Have you been looking for a new game to play?! Why not try Don’t Starve by Klei Entertainment. It was released in June of 2013 and is a survival game. You can get it from the Steam Store.
I’ve only been playing it for a month or two but really enjoy it. I’ll just go over a few basics of the game, since I’m still a noob myself. When you first play, you have to play as Wilson. As you can see, he’s a scientist.
Wilson wakes up in a world where you have to keep him alive as long as possible. The game goes through different times of the day and different seasons.
The slots at the bottom of the screen is your inventory. The three slots on the far right end are your equipment slots. The first equipment slot is what’s in your hand. The second is what you’re wearing or your bag to carry more items. The third slot is what you’re wearing on your head. The left side of the screen is the crafting area.
The trackers for the day/night cycle, hunger, health and sanity are found in the upper right hand corner. Click the map icon in the bottom right corner to see the map or press Tab. You won’t see much on your map until you actually explore the world. You can click the pause icon to pause the game or simply click Esc.
At the beginning of the game, you start out with nothing. You can gather materials such as grass, flint, flowers, twigs, etc. Keep gathering to make tools, light items, fight items, survival items, science items, and dress items. If the icons in the crafting area turn green, that means you can make something from that category.
When I can, I usually make an axe first to cut down trees for logs. It turns to dusk when the day/night cycle tracker gets to the red section. Once it hits the blue section, it will be night time, and you don’t want to be stuck in the dark with no light. Make a campfire with logs and grass before it is night. Do not make a fire pit until you have found a place you want to settle at. The fire pit requires stones, which you can either pick up or mine for with a pickaxe. It cannot not be moved unless by hammer or a special staff. The fire pit provides a good amount of light and can easily be lit again, unlike the campfire that turns to ashes once the fire is out.
You’ll also have to keep Wilson fed. Early on, you can gather berries and carrots. Different food items give different stat boosts. You can cook food with campfires and fire pits to give better boosts than eating them raw. Don’t gather too much food as it will start to spoil if not cooked or eaten, and it’ll also take up more inventory space, since raw and cooked food are kept separately. The food starts out green, turns yellow, and then red when spoiled. Obviously, eating spoiled food will lower your stats.
Try your best to keep Wilson sane. One way to do this is to pick flowers. Picking flowers raises sanity. You can also make a garland to wear when you have 12 petals. While wearing the garland, your sanity will increase. If your garland is wet, don’t wear it. The garland also spoils, but will increase sanity at the same rate all the way until it is completely worn out. As your sanity gets lower, you’ll start to see eyes in the dark, Shadow Creatures may appear, and your screen may start to get distorted.
There are other creatures in this world with you such as pigs, spiders, rabbits, penguins, beefalo and many more. Some creatures appear only during certain seasons. Creatures such as spiders will always attack you, so don’t get too close if you’re not equipped to fight. Fighting is done by pointing and clicking with your mouse. When some of the creatures are in heat, they will attack if you get too close.
One more helpful tip to mention is that Wilson runs faster when he is on an actual road. The road changes depending on what environment you’re in, but you should still be able to tell. Use this to your advantage when you’re trying to get away from an enemy.
There are so many other things to learn in the game. Maybe I’ll do another post with more tips. If you want to play with other people. you can get Don’t Starve Together instead. Go get the game, explore for yourself, and have some fun!
Have you played Don’t Starve or Don’t Starve Together? What did you think of it? Do you have any other games in mind that I should try playing?
I love this game!