Terraria: The Candyland

The Candyland was a scrapped Hallow alternative initially mentioned during a Q&A with Re-Logic. The idea was cool sounding to me, so I decided to have a go at making my own Candyland biome, entirely from the ground-up.

This here is my attempt at designing said biome type...

[The Candyland/Confection]

The Candyland, or the 'Confection' as my friend Skeng called it, was a formerly-planned biome that was going to exist as an alternative to the Hallow at some point in the same way the Crimson is for the Corruption. In the initial interview it is only mentioned very briefly; "...We also had concepts for a Candyland version of the Hallow...".

While it never came to fruition back then, some elements may have slipped into the modern iterations of the Hallow, as there are some aspects of the Hallow that do have links to food, even if minor, such as the Blessed Apple or the Gelatin Crystal.

Everything below this point is custom-made to parallel the existing Hallow to minimise the biome bias towards players so that neither the Hallow or Confection provide strict gameplay benefits over the other, or that these are generally kept to a minimum.

The Biome Overview

The Confection spawns the same way as the Hallow does; appearing after the 'Ancient Spirits of Light and Dark' message generated upon defeating the Wall of Flesh. As such, there are minimal special structures in the biome since it is forced to generate over existing terrain.

As with the Hallow, the Confection will spread gradually over most terrain types, though not over other spreading biomes or onto mud blocks, thus it cannot destroy glowing mushroom biomes or the jungle without manual player interaction.

Most of the blocks, materials and enemies present here will have some sorts of parallels back to the Hallow, since it is fundamentally the counterpart to the Hallow.



The Confection's theme, as the name implies, is sweets/candy. Bear in mind I am British so there's a risk of a lot of things having slightly different names over here compared to elsewhere, especially if referencing existing sweets, so I will try to include extra descriptors such as text descriptions and pictures where possible.

To start, candy floss trees and natural foliage made from an assortment of sweets of varying varieties. Large chunks of hard candy replace the background rock formations that worms can normally be found in, and as expected enemies and critters are updated, though this will be expended upon later.

Blocks

Being a new biome comes with new block types, primarily being block types that override the existing blocks upon spawning in.

Candywood and Candystone are the current placeholder names for the wood and stone replacements, with dirt remaining the same for the sake of generation. Sand is replaced with Candysand and ice becomes Mint Ice.

Unlike other spreading biomes snow, too, is replaced with Ice Cream blocks. These will not generate as the biome spreads and are thus finite, only limited to the initial area the biome spawns in, except for a single special enemy which will also be mentioned later.

Furniture

This section is primarily broken down into wood furniture and paintings, both of which are grouped under the 'Furniture' heading:


The Candywood furniture is, as expected, the wooden furniture set made from Candywood. Despite being made of wood, the furniture itself is designed to depict various sweets over a wooden framework. This is more obvious with larger furniture items, such as the bookshelf's use of candy canes and icing decorations.


The two Hallow paintings are also replaced here, those being an overview of the biome sold by the painter and the Pink Floyd reference artworks.
The Painter's art now depicts part of the Confection with a Fairy Floss slime between some trees.
The Princess' 'Dark Side of the Hallow' painting is instead replaced with 'Wishing You Were Here', which depicts players in Pearlwood and Candywood Armour shaking hands in reference to the Wish You Were Here album cover.

Wood

Candywood, aside from simply acting as a place-able block and a material for furniture, also retains other uses such as a sword, bow, hammer, and armour.

The Candy Sword and Candy Bow are fairly weak weapons, roughly on-tier with Pearlwood's items, as is the hammer's hammer power. The Candywood Armour, however, actually provides even less defence than the Pearlwood Armour but, in turn, grants movement speed buffs as a set bonus. Still less useful than other Hardmode armours, but not entirely useless.

Surface Overview

The surface of the Confection has been mentioned primarily in the general biome overview from before, though other details such as enemies will be covered here.

Note that the Blessed Apple and Confection Key can be dropped by most/all enemies here and thus will not be mentioned specifically.



The 'forest' Confection will have Jawbreakers, Candy Pixies and Fairy Floss spawning during the day. These act like Angry Tumblers, Pixies and Slimes, respectively, though the Jawbreaker will become smaller and faster at half health. Fairy Floss will also become wet in the rain and will move slower, but still floats on water.

At night, Chocopods will spawn in-place of Jawbreakers. Chocopods follow Gastropod AI, but launch fast-moving balls of chocolate instead of lasers.

In deserts, Gummies will spawn. Gummies are the Mummies of the Confection and share identical drops to it.

Finally, Ice Dreams may spawn rarely during blizzards, acting as the Rainbow Slime of this biome.



3 critters are tied to the surface Confection. Gummy Worms can be found in rocks and grass, as well as spawning while it rains, and Cinnamon Buns will replace most natural Bunny spawns. Liquorice Lacewings can spawn Post-Plantera, though are exceptionally rare.



-Drop-wise Jawbreakers will drop Jawbreaker Shards that have the same use as Unicorn Horns, or rarely Gumball Greaves, a set of vanity leggings.
-Candy Pixies drop Pixie Dust or rarely Candy Wrappings, a bow-like vanity helmet.
-Fairy Floss drop Flossy Blocks, a building block, or rarely the vanity Floss-Fur Coat.
-Chocopods share drops with Gastropods, which mainly consists of Gel.
-Gummies, as discussed, share drops with Light Mummies.
-Ice Dreams will drop Ice Cream Blocks, making them the only renewable source, as well as a chance to drop a full set of Ice Cream vanity.

Underground Overview

The Confection underground acts very much like the Hallow underground; having its own set of unique enemies and having the unique property to grow Crystal Shards and Gelatin Crystals off of the surrounding Candystone.

Chaos Fish are replaced with Sugarfins in the Confection, though these serve the same purpose.

As before, all enemies here can drop the biome key and the Blessed Apple and thus won't be addressed individually.



Gumball Slimes and Gummy Bats make up the main enemies found down here, acting as Slimes and Bats, respectively. Sugar Elementals and Candy Pickaxes can also spawn, the former acting as Chaos Elementals and the latter like Enchanted Swords.

In the underground desert, Drooling Ghouls replace regular Ghouls.

Minty Pigrons will also spawn in the underground ice biome, though these aren't drawn due to their main change being colour-based as opposed to actual design.

Candy Mimics can also spawn here rarely, but these will be addressed later.



-Gumball Slimes share their loot pool with Illuminant Slimes
-Gummy Bats have the same loot pool as Illuminant Bats
-Sugar Elementals can drop the same items as Chaos Elementals, but may also drop a vanity outfit based on their own or the Peppermint Swirl; a highly-agile, early-Hardmode Yo-yo
-The Candy Pickaxe has the same loot as Enchanted Swords, but can also drop a Pickaxe comparable to the Molten Pickaxe, though it mines noticeably faster
-Drooling Ghouls have the same drops as other Ghouls
-Minty Pigrons share their drops with other Pigrons

Candy Mimics

The biome's respective Biome Mimic. The Candy Mimic shares its stats and attacks with the other Biome Mimics, fortunately, though has its own assortment of drops.



The Floss Flux is a bow that fires 2 arrows at a time, but otherwise functions fairly normally.

The Candy Hook is a hook based on a candy necklace. It functions identically to the Illuminant Hook.

The Sweet Tooth is a shortsword-type weapon that deals moderate damage and also grants lifesteal upon hitting an enemy.

The Chef's Cookbook will magically launch eating utensils such as spoons, knives and forks quickly when used. These are affected by gravity and thus have limited range, but deal decent damage.

The Gummy Heart is an accessory. It grants increased health regen and causes heart pick-ups to heal 25 health. Furthermore, its health regen benefit will get stronger when below half health.

Choconaut

The first significantly special enemy compared to the Hallow. Choconauts spawn at the Confection surface at night, though only after Plantera is defeated.

Choconauts are humanoid robots made mostly of chocolate, though they seem to have scarves, belts and 'hair' made of black liquorice. While they do have heads the area where their faces should be are entirely smooth and lack any sort of facial details.



Choconauts are initially passive, though are aggressive if attacked enough to bring them below 90% health. They rush down the player in a manner akin to Bone Lee, but can also perform massive leaps through the air and can launch large blasts of boiling chocolate at the player.



Choconauts always release a Liquorice Lacewing on defeat with a roughly second-long delay, compensating for their otherwise-abysmal spawn rate but also minimising the risk of the player accidentally killing the Lacewing as it spawns. They can also drop a vanity set based on their design, as well as Hot Chocolate; a food item that provides the player with the Exquisitely Stuffed buff.

Biome Chest

Continuing the trend of Post-Plantera content is the biome chest. The 'Candy Chest' spawns where the Hallow Chest would've been in the Dungeon and, as expected, can be opened with the Confection Key dropped rarely by Confection enemies.

The Candy Chest always contains the Peppermint Popper; a magic weapon. The Peppermint Popper releases an arc of peppermint-like projectiles when used that decelerate after being fired, eventually stopping and lingering in the air for a while before despawning. The peppermint projectiles deal damage on contact, can hit up to 3 enemies before breaking, and can be destroyed manually if hit by a melee weapon.

Vanity Outfits & Armour

The final heading before the more exciting ones is a final quick overview of the outfits that the Confection has to offer. While the Hallow doesn't really have an existing alternative to the vanities, they do not affect gameplay and I could probably design some if I deemed it necessary... or just allow some Hallow enemies to drop some of the vanities.

The Armours do have Hallow alternatives, however, and thus are actually not an issue here.



Candy Crusader Armour is the alternative to the Crystal Assassin Armour, providing more defence and health-related benefits in exchange for the Crystal Assassin's damage and mobility benefits. However, Candy Crusader Armour still grants the dash with its set bonus. Its obtaining method is in the next heading...

Candywood Armour is crafted from Candywood. It provides only a small amount of defence, as well as a slight mobility buff as a set bonus. It is the alternative to the Hallow's Pearlwood Armour.

The Choconaut Shell is a vanity set dropped rarely from Choconauts. The set is dropped altogether.

The Sugar Rush Shirt and Shorts are a vanity set dropped from Sugar Elementals. The pieces are dropped individually.

The Candy Connoisseur vanity set is divided among 3 enemy types, each of whom drop their own respective piece. Candy Pixies drop the bow, Fairy Floss drop the coat, and Jawbreakers drop the boots.

The Ice Dream set is dropped uncommonly by Ice Dreams. The set drops altogether.

Boss: Sugar Rush Slime

The Sugar Rush Slime is the Queen Slime replacement in the Confection. It is summoned by using a Gelatin Crystal in the Confection as opposed to the Hallow.



The Sugar Rush Slime has 2 phases. In Phase 1 it mainly hops along the ground, launching globs of creme upwards that rain down around it, teleporting, launching bouncing globs of gel towards the player, and spawning 3 minion types as it takes damage.

The Creme Slime acts like Spiked Slimes, though it launches globs of creme and has a greater projectile range. Sugar Slimes are regular slimes, though they have high mobility and knockback resistance, and the Choco Slimes will launch chocolate spikes towards the player roughly every second as long as the player is within range.

Phase 2 doesn't see the Sugar Rush Slime grow wings like its counterpart, with it instead focusing more on its teleportation; constantly emerging near the player either to drop down upon them, lunge at them from nearby, or simply get close enough to use one of its 2 projectile attacks. It still spawns minions as it takes damage, as well as getting faster as it loses health.



The Sugar Rush Slime explodes into gibs upon defeat, dropping its loot as it does so.




The Sugar Rush Slime has a unique series of drops. It can drop a summoner staff that summons minions based on the boss' minions that act like a superior Slime Staff, with a further additional chance to rarely spawn a slightly more humanoid slime that acts identically. It may drop 1 or 2 pieces of the Candy Crusader Armour depending on difficulty. It can drop place-able vanity cushions that look like macarons, cupcakes, or similar to the boss or its minions. It can also drop the Gelatinous Pillon, despite not using wings itself.

Its Mask looks like the boss, though the creme extends down almost like a ponytail. The Trophy appears to be a segment of the boss cleanly cut away from the rest of its body.

Its Expert drop is the Sugary Delicacy. This spawns two Candy Pixies near the player that automatically charge at nearby enemies occasionally.

In Master Mode it drops the Sugary Delight; a pet that looks like a small version of the boss itself.

Boss: Liquorice

Liquorice is a Post-Plantera Confection boss spawned by killing a Liquorice Lacewing. It is the Confection's Empress of Light counterpart. She appears to be a humanoid entity made of grey and black liquorice and dark chocolate; sweets known for actually being quite strong or bitter.

Liquorice is currently only a placeholder name while I think of a better pun...



Like the Empress, Liquorice has a predetermined attack order which she cycles through. She can summon homing sugar crystals, chocolate spears, swirling clouds of candy floss, peppermints that leave damaging trails, and larger spears made of liquorice. Most of her attacks leave sparkling trails of white, silver, blue, yellow and pink.

Her Phase 2 projectiles are mostly the same, but are used in a different order. Noticeably, across both phases, she lacks any sort of dash attack but compensates for having more projectile variety.



Liquorice does have an enraged form, similar to the Empress, however its trigger and effects are different. To summon an enraged Liquorice a Liquorice Lacewing must be killed in the underworld to summon her. While in the underworld or the caverns directly above it, she will have an increased attack speed and will deal roughly 50% more damage per attack which stacks with other damage changes such as world difficulty. If taken too far from the underworld she will cool down and spend the rest of the fight in her normal form.



If defeated Liquorice will visibly disappear in a small burst of light. She does drop some small gibs that appear to be tattered parts of her dress and/or boots, however.




Liquorice has an assortment of drops, as expected. Her standard drops include the Liquorice Lace; a summoner whip. She drops the Candy Crystal Cannon; a shotgun-like ranged weapon that acts similar to the Onyx Blaster. Her mage drop is the Chocolantern that summons homing versions of her candy floss clouds near the player. Finally, her melee weapon is the Chocolance; a spear that is thrown and creates stationary chocolate spikes as it travels. She can drop the Candy Cursor, Liquorice Wings and multiple bottles of dye uncommonly as well. Her rarest normal drop is the Bittersweet Serenade; a violin with a 2% drop rate that summons musical note minions. Finally, if 100% of damage is dealt to her while enraged she drops the Sugarsworn Sceptre; a giant lollipop swung like a sword that creates damaging homing sparkles and grants lifesteal on direct melee hits.

Her Mask is basically her head, complete with a long trail of hair. Her Trophy is made of a strand of liquorice and a strand of chocolate that both curve inwards, forming a heart shape.

Her Expert drop is the Liquorice Threads; a pair of boots that grant several buffs. They increase water mobility, grant running speed comparable to Frostspark Boots, grant a short-ranged dash and also grant brief flight and fall damage immunity.

Her Master Mode drop is a light pet that is basically a mini Liquorice carrying a lantern.

Achievements

Of course a new biome with new items and new bosses entails new achievements. I kept it minimal, down to only 3, each of which being a parallel to an existing Hallow achievement.

Get Served:
Defeat the Sugar Rush Slime, an aggressive but delicious malleable menace
(Note: I was going to simply fuse its achievement with Queen Slime's, but decided not to. Pic is also the same reference as its trophy)

Bittersweet:
Defeat Liquorice, a passive but powerful guardian of these sugary lands
(Note: Parallel to the Fae Flayer achievement, even having a similar portrait)

Minty Fresh:
Use the Peppermint Swirl to pop the Peppermint Popper's mints
(Note: Parallel to Rainbows and Unicorns; being an achievement that requires interaction between a rare drop from the biome's enemies, as well as the biome chest's unique item)

[Final Notes]

And that was basically my attempt to try and design the unused Candyland biome to the current Hallow standard.

It's a little unfortunate all the images were in black and white, but I didn't have the spare time left over to re-draw every image on my laptop again, and the pictures I hope are still clear enough to demonstrate the general look and feel of the biome even if the colours are absent.

But, hey, at least the thumbnail art has some nice colours in it:




Anyways, with that, I hope you enjoyed and I hope that my excessive ramblings about designing scrapped game content wasn't too hard to read and understand. I've been planning to do this for a few weeks now and only recently gotten time, especially since another Terraria-related project is currently in the works.

Anyways, hope to see you next time for whatever it is I upload next :)




(Also fun fact a robot made of chocolate, assuming it is solid chocolate, would still hurt.

[Bonus Arts]

So, I was not expecting this page to receive anywhere near this much attention, but I'm grateful that it did and I'm glad to see people liked it

Thus, I was inspired to do some more Candyland/Confection-related doodles, hope you like 'em :)

[geotryoff]

honestly seems like a great idea

[Krommy]

love what i see here ,,, just a thought but think it would be a good side pillar run before empress of light

[Okami Tomato]

Woo! 1000 views on a side project thing, thanks guys :)

[Okami Tomato]

I... wasn't going to take offense anyways
But no offense taken dw

[Team Graef]

no offense

[Team Graef]

about the choco bot one where he got groin-shot, I say this in the most respectful way:
LOL GET REKT

[SolarPoweredEggs]

you gigachad. you made a biome.

[Spookypizza]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2779260215 woooo

[Astro Bee]

This is AMAZING. I'm blimen 10 years old and this is awesome. I'd love to see a mod for this, Keep up the good work!

[Okami Tomato]

:)