei is godlike studio [Klei is probably my favourite game studio tho]). And no, I do not get acces to RoG and/or SW by buying Hamlet, I need to buy them first (that's actually pretty obvious, but you wrote it vaguely). Next time read the whole post carefully, I wrote to not pettifog to my comment.

[daduhweewah]

5 hours ago, inferjus4 said:

SW is cheaper than Hamlet, then why Hamlet has less content that SW? And why you insult me because I think that 7$ is a lot to me? Also do not compare Klei to other game studios with bad politics because it is not a good comparision (you should be angry at those studios for their awful politics, not saying Klei is godlike studio [Klei is probably my favourite game studio tho]). And no, I do not get acces to RoG and/or SW by buying Hamlet, I need to buy them first (that's actually pretty obvious, but you wrote it vaguely). Next time read the whole post carefully, I wrote to not pettifog to my comment.

Like I said. I wasnt trying to troll or pick on you. Nor did I insinuate it was too much to you. Just stating that for 7$ and the amount of time klei put into it (and it will end up being as much content or very similar, if you think back to SW when it was released it was lacking lots of stuff it has now) you cant possibly feel like you didnt get your moneys worth. Unless you blindly bought a game in a genre you dont like, but in a genre you like, spend 7$ and even if you say “meh that wasnt much fun” atfter a few hours you still got your moneys worth. 

[inferjus4]

9 hours ago, daduhweewah said:

Nor did I insinuate it was too much to you.

"If you cant justify 7$ for this/deem it not worth the “hefty” 700 penny tag, then I feel bad for you lol."

 

9 hours ago, daduhweewah said:

Just stating that for 7$ and the amount of time klei put into it (and it will end up being as much content or very similar, if you think back to SW when it was released it was lacking lots of stuff it has now) you cant possibly feel like you didnt get your moneys worth.

That's why I said I will probably change my mind when Aporkalypse will come out. And nobody cares how much time Klei had put into this DLC, everyone cares about how much new and original content has this DLC because it is that what you are paying for.

 

9 hours ago, daduhweewah said:

\ Unless you blindly bought a game in a genre you dont like, but in a genre you like, spend 7$ and even if you say “meh that wasnt much fun” atfter a few hours you still got your moneys worth. 

No? If I play a game for only few hours and say that it was not that much fun, then it is probably not worth that much money. It would be worth if I would play the game for over a dozen of hours at least (I am not saying I do not enjoy Hamlet, I am just generalizing about every game now).