[Poll+ Disc] On Lights Out and Preset Challenges

[GetNerfedOn]

simple poll i am making because i started lights out

to say i have never felt so satisfied after taking 16 ingame days to get three constantly infighting catcoons to spit up a bird (and a second one after they immediately killed the first) and then craft a birdcage is a sentence id never have imagined myself saying but ehre we are

anyways, vote and discuss!

[Hungry French]

Finally, the sequel to humanity's best game has been released.

[hhh2]

I have a longstanding world of Lights Out.  The challenge is that unless you rely on some items your ability to read the screen, to perform some important actions, and to battle mobs are impeded.  Don't Starve is such a superb survival sandbox that there being only night helps you out in some scenarios, like you may never have to chase Krampus to attack them or not overheating so quickly during summer.  Collecting Glommer and conducting the Moonstone event are way easier.  Don't Starve is such a great sandbox that there are few definitive tweaked settings that will make the world more difficult to survive by.

Light bulbs and then the star caller's staff defeat the challenge quite quickly.  It takes less than five minutes to get the forty light bulbs that will provide over an hour of light.  When I realised this, I started thinking that, if I try this challenge again, I will disable lightbulbs and never craft the star caller's staff.  And once the Moon storms start, the challenge is no more.  The same thing is true with that one book of Wickerbottom's and that one circuit of WX's.

Touchstones lose their functionality.  There are no birds, so that alters how you may choose to make healing items.  You must have a bunch of patience, OP, I never bothered since blue caps were always regrowing.  There are no butterflies either.  

The identity of Lights Out as a challenge is that it hampers your ability to read the screen and decreases your possible awareness.  In the early game, it puts a harsh drain on twigs and grass and logs, and it tends to slow down gameplay like summer or winter.

I would like more challenges, but designing a challenge is very difficult!  It seems easy to make a challenge that would test a player's mechanical skill, but the allure of a real Don't Starve challenge does more than that.  It often tests a player's knowledge, memory, and reasoning.  I look at Joeshmoecoolstuff's YouTube channel for inspiration.  The most imaginative and creative challenge exhibited on his challenge is the Lights Out no torches challenge 

 

[Mike23Ua]

I’ve played lights out, there’s a few things about this mode that have to be considered: Sanity is constantly draining at all times, you will need to know at least a few ways of regaining sanity to play this mode. It’s Night: Mobs that only come out at night are always active (Aka Easy Spider Overgrowth) and those pesky Batalisk! Theres no day or mid day so you can always immediately at any time take advantage of diving over into a Tent or Siesta-Lean To for health and sanity restoration at the cost of hunger. There are certain items that are broken OP for this Mode that Klei needs to heavily consider nerfing or adding new gameplay mechanics for:

Such as for example: If Shadow Hands would Unscrew lightbulbs out of Winona’s Portable spotlights. (For lights out mode only)

If your looking for another fun challenge of misery: toggle the only season to spring, crank up frog rains & lightning strikes to lots more, this one in particular is Hilarious & Chaotic. 💗

Edited August 22, 2025 by Mike23Ua

[GetNerfedOn]

3 hours ago, hhh2 said:

There are no birds

I appreciate the detailed response! but i cannot resist 

My current issue is sanity management (it goes from bad to worse as Warly), my current living log shortage, and my current inability to grow crops. I have solutions for each but it it really has been forcing me to think on my feet like I never have

[Juanasdf]

Self Imposed challenges can be pretty fun! I haven't played enough lights out (and I should.)

I've tried a nothing world and there were a ton of creative ways of getting seemingly impossible items. For example, before they introduced the atrium tentacle set piece, the only way to get a lantern was to kill the shadow pieces for a reanimated skeleton to spawn a few bulbs! Or using events to get extra resources, like a cane from winter feast,  if AG's luck wasn't on your side, and even a tree, a flower, a spiky bush and a grass tuff from year of the catcoon. Hallowed nights also spawns a few pumpkins and jack o lanterns + you can get a fair amount of candy to make it a bit easier.

You can even make it harder on yourself by disabling some creatures in world settings. I had birds disabled, and the only way to get them was getting a merm king for seeds, which required deconstructing several beef hats from winter feast.
I've seen one person doing the challenge with tumbleweeds turned on which, honestly, makes the challenge more bearable imo.

Another fun challenge I tried was the no prototypers world. It's up to you to decide if you want to ban blueprints, but in that case completing the game becomes impossible since the WARBOT update requires thulecite bugnets...
Personally, I had a blast doing it with Winona right after she got her skill tree with the calibrated perceiver. The only viable weapon I had access to for a while was the shield of terror (at that point I didn't think about scanning a dark sword from the shadow trio). SHOUTOUTS TO THE STAGE, ICE CHESTER AND THE CROCKPOT SETPIECE!

Some folks even tried scienceless and some even did no crafting, but that sounds extremely painful.

[gaymime]

i am quite keen on lights-out worlds and do one or two new lights-out worlds every year. it is actually one of the few things that gets me to engage with together-style farming and pk basing simply because of the labour of setting it up and needing catcoons to keep it going. it also makes my usual playstyle of pigs, greencaps and sailing much less viable so i spend more time being nomadic and terrestrial

 

it is nice seeing that at least a few other people have been playing and have a positive experience!

[Wormboi]

Im surprise they haven't made any mode challenge modes, Iike one where all biomes are islands and you have to sail to get to them.