I Dream Of Eating: Do Play Don't Starve
As far as near-universally applicable life advice goes, Don't Starve is up there with "do breathe" and "do not play in high-speed traffic unless you are an RPS spambot programmer or a car." Klei's survival sim designed around that concept, however, is anything but simple. Instead, it's a methodical, almost insanely hostile thing, requiring brains to triumph over a sickly lack of brawn, the ever-ticking clock of mortality, and that most universal specter of them all: steroid-infused pig men. Wisely, then, Klei opted to put its delicate ramshackle shelter of cards through various phases of testing for quite some time, but now it's finally and fully out in the wild. There's a new trailer outlining the launch update after the break.
Tentacles, nostrils and ominous obelisks and fashionable winter wear and mimes, oh my! The biggest change here is the completion of Adventure Mode, which will now run front-to-back through five randomly generated stages. "There are tons of changes, tuning, and new features within adventure mode," Klei noted in a forum post, "but listing them all would ruin the surprise." Well boo. But it is understandable, given Don't Starve's powerful penchant for discovery and bizarro mysteries.
Even though Klei now considers Don't Starve "complete," don't think they've abandoned it to the ravages of a cold, cruel world. Updates will continue their avalanche-like pace for at least the next six months. First, though, the team's taking a much-deserved break, so the next update won't drop until May 21st. Also, probably expect slightly less sudden changes from now on. Klei explained:
"Because we are out of Beta, we need to be more careful in how we add content to the game. Previously, we’d throw our new content in the game almost as soon as it’s done, but we feel more testing is required post April 23. Given that, we are going to be moving to a 3 week update schedule, and open up our staging branch early to both give a sneakpeek at new content as well as give feedback before the content officially goes live."
For now, though, Don't Starve's meaty core game is ready for primetime, and it promises quite the unique experience. For a better, more hilarious idea of what you're getting yourself into, check out Adam's diary series. It's a magnificent tale of science machines, forest fires, and horrific acts of pig man cannibalism. So go. Be enlightened.