Cheap Indie Seats: Don’t Starve….Me Bro

“What are you playing?” said my wife.

“Don’t Starve….it’s like playing as a Johnny Depp character while trying to survive a nightmare….with a hatchet and a backpack….” I replied back to her.

“Isn’t that…too simple for you?” She quipped back.

“Actually, it’s pretty taxing at times and thinking it’s easy is exactly what gets you killed…” I said with a sarcastic laugh.

~

The above conversation happened between my wife and I the day I bought Don’t Starve, the next hit title from Klei Entertainment. Same dudes and dudettes that brought you Shank and the highly under appreciated Mark of the Ninja. This being a top down action/adventure role-playing shindig, as opposed to their previous side-scrolling blood baths, is a warm welcome to their previous “formula”.

So look at it like this, you’re a weary…traveler named Wilson (you can unlock multiple characters all embodying a pop culture motif and special “powers”)…who wakes up in some foreign world, with William Dafoe…not really William Dafoe but according to the Mercedes commercial  he’s the devil. Anyways, devilish figure in a suit hovers over you and fires a crack about how it’s “getting late” or something of that sort. Now here is the best part of this game.

Not William Dafoe

“What do you do now? Where is the tutorial? Wait….there is no tutorial? What the hell….hey a flower, I guess I’ll pick that.”

It has been a long time since a game LITERALLY just throws you into the world and says “good luck chump” as if it gets the dev teams rocks off making you suffer through multiple deaths/trys before you “figure it out”.

Epic

Praise the Gaming Gods. It hooked me from Day 1…literally. So the jist is that you must “explore” the world around you, collecting all of the necessary equipment and natural substances around you to survive another day. It’s a brilliant mix of “good ole camping” and “quirky monster movie scenario”. Like to harvest moons? Then you’ll enjoy the meta game of farming and scavenging for life saving material. Enjoy point/click adventure role-playing games that don’t steal their names from Italian super cars, then you’ll find the entire experience. From crafting flowery hats in order to keep you “sane”, to running frantically through a forest at midnight with only a torch thwarting the immanent death breathing down your neck, the game has a knack for making the most mundane portions of the gameplay seem like a blast. I could keep telling you how to survive…or make a lantern out of fire flies or how chopping down too many trees for your fires and equipment summons ANGRY TREE MAN HELL BENT ON YOUR DESTRUCTION. I could tell you that but honestly, that ruins the fun of this surprising charming and totally engrossing title that costs you less than a IMAX movie now days.

Gee, how could it get any better? Well since the game is still in beta format, with the “final” copy releasing sometime this month, when you buy one copy you get a second to slap on your buddies Steam library and laugh as he struggles with making his first fire.

As I plan to do a full review of the game later this month, take the time to enjoy the game as it grows and expands thanks to an awesome community, competent dev team and a modding tool that allows players to form their own adventures. Check back to ESG later this month for the full shake down, yah dig?