Survive

Don’t Starve is a game about survival. It came out in 2013 and was made by Klei Entertainment. The goal is to not starve, of course. Well it’s harder than it sounds.

I’m huddled by a fire. In the dead of night. I ate some raw monster meat. That was bad for my stomach and my mental health. I might be going mad. I’m being hunted by some kind of demonic shadow hound.

It’s circling me. It’s is not shadow anymore, It is real. I ready my homemade spear. The Hound pounces.

I die.

That’s how I died in my longest running game of Don’t Starve. I survived for about two weeks.

The Game-structure, Game-world and Gameplay works together and underlines the theme and creates a real experience of survival.

This in a beautiful, odd and creepy world.

Don’t Starve is a really good game…

Don’t Starve

In the beginning of the game you can only play as Wilson the Gentleman Scientist. You unlock other characters the longer you survive.

When you start a game you wake up in a field with a man standing over you saying: “you better find something to eat before night comes”. That is the only information you get. Now it’s all a matter of surviving.

In the top right corner you have a clock counting down to evening and the night. It also tells you how many days you have survived thus far. There is also a counter showing your health, hunger and sanity.

In the bottom of the screen there is an inventory and a map. The map only shows what you have explored so far. In the beginning it’s a depressing sight filled almost exclusively with black.

There is a toolbar in the left side of the screen with different menus: tools, light, survival, science, fight and dress.

And that is all the information the game-world gives you. That’s a problem if you want to live… And that is one part that makes the game great.

Survival

Survival takes skill, knowledge and luck.

The gameplay doesn’t require much skill. The skills are represented by what you can craft. But you have to figure out what to craft and why.

The game doesn’t give you any knowledge about anything. You don’t know what things are good for what, you only know what can be used to craft things.

Luck is represented by the random generated world.

The game gives you minimum information about the game-structure. At first you don’t know that will happen and why.

It is not that the gameplay is particular hard. It consist of running around collecting things and interacting with objects.

When the cursor hovers over an object some text appears. It tells you what you can do. Like “pick grass” or “examine”.

When you have collected enough of a resource it can be used to craft new items.

In the different menus you can see what can be crafted from what.

In tools you can build an axe from sticks and stones. This in turn can be used to chop down trees. The wood can then be used to build a fire.

The gameplay is thus a race to gather resources. To obtain new resources. To be used to gather new resources.

A race because you always have to build a fire when night comes.

If you don’t have a fire at night something bad will happen you don’t know what.

The game-world is divided into Day and Night. At night the character is forced to make a fire and stay close to the light. Or he will die. You don’t know that untill it happens.

So you never know the rules of the game you are playing.

Which is the problem with survival in the real world. You never know what can happen and what consequences your choices will have for your chances of survival.

But you learn the more you play. And when you die you are dead and have to start over.

The game is puzzle. An interesting Puzzle albeit the same puzzle every time.

You know nothing

That is not true you know some things. You know you have to eat something or you will starve. It’s in the title. And you know you have to have a fire at night. Your avatar will tell you if you don’t have a fire and night is coming.  Other than that you have no knowledge. The game-world tells you nothing about how to play the game. It’s hard to know what you should do. Harder still to know what is best to do. You only know what you can do.

That’s is the one thing the game does to help you. You always know what you can do.

When something in one menus can be crafted that particular menu turns green.

The game-world always tells you as little as possible about the game-structure. So there is nothing to inform your gameplay.

That is what makes the game so hard which fits perfectly with the theme and title.

The gameplay in the end becomes trying to figure out the game-structure and that is what you use to form strategies. Every time you die and you are going to die a lot you learn something new and can probably survive a bit longer next time.

When you have died a couple of times you will form your own strategies for effective survival.

You will know what to do. Find particular resources and craft certain items in order of importance. According to your strategy.

When you have done whatever you set out to do. You have a new problem. What to do next.

The world

The world is a cute cartoony looking world.

All the animals, the plants and the avatar have the same cartoony look. But something is a bit off.

You come upon weird altars with pigs’ heads on spikes. And you can find things like evil flowers and wormholes.

Your avatar and all other creatures in the game is drawn in the same cartoony style. But it looks more like it was drawn by a disturbed kid than Walt Disney.

The game world shows you and tells you that it’s a dangerous place and surviving will be hard. And you believe the avatar when he tells you that you should build a fire.

But again you don’t know what the different things does. You don’t know the rules of the world or the game-structure.

You figure this out by playing the game. The pig-altars brings you back from death. So basically gives you an extra life. Which comes as an unexpected but welcomed surprise the first time that happens.

The look and style underlines the inherent danger of the world.

You never know what tree is really a monster waiting kill you.

It all fits together

The gameplay quickly becomes figuring out strategies for survival. You try to figure out the game-structure to “beat” the game.

The style and look of the game underlines the dangers and the sense that you don’t quite know what’s going on.

The puzzle that is the game becomes the fight for survival. It’s always the struggle to get the upper hand and “beat” the game that makes the game so interesting.

The sense of superiority and accomplishment when the timer ticks across to a new day is a fantastic feeling.

PS:

Now the game have a excellent expansion called Reign of Giants. Buy it!