[DEVBLOG#275] So, about Insanity... (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

As you know, we're working on a cool Insanity mod that should really enhance the Anomaly experience. My biggest inspiration is the work of H.P. Lovecraft which I think shows. That's also why the hero image for the mod is the depiction of an insane mr. Lovecraft... I mean, Howard Hysterical. He's not an actual storyteller, as I don't have an idea how to make him unique.

I'm pretty excited to dive into some details about that mod. It deeply integrates the concept of Sanity into your game, affecting nearly every aspect of gameplay. It's not just another meter to manage; it's a fully-fledged system that's woven into the fabric of how you interact with the world.

The Core of Sanity

Sanity in our mod reflects a character’s mental and emotional connection to human values and life. It's influenced by a plethora of factors, from environmental conditions and social interactions to the events unfolding around your characters. The unique twist here is the dual nature of sanity management—maintaining high sanity means a focus on humanistic values, while lower sanity levels can lead to dangerous behaviors but also lead to... unique storytelling opportunities.

Dynamic Sanity Interactions

Sanity is a fluid system with multiple triggers and effects:

Social Dynamics: Every conversation and interaction can impact sanity. Positive engagements like deep talks or simple chitchats can bolster it, while negative interactions or exposure to unsettling events can diminish it.

Anomalous Influence: Pawns lose sanity if you decide to interact with Anomaly content beyond the standard 'find and kill' gameplay loop. Studying entities, living around entities, touching creepy obelisks or reading ancient tomes is bound to have a toll on your sanity.

Behavioral Consequences: Characters with low sanity might engage in erratic or harmful behavior, influencing not only their own fate but also the dynamics of the entire community.

Managing Insanity: Straitjackets and Gags

A new feature we're introducing is the use of straitjackets and gags. These items are crucial in managing characters who have tipped over the edge into madness:

Straitjackets: These prevent insane characters from physically harming others or themselves. They're a non-lethal way to handle severe outbreaks of madness, ensuring safety without resorting to more drastic measures.

Gags: Equipping a character with a gag stops them from spreading disruptive thoughts and maintaining the spread of insanity through harmful social interactions. It’s a way to mitigate the impact of one individual’s deteriorating mental state on the broader group.

Integrated Systems

The sanity system is not isolated—it interacts with virtually every system in the game:

Fighting and killing entities is the universal way of triump over the unknown, and is bound to increase sanity for everyone involved. Base game and modded traits and effects interact with sanity in unique ways, offering both challenges and opportunities.

Gameplay Strategy

Managing sanity requires a strategic approach. Decisions need to balance the immediate benefits of risky actions against the potential long-term cost to a character's mental health. The introduction of items like straitjackets and gags adds another layer of strategy, allowing you to actively manage the consequences of dwindling sanity.

The integration of sanity into so many systems means that it’s not just another stat but a pivotal element of your gameplay experience, influencing decisions, strategies, and outcomes in profound ways.

We didn't want Sanity to just be another need though. As such, Sanity is a stat that will take years to change. The actions you do have such a miniscule effect, that it will take a very, very long time for the sanity to drop to dangerous levels. This also means it will take just as long for Sanity to get back up.

It's an exciting mod and I think it adds quite a bit of depth to the DLC itself. I also need to figure out the integration of the Corruption need from Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Memes and Structures. All in all, I think you will all enjoy it, and I will be back here soon to talk about it some more.