Shadowcreaturespawner

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-03

Overview

Shadowcreaturespawner is a server-side-only component responsible for dynamically managing shadow creature populations in response to player sanity and game state. It spawns creatures when a player enters or approaches low-sanity thresholds and adjusts population size continuously based on sanity degradation, induced lunacy modes, and terrain constraints. It interacts closely with the sanity component to determine appropriate spawn behavior and with walkableplatform (for boats) to ensure valid spawn locations.

Usage example

This component is automatically added to the world entity (not player entities) during world initialization and requires no manual instantiation. Its behavior is triggered through internal event listeners.

-- Example: Observing debug output for current shadow creature count
-- (Only possible if you have access to the world's shadowcreaturespawner component)
if TheWorld.components.shadowcreaturespawner then
    print(TheWorld.components.shadowcreaturespawner:GetDebugString())
end

Dependencies & tags

Components used: sanity, walkableplatform Tags: None identified.

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
inst	Entity	nil	The entity instance that owns this component (the world).

Main functions

SpawnShadowCreature(player, params)

• Description: Spawns a single shadow creature near the specified player, choosing between land (crawlinghorror / terrorbeak) or ocean (oceanhorror) variants based on proximity to a boat, sanity level, and terrain validity. Updates internal tracking tables and registers cleanup listeners on the spawned entity.
• Parameters:
  • player (Entity) — The player for whom to spawn the creature.
  • params (table?) — Optional player-specific tracking table. If omitted, looks up _players[player].
• Returns: nil.
• Error states: No explicit error handling — invalid spawn positions or missing components (e.g., walkableplatform on a boat) are gracefully ignored or fall back to alternate behavior.

GetDebugString()

• Description: Returns a human-readable string indicating the total number of active shadow creatures spawned for all players.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: string — "1 shadowcreature" or "<N> shadowcreatures" if creatures exist; empty string otherwise.

Events & listeners

• Listens to:

  • ms_playerjoined — Registers new players to begin tracking.
  • ms_playerleft — Stops tracking and cleans up for exiting players.
  • inducedinsanity — Resets player-specific spawner timers when induced insanity begins or ends.
  • sanitymodechanged — Re-initializes population tracking when sanity mode changes.
  • ms_exchangeshadowcreature — Re-tracks a creature after exchange (e.g., via Abigail’s ability).
  • onremove (on spawned creatures and players) — Removes creatures from tracking and marks them for deserialization.
  • entitysleep (on spawned creatures) — Immediately removes creatures when player sleeps.

• Pushes: None identified.