Recent reviews by Necroka

The story starts off with the mysterious demon Maxwell telling the player that he/she should look for food before night falls. As quickly as he came, he disappears. The story doesn't end there though – the player can choose to just survive as long as possible, or stumble upon a way out, pushing them through specialized survival hurdles. Like any other game, Don't Starve has it's pros and cons – things that can be pros to one person and cons to the next.

THE ART: 10/10
The art is dark, but easy on the eyes. Things aren't pretty, shiny, and bright, easily putting many survival lovers in the game. The animation works well, even though for some characters their heads are unnaturally squished in some frames. It adds to it all, rather than making the game weirder than it already is. The style is strong, and things rarely, if ever, feel out of place.

GOAL: 9/10
The goal is a simple one – survive or attempt to escape. The coolest part about attempting to escape is that the game doesn't really tell players how to do it. Though it may be a turn off to many players, not having a goal outlined and given to the players forces them to be as lost and confused as the character they play as. The game is set up to put players in the right mindset from the start, and the lack of direction helps. It may have been more effective to add a game type that allows players a more directed course through the story, just in case the player is one of the many that would check wikis and seek out help rather than be lost.

EXPORATION: 8/10
With the addition of caves a while back there's even more to explore – and it can be overwhelming. The best part is players can take extra exploration at their own pace after general survival chores. There's so much to discover. Once a player has found most of what the world has to offer, the game can become a grind rather than a wonder. It gets repetitive – like a wilderness survival should – and that can knock it off of many player's lists. Many survival games will change things up for players all the time – this is not one of them.

CHARACTERS: 10/10
Cute? Strong? Sophisticated? Nuts? A player's first play-through will usually be with Wilson, who grows a beard so long it can keep him warmer when winter comes, but just playing unlocks a girl who lights fires in the dark, a strong muscle-man, a girl and her dead friend, a Canadian lumberjack that turns giant beaver, and a teacher who has a few tricks up her sleeve. Players can also do more specific challenges to add a very weak mime and, after finding and completing adventure mode, Maxwell himself – the only character who's name doesn't start with the letter “w”.

CRAFTING: 8/10
There are some cool things to craft other than basic tools; some of which get pretty interesting – especially when players are fuelling and crafting with nightmares. Yeah. Nightmares. The caption for one item even says “Is this even science anymore?” The downside is that there isn't a lot of things to craft, and although playing around with the crock pot for recipes can be fun, it doesn't take long to want more content. The addition of Steam Workshop compatibility has cured this for many, but not all.

HUNTING AND FARMING: 6/10
I did find myself yearning for more when I caught birds and couldn't do much with them. There is no way to breed the birds and things players capture, they must wait for things to spawn, since they do so infinitely. It isn't needed, bit would have been cool. It isfun to plant seeds and wait to see what they become, though. Even stuffed 12 chests full of rabbits.

WITTY: 10/10
The fact that there are witty one-liners all over the place that even differ from character to character in some places even exists adds a kind of off-beat humourus underlining to the game. Things can be dark and depressing at times, but just like everything else, there's always something to brighten things, even if it isn't by a lot, making the experience more real. The best examples, as per my opinion, has to be how what the character says when a player examines a grave changes as he/she becomes more insane.

WAYS TO DIE: 10/10
Starvation, insanity, and murder by everything from flowers and trees to tentacles and giant cyclops-deer-things. Players can be stung to death, stampeded on, mauled by hounds, trampled by angry trees, attacked by marble chest piece looking dudes, struck by lightning, and so much more. If you're anything like me, you'll run for two straight in-game days trying to lose Chester because you picked up the eyeball thingy and didn't wanna let it go, and had no idea what he was or where he came from. Bugger actually scared me. With so many ways to die, you never know.

MOD SUPPORT: 7/10
With the addition of the steam workshop, more and more successful mods have been created. Many mods are still terribly buggy, and though this is usually the fault of the people creating the mods, better mod support would make it easier for people to make mods.

MULTIPLAYER VS SINGLEPLAYER: 3/10
I see A LOT of bicker about this, but it is important to many. It's double edged, and so I'll try to be detailed yet short on it. After Don't Starve stole a week from me, I decided it was time to play with friends... only to find out that I couldn't. The developers said they would NOT be adding multiplayer. In normal multiplayer games, people start WITH their friends, knowing who is where, what, and who – making the game easier, and adding no mystery whatsoever. Though it would be fun, it would not fit with Don't Starve.

I would have liked to see a customized kind of multiplayer where one hosts their own mini server for no more than four people that will in different spots of the map entirely. It would suit an indie game like this, and if done through steam, set it so only friends could join, and the game never told players if someone joined or not. No one could tell if someone was really out there - the possibility would be there like one would expect when a demon grabs people and drops them in the wilderness. Unfortunately, the way the game is coded supposedly makes any kind of multiplayer nearly impossible to begin with, so it's likely that there will never be any multiplayer.

No multiplayer forces the players to be alone in a world out to get them, the main premise for Don't Starve, and keeps the experiences far more relate-able from player to player. Multiplayer could actually take away from the overall piece of the game, possibly nerfing the point of it and giving other would-be-players an inaccurate view of what the game was intended to be. There are also many games out there that are multiplayer survival, like Wurm online, Minecraft, and more, so not including multiplayer sets the game apart, giving it a more formed identity. Don't Starve doesn't need multiplayer to be great – but it is a factor for customers to consider when looking to buy.

LONG STORY SHORT: 8.1/10
The game doesn't help you through, doesn't give you tips or goals, and can get pretty creative with how it kills people, even if the game starts to get repetitive. For those who love to explore new, quirky worlds that are out to get you, spiced with the mystery that there may be something beyond what the mysterious Maxwell tells you, this game will be for you, even without multiplayer. The first few rounds are bound to teach any player a thing or two about the hostile world of Don't Starve. Those who find themselves attached to having direction or having other people play with them will likely come to find the game become boring, and maybe quickly. The game plays on mystery and wonder – I can't say I recommend it for anyone who likes to know everything about what they are doing, but those who take things in stride will find themselves learning a lot of things the hard and fun way.

I've got to say I'm glad I got it when it was on sale. It's definitely more of a $5 game, not a $15 one. If you find this game at $5 or less, then think about it, but any more than that and you might want to find something that got finished. This review is based off of my experience and the regular price though, so overall I don't recommend it. There's no way there isn't better games out there than this.

Let me start with what I found to be good about the game though, since I did technically like it. I never played this Gnomoria that everyone else is mentioning, and with little function in Minecraft for watching a village come to life even with mods, I found it to be a great idea. Even though it was immediately obvious from opening the game that it was far from finished I found myself enjoying finding different combinations and ways of getting my limited villagers to survive.

Secondly, the zoning. By assigning a zone type to an area the area gains a particular function, while losing other functions. This makes building a city kind of cool because the buildings one makes will actually function the way that they've zoned it to. Added to the fact that, if one could figure out the menus easily, one could get the villagers to use and upkeep these zones automatically, without any help from the player.

Then there's just the world in general. Although the maps are small, they generate well, and they're fun and easy to shape. If a player shows enough patience, it actually is possible to build the kinds of places they show in the promotional material and screenshots.

The last thing I thought was really cool was being able to put writing on tombstones and books and things. I can go through my village and remind myself of the events that passed. Who died, who did the best, or helped the most – it felt like making a civilization, even though it was really just a town at best. Epic legacies in a tiny town.

Now, the wonderful negatives that ruined it. Unfortunately there are a lot of these, so I'll put a chunk of them in point form;
*Odd menu style. That took a while to get used too, and I feel like things could be implemented better.
*Moving items is a hassle, or just plain confusing.
*Can't place enough text in books, graves, signs, etc, and can't use characters like “/”, making labels and text look flat and odd, like they were written by some 10 year old that was too lazy to use any punctuation. Breaks immersion.
*The use of scaffold isn't clearly stated to be useful, and so it can be difficult to find out about it and how to use it properly to build better buildings. There isn't a lot of direct help on the internet either, so simply building can be a hassle. Also, making second floors is too tricky.
*Extremely limited character sprites. Everyone will have too many clones for you to care about them. They also all have weird french-sounding names, even if playing the English version, and though unimportant, feels like it takes away from immersion into the game.
*The armour doesn't fit on the sprites properly. Sometimes this is funny, but it just isn't proper for a game that costs $15.
*The first floor dungeons, though easy to pass, are too expansive and too full of monsters. There's no easing into it at all, making the game feel less thought-out and more slapped together. Also an immersion breaker.
*Next to no updates. These people probably don't care anymore, and it's showing. They don't update anywhere near as much as they should, and some of the bugs in the game could really use some fixes.
*The bugs. Seriously, the game is definitely not a finished product. Amusing, but certainly not finished.

And lastly, though kind of silly, what I found to be the game-breaker;
The weapons you make, buy, and find are cool and all, but it isn't hard for some "hero" to waltz by and take all your good stuff, leaving your citizens and soldiers pretty close to defenceless. Some heroes. I worked hard on that stuff. “That hat was for the blacksmith!” and “she needed that spear to save her life!” might become alarmingly common frustrations.

So yeah. Ends up under $5? It'll amuse you long enough. $15? It's cute, but it ain't that cute, just go back to your Minecraft mods and this "Gnomoria" everyone else is talking about.