roadtovostok
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Mental Stat + HUD
🕑 Added 2025-09-09 09:44:17 +0000 UTCHi! Just a little heads-up that I decided to activate the Mental stat from the commercial branch to this final demo.
This vital is a new one and it's linked to medical condition called Insanity. The decrease of this specific vital is pretty slow, so it's not something that you should constantly keep worrying about.
This vital stat can be increased by "enjoyable things" in a post-apo scenario like warm food, snacks, sleeping and certain vices like cigarettes etc.
There's also now negative stat effects in place, so if you drink a pipe cleaner bottle or something unsuitable for human consumption it will directly drop the health stat and activate a medical condition like poisoning.
In this mental case, if you eat / drink something "nasty" like cat food it will drop the mental vital like shown in the tooltip.
Also one of the main UI related complains from the demo was that the HUD stats bar was quite hard to see, so in this video you can also see the new HUD stats layout which you can hide / toggle from the demo settings.
-Antti (Developer)
Comments
Lachlan
Snus is going to become an essential for survival in Vostok... Could be cool if to have environmental triggers for a sanity drop like being near decomposing corpses, extended combat, oppressive darkness etc. Lots of different potential angles for a stat like this. Amnesia the Dark Descent handled sanity in a fairly interesting way, where you start getting hallucinations & visual distortions and eventually collapse for a period of time when at critically low sanity.
BlackVomit
What does the 0 mental health cause for the player?
Fonzi
I remember probably over year ago, maybe two, you mentioned the planned mental/sanity mechanic. I am looking forward to seeing the details on how this works in its full-fleshed state.
GrassyKnoll68
You spoke wisely, Nubb3r. Maybe the long term goals will get revealed from the backstory and lore. What easily applicable single events might incrementally boost your mental health in a survival situation? Some ideas here: + having a hot meal + fixing up your shelter/outboard engine + crafting pieces of furniture + finding a 100% bedroll or helmet + getting fish or small game + chatting/bartering with a nomad + getting something fixed/crafted + taking a sauna bath or a swim in a pond + getting a map cleared + completing a trader task/task level + making it back to the shelter wounded + finding missing parts/ammo for your weapon + watching campfire/sunrise/sunset over the water + delivering 100% (dry) firewood to Grandma (maybe a service?)
Road to Vostok
Body Temp is related to the winter mode and cold. 100 means normal and the lower it goes, the colder the character becomes and at 0 it actives the medical condition hypothermia etc.
mns1188
Is it possible to display body temperature in °C instead of 0-100? If the temperature is within the normal range, could it be displayed in green, and if it rises or falls, it could be displayed in red or yellow.
Nubb3r
Long time lurker checking in again after months. The mental stat is a great idea for making survival more interesting. Basic needs such as water, food, shelter, warmth are kind of easy to get by. IRL you can see it in shows like Alone where it becomes a mental marathon after the first week or so. In literature/movies, thinking of I am Legend for example, the protagonist is working towards a long term goal, or is on an adventure/journey, thinking The Last of Us. Those two elements, staying sane and at the same time working on long term goals or exploring (they are linked deep in the human psyche) make a video game with these themes worthwhile. This is the reason why the „hobo phase“ in Stalker Gamma or Project Zomboid or even a new Wipe in Tarkov is agreed to be the most fun times by most. These games are awesome but it highlights that they lack long term / end game content that preserves the good vibes of the beginning. I don’t know what the plans for late game are, or how deep the mental mechanic goes in RtV, but I am sure you take this aspect serious and I can’t wait to play the final product!
