Don't Starve (survival roguelike)

[Renegen]

How come no one has brought this game to the Codex's attention?

I've only discovered it yesterday while searching for new roguelikes and I must say it was quite a find. You play the role of some hairy indie game developer that's been thrust out of his comfortable popamole development studio and thrown into a wild and dangerous world, your only goal is to survive. Your expected lifespan? 3 days, because you are likely to die mauled by frogs or starving to death when the wild berries run out (hence the name).

The game is an indie survival game that's a roguelike in everything but name. The basic gameplay is that you need to gather resources from the world around you to survive as long as possible. You explore this huge randomly generated world, craft axes, chop down trees, patiently set up rabbit traps and generally plays the hunter gatherer lifestyle and when nightfall comes if you're lucky you get to roast the dead rabbit over a campfire and live another day.

If you end up dying, the game fills some exp bar that allow you to unlock more powerful characters that make the game easier in one way or another. A lot has to be learned through experience, because this game provides absolutely no help and forces you to use your brain for everything. Sometimes you find mysterious objects and rare items or artifacts that make you feel like the monkeys in 2001: A Space Odyssey and all the grind becomes worth it.

Speaking of feelings, the game is one of the best at merging the strength of what hipster indie games do well (polish) and what hardcore roguelikes do well (everything else). The setting is this weird steampunk world and every part of the game works really well together, whenever you access a higher level of "survival expertise" you feel really smart, when you find some unknown objects you feel excited and dumbfounded and when you're close to starving you start getting desperate. It's one of the best games I've played at playing a role.

The developers have been providing free continuous updates every since its release so that's a strong incentive to end up buying it. It's even on sale for the next 10 hours on Steam so I recommend it.

 

[Ulminati]

Konjob plays it. You can talk with him about it.

I tried the Buccaneer edition for an afternoon before deleting. I was thoroughly underwhelmed and bored out of my skull. It's like minecraft, except without the option to build gigantic castles or computers inside computers.

 

[Turisas]

Combat is pretty popamole, but it has a decent difficulty level (even if you do wuss out and read newbie guides) - the constant flux of updates is really sweet, but it's also why I'm holding off a proper playthrough until later.

 

[Metro]

Pretty sure there have been other threads. You're late to the party. I think the concept is good but ultimately the game is dull and not challenging seriously hampering the replay value. All you have to do is set yourself up by a beefalo herd, get some drying racks and you can survive indefinitely. There are no challenging enemies and the really hard ones can simply be avoided.

 

[Berekän]

How come no one has brought this game to the Codex's attention?

Hmmm?

 

[Bulba]

food is too easy to come by, through you get attacked on regular occasions by ever incrasing number of dogs? so eventualy they will catch you off guard and kill you once it's like 10+ of them. It's a fun game, but would have been a lot better if food was harder to come by and starvation (as the name implies) was a real possabilaty.

 

[Johannes]

No it's not a roguelike in almost any sense.

 

[Jasede]

It's another of those games like Terraria and Mindcraft which is to say it's a pretty cool waste of time if you're looking for one. I recommend it, though not as anything deep or satisfying- think of it as a soda or something rather than a wine.

I find it pretty hard. Bulba you can make food rarer when you create a world and even on default settings I, without spoilers at least, am finding it extremely hard to survive winter.

 

[CaptainAwesome]

I'd find the game more interesting if it allowed you to find another wanderer to impregnate with your demon spawn, thus allowing you to eventually form a tribe from your loins which you can then use as cannon fodder in a pitiless war of conquest.

That would be pretty nifty.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

I'm having fun with it. People really think the game's too easy or just bs-ing?

 

[Metro]

It's easy when you figure stuff out.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Also cannot run in fullscreen if you have XP.

 

[Renegen]

You can always customize the map to have less resources, and if you're doing well there's challenges around the corner that involve more risk.

 

[Metro]

Eh... that doesn't cut it. The problem is the game feels more like a proof of concept than an actual game. Sure I can tweak things to make it more challenging but ultimately the game is little more than tedium. I can attack a spider queen but... why bother? I think it's a good idea that simply wasn't ready for release nor do I think they have any idea what direction they want to take it in... if they even bother at all.

To put it another way: The lack of meaningful content kills it as much as the lack of challenge.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Also I hate games with needlessly restrictive save structures. Since you can still copy the files manually, many people will go that unconvenient route, which makes it a rather pointless "feature" for them.

 

[Konjad]

Cheating the system outside of a game is hardly game's fault.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Then why is it necessary at all? How many people really want to play a sand box game with permadeath?? Why not make it optional?

 

[Metro]

This is barely a sandbox game. The object is to survive (and collecting stuff to progress to the next world... which you just do the same thing again). It isn't as if there's a lot of interesting or useful stuff to craft or much exploration.

 

[Damned Registrations]

This is barely a sandbox game. The object is to survive (and collecting stuff to progress to the next world... which you just do the same thing again). It isn't as if there's a lot of interesting or useful stuff to craft or much exploration.

This pretty much. The problem with this game is that you can explore for hours and find nothing but berries, trees, and rocks. And survival is trivial since you can just plant 9000 berry bushes in one spot and have infinite food. Same with wood. Since your survival is guaranteed, the 'game' is just a matter of deciding where you want to be on the (safe tedium - risky progress) slider. Games like that are rarely satisfying. Especially when they favour the tedium side so much like this one does.

 

[Metro]

Moreover, I'm pretty sure there's an option that lets you toggle permadeath off... not that the game would be very interesting without it.

 

[baturinsky]

I'd recommend Stranded 2 and Minecraft instead. With Massive Mod and Terra Firma respectively, if you want hardcore Robinson on island action.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

75% off on Steam atm (and 68% off with all the DLC). So is this worth getting?

 

[Konjad]

75% off on Steam atm (and 68% off with all the DLC). So is this worth getting?

Nah, I got bored quickly.

 

[Dickie]

It's basically just picking grass and berries until you get bored and quit.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Solo I find it boring, the early game is always the same once you realize how to optimize it, and if you don't you get fucked once winter arrives so it's not like you have a choice. With friends however it becomes much more interesting because it opens up the possibilities. We recently picked it up and play one or two hours on weekends. It's simple fun that offers some challenge without a yuge learning curve.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I love this game but everyone talks shit about it so I end up playing solo.

 

[Üstad]

I love this game but everyone talks shit about it so I end up playing solo.

I haven't played it for years, but multiplayer version got several DLC sized updates for free. The amount of content is added seems good and it deserves praise for getting it free, even today they add free content.