Don't Starve - A Game Review

I will not play Don’t Starve.

I will not play Don’t Starve until my Prospectus is done.

I will not play Don’t Starve until I have worked on my homework for another class

I think we have a winner.

Don’t Starve is a wilderness survival game that fulfills pretty much everything I’ve been craving from gameplay lately.  You start as a little wild haired man in a macabre wilderness, where your only goal is to live as long as possible until you inevitably die.  You can set traps for rabbits, pick berry bushes, chop down trees for firewood when the sneaky creepy darkness of nightfall, and fend off a small host of spiders that are themselves attempting to not starve.  You can use materials such as sticks, grass, and flint to make torches, mining picks, axes, and a whole host of other objects and tools that are listed on the left toolbar.  So far, this may sound a lot like other wilderness survival games (such as Terraria or Minecraft) but what really sets Don’t Starve apart is a unique item that you can build early on: The Science Machine.

As you progress through the game, you can dump unwanted resources into the Science Machine to gain Idea Points.  These points can be used to unlock new inventions, starting with hammers and bug nets, and going all the way up to Alchemy engines.  The best part about Idea Points is that once you inevitably die, these points carry over to your next play through, along with any inventions that you have unlocked.  So while learning how to turn logs into boards, and then turn those boards into a chest (for storing items: inventory space comes at a premium in Don’t Starve) took me nearly ten game days to learn on my first play through, I had a chest built by day two on my second play through, because I had the knowledge of boards and chests unlocked previously.  This game mechanic allows for a feeling of progression throughout the game as a whole, and keeps the player from feeling worn out or frustrated with the game every time they die.  Instead of focusing on how much they have lost, the player can think about how much they have learned, and how exciting it will be to start a new game with the inventions and idea points they now possess.

I hope other games take from “Don’t Starve”s example and include elements of continuity in their gameplay.  Heck, I’d probably settle for more wilderness survival games being developed.  In the meantime, I have spiders to murder and a Science Machine to feed.  You know where to find me.