Jump to content
MFGamers

Don't Starve


Hendo

Recommended Posts

This is made by the people who did Shank and Mark of the Ninja but isn't anything like those games.

It's a permadeath survival game which can be summed up simply as collect items to create other items in order to collect and make other items.

For example, need rocks to make something? You'll need to make a pickaxe. To make that you'll need to collect some smaller items like flint first.

It has a day/night cycle and at night without fire or some other form of light, the monsters will kill you so that's your first real motivation - start making some progress to build a fire. Also, as the name suggests, you have a rapidly emptying belly so you'll need food to survive. You can find berries on the ground but there are also creatures running around like rabbits that you'll need to build traps and put down suitable bait down to get them.

I've made it at most about 4 days in which I was quite proud of!

This Giant Bomb quick look video gives a good indication of what you do, some UI has changed since then, but it's largely the same.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-dont-starve/2300-6864/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I enjoyed playing this, but I've never gone back to it.

Maybe I'm just shit at it, but I found it a little too tough once I'd hit the 20ish day marker as you start getting hunted down the further into the game you get. There is also a Karma system in the game and if you kill a lot of bunnies, then something (or should that be someone) comes after you.

I found it tricky knowing how to balance myself between collecting resources for building vs collecting resources such as food, I never quite got a handle on making a successful farm or cooking.

great graphics and sound, but there was something missing that's just not pulled me back into playing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I died on day 4 my first go. From said games starvation mechanic no less.

I'm about 10 days into my second go now I've worked bits of the game out. I'm living off seeds, berries, carrots and rabbits. I noticed there was a turkey but couldn't kill it. There's a buffalo type creature as well, but I'm staying away from that. There's an area with these really lanky birds that have nearly killed me. I'm gonna try and kite one away and beat up on it to see what it drops eventually.

Before I wrapped up my session I killed a spiders nest and got some stuff from that. I'm actually thinking I should have left it now as one of the spider drops was a salve that could heal my health. I noticed there's a bees nest near one of my other camps, looking through the science machine it looks like I can keep bees, it might be worth getting the spear out and smacking that bitch up, see if it drops the stuff I need to get me some honey.

The thing that bugs me a little bit about this game is how little feedback it gives you. When you eat it doesn't really tell you how much values are added to your hunger and health, it really could do with some numbers to come up there.

I'm guessing the brain up on the right measures sanity? I'm thinking it goes down every time you kill a rabbit. Not that I'm killing a lot of rabbits, I tend to go north one day, east another,then south etc to give stuff a chance to grow back.

Anyway, my tummy is full, I'm recovering my injuries bit by bit and I have a small camp set up with a chest, a firepit and a planted forest nearby. I've made some weaponry and i've got a backpack and some grass armour. Things are looking a lot better than my first go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Moved these are over here.

The problem for me is the random generating world. It would be fine if I knew where the rocks (for example) were but several games I've spent several fruitless minutes wandering around looking for the materials to build a fireplace only to find them a little too late. I'd always find what I wasn't looking for no matter what it was I was looking for.

Supposedly you can start with previous worlds but I think when you die it all gets wiped and you start over again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...

Spent most of my session trying to avoid this piece of aggressive shrubbery.

2014-08-04_00001_zps91541e8f.jpg

I started hearing weird sounds on a night. I thought it was the spiders that I'd stupidly set up shop near so I went and killed them all and got rid of the nest. About 5 minutes later I was mauled to death by these buggers.

2014-08-04_00002_zps9443a9ef.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I can't see this something you'd get any enjoyment out of. If you like Roguelike games, then this is the sort of game you'll get your kicks from.

It's sort of trial and error a bit. The last game where I got killed by bees I spawned into a world where there was a plantation of berry trees, so I realised what a jackpot I'd hit and started picking as many as I could before those turkey's showed up and started taking food from me. I never thought no more about it until I decided to go back, this is when I learnt that I'd actually robbed the pigmen of berries and they attacked me on sight.

Because I had so much food I noticed that it actually degrades over time, which is pretty shit as even if you pick some new food up it degrades to whatever you picked up earliest.

When I was experimenting I got one of those tree guys chasing me again, although this time the silly bugger walked right over my campfire and set himself ablaze, while he was running about he set a load of trees on fire which i could harvest for charcoal. I would have never figured that you could set trees on fire to get that stuff, it never really occured to me without being shown that I could.

I worked out that you could give the pig king food in return for golden nuggets which comes in handy as you can get a science machine up and running in case you didn't find a gold nugget in some rocks.

I've been experimenting with the tools as well, I don't remember which one it was between the spade and the pitchfork, but you can uproot stuff you need to collect and relocate it into a position where you can farm that shit.

There's holes in the floor here and there that look like the sarlacc pit from Star Wars. If you jump in it it acts as a warp point. It looks like it'd kill you, but it doesn't.

There's still loads of stuff to figure out, I've not played many of the Roguelike games since the explosion in their popularity, but this one seems to be the most complex, there's tons and tons of things to do and see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, this game has really grown on me. You know how when you play FTL it's like a unique story unfolding right in front of your eyes just for you and you only? This is exactly the same except the scope is broader due to how open it is.

This playthrough has gone something like this.

Spawned into the world that was abundant with rocks. went about looking for a good place to set up and found a spelunking hole. A bit further up I found a load of those lanky birds, I got into a fight with them but managed to get out the way.

I decided to go west and found a herd of those buffalo monsters. Decided to pick up all their shit so I could start a farm, while I was doing this I found the extra life totem. Which was nice.

On my way back to camp I found a fort with a chest in the front of it, I opened the chest and the fort set on fire, burning all the loot inside of it. There was a load of items I've never seen before as well.

After settling down I had a really close call with hunger, a crisis I only just managed to avert by chasing bunnies into my traps. I was living hand to mouth at this point.

A bit later on while I was cutting trees one of those tree monsters showed up, I tried setting it on fire but it didn't kill it, so I kited it all the way to the buffalo herd. What a big mistake that was, it was mating season and I narrowly cheated death after being trampled by those woolly bastards.

I kited the evil tree miles away to a pig village to the south, where it killed a fuck load of villagers. I didn't care though, because free meat. Once it'd killed a few things it settled down and stopped attacking me, so I've left it down there for them to deal with.

I jumped in the wormhole and found a nifty shortcut home. Unfortunately my sanity took a really big hit and I started seeing monsters and visions. I made amends to my brain by picking some flowers and making a garland. While I was at it I made a spear and some wooden armour.

I got attacked by hounds, although I was prepared for them and those two little bitches got payback from last time when they killed me.

By this time I'd got a nice little farm up and running that was keeping me well fed as long as I could find seeds. Any shortfalls are filled in by rabbits.

I went and kicked a spiders nest and got me some silk for a bug net. I prepared to get me some bees in a second attempt to make a bee hive so I can have honey to make myself healing salves.

I grew a kickass beard.

In a bit of forgetfulness I managed to fuck up and went into the dark without lighting my fire. Quicking thinking saved the day as I crafted a torch, narrowly avoid another death and sanity collapse.

The bees kick my arse again and I have to regroup and heal up again. I learnt my lesson, bees are fucking dangerous.

I notice that the animal appear to be changing behaviour. Some of them change colour and some of them disappear completely. Then this is what happened.

2014-08-06_00010_zps010d05fa.jpg

Yeah, it snowed. It's made my life a lot harder but hopefully I'll be able to weather the colder and more barren days until the summer comes around and stuff starts to become abundant again. I think I'm going to tool up and go and have a look at that cave I found right at the start of the game and hope that on my way there and back I find enough seeds to make my farm keep my belly full. Either that or I set up another camp so I'm not wasting time and hunger walking back and forth. Decisions are going to have to be made and hopefully they're not shitty enough to get me killed. Because that would be rubbish considering how far I've come.

I'm really surprised no one else here picked up on this game, it's pretty bloody good, even if it can be a bit of a cruel mistress sometimes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And that's it, all over. Winter is really hard, I'm guessing you have to set some sort of animal farm up to keep you going over that period of cold weather as it's just not plausible to live with the stuff you can scratch from the ground. I went 25 days before starving to death and then resurrected at the pig totem, then died the following day from freezing to death. I had a close call running from some guy wearing tartan that would have killed me a day before, but I managed to jump through a wormhole to escape.

Lessons learnt for next time I play? Prepare for winter, Maybe try and put any rabbits I catch into chests so I have a reliable source of food to fall back on if needs must.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...