Hey Guys!

It has been EONS since we’ve had a game review on here so I am thrilled to welcome Dani LeChat from The Faerie Review and her review of Don’t Starve and Don’t Starve Together, a muti-player, multi-platform game set that is perfect for Tim Burton fans!

Don’t Starve & Don’t Starve Together – Review by Dani LeChat

When Minecraft and Tim Burton come together, this is what you get.

Don’t Starve and its multiplayer, Don’t Starve Together, are available pretty much on everything, even mobile. I think DST is even making its way to the Switch sometime soon. When playing multiplayer, I play on computer but control wise, I prefer console. I only use my computer because I have more friends through steam than I do on PSN. Although, DST on console is one of the VERY FEW games that offer split screen for multiplayer which makes for a great date night, just fyi.

Although, that’s if you don’t rage at each other for every death.

So, what IS Don’t Starve? If I had to sum it up in one sentence — probably a cartoon open world survival game. What started out as an indie game on Steam by Klei Entertainment has turned into a huge game with multiple DLCs and ports to all consoles.

You start the game off as Wilson, a scientist who basically winds up in a Tim Burton movie. The man in the radio, Maxwell, drops you off in the middle of this crazy world and tells you it looks like it’s getting dark.

You have 3 different stats that you must manage: Health, Hunger and Sanity. When you unlock different characters they all get different levels of these stats, as well as unique skills. Wilson can grow an epic beard (makes winter a lot easier to deal with) and Willow has her trusty lighter (to keep the shadows at bay). My favorite charachter to play as is Wendy, who is probably the weakest character (except maybe Wes) and can summon her dead twin sister to fight.

Yes. I’m sure Tim Burton didn’t have a hand in this, she says with heavy sarcasm.

To survive, you must gather resources and craft various tools, food, items and structures. You start out building the most basic stuff (axe, pickaxe, torch, campfire) until you get the items required to build machines such as the Alchemy Engine or dabble into the dark artes with Prestihatitator. Of course, magic drains your sanity. I mean Wilson IS a man of science after all!

But be careful. The hours can slip by so quickly and soon you’ll find darkness settling all around you. And Charlie is in there. All she wants to do is play! She may rip your throat out in the process, but that’s the price for letting your torch run out.

Spooky things lurk in the dark—namely Charlie. While you can venture into the darkness for a short amount of time, every moment you spend in there is a second for her to attack. You’ll notice your health start deteriorating with every attack. With shadow monsters and Charlie lurking at night, naturally your sanity will deplete as well.

In the single-player there are two different modes: Endless and Adventure. In Endless you basically need to survive as long as possible through the seasons. My record playing solo is about 40 days. To be honest though, I’m not that great at the game.

Adventure mode begins once you find Maxwell’s door in Endless mode. Once you go through it you get to pick 3 items to go with you. Entering the portal you start playing Maxwell’s little game to win your freedom. There are 5 levels, and they’re picked randomly. In these levels you need to collect 4 items: The crank thing, the box thing, a metal potato thing, and the ring thing. You take them to the location of the wooden thing and build a door to the next level. You’d think that’s easy. It’s not. When you die, luckily it’s not complete game over. You’re just thrown outside of the door to try again! The levels won’t be in the same order, but Maxwell doesn’t care about making things easy for you.

Maxwell is a sadist. He tortures Wilson because he’s in love with him. Prove me wrong.

And that’s basically the game. Don’t Starve Together, the multiplayer version, is essentially just endless with the ability to spawn into random servers or create your own. There’s also the Reign of Giants and Shipwrecked DLC, and a 3rd DLC coming in December! Klei Entertainment fully supports the modding community and does special events during the year. With Halloween I get to enjoy Wendy’s Lureplant costume, unless they give them new costumes this year.

Of course, with the plotless game and the comics/videos that were released with each new update, there’s a story deeper than just Maxwell messing with Wilson. Fan theories, stories, shippings… It’s all wonderful.

It’s available on Steam for $14.99. If you buy DST you get a second copy to send to a friend, so you can cry together, and more importantly, die together.

Get the game! Don’t starve! And remember…

Charlie’s waiting for you.