Survival and crafting take a turn for the brutal in this fascinating adventure.
Managing your hunger, sanity, and health meters is a meticulous juggling act that demands a lot of your attention too. Food sources are often scarce, leaving you to scavenge berries, pull up wild carrots, and trap small animals early on to keep your belly full. While it's possible to build gardens and cook the meat of large beasts you slay to provide more-sustainable and gut-filling meal options, death by starvation is an omnipresent concern. When your stomach is completely empty, your health depletes rapidly until you die. Your sanity also depletes over time, and as it dwindles, you see more and more shadowy hallucinations and trippy visual effects. These hallucinatory creatures attack if you let your mental well run dry, and they're far from the only beasts you encounter.
From giant cyclops birds and living tree monsters to carnivorous frogs and spiked tentacles, there are lots of creepy critters out there eager to end your existence. The rewards of battling them outright rarely feel like they measure up to the risk involved. Point-and-click combat is unfulfilling, since you basically stand there and whack away until someone dies. Often that's you. Slain foes may yield crucial ingredients for crafting and survival, but enemies are just as likely to kill you with a few quick hits before you have a chance to finish them off. Even docile critters can turn deadly with only the slightest provocation, since they tend to rally their pals in large numbers and come chasing after you en masse.
Dying wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't wipe your progress away permanently. While other roguelikes make it easy to get up and running, building a foundation for survival in Don't Starve is labor-intensive and monotonous at times. When you finally gain a decent foothold on survival after spending so much time chopping wood, scavenging sticks, and fighting for your life, losing it all in a split second is absolutely agonizing. You lose steam after being wiped out a few dozen times and forced to start the whole process over from a few twigs and berries. Every day you stay alive in each run does add toward your total experience points, but that only unlocks a handful of additional characters to play.
Adventure mode ups the danger and frustration substantially too, since it requires you to hunt down pieces to assemble portals across five increasingly tough world maps. Die once in, and you're kicked back to Survival mode, outside a portal. Granted, when this cycle gets too irritating, you can manually tweak the frequency of most resources, monsters, and perils before starting a new run. But it's hard to find the sweet spot between painfully hard and absurdly easy, since having everything at your fingertips saps the enjoyment of foraging and crafting.
The way Don't Starve blends its crafting, exploration, and survival elements makes for an enthralling and unique combination. This game will readily eat up many hours of your time if you let it, but the promise each run holds never seems to pan out thanks to the insidious challenges the game constantly stacks against you. The initial sense of wonder that comes from stumbling upon the surprises and discoveries of this interesting world rapidly fades away when you're stuck tackling the same menial tasks over and over again to regain lost ground for the hundredth time. It's disappointing, because Don't Starve otherwise packs a tremendous amount of charm, depth, and intrigue.
Difficulty is fine, anyone who says otherwise is a baby or should stick to Peggle. I will agree with the lack of reward though. I feel like sandbox mode should have it's own goals and adventure. The fact that we can build an amazing base camp then have to leave it all behind to start adventure mode sucks. And on the flip side, what's the point of building an amazing base camp when staying alive stops being an issue for the initiated.
1 Like I hate that the difficulty and lack of progression give it negatives. Those are at the core of the "genre". I feel that it is equivalent to giving an FPS a negative score because 90% of the game involves running and shooting people in the face. I know it isn't a "roguelike" by the "hardcore" definition. But it certainly has roguelike elements, and one of those are you die and then you start over from the beginning, with nothing but your previous experiences to help you. And there are some rewards, you unlock new characters (much like in FTL).
I love Klei's Mark of the Ninja, but I never have strong interest toward Don't Starve. It seems like a game about endless boring work in a lonely & not-so-colorful world. Seems like job xD
1 Like Well, anyway, I'm buying the PS4. It's nice that Sony also thinks in the people who doesn't play online games.
I guess it just depends on what you expect from a game. From little rogue like indie titles like this I tend to expect crushing difficulty and perma-death. FTL took me a dozen or more play throughs before I finally beat it. Frustrating as hell but I loved every second of it. So far Don't Starve is the same for me. I feel like I could die at any moment, and that is a good thing. Of course, I haven't gotten past day fifteen yet, and I could see how it would be annoying if you were months into the game and you died unexpectedly. Plus your camp placement is uber important to survival. If you set up near Beefalo/a Pig Village you can run to them for help when need be (especially from hounds).
2 Like This review is pretty spot on. It's a great little game but it's easy to lose your enthusiasm after a couple times of permanent death. Even turning up the number of touchstone (respawn points) doesn't ensure a better chance of lasting longer, since they only respawn you ONCE from each one you find. It's a great game, but I think it'd be nice if you could simply set the touchstones for multiple respawns in sandbox mode. It'd be nice to know you can lose stuff but not the whole game after so much hard work. Just to have the setting as an option would be nice. Because starting over again and again gets a little tiresome. Even with the resource settings turned up and enemies turned down. But I still suggest checking it out. Very beautiful art style and it is fun to play in bursts.
1 Like Played this game a lot since beta until now. The review is pretty fair.
You can survive forever if you play safe, but venturing out increases death exponentially. Thus making the game boring if you do what the game's namesake is (Don't Starve)...but when you get bored and go out for a portal piece there will be some ridiculous situations that will cause you to lose hours (or even days) of gameplay.
Its fun, its addicting, it makes me not want to play anymore a lot too. Good review Nathan.
1 Like Review seems fair enough. Scoring is what it is and it's not like we bet on game scores (or do we?) so no need to take too seriously anyway. Main thing is that the review gives gives a solid summary of what Don't Starve is all about. There are other indie games that seem to give bigger bang for buck but still this is definitely a solid value. The art is great, content is clever and gameplay is decent. I feel it it could use a little bit more of the unexpected. Don't Starve is still receiving content patches so I will probably be checking back in whenever it gets an update.
@etacet To other readers not yet familiar with the game: at this point in time they are releasing updates every 30 days or so. And it seems that they intend to do this for a while( as there is a constant counter on the main menu to inform you of the next one). Some seem to be more sliders in the set-up menu to tweak features of the world as well as new creatures and possibly items? But for now the incoming updates are constant. Not as an effort to "fix" but to simply add new content or ideas it seems.
4 Like "Hrrrrhgnnn! Noooooo! Game$$$pot y u give DISS game a slightly lower number then that game wen dat game iz baddur!?" - Roughly half of you.
If an arbitrary number allotted by a complete stranger means so much to you, I hereby award Don't Starve a 53. That number is 44.5 more numbers than the review they gave Blood Dragon. There you have it. You can now enjoy the game and stop whining.
Now if we're here to discuss the game rather than the pointless number tacked onto it, I agree with most of the points made in the review. The new characters you unlock are somewhat interesting, but regardless of how far you make it along, nothing about this game ever feels particularly rewarding. Sadly, once you figure out all the odds and ends Don't Starve's difficulty goes from frustrating and infuriating to bland and simplistic in the bat of an eyelash. Right around the time you find yourself planting 8 rows of crops so you can feed your small village of pigmen vegetables to make them poo so you can collect their poo to fertilize your NEXT crop so you can feed the pigmen to recollect their poo(etc...) you'll probably just start to wonder what the point of all of it is. There isn't any. It's just a pretty fun waste of time minus any honest sense of accomplishment.
...with really neat art.
@jerusaelem I know it may take away from the game, but sometimes I wouldn't mind sharing the struggle with a single friend. But then you have the whole issue of a dedicated server or something. Yet help would be nice. And it'd reduce the tedium of survival.
@jerusaelem Hahah this is funny actually. You are pointing that commenting on a complete stranger's score is whining. But you are whining about the comments of other complete strangers. *slowclap* Genius of the year.
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1 Like @jerusaelem @Sakuban You two have serious problems. I bet at least one of you is the stereotype of a nerd in flesh.
@turtlethetaffer @jerusaelem @Sakuban hahaha poor sakuban. On topic, i've played the game before and would recommend the game to anyone who enjoys survival games, or just fun games that don't cost that much.
Hahahah you're sinking deeper and deeper, please dont stop. There's no frustration. There is only your idiocy. And it's very tolerable, everybody have the right to be an idiot.
I dont think you have enough capacity to understand and correlate any of this, but you need a lesson, so here we go:
First of all, your so called argument (it's blah blah blah and insults mostly sadly, btw. your insulting level is not even in the degree of high school, so stop talking about that level, you are not there yet) was: "If an arbitrary number allotted by a complete stranger means so much to you, I hereby award Don't Starve a 53." It's miscued in many aspects. First of all, nobody gives a fuck about what is your rating. People come here to read what the reviewers think about a game. And it's not only about the rating; it's about being fair and/or unfair (since you must take in account that there's too many people buying a game or not buying it depending on a rating, not to mention people who are not reading reviews and checking only scores). Gamespot were corrupted back in the day with giving all the EA games amazingly high scores. And now they?re corrupted again. Giving ubisoft games unfair amount of high points. 7.0 may not seem a bad score, but in a website where FC3:Blood Dragon takes 8.5, it?s really really low. Second of all, it's not random or a complete stranger as you proposed. He is a reviewer in a respected gaming website. Unlike you he is someone i can give a secondtought for his opinions or read to find a certain game is appealing to me or not. Third, you are saying that scores dont matter. It's agreeable in certain points. But in truth it is not. So why do you think they're giving them. Sure we are not the ones demanding or pushing them to give scores to games. It's a simple scale and rating system like any other. It?s created for bypassers who needs a quick opinion a game. Fourth; even if a review is a bad review, rating must back it up, or the given facts about the game. You can go to Terraria review right now and you can see, in reality both games are very similar. But, hell no, there's no line in it for raising the alarms against permadeth or repetition. Because this is what this game is all about: play for fun, learn from your mistakes. And what the reviewer gives us for backing the 7.0 score and not giving 8.5 or 9.0: here it is: ?Lacks the rewards that would balance out the repetition * Unflinchingly brutal difficulty.? It means that reviewer himself is not inspected the game closely. You can edit the world you?ll play in, and it alters many things and adds a great deal of variety about the difficulty level. As for the balancing out the repetition, they patched the game two days ago before this review came up, and added a plus mode to progress the game quickly and give you a more forward gameplay. So what the fuck is this all about repetition? Isn?t playing any game a second time a repetition (dont tell me multi-ending, multi-choice AAA games, you know they?re rare). And just to show you how much of a dumbfuck you really are for the hundreth time, here is another quote from you: ??fertilize your NEXT crop so you can feed the pigmen to recollect their poo(etc...)? Well, you are not bright as you think now, are you? You dont need pigs to collect poo, you can find hordes of ?beefalo? in the game which generates poo for free constantly. I even suspect you are playing a pirated version of the game, since there?s too many good guides in the steam, about how to do stuff etc. It just showed me you didnt get the game in the slightest. Another dumbfuck (i must say, i even stand in awe in front of that stupidity) is this argument by you: ?nothing about this game ever feels particularly rewarding.? Excuse me? Come again? And you repeat yourself: ?minus any honest sense of accomplishment.? Are you playing the games for sense of accomplishment? What the fuck? Dude, how miserable your life is. Now i understand why you were so keen to insult someone you dont know and why you are so keen to say the last word in an argument (infact there wasnt any arguement either, just you becoming more and more dumb and insulting more). You needed to achieve something badly, didnt you? So please tell me, what is the point of playing terraria, minecraft, pac-man etc. If you need to fulfil your ?sense of accomplishment? you must play rpgs. Most of them simply exploits that need with their leveling system. I?m not saying rpgs are bad, they?re my favourite genre too, i?m saying games never have the liability to fulfill someone?s ?sense of accomplishment.? They can be created fort he pure reason of delivering fun. And last of all, dont push yourself too hard to insult people with shabby-genteel words. Next time just say ?fuck you.? Since there?s no difference between calling someone ?blah blah? your severely malformed head? and calling simply ?spastic.? At least that shows you got balls.
So, this argument ?if there was any, more like your unmature bickering- done in my part. You are free to answer with all the dumbfuckness of yours for creating ?a sense of accomplishment? for yourself in your schizoworld, none will be read. I have wasted enough time for a dumbfuck today.
@jerusaelem @Sakuban Another feeble attempt from a redneck with a merriam-webster. But you are cute. I'll give you that. You need more life experience and knowledge to cause any rudimentary feeling like frustration to me. Thanks for creating a whole new category for autism. You should be examined closely. Please delve more into your autism and make yourself a complete celebutard.
@jerusaelem@SakubanYour reply is even worse than your first comment. You got issues dude. And all that ad hominem stuff you sadly pronounce (calling me an idiot, revealing your irrelevant pathetic biology knowledge) doesnt make any of your whiny little ideas any better. Ciao. Have fun with your miserable, unmature life.
4 Like Actually you can adjust the difficulty by reducing the amount of enemies in the settings. You can change everything like adding more resources and even remove most enemies from the game altogether.
1 Like I like how challenging it is. It makes me really careful with my character. It would suck if it was easy, and give it zero re-playability. It would be nice if there were more rewards at the end though, when you die. I unlocked all of the characters in my first three hours.
2 Like My friends and i would sometimes think of "what would you do if you where stranded on a deserted island" I think this game is a good simulation for it lol. As far as permadeath is concerned, once you learn the rules of the games, what to expect and prepare yourself, the game becomes too easy. Taking it away just make the game unrealistic and not very challenging.
3 Like Permadeath never was a feature that appealed to me... And I've beaten Dark Souls.
6 Like I REALLY love this game. It's the exact kind of sandbox survival I want to play however two things that would really go a loooong way to making this game better i.e. making life in the game more rewarding would be to:
Let players that die respawn with some kind of alterior punishment instead of starting over from scratch
Make achievements/goals
@made_u_look @breathnac Yeah I do enjoy watching the Beefalos' grow up. And really like the joy of trying to get ready for winter. And the threat of darkness makes the need for fire all that more pleasurable. Night time feels like night time. Just wish you could stretch out the time for day and night plus winter and summer instead of one or the other respectively.
1 Like Rating this game 7.5 and giving fc:blood dragon a 8.5 shows us how much this website is corrupted. And "
"
Both are lies. Latest fix let you generate a more progressed world to experience a more forward gameplay. And difficulty level has too many variety with the world rules. It's even sad to say, but if you think this game is too hard for you, you have no skill.
4 Like @Sakuban Agreed, honestly I died quite a few times and learned from mistakes. I had no idea what to expect when winter came. Or what certain creatures did it was a learning experience each time. I thought that was refreshing and fun. I honestly thought Gamespot would atleast gave it a 8 for a indie game its up there.
3 Like @Sakuban it's not the difficulty kid, it's how you lose everything in a blink of your attention and let you with nothing more than XP to unlock a character...that's a shame...a waste of effort.
You may say permadeath is bravery, but in this case is a fool work, an incomplete work of art...
@Red_lath @Sakuban So you blame the game for a lapse in attention? Sounds like a personal problem. Also, some people would argue that all games are a 'waste of effort' as at the end of the day all you are left with is the experience of the game. If you consider your memories/experiences important, then this could never be a waste of time unless you absolutely hated it. Perma-death is part of the game. It is part of the Dev's vision for how he wanted the game to play. Who are you to say it is 'fool work' and 'an incomplete work of art...' simply because perma-death is implemented?
I found it was a nice try but not fun enough. I have no opinions on the difficulty but it was hard to predict what was dangerous and what wasn't. Lacks a bit of logic imo.
@Saketume Yeah, just comes with playing it for a while. At first I didn't realise that eating monster meat can kill you until I tried it. Aw and the tentacles. I mostly avoid the corrupted zones all together.
What's funny is that throughout the beta most complaints were about how the game was too easy. I can't really judge the end product difficulty since I played since the beginning and knew pretty much everything going in, but it's an awesome game, and 7.0 is hardly a bad score.
4 Like So, Don't Starve and Monaco, two great and very original games, gets 7.0, but Far Cry: Blood Dragon- a reskin of FC 3 with corny 80's humor gets a 8.5.
Gamespot logic
@Idonahari If the scores are low then those publishers may just decide not to bother sending out review copies to GS anymore. The same goes for any big gaming site. The scores of big market games have to be high enough to keep the publishers on side. How else can you explain SMG 1+2 getting 10/10 or MGS4's 10/10? Seriously 10/10 for MGS4?
Lets not forget this ever happened: http://kotaku.com/5893785/yes-a-games-writer-was-fired-over-review-scores
2 Like @Sakuban @Idonahari lol, but gamespot is now a company and they have to give better scores to advertisers. you will see that cod ghosts will get a huge score just because is paying a lot right now
1 Like @luigy96 i can understand a company raises the scores for the paycheck income. But trashing great games because they dont or cant give money is unheard of.
2 Like It's a fun game and like the Tim Burton style. I say buy it. And it's inexpensive. 12$ on Steam.
Hmm, I was almost considering getting this game, but then I read that is was a rouge like. I hate rouge likes. Putting hours into a game, and progressing, just to lose it all and having to start over, not My idea of fun at all.
@starduke i agree too they should allow players to respawn like minecraft then the game in my opinion would be flawless
@breathnac There actually a game that could be called a rouge-like that I enjoy. It's Dungeons of Dredmor. I like it because it has the option to turn permadeath off built in to the game, which, to me, makes it so much more fun then with it on.
@starduke go to the forums. There's a dude there with a mod. The game won't delete your saves. It's awesome for people like us. buy it!. it's a fun little game.
Very fun and engaging, but be prepared to start over, all the time, and never finish.
