tModLoader Reign of Fear

LuciousTPK

Skeletron
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Team Project Presents

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~Mod Showcase~


~Description~

Reign of Fear is a massive content mod that aspires to vastly change the game is played, progressed through, and the theme of the game while also being a platform for telling a story to the player. In short, this mod aims to turn Terraria into a horror game that also serves as a way to change up how the game is played normally using new systems, the primary of which is called the Fear System. I hope to do many things with this mod. I want to shake this community to the bone with actual fear, not just spooky themed items. I want to make the Fear System open sourced so that it can fine ease being integrated with any other mod interested. I want to change what is typically a hunt for higher tiered weapons and armors that is only sometimes walled off with a boss or randomly generated ore into interesting challenges that will either build on or evolve progression with ores and bosses. What I want is for the player to remember Reign of Fear one way or another, from the scares to the unique mechanics, from the vanity/decorative furniture to the blocks it might bring. If you are a lover of horror, or just looking to challenge your will against this mod, then you have come to the right place.

~Story & Progression~

When thinking about the story and how the player should progress I had a few rules in mind. The first and foremost rule is that the story shouldn't be forced on the player and shouldn't take the spotlight from the game. The story should only be as engaging as the player allows it, thus I have used the Dark Souls series as a prime example of what I am shooting for. To those who are interested in diving into the depths of the story will find a deep rich lore, while those looking to survive and battle bosses will get to do exactly that, no muss, no fuss. I want to try and avoid a situation where the game feels to much like Starbound and thus another rule was formed: no objectives, especially 'main' objectives the player must complete in order to progress. The fun of Terraria comes from the freedom of playing it, to interfere with this flow would spell issues for a good number of people. Finally I wanted to make the story in a way where progression was tied to more than just mining up ores or fighting a boss, like a horror game where you just saw the monster go to the location you have to go through, I want to force the player to face their fears to progress, however I don't want this to become an excuse to shove lore into the players mouth. Thus the final rule was made: Lore and story should not be tied to progression, rather the story should be something that progresses naturally as the player plays and they themselves can go progress their knowledge of the story for as long as they are willing to engage and delve into it. It is with these rules that I hope to avoid issues other mods can have forming stories and lore for themselves. An additional rule I found important was to not attempt to add any depth to anything vanilla. Everyone has their interpretation of it. In my eyes the story should use the world as platform or location the story takes place in. The story will acknowledge that certain events in vanilla take place, but to give any of it purpose or lore defies the fact that those creatures and events is just the nature of the world, there isn't exactly a purpose to it. This will, in my mind, keep the mod from conflicting with other mods and peoples understanding of vanilla as is.

~Mod Roadmap~


RoF Chapter 1: PremonitionRoF Chapter 2: ???RoF Chapter 3: ???RoF Chapter 4: ???RoF Chapter 5: ???RoF Chapter 6: ???RoF Chapter 7: ???RoF Chapter 8: ???RoF Chapter 9: ???RoF Chapter 10: ???
Introduces:

- Fear System
- Hallucination System
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~Chapter 1 Mod Status~

Phase 1: Pre-Planning - WIPPhase 2: Content Layout - Not StartedPhase 3: Development - Not StartedPhase 4: Release - Incomplete
- Create a source page: Complete- Stage Layout: Not Started- System Development: WIP- Release 1.0
- Create an index: Complete- Tier Design: Not Started- Spriting: Not Started
- Create a story outline: Needs Revision- System Designs: Needs Revision- Sound/Music Design: Not Started
- Create Basic Content Ideas: Needs Revision- Biome/World Gen Design: Not Started- NPCs: Not Started
- Layout system mechanics: Needs Revision- Events/Bosses/Enemy Designs: Not Started- Bosses/Enemies: Not Started
- NPC Design: Not Started- Items: Not Started
- Weapon/Item Design: Not Started- Biomes/World Gen: Not Started
- Additional Content: Not Started-Events: Not Started

~Fear System~

The Fear System is an idea derived from multiple sources in horror that use ‘sanity’ as a gameplay mechanic to further challenge the players ability to play the game. The Fear System is a system that takes into account specific situations, locations, events, enemies, boss encounters, and other variables into account to challenge the player and force them to play the game differently. Not only is the Fear System itself a variable in other systems, but will pose its own punishments for mishandling and mismanaging a player’s Fear levels.

Fear is a stat that accumulates in two ways. The first is through specific events, bosses, or other such situations that causes the player to gain Fear that isn’t tied to a specific debuff or phobia. Phobias are the second way a player can gain fear not only over all, but for that specific phobia. Phobias are the more unique of the two as they have the ability to accumulate Fear themselves as well as counting towards the total Fear a player has. Phobias run off pre-requisites and the player skill, in order to get one a set of checks need to be met that the player will not directly know, such as a phobia based on The Destroyer would have a check for being in hardmode first. Then the player would need to take damage, be negatively affected by, or die to the source of the phobia for them to have a chance of getting it. Accumulation of fear is unique to the phobia, something that is detailed in its description. When a phobia gains fear it slowly begins to evolve over stages, each stage causing a debuff on the player. If allowed to it’s max Fear the phobia becomes a Burden, with a unique often deadly debuff that can only be removed if very specific tasks/items/bosses/enemies (etc and etc) are used or beaten.

Sets are used to categorize phobias. A phobia of skeletons will belong to a set for the undead. Set’s are similar to phobias in that they can accumulate a stat and evolve to cause the player debuffs and harm, however the difference is that it does not run off Fear, nor does it have the ability to become a ‘burden’. Instead the set can stage up depending on how many phobias under that set the player has, only evolving when the player has a certain amount of phobias. When the max is reached the counter will continue counting how many phobias the player has in that set, though nothing special will occur except having all the debuffs until the player drops the number below the threshold of every stage the set presents, requiring no special actions to remove those debuffs.

Finally the Total Fear Gauge (TFG) is a counter for all Fear the player has, whether it be Fear accumulated from sources that have no relevance to a phobia, or from their phobias in total. The TFG is special. While it can evolve similarly to sets and phobias, the TFG evolves into special debuffs called Horrors. They have no specific debuff to any class, enemy, boss, or otherwise damage type, instead they have very unique and mechanically different debuffs that require very specific parameters to get rid of. Unlike sets and phobias where going below the threshold to obtain the debuff is enough to get rid of the debuff, the Horror requires it’s specific parameters to be completely to be removed along with the total fear being lower than the threshold it was at when the Horror was obtained.

All debuffs, Burdens, and Horrors are selected from a pool that is designed specifically to what it is designated to, aside from Horrors which function off a large pool the TFG can select from. The only rules that keep a certain debuffs, Burdens, or Horrors from being picked is the pre-requisites that can possibly be tied to the them, though more often than not this will be covered by the checks system that phobias have anyways (this not counting towards horrors since there are no pre-requisites for the TFG, thus the Horrors themselves need them).

With all this said the way the player is able to battle Fear is with Courage. Courage is a stat that can be accumulated in a few ways. There are potions, items, accessories, armors, weapons (etc and etc) that can accumulate Courage depending on their functionality, which is helpful for Fear that accumulated for the TFG exclusively and did not function off a phobia. However, if it’s a phobia that has Fear then the player can do certain things exclusive to that phobia that can accumulate Courage for it. The TFG will keep track of the Fear that it accumulates that didn’t come phobias, this amount of Fear being removed for however much Courage the player can gather, however the TF will not lower any further than this number. The rest of the Fear that is taken into account from phobias must be removed by courage gained for that phobia. Phobias have a minimum Fear threshold, which is also another name for the maximum Courage the player can obtain in a phobia before being prompted to either conquer the phobia or become immune to it. Conquered phobias simply go away, but can be re-obtained at a later point. Immunity to phobias means that the phobia is put on a list the player has of phobias that they are immune from getting or accumulating fear for. This immunity list however is very limited, and on the hardest setting there are 0/0 immunities a player can get. On top of this the items needed to remove immunities are very rare, meaning that a player who needs to dive in water for extended periods of time has a full immunity list can’t go and become immune to the fear of water for the task they are attempting to do. There are of course debuffs that can temporarily shorten a players immunity list among other things as well as buffs to the immunity list except for on the hardest difficulty.

~Planned Mechanics & Content~

It is in my hope that Reign of Fear can distinguish itself from all other mods based on how it changes how the game is played almost on a fundamental scale. The scope of the mod encompasses enemies and bosses with completely from scratch unique AI, as well as weapons and summons that follow that mentality. At least one new class per Stage/Chapter (updates to the mod), each with unique mechanics and fighting styles to keep them from just being another class or flavor of damage that just uses another type of ammo and only get their diversity from weapon AI. Unique town/base items and decorations that have unique mechanics to them. A unique crafting system based around the Fear System and subsequent systems that come afterwards. All that and more.

I want the mod to not just be a once over experience with a single unique mechanic, it is my hope that the mod will give something fresh for everything it offers. Everything about the mod will be unique to itself, leaving the player with something new to learn every item, weapon, enemy, etc. The mod will even use a system, referred to as the Hallucination System which takes variables from the playthrough and will spice things up specific to the things that have happened to the player and the player has done. The mod will have a different theme for every update leading up to a grand finale later down the line. Most importantly however, while I will ensure the integrity of the story within the mod and that ideas presented don't go against the theme or structure of the mod, I want the players of the mod once it gains a footing to be able to suggest their own ideas for implementation in the mod via voting on best suggestions, for those who enjoy the mod and want to see it grow with things that interest them.

~Help Wanted~

As you can tell this mod has been in development hell for the better part of about four years for a multitude of reasons. While it and its systems have existed in lonesome google documents in my drive, the physical code of the mod was lost to time as the original team I put together fell apart. I take the blame for not managing that team well, and not knowing how to code or do anything back in the day. Four years later, I have a strong understanding of how to code (at least enough to work on basic stuff for the mod) as well as skills in audio, video editing, and similar skills I am able to do a lot more on my own. However, Rome wasn't built in a day and it certainly wasn't built by one person either. I don't necessarily need a programmer right now, but for every code contribution or coder who joins the team exponentially speeds up the process of creating the mod. Not to mention, any and all talent is welcome to assist with the mod, even if you just want to contribute art or cool animations for videos or anything really! Just shoot me a message and we can find you a place in Team Project!

Currently Seeking:

  • Spriters
  • Programmers
  • Testers/Q&A
  • Any and all talent!
Of course everyone apart of the team can help with developing ideas for the mods and will be more than likely asked to look over created work to form second, third, fourth opinions on the matter. I find that it never hurts to second guess and ask for opinions, as they often lead to better ideas or refined ideas.

~Thank You For Reading~

I wanted to go ahead and thank you very much for reading to the end and giving this mod idea a chance. I know it is with out flashy pictures or sprites or videos, or much of anything that currently works in an in game sense as this mod is about as 'on-paper' as it gets, but I get the feeling that with some honest to god dedication, once pre planning is finished and looked over, and the ground work for the mod is laid out, development should run fairly smoothly and this mod just might work. I am posting this here not only to find help in making this mod a reality, but to see how much support does 'scary terraria' actually have. Again thank you for reading!

~Inspirations~

  • Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  • F.E.A.R.
  • Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion
  • Singularity
  • Alan Wake
  • Dark Souls/Bloodborne
  • The Evil Within
  • World of Horror
  • Resident Evil
  • IMSCARED
  • Silent Hill 4
  • Outlast
  • Multiple Retro/NES horror games
  • And more!

~Credits~

- Re-Logic Team for developing Terraria
 
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Definitely a certain mood this gives off. I can't figure out what, maybe if I look more into the mod name...
 
@LunaticCultist782 I have debated the idea, but that would require testing and balancing. Currently the idea is to see how the player does spawning with a set number of randomly picked phobias and immunities, but I'm not too sure yet, I cant test what isn't coded yet :D
 
Interesting and well thought out concept! I'd offer my help but I'm not in a good position to do so right now... maybe in the future.

I'll just watch and see where this goes for the time being. :)
 
I saw that you need some help, and i can be uhhhh... Beta Tester?
Sure! I am just about finished getting the raw concept down, and ideally will have a sort of play testing version of the main system up soon to see if it works, if it needs balance, or if it's even fun ^^

Interesting and well thought out concept! I'd offer my help but I'm not in a good position to do so right now... maybe in the future.

I'll just watch and see where this goes for the time being. :)
Thank you!
 
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