A Rando 4 connection mod to randomize dark rooms in Hallownest.
Search "DarknessRandomizer" on Scarab to install. Requires Rando 4 and ItemChanger. Compatible with (but does not require) RandoPlus, specifically the "Not Lantern" setting.
Probably doesn't work well with Room Rando, but you're welcome to try.
- Randomize Darkness: Randomize which rooms in Hallownest are dark.
- Darkness Level:
- Dim: Vanilla levels of darkness. Less than 5% of Hallownest will be dark.
- Dark: Moderate levels of darkness. About 10-20% of Hallownest will be dark.
- Darker: Heavy levels of darkness. About 30% of Hallownest will be dark.
- Cursed: Extreme levels of darkness. Up to 50% of Hallownest will be dark.
- Chaos: Select dark rooms at random, ignoring balancing probabilities and adjacency constraints.
- Darkness Level:
- Shattered Lantern: Split Lumafly Lantern into 4 Lantern Shards
- Two Dupe Shards: Add 2 extra Lantern Shards
Some rooms will never be dark, some will never even be dim. Some rooms can only be dark on the Cursed setting.
- Enabling 'Unique Keys' in Duplicate Items settings will double the number of Lantern Shards, if Shattered Lantern is enabled.
- Applying the 'Deranged' constraint ensures that vanilla dark rooms will always be bright instead, if Randomize Darkness is enabled in non-Chaos mode.
- Disabling White Palace and/or Path of Pain in the Long Location settings ensures those areas will not be darkened. Path of Pain can only be dark in Cursed mode.
- Lantern Shards count as major items in All Majors, if unique keys are included.
DarknessRandomizer randomly selects various corners of Hallownest to make dark, and slowly spreads the darkness from them to the rest of the map based on a hand-crafted set of probability and cost weights. High-connectivity areas, especially those traversable with low movement (like crossroads) have low probabilities, while corners of the map like Oro and Soul Sanctum are weighted more highly. This ensures that, most of the time, you will have access to a large swath of the map without Lantern, allowing Logic to place Lantern late in progression and provide interesting seeds.
Darkness is gradual and smooth. Your starting position, and its immediate surroundings, are always well-lit for safety, but at almost any point you can encounter semi-darkness, and then eventually, darkness. Some areas, like Dirtmouth, are always bright.
Similar to No Eyes and the peaks toll gate, dark rooms render certain interactables inoperable without lantern if the room is dark. In general, toll gates, locked doors, and similar devices cannot be interacted with if the room is dark and the player doesn't have Lantern. If you find an interactable that doesn't obey this rule, it's probably a bug or an oversight.
Semi-darkness has no effect on Logic, and only provides a slight challenge increase. In a room with true darkness, all checks and transitions are gated either by having Lantern, or having Dark Rooms enabled in skips.
Most rooms which are trivial and safe to navigate, dark or light, are constrained to be at most semi-dark for simplicity since darkness does not add a unique challenge. However, there are some exceptions for unique purposes. Consult your helper log if unsure.
Rooms with difficult dark enemies are not in Logic while dark unless Difficult Skips and/or Proficient Combat are also enabled in skips. For instance, dark Soul Tyrant is not in logic without Lantern unless Darkrooms, Difficult Skips, and Proficient Combat are all enabled (in addition to standard combat logic).
While DarknessRandomizer generally adds darkness, it can also take it away! Don't forget to check the areas where Hallownest is normally dark, to see if you can make progress there anyway without lantern.