This review is based on the iOS version of Don’t Starve, which has some differences to the PC version.
Following on from The Survivalists and my current interest in all things survival and crafting based, I downloaded Don’t Starve, from Apple Arcade. It’s got a very similar premise as The Survivalists (although, it should be noted, that Don’t Starve has been around a lot longer) in that you’ve got a main character who has been abandoned in a wilderness that is doing it’s best to kill him (or her – more on that later). The mechanics of the game are pretty similar too – very point and click, although you can also have a virtual joystick if that’s more your style.
But that’s probably where the similarity ends, because, unlike The Survivalists, Don’t Starve is hard. It’s also really unforgiving at the base settings, and that can cause a fair amount of frustration. It’s also a game that is much, much more detailed than The Survivalists, and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. So, what’s the story? Well, in short, you wake up in a kind of gothic nightmare. You have nothing to hand beyond what you can gather from the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, being a resourceful sort, you can quickly put together an axe, and a pickaxe, and before you know it, you’ve got resources enough to build a camp of sorts. And that’s where the challenge really begins, because form that point on, you’re trapped in a non-stop battle against both the elements and time. Night will come swiftly, and there are things in the dark that will either drive you mad (or madder, to be fair) or kill you outright. And even should you survive the night (and not set fire to either yourself or the forest around you), then you’ll swiftly have to deal with encroaching winter. Of course, the temptation is to stockpile as much food as possible – things like berries and wild carrots – but the food itself quickly rots, and very little grows in winter, so that strategy might lead you with an empty belly in the middle of a winter night! And, of course, that’s before we’ve started talking about the things that are actively out there trying to kill you, like hounds and tentacles and killer bees. All of them have resources you need if you’re ever to craft enough to survive the challenges present. You can try to fight them, but realistically you are incredibly fragile – I died to little Spiders a lot before I worked out the best strategy to kill them!
Ultimately, you will die. I think I lasted about 4 days the first time, and maybe a week the second. The moment you die, the game is over, and you have to start again, from scratch. However, you do gain experience, which means that you might have the chance to play as a different character, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. As you progress through the game, you gradually discover something of the challenge you face, and there is a narrative, of sorts. In fact, there’s quite a detailed story – but that never seems to be driving the game as much as the simple challenge of staying alive.