Bought the game yesterday, but got a bit annoyed by the fact that you can only get audio through the GamePad headphone jack if you play Off-TV, so I ended up playing Splatoon instead. Mmmmmm...Splatoon.

Decided to give Don't Starve a shot today instead, and managed to survive nine days on my first run, with the Reign of Giants expansion turned off. Not sure if that's good or not, but I imagine not dying at all would have been better. Went around scavenging for supplies pretty much aimlessly for the first three days before deciding to settle down in a small woodland area in between a big plain populated by tons of scrumptious looking animals and a rocky region with lots of opportunities to mine as well as get your ass chewed on by giant spiders.

I thought everything went surprisingly well once I had built my camp; I planted berry bushes and vegetables, put down some rabbit traps and made myself a snazzy looking flower hat, but before long a giant tree came stomping in and chased me out into the darkness. Didn't manage to build a torch to light the way in time before something horrible living in the shadows came out and ended me.

A disappointing end to my first session, but highly addictive and lots of fun. Might go back for more later tonight, after some Splatooning.

I look forward to trying the game out this weekend and giving my impressions. I played a small demo of it a while back through the Chrome browser and I really liked what I saw. Can't wait, thanks for the code

@warerare
No problem! I'd only seen some footage of the game on Youtube and thought it looked fun in a stressful way, which it is, as it turns out. It seems like there is an enormous amount of stuff that you can do, and just about as much stuff that can do you in, so it's going to be very interesting to explore the game. I hope we'll get a few posters around here to play it on one platform or other, so we can exchange recipes for success and/or horror stories.

Started my second campaign today, with the new character I unlocked last time.


Meet Willow. Her interests include burning stuff to ashes and taking long walks in the woods. So she can burn it to ashes.

The world looked a lot different compared to the last one, with all of the nearby areas consisting of woodlands, and rivers in between them making exploration a bit of a hassle. Since I needed to find a good place for mining I went following roads going east for several in-game days without luck. Ended up heading back west only to discover a literal goldmine half a day's travel from my camp in the other direction. So, now I'm swimming in gold, but can't for the life of me seem to find an animal that can give me manure. Curse this constipated world!

She survived for 25 days, but my poor little pyromaniac Willow is no more.

I thought things were going quite well when I started off today. I stumbled across a place with more manure than I could carry, so I headed home to camp and built myself a little vegetable farm, planted a bunch of berry bushes and trees to make sure I had food and fuel close at hand. I even made my camp feel a bit more like home by adding floors and walls to the place. Then the cold, icy winds started creeping in, and before I knew it snow had started falling down.

Winter is no joke in Don't Starve. My humble farmland was rendered pretty much useless over night since berries weren't in season, and I literally burned through my supply of trees to keep myself from freezing to death. On top of that, my animal traps netted me nothing as most of the small game seemed to have gone into hibernation.

As the last act of a desperate man I started chopping away at some sort of penguin that had taken up residence next door in the hopes that he would share some of his delicious flesh with me, but his homies quickly put an end to that, and me.

I'd really taken a shine to Willow, and it's pretty sad that I got her killed when things seemed to be going so well.

This seems like the kind of game that I'd like only in co-op. I wonder if they have any plans to add that feature to this version.

@Mop it up
I hope they're using the buy-one-get-one-free promotion to build up a sizeable fanbase so they can peddle DLC expansions to us in the future, like Don't Starve Together. I for one would definitely get it day one!

Still, it's great fun to play on your own too (that's what it's built for after all), and so addictive! Started up my third campaign with a third character earlier tonight. Wolfgang, the strong man and I went on an epic adventure that sadly came to an abrupt end when I got a bit cocky and picked a fight with the wrong monster. I feel like I'm getting the hang of things now, and like I'm able to devise strategies for certain events a bit better. Wolfgang managed to accomplish just about everything that Willow did, but in ten days less time. I might even have been able to survive through a winter this time, if I hadn't gone and done something stupid with him.

The different characters are awesome, btw! They all have their own stats, abilities and sometimes specific equipment, and even though there's not exactly a whole lot of plot development going on, the way they react to the world around them makes them feel like distinctly different personalities. On top of that they're often hilarious. Like when Willow inspects a malnourished bush and shouts "eat poop, stupid plant". How could I not love this?

I need some tips and tricks because currently, me playing this game:



I get that you have to survive as long as possible, but some direction would be appreciated. I know I sound like a noob, but yeah...

@anon_mastermind
I'm not exactly an expert myself considering my record is 25 days, but if there's anything you think I might have figured out during that time I'd be happy to help! I mean, is there something in particular that you'd want to know to feel a bit more comfortable with the game?

i guess, what are some goals for stuff to build? Should I set up a base camp, and return there at night, or just make a new camp every night? What monsters are approachable? What are good items to have in the inventory? What's good for eating and should I be cooking it first?

@anon_mastermind
This is all based on my experience, so it may not be the best advice out there (especially not in the long term) but:

My first goal is to find a good place to set up a permanent camp, somewhere that seems somewhat peaceful, but has resources I want nearby. Trees, berry bushes, rabbit holes, that sort of thing for instance. Basically I roam around, making campfires every night as needed, until I find my place. Then I build the fire pit or whatever it's called, the one with the rocks.

Second goal for me is to expand the list of things I can build, and the first step there is getting a science engine. After that I'm basically starting to worry about what the hell to do once winter comes. My current strategy (that I didn't really get to try out, so take with a grain of salt) is to catch rabbits with traps and hang their meat to dry on racks. I imagine dried meat won't spoil as quickly as raw or cooked, so I'm hoping to make some of that to tide me over during winter.

When it comes to monsters I basically just stay the hell away from everything even remotely resembling one.

I try to keep as many open slots as can in my inventory in case I find good stuff. I've always got a few tools for getting materials and some food, but other than that it's basically whatever I come across. I make chests at home and store the more valuable stuff there, stuff I'm not likely to need while out and about.

The food thing seems to be a science in itself in this game. I think cooking food is a good thing in general, but it seems the properties of food can change depending on if it's cooked or not, so I can't say if it's always better or not. Berries don't seem to heal you at all when you eat them raw, but if you roast them they will replenish some health in addition to filling up your stomach. Cooked food seems to go bad faster though, but that might just be me imagining things. Or maybe it's true for some food items and not for others.

Hope some of this will help you somehow! Personally I kind of like having to figure out how stuff works in this game so far, but if it gets really obtuse and trial-and-error-ish later on I might not sound as happy anymore.

Played tonight and really enjoyed my short time with the game. It all felt a bit aimless at first and I only lasted 4 days. I got stomped on by a big walking tree while camping. I think it got offended when I chopped down and old looking dead tree. Who knows?

I found a portal door that spoke of surviving 5 worlds but I didn't dare enter it as I had next to no items. Maybe I should try if I find it again.

@warerare
That damn tree! It's lethal! I need to figure out a way of dealing with that thing in case it pops up again. I even tried setting it on fire, but it didn't seem to care.

Found a door like that too at one point, and I believe my character hinted at it being a 'way home', so maybe that's what we're supposed to aim for somehow?

I'm going to try and jump back in tonight after a few board game playtests. I think I took too many risks yesterday and my inventory seemed to fill up really quickly.

Has anyone found a walking chest? I has one called chesterton esq. or something along those lines. He followed me around, I put some stuff in him for storage and eventually found it hard to get him to keep following me. I'm not sure what I was meant to do with him.

@warerare
Yeah, I ran into that little guy during my Willow campaign! I think he follows you around when you're carrying that weird looking bone. He scared the crap out of me when he came dashing at me from out of nowhere when I found the bone lying around in one of those humanoid pig settlements. Don't know if he's got a purpose other than to carry stuff for you, but considering the amount of uses one single object seems to have in this game I guess it's possible. I was just happy to get what effectively was a walking backpack since I couldn't seem to equip my log suit at the same time as my regular backpack.

I really liked playing as Wolfgang yesterday, but I think I'll give the fourth character a shot for my next campaign. It's pretty exciting to see how they all differ, IMO!

This game sounds really fun. My cousin recommended it last year and I'm ever the more intrigued.

@r_hjort

I used him to store that bone, I guess that's why he stopped following lol.

@DrFinkelstein
It is really fun! It might sound pretty boring on paper, spending most of your time gathering stuff just so you can gather more stuff, but for some reason I just can't stop. I just have to keep going to see what lies beyond the next area, and what kind of creatures I run into. Then there's that mysterious gate that we mentioned earlier. Seems like a big deal, so that needs exploring too!

@warerare
Hahaha! I gotta try that next time I find him! Might actually be handy to do that to have him stay put at times. He got himself in trouble all the time when I had him, always picking fights with spiders and giant birds.

Tried the fourth character today, and she's still going on day 19! Haven't really explored her special ability since I don't know how it works, but she seems alright so far. She's a funny character, just like the rest. Very morbid. The days seem to be getting shorter now, but I think I've got a decent if not great amount of stuff prepared for winter. Came across the mysterious gate again a while ago, so now I'm more or less contemplating whether I should try to beat my previous survival record or go straight for the door to see what that's all about.

I've got a basic pattern down.
First gather twigs, grass, flint, carrots, berries, seeds, and flower petals.
Once you have 12 petals, make yourself a garland.
Make a pickaxe, break it gathering stones, gold, nitre, but mostly gold
Make an axe, break it gathering lumber, birchnuts, pine cones. Large trees will drop 2 pine cones (or birchnuts) for replanting, but an axe will survive cutting down 5 large trees and 1 medium.
Make a campfire between ecosystems where you can gather dung, berries, and seeds.
Find the beefalo herd, or a pig village.
When the hounds attack, lure them into the beefalo herd, the pig village, a catcoon, or some other mob that'll fight it (and preferably not eat whatever's dropped)
Make a science machine,
Refine ropes, cut stone, and boards
Make a shovel, dig up grass, saplings, and berry bushes, and plant them near your base. Fertilize the grass and bushes with dung or rot. Plant your pine cones near your base as well. Use your shovel to dig up stumps for an extra log. Trees do not regrow from stumps, or if they do, it's much slower than growing new ones from planted pine cones.
Make advanced farms and start planting seeds there. 3 or 4 farms should produce a day's worth of food without fertilizer.
Make two electrical doodads with gold and cut stone, and make an alchemy engine.
Make armour or a backpack, depending on the variety of resources lying around.
Might want to consider building the golden versions of your tools at this point, but don't carry 'em all around at once. They're most safe to leave lying around or in chests.
Make a lightning rod.
Find spiders. Set down traps and have them follow you into those traps so you can gather silk
Make a Top Hat to keep your sanity on the up and up.
Make a bug net and catch butterflies and bees
Plant the butterflies to make flowers grow and make a bee-box near the flowers so you can gather honey.
Let Monster meat rot so you can use it to fertilize your farms and replanted grass and bushes.
Burn down a forest, chop down the burnt trees for charcoal.
Use the charcoal to build some Crock Pots.
Use traps to trap rabbits (try to kill less than 8 per day) and cook the morsels in the crock pot
When all else fails, cook 4 berries in a crock pot for a fistful of jam.
When the weather gets cold ... I don't know, I haven't quite gotten that far yet.

@Dark Weres
Lots of good tips there! Actually never tried trapping spiders, will totally do that next time.

So, I went back to my little morbid friend and entered the mysterious gate from before. That seems like the way to go if you want to game to advance beyond the daily grind, but holy crap was it hard. I started out in some disgusting swamp populated by tentacles and pigs with the Innsmouth Look or something. Everything hated me, and I started out with none of my stuff from before, so I had to build new tools and gather wood for the night to keep all those otherworldly creatures away. I followed a signal to some sort of doohickey that seemed to be of interest for reasons I didn't quite figure out, but it was guarded by some sort of hostile robots that shot beams at me until I went to pieces. The good news is that I woke up outside the gate like nothing ever happened, with all my old belongings intact.

I had quite a ways to go to get my butt home, so I started running along the road as the dark started to creep in, with wolves snarling somewhere nearby. Made a slight detour to one of the pig villages in the hopes that they would help me fend off the wolves, but I arrived only to be greeted by shut doors and dimmed lights. Damn you, you lazy pigs. Had I been at home, in my camp built to protect me from attacks, I would probably have made it, but out in the open in the middle of the night I just couldn't fend off three wolves and got torn to shreds.

I woke up, sans everything I had carried when I died, on a stone altar I had passed many days ago. Turns out it works like a checkpoint of sorts when activated, which was a nice discovery. A not so nice discovery was the frost that covered the ground. Winter had come, and I had lost my backpack, all my tools, and tons of berries and vegetables I had gathered. Survived for a few days on rabbit meat and mainly stayed in camp where I was warm and safe, but on a small excursion for twigs I accidentally said something about a penguin's mother and got killed to death. Again. Graaaah!

Oh well, at least I unlocked two more characters.