That's another question I had: Is there an actual goal to the game, or is it more like an arcade game where you just play until you lose?

I assume there's an auto-save right when you lose so you can't reload a save?

@Mop it up

Both.

Normally, you start out in "Survival Mode," where you just build stuff and figure out how to survive and thrive. In each Survival Mode world, though, you can find a door.
If you find that door, you go through to "Adventure Mode". You'll go through 5 chapters, during each of which you have to find the 5 "things" and ... do something with them I'm not sure. I almost did it once, but the last thing was guarded by about 5 mechanical monstrosities and I wasn't well enough armed to deal with them.

You can find the 5 "things" and assemble them in Survival Mode as well. If you figure out how to assemble them, you'll basically "escape". Good end, right? Except that the game starts a "loop 2" where another Survival Mode world is rolled up for you (think when you "complete" Gradius games, and loop 2 begins).

So there's effectively 2 endings to aim for if you don't want to just go for a high score.

@Dark Weres
That was your last challenge? You pretty much described my first. Are they randomized too?

@Mop it up
Yes, it has that kind of auto-save and permanent death. There are minor exceptions to the latter, though.

@r_hjort
Thanks for the pointers. I'm on day 9 of my current run, and doing pretty well I think. Got lots of food nearby, planting trees and stuff. I have a pitchfork and a shovel, but I don't know how to make farms... also I\m neara wormhole that has a lot of boulders so I can always grab some quick resources there. I found the war to adventure but I figured I wasn't anywhere near ready enough for that.

@Dark Weres
Nice tips and tricks. I'll have to try catching some spiders.

@anon_mastermind
Glad you're doing well! Have you found the farms in your crafting menu at all?

Somewhere between building a science machine and an alchemy engine the "Food" tab will appear in your left menu. That's where farms and advanced farms appear. I've been told not to bother with basic farms since you can't upgrade them later. If you're starving, roast and eat seeds while you save up for advanced farms.

I believe Adventure Mode chapters are randomized. I started with "A Cold Reception" where there was a lot of rain. Thankfully, with most of my Survival games beginning in the Spring, light-rain was nothing I couldn't handle.

@r_hjort I imagine it also "deletes" your save when you load it, to avoid save-scumming?

I don't like games with harsh punishments so I don't think this is the game for me (unless it gets multiplayer).

@Mop it up
I imagine that it does, but I haven't tried it. If something bad happens there's no going back (as far as I know). There are things in the game that reduce the effects of certain 'punishments', but you'll basically have to live with the mistakes you make. Or, as the case has been for me, not live with them.


I've started playing as my fifth character now, and just like all the others they're giving me some sweet 90's-point-and-click-vibes with the way the look at the world. Great stuff. Interesting gameplay differences compared to the others as well, most of which seem helpful now that winter is coming. I've decided not to go on any unnecessary expeditions and to build myself some kind of arsenal to help me survive until next summer. I think I've got the heating and the food side of things covered, but that depends on how long a winter is. Will be interesting to find out!

There's almost no reason to just 'die' on purpose, since everything is renewable, even the entire world if necessary. Most difficulties (ie: lots of rain) come with ways of dealing with them (grass regrows quicker for you to build straw hats, trees grow quicker for you to take shelter / gather wood, berries and mushrooms grow quicker for you to regain sanity, flowers and twigs grow quicker for your parasols). Even if you've exhausted the world's resources, you can assemble the 5 "things" and rebuild the whole world from scratch.

Currently, I'm up to surviving 'til summer and dying of heat exhaustion. I need to get more efficient at starting in spring so that I can build an ice-flingomatic and some summer clothing.

@Dark Weres
I haven't even tried the Reign of Giants mode yet. Wanted to build up some basic Don't Starve knowledge before I went into that, but maybe I should try that out soon. My latest character survived winter, and now I'm not quite sure what I want to do.

You'll either want to start out with RoG stuff as soon as possible, or stick with vanilla until you've completed it and gotten bored, depending on how well you can adapt. RoG drastically changes some things that you may have developed habits around in vanilla (ie: Using crock-pots to store food indefinitely, using traps to store live rabbits indefinitely), and the first couple of games will mess with your mind as certain rules will be changed and you may subconsciously act otherwise for the first couple of games.