Sanity

"I get crazy when I don't sleep."

- Wilson

Being alone in the wilderness will take its toll on the character's mental state after a few days. The effect it has can be seen through Sanity, represented by a counter alongside  and. As sanity decreases, strange things start to happen: the player's vision becomes shaky, over-saturated, and bright, whispers are heard, and Shadow Creatures start to appear. When the character becomes completely insane, these creatures become aggressive and start to attack.

Characters can gain and lose sanity in various ways. A small animated arrow appears in front of the, showing when sanity is increasing or decreasing. A bigger arrow means that sanity is increasing / decreasing faster. Being in close proximity to Monsters, Darkness, Rain, or eating bad Food decreases sanity; while wearing dapper clothes, eating jerky and Crock Pot food, being near friendly Pigs, and sleeping increases sanity. See the Sanity Table below for a complete list.

Due to the fact that several magical items decrease sanity when used, it could be thought of as a sort of mana that is depleted by magic use. However, having little sanity brings about its own benefits (for example getting Nightmare Fuel for powerful weapons and armor.)

Character Specifics
Monsters drain more sanity when playing as Wolfgang (+10%) and less as Wendy. Willow has less maximum sanity (120) and Wickerbottom has more than average (250). WX-78 has variable amounts of maximum sanity, depending on how much he is upgraded (starting at 100 and can be upgraded to a maximum of 300). Wilson, Wendy, Wolfgang, Woodie and Maxwell all have a maximum of 200 sanity. Wes has 150 sanity. Maxwell's sanity is restored at a rate of 20 points per minute by default.

Wendy (because she loses less sanity in darkness and when near monsters), Willow (because she can negate nighttime sanity loss when near fire) and Wolfgang (because when mighty, fights last only for half the time) are characters which have the potential to stay sane longer when compared to other characters if used correctly.

Insanity Effects

 * Complete Insanity.pnging starts to become desaturated in overworld and caves. In ruins, lightning brightens instead. ( ≤ 100% sanity) Near total insanity, lighting even dims.
 * Mr. Skits starts to appear ≤ 160
 * Eyes will appear in darkness. ( ≤ 60% of max character's sanity)
 * The screen starts to shake (nausea). ( ≤ 60% of max character's sanity)
 * Shadow watchers and night hands start to appear at night. ≤ 130
 * Crawling Horrors and Terrorbeaks will become visible ( ≤ 100).
 * You start to hear the insanity ambience ( ≤ 50% of max character's sanity) but it's so quiet, you can only hear it with headphones or by turning the volume up. It gets louder when your sanity drops.
 * Rabbits will turn into beardlings. Bunnymen turn into Beardlords . ( ≤ 40% of max character's sanity)
 * You begin to hear whispering. ( ≤ ?% of max character's sanity)
 * The screen is surrounded by black tendrils. When insane ( ≤ 30), the tendrils turn red, presumably indicating a headache.
 * Crawling Horrors and Terrorbeaks will start to attack ( ≤ 30).
 * Your character starts holding his/her head in their hands and nod back and forth.
 * In the options you can turn off distortion, resulting in the blurry effect on the edges not occurring, which helps boost performance on slow systems.

Trivia

 * Sanity was first introuduced in the "Insanity!" update.

РассудокSanity