Don't Starve

By: Robert Murphy

One piece of advice that you can take into any sort of game is to be wary of the kiddy looking games because they can end up being the most grueling and tough games you will ever play. Don’t Starve is exactly one of those games that looks cute and fun on the outside, it features an enjoyable color pallet and a style that looks like it came right out of a story book. However, this story book was directed by Tim Burton and is filled with creepy looking creatures that will take you out at a moments notice. Add on top of this the fact that you are a lone human that has been transported to this strange world with no supplies or information on how to survive and are now expected to somehow survive. No clues, no hints, you have nothing but your wits to help you along the way and the sinking suspicion that you should be afraid of moments things that inhabit this world.

Many games today come with a detailed layout of what you must accomplish to survive or what your goal is going to be in order to beat it, but Don’t Starve doesn’t have any of that. When you start Survival Mode a strange man stands before you, he appears to be quite malevolent and spouts out a quick quip and then disappears into a cloud of smoke, leaving you in a strange new world. That’s basically all you get. I naturally started to walk around and picked up every little thing I came across as I didn’t know what I would need to survive I just knew I needed things of some sort. From here you wonder around collecting this and that with the goal of surviving as long as you can through nights, days, harsh winters and the strange creatures around you. The whole thing is really quite charming if you take a moment to soak it all in and not thinking of the horrors that lay in waiting. The game features a pleasant little soundtrack as you move along and your character chimes in with little insights as well.

Not everything is cut and dry with Don’t Starve, there are plenty of odd and eerie beings and events that you will come across on the randomly generated map. Players will undoubtedly stumble across random mushrooms, strange willow trees and interdimensional portals that lead God knows where. I was too frightened to try and jump into one; I was too frightened to do a lot of things my first playthrough. An interesting risk/reward system comes out of this system of just not knowing what everything does, you will have to try it and find out. I still don’t think I know what cooked red mushroom does all I know is that it made my characters stomach hurt and that I probably shouldn’t eat anymore of it, I’d probably end up sick and dead if I did. Players will have to try everything out for themselves to learn how everything works and it’s something I deeply enjoyed, there’s no warning labels in this world and you have to use your best judgment and learn how to survive on your own.

Death isn’t something you should fear though in the game because it is bound to happen at some point during your time playing. Once you die you’re forced to start all over again from scratch in an entirely different world, resources could end up being scares and you may have to change up your gameplay style from last time, you just don’t know will be waiting for you next. It’s not a huge change but new maps do mean new possibilities and chances to learn and that’s what death really is in Don’t Starve, you take what killed you last time and apply it to your game this time around.

Death also plays a key role in getting new characters for you to try out too, the longer you survive in any given game, the more experience points you get when you die. Other characters have certain attributes such as resilience to fire or come with their own unique tool that they prefer to use. Not all of the characters have positive benefits though; some characters like the strong man make it harder to survive. This character is super buff and can take a beating but he requires an insane amount of food to stay healthy and constantly needs battle to keep his mental acuity up.

Outside of Survival Mode there is another game type to shake things up slightly for players, Adventure Mode. The mode doesn’t bring anything new to the table like a story mode but it does present players with a variety of different challenges and adversities to overcome. You may end up on a map with a never ending winter or a map with very little meat where before the only thing you really needed to do was eat. The maps can be insanely tough, tougher than the maps already were but you just have to put all the skills you have learned to good use and make your way through.

The only thing that keeps a game like Don’t Starve from being a complete game is the amount of time you may actually end up dying. Yes, maps do randomly generate but you have to start from scratch all over again on a map that really isn’t all that different from the previous one. I guess it really depends on your own willingness to play the game over and over again doing the same things each time that will keep you going but I found everything in the world to be a rich and an enjoyable experience. For those of you who enjoy a good challenge and a true survival style game than this will be one that you will want to try.

Good:

Delightful art style and soundtrack

A rough/tough survival experience

Ever changing maps makes each playthrough a new experience

Bad:

The tough difficulty won’t be for everyone

The game can feel repetitive if you don’t play smart and die quite often

Scully Rating: 8.0 out of 10