Real life insanity?

[rattyboy]

Ok.... so I saw the game on steam, it was on sale, and I figured, what the heck, it runs under linux (and i use that and its a pain to boot into windows for games so i never do).  and it runs like a dream under Linux.  Absolutely like a dream.

 

...But...

 

MY real life brain has issues when I lose 45 minutes of effort on a character.  I know there are mods to prevent death.  But does anyone really use them?  I 've once found a portal that seemes to be a 'save' point but i died not long after finding it and don't know what it did for sure.

 

I wanted to cry when I missed going up by a day due to a lapse in concentration.  This is a MIND GAME and the spirit of the game as I choose to play at least involves not save scumming. But i don't blame those of you who do.  This game just reminds me of the days when this was how games were made... only taken way too far. Hehe.

[Silentdarkness1]

Uh, the portal is not a save point. That puts you into Adventure Mode. The game saves frequently.

[Tulingu]

Build a meat-effigy or get yourself an amulet and wear it. That door has nothing to do with saving, it's just a portal to adventure mode.

[Sporb]

And touchstones. Don't forget to activate those whenever you see them.

But, yeah! This game involves a lot of dieing when you first start playing. You don't need to be discouraged. As you die, you learn things and can survive for longer and longer amounts of time... until regular survival gets boring and you go try adventure mode or something.

[the truthseeker]

Well, this is what's called "Roguelike" and meant when you die, you lose all your progress. it's also known as permadeath. Just like Roguelike suggests, you get a random world setup each game, and you can play and build your Don't Starve game as you see fit, without any strict rules (besides Don't Starve! )This is known as a Sandbox Game and (appropriately enough,) this is known in the game itself as "Sandbox Mode."

 

So yes, Don't Starve is a Roguelike Permadeath Sandbox Survival game (with elements of Horror.) 

 

Because of this, the game automatically saves your progress at sunrise and sunset (so you can quit and come back later if you haven't died.)

 

 

Rewarding those who do well until they die (or "escape," more on that in a moment,) you get "experience" when this happens, the more XP the longer you live before dying (or "escaping.") When you hit certain thresholds (and unlike the permadeath, this experience is cumulative to you total playing time in all games,) you "unlock" other characters. 

 

Due to this being a permadeath game, there are some ways to revive after death. One way is to craft (or dig up in a graveyard if lucky) a Life Giving Amulet. The other way is to Craft a Meat Effigy. The third and final way (as mentioned before) is to find and activate  (up to two per world) Touchstones. When you die this way from these three options, you lose all your items at the point of death and have to retrieve them. Only the Life Giving Amulet resurrects you where you died. Using any of these options consumes that item, and must be remade (or is gone forever from the world in the case of the Touchstone, but feel free to dig up the Wooden Flooring left there to prevent Lureplants, and you DID Hammer down the Pig's Heads to use as resources before, right?) 

 

 

Now, as noted, you could "leave" from one of two other methods:

 

1. You may find Four Things and the Wooden Thing (they go in,) build what is known as the Teleportato, and escape with whatever you are carrying. This sends you to a brand new world, and resets the day count (and all creatures that  progress due to advanced days,) to 1. This "escaping" also gives you game XP without dying. The Eagles said it best, "You can Check Out any time you want, but you can never Leave." 
2. You find "Maxwell's Door." As noted, this changes you from the "Sandbox Mode" to "Adventure Mode." Adventure Mode means you are sent into a pre-arranged themed world where you are given a "Divining Rod" and your goal is to (deliberately) find the Four Things, the Wooden Thing and escape to the next world with only four inventory items, until you find the "Epilogue" and...let's just say "Speak to Maxwell." You are rewarded with a special unlocked character by completing this, and have a chance of finding (and possibly rescuing,) another character, who is rarely generated within the first few worlds. 

 

Ironically, this kind of game is made so you learn when you die. I know it is upsetting, but it's literally part of the game. Keep at it and keep focused. There's no shame if you need to take notes for what to do in the future. Crafting, food herding, and (eventually) cavern exploring priorities are a very complicated thing for new players. Keep at it, and we'll be glad to help if you need help.

 

And while we've provided links to it (especially me in this post,) it's recommended not to use (or overuse if you are truly stuck) the Don't Starve Wiki so you can "discover the Magic of new things for yourself." Again, dying but learning is part of the game. 

 

So I hope this helps, and you keep at it! 

[toasterman3000]

This is the exact reason that I haven't played in a while. Too much heart-ache.

 

After dying right at the end of world 4 in adventure mode because of a stupid mistake, I lost most of my will to try again.

 

 

And yet, I love the game. If anything, the fact that a video game can make me feel this kind of emotion makes me love it even more.

[gnarlytreeman]

lol yeah for the first few weeks the game does that to people, i've had many a face palm moment, and a few hair pulling ones.

[rattyboy]

[snipped excellent academically worthy treatise on roguelike]

 

So I hope this helps, and you keep at it! 

 

I went with it b/c I was in the mood for a roguelike. 8) The umm... 4000 customer reviews with an average of 4.5 / 5 stars didn't hurt either.  I love the Roguelike aspect of this game.  It takes talent to make a game that is both rugelike AND fun.  But then ... I still occaisionally play rogue.  I've even considered embarking on an AI to just PLAY rogue. I love the items and bunuse and general dungeon crawl with charcter improvement that comes from roguelikes. 

 

And Don't Starve is hands down one of the best roguelike implementations I've ever seen.  The real gem here is the carefully balanced gameplay In my opinion.

 

I simply love it. I'm going to watch these developers for more work.  There's something just nice about getting to where I am now where I am surviving but not dying.  Soon I will embark again on a survival quest.  Simply a wonderuflly done game.  I rank this one as a possible gaming classic to sit on the shelf with the likes of Star Control 2, Zork [yea, its that good], other IF games, and even classics like Rogue and Dwarf Fortress.  Hands down a huge contribution to the gaming industry that has the potential to really change the way games are coded for level balance.  Really.  This is a very well balanced game.  I'm sure some disagree, but this is really well done.  THose who disagree have never tried to balance a game they have written (I write some games but I don't have a team to publish with so  none ever make it out of my desktop).  Typidcally I get the back end 70% done and then get boreed and move on to the next project. 

 

bleh.So, I get the amount of work that went into this game in terms of art, coding, and production.  i also can see the love that went into this game (World of Goo, anyone?  that one also is well known for the love that went into it and a classic in my opinion and Don't Starve is worthy of sitting next to it on the shelf). Every aspect has love in it - level design, the way the critters howl and shriek, the things tat get you when you are going crazy, the shadows... the audio... the interface design...

I know I keep throwing gaming greats out there to compare this title with.  Keep in mind, I'm only camparing greatness.  THis game's design stands on its own as original.

K.  So, yeap. will keep playing.  I just get so emotionally charged while playing.  I've only found the adventure mode twice in hours of play.

 

Oh, I play weird too, I don't play to 'win' but to have fun (thank you DF) in any game I play.  I have a charcter on a mud that is gimped up and plays outside of the normal expected roles and gets a lot of crap for it from other people b/c its gimping up the character.  But I ... love the way that character plays.  Whatever.  So winning isn't possibel unless I have fun.  And when that new death comes aroundthe corner and I see it its always a thrill to run and try to survive it.

Ugh, what a time waster!  Oh, one more thing for the devs if they read this or the artists or hell, even the producers:  you also did something that irs rare for my 40 year old brain to experience.  You achieved suspension of disbelief her and there during gameplay.  That's those wonderful moments wehn you REALLY become the character and get so focused on the game that you play without noticing the passage of time and are totally focused. I get that with my base every now and then. *sigh* I'm enjoying this game so much.  Not reading spoilers or anything either.  Wonderfully done.

[rattyboy]

This is the exact reason that I haven't played in a while. Too much heart-ache.

 

After dying right at the end of world 4 in adventure mode because of a stupid mistake, I lost most of my will to try again.

 

 

And yet, I love the game. If anything, the fact that a video game can make me feel this kind of emotion makes me love it even more.

 

Seee!!! I amw not alone!  Yea, the heartache is incredible.  That's what I like about roguelikes. You can really get htattached to your character.  And sure you can save scum out of it, but the developoers intended the experience to be permadeath.  WHatever.  I like the permadeath implementation.  8)

Its building up to that point where you have your base and what not.  Ahh... hehe.  Such a fun game.

lol yeah for the first few weeks the game does that to people, i've had many a face palm moment, and a few hair pulling ones.

My wife cracks up when I get panicked and start "oh no"ing over the game.  Hehe.  Nice.

[rattyboy]

Don't Starve really is the game equivalent of 'literature'.

[the truthseeker]

I simply love it. I'm going to watch these developers for more work.  

[snip]

Oh, I play weird too, I don't play to 'win' but to have fun 

 

Well, maybe lot the literal excat team, but Klei's new game is Incognita

 

I'd highly recommend following it if you want to be responsible for the future of the game's development (another reason I love Klei for listening to its players and actually changing their games if feedback is supported enough by many people.) 

 

 

And dammit, if you have that much fun, then enjoy it! Explore every little thing you love about the game and perhaps find some hidden surprises others may miss! Or just have fun! 

 

(In the future, if you have multiple replies, try and put it in one post. Multi-posting after yourself several times is frowned upon. The occasional 2 multi-post is tolerated but 3 is disliked a lot. No wrath or anything, just a heads up.)