General Grab Bag of Ideas

[Morningstar]

This is to Klei, by way of giving broad and general feedback to the game, as well as possible ideas for future builds/features. I thought about starting a new thread, but figured this was probably the best spot for direct feedback on the road map.

First off, kudos to you for the game. The accolades already provided are deserved. What follows are a grab bag of various ideas of variable merit. Some you may have already contemplated, and some may have already been requested elsewhere, so apologies for duplication. Some of these items interact with each other in part, and that overlap means they should be considered together. In general, I've tried to recommend ideas that would interact broadly with the constituent parts of the game, rather than simply offer one-shot ideas that might hang off to the side.

Weird Science!

I've found having only a science and an alchemy machine for your tech tree to not enough. I recognise that the alchemy machine is supposed to generally cover 'weird' science, but I think it could be more elegant. I conceive, alongside the alchemy machine the ether engine. This means the science machine is principally used for prototypes, the alchemy machine becomes useful for refining components and for making potions, and then the ether engine/altar is necessary for interacting with magical things.

Part of me would like to see slots within the science machine etc, much like you throw ingredients into the crock pot. Clearly a single slot would be required to hold multiples of a given item. This might become a bit fiddly for some people, but I think it would be a nice tweak.

If people are concerned that making all prototypes through the science machine would be too cheap, it would be easy to make some of those ingredients dependent on refinement through the alchemy still. I would like to see this differentiation, because this means the different machines have more purpose, rather than just 'basic tech' and 'advanced tech' prototypes.

Finally, I think it makes thematic sense if the magic of the game were sequestered to a different machine/device. Anything that uses nightmare fuel or wouldn't fall under the prototype method would be great. For some reason I'm seeing a type of tesla coil, electrodyne engine when I describe this.

Potions

Potions are the most obvious thing that could be done through an alchemy machine. I can imagine it being a very intriguing game element to be able to gather petals, herbs, flowers, and perhaps even thorns etc for creating various things. I also like the idea of the alchemy making being able to help refine raw materials into more refined versions. It could even be a way of turning certain base metals into gold through an expensive conversion.

I see potions providing a short lived effect on whoever drank it. It could be added to various foodstuffs in order to be consumed by some animals (taint meat to give to a pigman, a carrot to feed to a rabbit, seed to feed to a chicken). Potions would not be stackable objects, and so one slot could only hold one. The following are some suggested effects:

Meat-man Potion: the drinker grows in size, horribly twisted in appearance like a grotesque. They have half again their amount of strength and health. Ingredients perhaps should include ground up beefalo horn, and ground up meat.

Swift Potion: The drinker gains twice their nominal speed for a short while, but burns up hunger. It would probably require a combination of beardling hair and feathers.

Halogen: The drinker glows softly (about the same luminescence as a torch) for enough minutes as to cover an entire night. It would definitely require fireflies, and maybe some charcoal.

Pyromania: the drinker turns aflame and becomes immune to fire damage, inflicting more damage with their hits, however it will rapidly deplete the durability of wooden objects like spears, log-suits, etc; and wandering too close to flamables will set them aflame too. There is obviously some overlap with the former, but they could be differentiated. Would require charcoal, at least.

Phantom Potion: the drinker becomes and intangible shadow, and difficult to see, they will pass through all objects, but cannot pick up any objects, and cannot inflict damage or otherwise affect things around them. Though they can still interact with crawling horrors and other shadowy figures.

Thirst and waterways

While some will probably decry me for suggesting another metre, I would have thought that thirst was an obvious one. Right now there are no apparent sources of water (except the still ponds). I think having the requirements to have the character drink at least once a day would be one of those layers that would be good for beginning players to deal with but easily folded into higher levels of complexity.

Alongside thirst, you could easily add water-skins, or flasks. Rabbits might be able to be farmed for their skins, which would have a variety of uses. One a flask should be sufficient to hold a number of sips of water. That way it becomes something extra to manage, but once set up doesn't become too onerous. I could also see a potential way to make a ten-slot backpack using hides.

If thirst is added to the game, I think there should be various water sources. For one, I notice that in many instances in world gen, there are often long 'crevices' between biomes where the seams of those biomes don't quite meet. I think it might be better if rivers were added to fill these gaps as they flow out to the sea. Rivers then become natural barriers and give you reasons to build bridges and other fun things. They may also perhaps be fished, but there are more aggressive fish that deplete the durability of a given fishing line faster (this might unbalance the game, but it would add more scope to the game). Or rather, perhaps you can pan for gold?

This would interact with winter... rivers freeze over making exploration better, but water becomes a tad difficult. It will need to be heated to be drunk perhaps?

This is where the distillery comes in. You can make liquor with the alchemy engine. Liquor doesn't freeze in your canteens like water does, and it will add a little heat, but will have some other deleterious effects (either on health or sanity). You could ferment liquors from various things like seeds and berries etc.

Tea should be a dapper drink that you can brew that helps restore sanity.

Kiln

I would like to see the introduction of a kiln. A kiln could be used both to bake break (from ground up seeds), and it could be used to make bricks (clay is a new collectable resource from rivers perhaps). The idea behind bread is that it is resource intensive to set up (through the kiln and baking), but it keeps (unleavened bread). It becomes a viable winter storable food, but one that stacks easily for long journeys. It probably can also easily combine with other foodstuffs for quick boost to a type of food without the necessity of a crock.

If a kiln is introduced, it probably would require a mortar/pestle, or perhaps a millstone to grind down seeds. However, this could also interact with the necessities of potion making if that were introduced, as well as grinding seeds and berries for potions and liquors.

Forge

No doubt people have been clamouring for metal-based objects for a while now, and so the idea of a forge may easily upset a carefully woven balance. It would also require the introduction of metal, which would probably be mined from rocks.

Anyhow, my thoughts on the forge would be to require labour intensity. Firstly, it requires charcoal to heat up, to provide sufficient heat. Secondly, it requires the character to spend literal time tempering the metal. You can see a track progress it on its way to increased durability. The downside of that is that you will need to find the right balance between the time investment to prevent it from being too easy, against too much time and making it boring.

Of course, once you have metal, it will undoubtedly lead to medieval implements. I would expect donning metal armour and even carrying it would slow your character down. I also think possibly that any such armour could be repaired using time at the forge, but if it loses all durability it's gone for good.

I can imagine that metal requires a lot in the way of acquisition and care, which would make them more viable in the later stages of the game where monsters and dangers become more significant.

Shoes

Shoes become another craft-able/wearable item, which may require skins/hides; the following are suggestions:

Sandals: increase speed while running on roads but slow you down off roads.

Snowshoes: prevent reduction of speed while trying to travel through snow-filled landscapes.

Boots: slight armour, helps keep you warm, slows you slightly.

Krampus

People did not like Krampus, but in principle I like Krampus. Here are some possible tweaks you could do to make him more palatable. Since Krampus is a winter-myth, it makes sense to tie him to winter. Rather than innately hostile, he could be a visitor that is sort of neutral to you on mid-winter night. He will ask for you to put something in his sack, and different things will happen depending on that.

Give him meat or any animal product, he will attack you and try to put you in his sack (effectively killing you).

Give him any plant matter (petals, berries, etc), and he will give you a lump of charcoal.

Give him a trinket from a grave, and he will give you something special or unique, or maybe just gold.

Sanity

It was said that sanity drops when you're alone in the dark at night. I would like to see a bird cage with a bird in proximity to help mitigate that effect? Perhaps you have to catch a specific type of songbird (like a nightingale) whose music helps soothe your jangling nerves.

Pigs don't count to this, because of the noises they make while sleeping.

With pages and a hide, you can create a journal. This is a dapper activity that you can do to help restore sanity. You will need a quill perhaps, and ink (grinding up charcoal into water). You can only write one page in a given day.

The book is flamable. If it is ever destroyed, you lose your mind.

Winter stuff

No doubt you've already finished your winter build, and are just testing now. A few small recommendations if they have not already been contemplated.

The ability to build snow walls, and perhaps even an insulated snow house (like an igloo). It will melt in spring.

The ability to build snow balls, which can be thrown at creatures to make them aggro, but doesn't do any damage (unless you put a stone in it).

I think that the cycle of spider growth (from tier one to tier three and back to reset) should be linked to winter. That is, the spider nest grows throughout the thirty days leading up to winter, increasing in size around about every 10-12 day mark. In theory they would grow beyond that, but the cold from winter kills them off and resets them back to a tier one nest. This doesn't change a huge amount of game play, but it does make thematic sense.

Worm holes are closed during winter.

New Biomes

So there are two new biomes I would like to propose. The River Delta, and the Volcano.

The first one is fairly obvious. I mentioned rivers before, and perhaps it would be cool if there was a wetlands kind of area where the rivers formed a delta. You could collect mud, sand, perhaps reed, from these areas. There might only be one on a given map?

The other one being a volcanic springs, which is an arid area, the ground is black and charred. There are rocks available, and magma pits. You could collect obsidian, volcanic ash (great fertiliser), and tar; but it is about as hostile as a swamp, with salamanders that might seethe out of pits, tar pits may pose a direct danger, you might even suffer a bit of heat damage if you stay too long. While the place isn't frozen over during winter, it still remains dangerous.

Miscellaneous

Weaponised Bees: Can killer bees be used in bee bombs instead of normal bees? I find that while I can catch killer bees, they are useless, and their use as weaponised bees makes more sense anyhow.

Cartography: Perhaps there is no automatic mapping, but you have to use paper and quill to draw up a map. This is mostly an abstract idea, so I am not sure how it would work so well. Perhaps you'll need to scout out key landmarks, and find a vantage point, which would let you map a large area.

Pack Rats: Someone suggested the idea of thieving pack rats, that steal any objects of value left of the ground: they can't really raid chests or the like, which gives incentive to put stuff away. They can also be hunted and killed for monster meat. If you track down their pack hole, you can probably recover items. Pigs and rats hate each other.

Bokkens: weird chicken-like creatures that you can trap, and which hunt seeds like gobblers hunt berries. You can build a coop for them, and they can either be harvested for their meat or they produce one egg in the morning each day. These eggs don't provide as much nutrition as tallbird eggs though. I also want to pour a potion down a bokken's throat.

Meat Golem: basically, making a shambling hulk of a monster with meat, and is kind of like a reanimated frankenstein's monster. It uses up a bunch of meat, and nightmare fuel; it is servile and can carry stuff for you, will defend you, and slowly rots away. When it turns putrid, it turns on anything made of meat and seeks to eat it in zombie-like fashion.

Trogen: some rocks are actually rock monsters in disguise, they are normally mobile by night, where they are more hostile, but by day they are disguised as normal rocks. Picking a troll in disguise will awaken it, and will seek to run away by day, but will attack by night. They are strong creatures, with a big defence. If unprovoked they will scavenge around for any flint left about to consume. If there is no flint, and you are carrying some they might come after you instead.

[Morningstar]

I see many of these ideas and the was have been visited elsewhere. So there are varying levels of overlap l.