I know that karma rolls back when I die and that I can shield my current level by eating the golden flower, but what does karma do besides not let me enter karma gates of a certain level? (What's behind these doors anyway?) Does it affect the enemy difficulty or Slugcat?
2 Answers
It appears that the only use of the Karma system is to make the player slow down and be careful/take less risks, as these Karmic Gates appear to essentially be the gate to the "next level." I have seen nothing to indicate any other use or side effect of different Karma levels.
From the Wikipedia page:
The player needs to meet a karmic threshold to reach specific areas of the game.
And from this review:
There are literal gates that will only open and close (in an admittedly beautiful sequence) if you have the appropriate karma value when you reach them. If you have explored the open areas available to you as far as you can, you have no choice but to reach the karma level required to open one of the gates -- which means finding something to snack on and sleeping a few days.
I was also able to find a forum that the devs appear to frequent and at one point, explained the rationale behind the Karma mechanic:
This was implemented initially to prevent the tendency of players to throw themselves through the terrain as fast as possible trying to find the next region/shelter/etc, or to just quit when a rain cycle comes in. It slows the pace a bit and rewards a more cautious approach, which is cool. But more importantly imo is that it really brings out the "scarcity" aspect built into the bats/food sources. As you devour bat nests and fruit, they deplete, forcing you to search further and further in the region, and with the map tool you now strategize routes that will allow you to find food and also reach the region gate before the rain hits.
Plus it forces you to become really personal with the local creatures as you are stuck with them for a period of time, and that highlights the procedural creature generation so you get to really experience their individual personalities and how their opinion of you develops. From my perspective this Karma Gate mechanic totally tied all the aspects of the game together, so im super enthused.
So, yeah, tl;dr, karma is basically just a way to bar you from reaching the next area until you can prove that your survival skills are decent.
Karma is used to open the gates to a new region, but there's also a hidden reward associated with the various named glyphs you see when you hibernate ("The Monk", "The Hunter", "The Chieftain" etc).
Here's how it works, as far as I can tell. There is a hidden condition associated with each glyph. You must satisfy this condition and also go to the hibernation pod with a full belly (seven food points) and your karma protected by the golden flower (your karma glyph will have a double circle).
The first time you satisfy this condition you will see a new named glyph in the hibernation exit/continue screen. This named glyph will be connected to the karma level glyph in the center, with a line with a small vertical bar.
Every subsequent night you satisfy the condition (including the full belly and protected karma) the vertical bar will move a bit towards the named glyph. When the bar reaches the named glyph, the glyph will light up and display its title.
Once this happens, you'll see a third option in the hibernation screen, along with "exit" and "continue". This third option reads "passage" and it lets you continue from any shelter you've previously slept in, anywhere in Rain World.
Some named glyphs have a few circles instead of a bar, like links in a chain. I think when you satisfy the conditions of those glyphs the chain "links" light up.
So far I've manged to light up two glyphs, so I know their conditions:
- The Hunter requires you to hunt and eat only bats.
- The Monk requires you to eat only plant foods.
Another one, "The Chieftain" was first activated when I first reached the Garbage Wastes. That's all I know so far.
Finally, if you have Steam, the names of the named glyphs correspond to Steam achievements that are unlocked when a named glyph lights up. The Steam achievements' comments give a hint to each named glyph's requirement - for instance, the comment for "The Monk" is "Path of the vegetarian" and the one for "The Hunter" is "Path of the carnivore".
The screenshot shows four "completed" named glyphs, The Monk (middle left), The Hunter (bottom left), The Saint (middle right) and The Survivor (top right) and two uncompleted ones, The Saint (bottom right) and The Chieftain (top left).
