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Insanity System

The insanity system creates escalating psychological pressure through visual and audio distortion.

Mechanics​

ParameterValue
Increment rate+0.005 per heartbeat per active factor
Decay rate (safe zone)-0.05 per heartbeat
Decay rate (normal)-0.005 per heartbeat
Range0.0 – 1.0 (clamped)

Contributing Factors​

Insanity increases when any of these are active:

  • Player is in a danger zone
  • A monster is nearby
  • The Watcher is active and pursuing

Multiple factors stack additively.

Visual Effects​

Vignette​

  • Red overlay driven by insanity atom
  • Transparency: 1 - insanity (fully opaque at max insanity)
  • Managed by VingetteController UI component

Camera Effects​

  • Sway intensity: insanity * 2
  • Shake increases with insanity level

Safe Zone Recovery​

When a player enters a safe zone:

  • Insanity decays at 10x the normal rate (-0.05 vs -0.005)
  • Combined with health regen (10 HP/sec), safe zones provide full recovery

Implementation​

The insanity state lives in player.store.ts as a client-side atom, updated in the heartbeat effect. The vignette UI component subscribes reactively.

player.store.ts (heartbeat)
  → Reads: dangerZonePlayers, safeZonePlayers, activeMonsters
  → Updates: insanityAtom
  → VingetteController subscribes to insanityAtom
  → Renders red overlay at calculated transparency