You may be aware that there has been some noise about Don't Starve going around, especially from the indie game community and the supporters of the underdogs.
Yet I would tell you this: you may not necessarily have a favorable hindsight about the game if you are on the verge of being enticed to play this latest game from Klei Entertainment.
That said, I would mention my very brief two-cents on Don't Starve; this is not a review, of course - that's for me to write much, much later, and with far more text than this blog post would carry.
IT IS NOT EXACTLY MINECRAFT OR TERRARIA
There is some hulla-baloo in the indie community about the comparisons made between Don't Starve and Mojang's flagship product or Re-Logic's baby. However, I would tell you this: no one is absolutely right on whether or not Don't Starve is comparable to either game.
The hardcore purists of Don't Starve would tell you that Minecraft or Terraria is child's play compared to Don't Starve, but that's only because they play their sessions on either the default settings or if they are even more sadomasochistic than one would expect, the even harder settings.
If the player is to set the settings to very favorable conditions that do not apply overbearing pressure on the player to spend his/her efforts on merely surviving, e.g. no hound attacks and such other wussy choices, he/she can well play the game like Minecraft - and get bored quickly.
Don't Starve is strictly a 2-D game that uses sprites and it doesn't even have a grid-like system for building things as seen in either Terraria or Minecraft; in other words, it doesn't have the gameplay elements that is needed for artistic expressions such as those that could be achieved with either Terraria or Minecraft.
On the other hand, a player with a lot of time to burn can attempt to create art out of the map system, but I don't think that anything more could be done.
You can attempt to create some weird silhouette art from uncovering the fog-of-war, but don't expect praises for having so much time in your hands.
PLAYING DON'T STARVE DOESN'T MAKE YOU A MORE AWESOME PERSON
There are those persons that take pride in playing very difficult games and persevering in them. They may even consider that "success" in such games is a badge of honor or something equivalent that makes them stand out from other gamers.
Well, in the eyes of wiser people, their experience with these games make them stand out alright - as stupendously stubborn and perhaps even perversely determined people.
If you so much as touch that second button ("Customize World"), you may be called all kinds of things by the purist fans of this game.
The default settings of Don't Starve's world-generating feature generally makes the game tougher and tougher as the player character survives for more and more days, purportedly to match the increasing experience and familiarity of the player.
Also, it would appear that major content updates for the game introduce much tougher biomes or new mobs that are more troublesome than the last ones.
Sure, they come with new rewards - but they often require players to jump through a few hoops. For example, the new Cave biome comes with renewable sources of rocks and flint stones, which were non-renewable before, but they have to be obtained through obviously dangerous rockfalls.
Also, Klei Entertainment nerfs reliable winning strategies regularly, the most notable nerf being the drawback that was introduced to make Meat Effigies riskier to use.
Not as good an insurance policy anymore, eh, Willow?
Also, Klei Entertainment nerfs reliable winning strategies regularly, the most notable nerf being the drawback that was introduced to make Meat Effigies riskier to use.
It would take a special kind of person indeed to keep looking forward to and liking the kinds of things that Don't Starve would throw at oneself.
"LEARNING IS REWARDING!"
That would be something that the hardcore, unapologetic fans of this game would say to you when they try to encourage you to play this game.
I would tell you this though: if you don't take the wussy (but probably wise) way to learn about the content in this game by checking the Don't Starve wiki whenever you see something weird and bizarre on-screen, chances are, your dude/dudette DIES from your lack of knowledge and/or stubborn refusal to read spoilers.
When TV Tropes uses Don't Starve as illustration for one of its entries, you know that this game is HARD.
In addition to the excuses that Klei Entertainment has used to paraphrase its refusal to include built-in game-saving as rogue-like gameplay, Klei Entertainment also has an excuse for not including a tutorial or official manual with the game package that can be summarized as follows:
"Learning is rewarding" - of course.
TAKE-AWAY: If you want a very, very convincing survival game, Don't Starve is indeed one. However, if you want Don't Starve to be a rewarding game, you have to be a glutton for punishment.
P.S. I am aware that even though this blog post is not exactly favourable towards Don't Starve and Klei Entertainment, I may well have promoted Klei's game anyway. I am conscious of this, and I will say that I happen to support Klei's efforts to create a very convincing survival game - even if I don't personally like it.
P.P.S. I am still affected by the LiveFyre comment glitch.