Strangers at the Door

It's the middle of the night and something is knocking.

Chat says a player joined. There's a name on your tab list. Through the window there's someone standing in the snow, and they're asking to be let in.

They're not a player. But you have no way of telling.

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Someone is at the door every few nights

Three kinds of people walk out of the blizzard, and nothing about them tells you which is which. Same skins. Same names. Same knock.

One of them is freezing to death and needs your fire. One of them is carrying things you cannot get anywhere else. One of them is going to wait until your back is turned.

The only way to find out is to open the door.

Talk to them first

You get a conversation — real questions, and they answer in their own words, with their own typos.

Ask where they came from. Ask how long they've been out there. Ask if they're alone, and if they say "just me, now", ask what happened to the others.

They only have so much patience. Every question spends some of it, and once they've told you something they won't tell you again. Push too hard, accuse them of something, and they'll stop talking to you.

Sometimes their story changes. If you notice, you can call them on it.

Let them in

They come in, find your fire, and stand there until dawn. You go to bed with a stranger in your house.

If they're hungry, they'll ask. Throw them some food — drop it on the floor, or hold it out and right-click.

If they're honest, morning comes and they thank you and press something into your hands before they go. Somebody's record. A stopped watch. His father's compass. Seeds, if you're lucky — and in this world seeds are worth more than diamonds. Sometimes a map to the home they walked away from, still stocked, still standing.

If they're not honest, you find out when the blade comes out.

You get a warning. You hear it drawn, and there's a moment before the first swing. Beat them down and they'll beg — let them live and they'll tell you where their cache is buried, or finish it and take what they're carrying. Your call.

The trader

Let him in and right-click him — he opens his pack.

He's carrying a different stock every time, and he sells the things this world stopped producing. Seeds. Saplings. Glass for a greenhouse.

He takes metal — and he takes work. A stack of coal, a season of fishing, a pile of bones. If you've spent the winter keeping a fire and a fishing hole going instead of mining, he'll still deal with you.

A living sapling costs a full stack of coal. It's the last tree in the world and he knows exactly what it's worth.

They remember what you do

Kill people at your door and word gets around. Nobody tells you. There's no meter, no number, no notification.

You just start noticing that the knock is always trouble now.

they said u fed a man up here

i heard u dont open. i had nowhere else

Feed people and that comes back to you too.

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Something else is out there

Icy goblins. Small, quick, and they do not care what time it is — they don't burn in the sun and they don't skulk in caves waiting for dark. You'll meet them crossing open snow at noon, usually in twos and threes.

They're faster than a zombie and they hit harder, and they aren't only interested in you. They hunt wolves and goats, because they're starving too and there is very little left alive out here. If you keep animals, they are competition.

Kill one and you get what it was carrying to survive on — coal, bread, torches, a bit of salmon. Sometimes iron. Rarely, the axe it was swinging at you, or the lantern it was carrying.

They have their own voice. You'll hear them before you see them.

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The world got colder and stranger

20 new frozen plants grow across the world — blooms, lichen, icicles, crystals. They rise as the snow stacks around them and sink back down as it melts.

Nine of them glow blue in the dark and light up the snow around them. Find a hollow full of frost crystals at night and you'll see what that's for.

Works in vanilla, and shader support added for Iris.

Snow now hangs off cliffs, sagging over the edge under deep drifts, so the drops look as deep as they are.

Fixes

• Thawing snow no longer melts down to bare dirt
• Plants no longer stop snow from building up around them
• Snow no longer left hanging in mid-air after a thaw
• Your breath no longer falls out of your mouth like spit
• Oases generate correctly again

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Known issue: with NotEnoughAnimations, Punchy or Physics Mod installed, the handheld lantern doesn't show in your off hand. Being looked at.