The Far Lands Mod!

Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

Skeletron Prime
I have a running joke that I haven't programmed a computer since floppy disks were relevant and screens were monochrome.

That being said, it turns out that my three-decade-old self-taught programming background in BASIC and COBOL gives me just enough of a handle on programming logic to turn modding Terraria with the vast array of tools the tModLoader team and community provides into a surprisingly effective way to deal with PTSD!

Anyways, here's my small single-player mod, so far, made available on the tModLoader Mod Browser. Each part has been a challenge, from the early triviality of the Pinecone so the surprisingly involved project that the Acorn turned out to be. I hope folks enjoy it. Expect more soon, I have many other ideas I want to explore.

Bullroarers!
A personal weapon line for young Summoners. The Guide can fill you in if you ask about different kinds of rope... including the nigh-useless Vine Rope! Save those Throwing Knives to whittle with.

Your basic Bullroarer, a sounding weapon spun around on a line.
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Apebellow, a stronger bullroarer with a different execution mechanic. You can also right-click to fling Apeshot to push back your foes and slow them down!
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Haunt, not so much a bullroarer as a channeled spirit that keeps weaker monsters at bay and reduces the defenses of stronger monsters, so your minions can deal with them more easily.
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A minion-support weapon.

Acorns!
For nature-lovers with access to some acorns and a Living Loom:

Gandalf's Pinecone, once seen being used to fend off Wargs in a pinch. Ignites monsters and causes them to run away in fear!

The High Aldwin's Acorn. According to the High Aldwin, "anything you throw them at turns to stone!" A grand weapon against common foes, when used by a powerful sorcerer!

ALSO!!!
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Chinchillas! Daytime snow critter spawns, in gray and snowy varieties!

Notes:
The Haunt, the chinchillas, and the Acorn... with its attached debuff and sorcerer-favoring mechanic... are pretty much the top of my success, so far. I think the Haunt may lead to a design of gear for summoners that involves channeling buffs and debuffs to empower minions. The chinchillas are largely done... my personal "Example Critter" NPC project... but might still be tweaked with animation improvements. I hope people enjoy them. The Acorn... well... yes, you DO need to be a powerful sorcerer to get it to have its full impact on some targets. It has a surprise bonus effect on many creatures; experiment with it!

I hope people enjoy this. More to come!
 
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Small update to 0.1.0.2

- Caught-chinchilla objects no longer float above the ground in the world
- Chinchillas get more air and are no longer stymied by walls
- Fixed the last frame of chinchilla animation being skipped
 
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Update to 0.1.0.4!

- I was initially amused by Apebellow's right-click, my first experiment in a dual-use weapon, but, after some fiddling with it, I found it was actually pretty annoying... so I changed it to something more practical. You can now right-click to have it fling Apeshot; a projectile with a slow reuse speed and less damage, but a bit of knockback and no irritating "Hey, the gorillas are loose!" sound.

I plan to give Apeshot a bit more utility (some kind of debuff) and maybe change its behavior to be affected by gravity... but for now, here's something a touch more practical and MUCH less irritating. I MIGHT re-add the dialogue on use with a small chance to play, maybe something like 1%, as an occasional easter egg, but we'll see.

(Edit: 0.1.0.3 disappeared into an experiment to get an icon on the Browser, before I realized it needed Github integration to work.)
 
0.1.0.5 is out!

- Apebellow's rotation changes with player direction! I'll be applying similar mechanics to the other bullroarers soon.
- Changed Apebellow's projectile head to something that doesn't suffer when rotated. This is because, with the above change, the old head would end up in all manner of weird positions as you looked left and right while using it. Until I can figure out how to just always keep an orbiting projectile pointed away from center (I suspect Atan and the code that calculates drawing the rope might be applicable, but I'm not sure how yet), I may just make other bullroarers similar. Although Bullroarer, itself, behaves differently and I'll be doing different experiments (custom collision) with it.
- Apeshot is now affected by gravity, similar to a shuriken, and applies a slowing debuff! The debuff relies on monster max life versus your max life, limiting what it will land on, and doesn't land on monsters that ignore tiles.
- CHINCHILLAS ARE RELEASABLE!!! The mechanic is different than the vanilla critter-release mechanic, it just releases them at player position, but it's done! I won't likely tinker with this much from here on out, as I still need to make banner mechanics (which makes me sad) and crafted-cage options.

(Edit: I just found out they put support in for MakeNPC with the latest tModLoader, and I got it to work, so I'll be switching to that for "normal" critter releasing next patch!)

Enjoy!
 
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0.1.0.6... The Chinchilla Expansion!

- Applied rotation change with player direction to Haunt and Bullroarer.
- Chinchillas are now releasable with a more normal mechanic. "Releasing" them on a solid tile will use the item but not release a critter (I'm still working on that), so maybe don't do that thing for now.
- Added a Chinchilla statue (50 stone blocks and one svelte, fluffy Chinchilla as the model), that can be placed normally and generates Chinchillas when wired and activated! Chinchilla statues should now also be generated randomly in new worlds along with other statues. As per other statue critters, generated Chinchillas can't be caught.
- Added banners for Chinchillas and Snowy Chinchillas. For if you're REALLY just THAT evil.
- Added Chinchilla Habitat and Snowy Chinchilla Habitat, caged-critter placeable items. The recipe is a bit more demanding, taking a Marble Bookcase as well as a Terrarium and the appropriate chinchilla. Hopefully you enjoy the result!

That's the majority of what I wanted to do with the Chinchillas... each part has been a learning process, doing proper statues, banners, and animated cages. I still need to iron out how to have the Habitats animate individually (right now, they all animate synchronously, but there's relevant code in Example Mod), and I might add an elusive deep variety, but I'm mostly done with them. Now to apply what I've learned so far to other ideas!

(Edit, because of course: The chinchilla stuff is generally 1x1, and I think I'm going to leave it that way because these were some of my first sttempts at spriting, and I'm happy with how they came out regardless of Terraria. However, my efforts from here on out will probably be in 2x2, both to fit Terraria's style and to simplify my spriting process.)
 
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Introducing 0.1.0.7: Freshwater Peril!

Hamsterpotami have moved into the grasslands waterways! These confident creatures insist they're every bit as impressive as their distant cousin, the hippopotamus! They've adapted to living in the Savannah bodies of water, swimming easily around their new environs. The bad news is that they're very aggressive if you intrude on their space. The good news is, they've spent so long on their swimming and breath-holding, they've largely forgotten how to move on land... they WILL chase you onto dry land, but a hamsterpotamus is very awkward out of the water.

GAME MECHANICS CHANGE!
I might look into making this a toggle, but, for right now, you MUST be actively holding a Mechanical Lens or The Grand Design (have it selected on your active hotbar) to see wires. This returns to normal function once Golem has been killed. I wanted to make traps somewhat less trivial, since I might be making a couple.

Lastly, a very rare, elusive creature with nasty, big, pointy teeth and a vicious streak a mile wide has been seen near town! Enjoy a late April Fool's / Easter surprise!
 
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Are vorpal bunnies just large damage pricks? i really want a golden bunny instead i've got 3 vorpal bunnies, they're easy to kill and the ai is wack, is there any point of them? maybe add a new weapon you can craft using vorpal bunnies, and you should be able to catch them
 
Cheepy said:
Are vorpal bunnies just large damage pricks? i really want a golden bunny instead i've got 3 vorpal bunnies, they're easy to kill and the ai is wack, is there any point of them? maybe add a new weapon you can craft using vorpal bunnies, and you should be able to catch them
Click to expand...
Well, if you're willing to stand up to a vorpal bunny and can survive the encounter, you should get the prize you seek. See what happens!

Really, they're mostly just a (literal) Easter egg, about as rare as golden bunnies. I made them for the Easter/April Fools convergence and just left them in. I haven't done any work since then, due to repeated and severe resurgences of PTSD and hypervigilance related to recent events in my life and the current Trumpian political terror hellscape, when I'm just trying to practice self-care and help the needy. I do plan to get back to it, though, because I miss relaxing and working on this stuff, but... well... road to Hell, good intentions, etc etc etc. We'll see.
 
Small as this mod is, I just wanted to let folks know that I'm back to actively working on it! I've updated syntax to current, and I'm trying to resolve Vorpal Bunny issues and stagger the animation of chinchilla cage placed tiles, right now.
I've forgotten a good bit... not just about code, but about process, as well. Fortunately, Past Jabberwocky apparently did a LOT of commenting on a couple of my more complex documents, and that helped me remember a few things. The rest is practice. I still have a LOT of ideas I want to explore... small ideas, and the occasional larger challenge.

I already have the walking and attacking sprites done for my next idea. <3<3<3
 
New Update! v0.1.0.9

- Chinchilla Cage and Snowy Chinchilla Cage now stagger their animations a bit based on their placement in the world. I still need to figure out how to vary it more, but it's a start.
- Vorpal Bunnies now generally behave better, and have lost the ability to fly when near players. The same goes for in-game, where they've lost the ability to fly when near characters.
- Hamsterpotami have figured out how to function to some degree on land, by clumsily emulating the slimes they've seen pass across their waters. Now, simply avoiding their ponds is not enough.

Cheers!
 
Byzantium said:
Congrats on getting the mod back to speed! Any plans on spinning up a discord server?
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Not at this point; I don't really have much content, and I still have things I want to work on learning to develop before I make an organized effort.

@TheBloodSwiper I always stop and catch them when I see them, because I don't want to leave them to the predations of Terraria's wilds!
I think the cages turned out pretty cute, though. :guidegrin:
Just... shame on you if you manage to get their banners!
 
Version 0.1.0.10: A New Hop!

Rising from the mud of the jungle, angry Froggok Scouts have begun to seek out players. Who are they? Where do they come from? And why do they look so good when lunging at you with cutting-edge technology? (Okay, so it's a knife.)
These answers and more, or possibly much less, as I continue developing this path. They're the beginning of a little expansion of thematic content I'd like to explore. The list includes other classes of Froggok society, related creatures, themed gear, and possibly even a small dungeon biome and faction mechanics related to conflicting Froggok ideologies!

I still need to do some stuff for them, like loot drops and a banner, but I'm VERY pleased that I got the AI and animation to work out so well, so I decided to put them out there! Enjoy!
 
This mod looks nice. I'll get it later, maybe add some summoner weapons? I love summoner weapons armors and accessories :guidesmile:
 
Version 0.1.0.11: The Mire Strikes Back!

As the player kills the first of many challenging, yet ubiquitous, King Slimes, word reaches the larger and more ambitious Froggok Hunters. They take up their poisoned spears and go hunting for this new, challenging prey spotted earlier by the Scouts.
 
Version 0.1.0.12: Return of the Frogi!

After the Eye of Cthulhu gets put out, odd Froggoks make their way out of the jungle depths and dark places. Froggok Sporecasters, drawing power from the blue mushroom fields of the deep underground somehow, hunt the player, regenerating harm surprisingly well and spreading venomous clouds of spores.

This doesn't look natural.
 
Version 0.1.0.13: A Froggok Holiday Special

... yeah, I couldn't think of something catchy for the title. This is a bit of a tune-up. There are gifts, though! But no Grandpa Itchy. (... yet???)
  • The Froggoks are now Froggokier (is that a word? It is now!)... they have varying levels of knockback resistance, and their activities can be interrupted by a strong enough crit, which varies by type. Also, because I encountered my own creations in a playthrough and had quite the time with them, I toned them down just a little.
  • Also, the Vorpal Bunny and Hamsterpotamus have been given loot drops... although, if you've figured out the Vorpal Bunny's trick, you'll know when you done wrong.
  • And for the enjoyment of @Railgun14234 and other Summoners. the Froggok Sporecaster has what I hope is an interesting rare drop. If you go looking for the Sporecaster, it's much more likely to spawn in its obvious favorite place.
 
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