Actually, I was very curious of how this challange actually looks like in the game and not just as a theory, so the other time, I started a playthrough like this.
Here are some of my observations, notes and ideas. Like, some tips and tricks for others interested taking the challange.
This is the world this story takes place in. It was a simple, small, expert world, turned
almost entirelly crimson via T-edit.
The jungle is pure, and encased in a layer of hallow, as the origonal idea suggested.
It also naturally features the crimson chasms connected, and quite close to the spawn.
it's named "Crimsoned Island" - super creative, right? XD
So... let's move to the main character of this story... A girl called Flann. (side note: softcore character)
Most player characters starts in a world sorrounded by green vegetation, however Flann was not so lucky...
Also starring... what was his name guide as a side character... but his role at the start was cut short... by a groups of face monsters...
Also a few things to note. green mossy stones. like several other things, these are remains from the original worldgen, and they will change appearance once you mine blocks around them, chop wood or anything.
There is also daybloom and sunflower here and there, which is very precious, so get them when possible. Fallen stars will uproot these when falling nearby, (or it will uproot daybloom, which will uproot the suflowers next to it when drops as an item) because these can't live on crimson vegetation, and when stars fall close, uprooting dayblooms the game seems to realise these things like sunflowers shouldn't be there, and they drop as items. pick them up, because the dropped items (as usual) disappear when you exit the game!
(also this means that fairy logs are in vegetation where they can't live, so if you mine block around them - or even if you try to use purification powder to purify the grass under them, they will be destroyed. so be careful with these irreplaceable fairy houses...)
However let's not run that ahead just yet.
My theory was that there will be no time to build a house before monsters appear, so... first thing to do... burry yourself. so it won't be someone else burrying you 6 feet deep, and end up with those monsters loitering at the spawn, and spawnkilling you again. and again... and... again...
There was barely enough time to mine this small hole, before monsters appeared. and these are not green slimes...
(note: autopause can be useful too, to win a few seconds!)
This also requires that the ground here right under the character is simple dirt. there's some clay as well, and maybe ores, but stone is a problem now, because you can't mine crimstone with a copper pickaxe. so, this should be noted when turning the world crimson with T-edit. the area right under the spawn should be dirt, clay and such, and not stone!
With this done, you can mine some more, and chop the shadewood trees from below. The copper axe have just enough range to reach them, and you can pick up the wood from below.
Now, with some shadewood, it's possible to start building a house. You can only really do it slow by "capturing" area slowly by placing blocks, and then more blocks and mining the previous. You can push back the crimera this way. A single mistake letting them in could be lethal.
secure the spawn with a house! so you won't be spawnkilled later, if anything goes wrong.
Also, cultivate shadewood trees. What you chop down, replace with a seedling. You will need material for things, and there's nothing else in this land at this point you could use (no, don't use dirt! you don't want the crimson grass spreading to it too...) Also, it could be good to leave 1 of the "ancient tree giants" there. I read somewhere that trees often try to match their neighboring trees in size. normally they grow quite short, but if the presence of the old tree giant can inspire just some of them, you will have significantly more wood.
With that, it's very likely that the Sun went down, and...
This is the sort of thing you see. or don't see... You face the first unpleasant problem (not counting the core problem of being stuck in a land full of crimson) that is, torches! There are no slimes to drop gel... so you basically stuck in this shadewood shoebox until the sun rises... or... if you see light, there are most likely a star landed nearby. you can try to reach them by mining a tunnel towards them. you won't really see what you're mining, just hope that things will go fine.
These falling stars will also uproot daybloom - and thus occassionally adjacent sunflovers too. pick them up too.
And then once the sun is up, you can try to continue building.
If you place doors when there are no monsters in the way (that's not visible here, but will be visible in later pics) make sure you have a furniture right in front of it. the so called "zombie-proof doors" - because enemies can only open doors to the inside. This is crucial, because face monsters can open doors regardless if it's a blood moon or not!
You can try to explore in hope of finding pots if they might drop torches - I tried that, but I found nothing, just some large vein of iron ore. that will come in... very useless for the time being. on a short distance, you can outrun the crimeras, if all of them comes from the same direction. (if you get caught, you're dead) but that plan to find pots ended up largely in a failure. however you can hide underground for the night and hit monsters though a hole with your shadewood sword.
You can easily gather around 2-3 gold a night!
But so once the sun rose again, I ran back to the main base, and resumed building. Still no torches though. My theory was, that once you're high above enough, you will reach outside of the crimson, and thus it will allow for valid housing.
Watch the mustic and the atmosphere and background. you will enventually reach out of the crimson, to the "forest"
And this will also allow for the grounded monsters to despawn (and thus replaced with other monsters), and when you go down from the tower (watch your step! no, seriously!), you can encounter zombies the night!
Including this impressive guy...!
Maybe it was the game taking pity on Flann, that this one was the first zombie to appear.
Now of course, this guy could solve the torch problem, but defeating him would be tricky face-to-face. and there's no time to waste either, because this guy will go away once the sun rises.
So this was the trap I came up with, and the impressive torch zombie dropped some awesome 18 (or so) torches!
A slimy zombie wandered into the trap too, which brought this other impressive rarity seen on the pic.
You can also hit any other monsters falling into the trap (face monsters mostly), or trying to ram you (crimera), while you're completely safe!
Seriously. This map can teach us quite a bit about the materials we consider basic, and don't care too much about them in a normal playthrough. but gel and torches are a very rare commodity here. and there are several other things too... I think I learned a lot here.
But so, with the mighty power in our hand, to bring light into the darkness... now it's possible to build a house, right...?
It's almost always a happy thing to see the message "this house is suitable" but it's a perticularly joyous sight here.
And since I had all that money, Calvin the merchant decided to move in right away!
However...
He spawned on the ground level. (also, again, watch your step! coming down from the tower by jumping is not a wise idea!)
And... unfortunatelly...
He didn't make it into the house in one piece. Quite literally...
So, that made me wonder how will I actually get town NPCs to move in alive, but soon after the guide moved in, appearing inside the room upstairs while I was chopping wood downstairs.
And with another room, the merchant moved in too, this time with his head on his shoulders. He's a really lot more useful that way.
He sells all sorts of useful things, so you can make sure your money is safe (piggy bank), buy torches(!!!), arrows(!) so you can try to hit things from a distance, the very impressive sickle, an awesome early game weapon with autoswing!!! a mining helmet so you will have light! also an anvil, bug catching net, and other usually great gadgets that will be mostly useless for start, but come in handy later! (if you find enough metal bars in chest for things for example.
although use them first for a watch. any watch. it can make a huge difference! - without it, you don't really have anything to tell the time - besides if it's dark it's probably night - but can be it's just a heavy rain... the music down there in the crimson will never indicate the time - it will, around the base once it's a town, but everywhere else it's always just the crimson's music, be it day or night.)
And while I was wondering what else to buy besides the piggy bank...
The winds brought another friendly visitor. His wares didn't include any weapons, but the dynasty wood come in quite handy, since I love building, and it could change the atmosphere a little bit. (side note: autopause! you need it at these times. it should be turned off when building at this point because it's a hindrance, but to buy things from this guy, it's essential.) soon enough he got eviscerated by the crimson monsters though ...leaving his hat behind...
So, my base looked like this after.
Not the coziest place, but a decent house at this point with adequate safety. A place to live in even in this forsaken land.
Now, with the somewhat uggly, but strong shadewood armor and the sickle and all, I decided to go exploring!
Note for shadewood: It's an awesome material making very strong weapons and armor for early game! still, this is an expert world, so this armor doesn't means a lot. good dodging skills are needed.
And at this point, there's no grappling hook, cloud in a bottle or anything at Flann's disposal, so jurneying can be difficult.
Rather than going on the surface, it can be good to mine some tunnels (very close to the surface) here and there - and place zombie-proof doors at the entrances. also, make sure the ground there is dirt, and not crimson grass. just manually destroy all crimson grass inside the tunnels floor, to make them safer, so crimson monsters won't likely spawn inside them later. block off areas with shadewood so the grass from outside won't spread inside the tunnel.
And so I reached the crimson chasm, and Flann found her very first treasure chest there! - indeed, these things are in short supply too. And not just a chest, but something with an absolutely awesome treasure in it, that is...
An umbrella!
This absolutely awesome gadget allows for reaching places down below in one piece. whether it's descending from the tower at the base, or going down inside the chasm...
Ah, and an interesting observation here. Blood crawlers are rather uncommon on the surface, but are super common in the chasms. interesting.
If we're at that, use banners! They can make a huge change!
I wandered down the chasm's central hall after, and ran into the next problem... how to reach the hearts? The next thing to look for was,
explosives!
(also, I think I actually managed to just barely reach a heart with a hammer, but couldn't get the undertaker that dropped, so finding explosives to reach that was quite an important task to do soon.
I also think I found an unprotected heart later when explored the chasms more, but so early I didn't noticed that... aww...)
So, I went to explore to the other side. A sky bridge and the umbrella can come in extremely handy! (but watch out for harpies!) And then I found some granades in a chest in a living tree. also found a finch staff in another chest!
Also found the Hallow, and the Jungle too
And so, the demolitionist moved in, and I could buy bombs to mine the crimstone.
Also buy granades! They are awesome. And I had a slime rain at some point, so while obviously king slime was impossible to beat, that still alowed for gathering tons of gel for sticky granades. like granades, they do area dmg. so you can clear the monster kicking your door with just like 2 sticky granades thrown at the door - not the same time. mind the knockback. ...and don't be too close...)
This allowed both to get the undertaker, and another heart - which dropped a crimson heart - and in general to go mining underground too. because if you mine deeper, you will pretty inevitably run into crimstone, and your copper pickaxe can't mine it.
The undertaker also allowed for the arms dealer to move in, and with enough bullets, the undertaker is quite a formidable weapon so early game.
Also, the underground actually features regular underground enemies too, mixed in with some crimson monsters. I thought if would be only crimera, face monster and blood crawler everywhere, but you can see bats, skeletons and all too, probably because the underground is not just a dense heap of crimstone, but mixed in with dirt and other stuff, and there are no crimstone background walls everywhere either, unlike in the chasms. there are also normal desert monsters in the desert, mostly.
you will also see moss on the crimstone here and there. it's just the "fuzzy/grassy" part of the moss, the base is not there, because it can't live on the crimstone, but the fuzzy moss plant from worldgen is still there. if you hit it with any weapon, grappling hook or anything it will be destroyed as expected, and destroy adjacent moss fuzz too - and never grow back, because its base is long been destroyed by the crimson.
However if you try to gather it with a paint scrapper, it still has the normal (small) chance to drop the plantable moss, so try to be careful around these before being able to collect them, and try to get some once you have the painter. they might could come in interesting later for deco.
And so I went back and went to the jungle I found earlier, to build some houses and get...
The furnace! An extremely trivial crafting station normally, on this playthrough, it took quite some time to get it. This finally allowed to make use of the ores I found.
Did you ever thought about what an important thing is, to smelt ores? I always took it pretty much granted, since the furnace is usually the 2nd crafting station you get, nearly right after the workbench.
The power to smelt ores! And at a laughably dirt-cheap price XD
And what's more, there is the Hallow. an anomaly for pre-hardmode words, and hallow monsters won't spawn either, but the pylon works neverheless. it allows the jungle pylon to be used somewhere later, deeper in the jungle, so I used the hallow pylon here, and with the forest pylon at the base, it's easy to travel between these two places.
The jungle also offers many other things, for example frogs, in quite the abundance. If you don't fish (and it would be quite difficult to do that until this point), this will be the first edible thing to run into. I hope you like frog legs... XD
(you can actually get a few hamburgers from crimera, but I left them for later, since they're tier 3 food)
(This also makes me wonder if hallow fish can be caught here? I will test that later.)
Also, you can find regular stone in the jungle in small deposits. quite useful for fireplaces, so it's not a campfire in the middle of the room XD
With all the new things, I upgraded my base too. Crimson bricks are quite handy too. And with some dye plants from the jungle, another nice guy moved in...
He spawned downstairs, but Hannibal the dye trader is quite a dye-hard fellow. I was wondering if his encounter with 4 face monsters will yield an exotic scimittar, but he slew them all! This guy is something else. Really, I dislike when NPCs fall victim, but I waited quite some time, and this guy just didn't die, so I given up on waiting for that and went to do other things. really, since he's a melee town NPC, he can defend himself quite well!
Also, note the banners and the crimson torch. I wonder if one crimson torch matters the same as if there would be all just crimson torches? but I rather combined them with normal torches for a lighter atmosphere.
And then another traveling merchant brought impressive things.
I sold most of the gold bars I had, and then I realised I forgotten about those can of worms. opened in hope of gold worms, but it was just regular ones. turned them all into enchanted nightcrawlers and they worth roughly the same amount of coins as the gold bars I sold XD lol good to know
And so I could buy this beauty.
After that, I decided to raise money for the quad-barrel shotgun. I did so, but I also found just enough ruby for a ruby staff. also got an ametyst hook, later a sapphire hook. The quad barrel shotgun is absolutely awesome, but the ruby staff has autoswing, so it bacame my main weapon at this point besides the katana.
Also realised that I missed an interesting material. pearwood. this makes (just a tad bit) better armor than shadewood, and this might be one of the very few cases when there's actually point in making pearlwood armor.
After that, more exploring, potion brewing and all, and with all these vicious mushrooms and vertebrea (to craft bloody spines) I decided to try battling Brain of Ctulhu! (on the surface, around the spawn) Not that I thought I could defeat it, but the creepers can drop crimtane and tissue sample, allowing for making the crimson armor! So I tried, and the first time I got a few creepers down (before BoC killed Flann...), just enough crimtane to craft the leg piece of the armor.
And then on the 2nd battle...
Managed to deafeat BoC! A mostly flat area and some potions... mana regen potion is awesome! hermes boots, cloud in a bottle... and don't forget the frog leg breakfast either. (not a hamburger, because I didn't actually expected I could win, I just wanted more material for the armor. and the deathbringer pickaxe (which can mine crimstone!!!))
This allowed for getting full crimson armor, the deatbringer pickaxe, as well as getting the awesome brain of confusion to dodge attacks occassionally.
And so someone else also moved in...
Certainly that's an interesting information to know... Though all things considered you probably have no reason to worry it could turn much more crimsoned that this later... XD
With this much NPCs hanging around (mostly) in the same tower, prices are quite high, and that can hurt a bit, even with moster dropping lots of money. This is another thing to solve...
But, so, could buy some purification powder! And decided to purify the area around the base. though only really the surface - it's blocked off at the edges so the crimson grass can't spread back there.
This is mostly just for a change of air, since the crimstone deposits below still make this area all crimson, but this allows for getting more normal wood, and grow pumpkins. I also placed wooden fences later, and mowed the grass a bit once got the golfer. also, a tree nymph butterfly fall from one of the trees. an impressive catch! bottled it after.
Also, now you're able to purify crimstone to mine regular stone. quite useful!
The goblin army paid a visit before at some point too - that hurt quite a bit - but so I had the goblin, and also after this, EoC paid a visit too, but was dispatched easily at the sky bridge with the ruby staff.
It thought it found an easy opponent, but it probably didn't expected a girl living - and thus quite battle-hardened - in the crimson. XD
After that, I also went exploring floating islands with gravity and featherfall potions I found.
And so...
This is how Flann's base looks like at this point. (although I later updated it with a bookscase too, after getting some books from the dungeon's accessible part.)
Because living in such an unhospitable land doesn't means you don't want a hospitable, comfortable, and cozy house, right?
At this point, the crimson is not a real menace anymore. Flann has no trouble fighting the things lurking on the surface or under the ground in this island of crimson red.
It all comes down to perseverance, wit, some patience, and of course tons of luck. And some battle skills, and so this unhospitable land gives birth to a battle-hardened girl. Because living in the crimson is not easy. But if you not give up, it's not just that you can survive, but prosper even here.
(of course, there's still quite some bosses to fight, and hardmode would prove a big challange here with all this land would be full of herplings and crimslimes and the like, but it also would mean that getting the stuff for the golden shower would be quite easy, and with that formidable weapon, probably fighting some artifically spawned crimson mimics for the dart gun and stuff (and ichor darts) and a few other gadgets, it wouldn't be that tough to come at the top of the food-chain once again in this land of crimson red...)
