Klei Entertainment’s survival sim is a tricky one. Experience is its own reward, but it’d be nice to have something to show for it, too. No achievement, no leaderboard score, nothing but the story I just told you. It was a fair death – I could’ve prevented it by doing more mentally stimulating activities like crafting science items like lightning rods – but what bothered me about it is that I was left with nearly no recognition from Don’t Starve itself. Of course, a few minutes later my sanity meter drained due to my character’s exhaustion, and my weakness gave a laughably weak frog the perfect opportunity to chisel the rest of my health away. Assassin’s Creed Unity Gold Editionįrighteningly quickly, the entire forest went up in flames, and my attackers were all reduced to piles of silk… which I picked up and used to make a vest. Realizing there was little hope for escape, I threw caution to the wind and started a nearby tree on fire. In one game I found myself low on supplies and pursued through the woods by a horde of vicious spiders. And while there’s a fair amount of mundanity associated with that, those efforts culminate in desperate and tense struggles for survival. The gameplay cycle is simple: explore the world and gather materials during the relative safety of daylight, survive the night by crafting a fire and consuming some food, repeat. The visuals are accompanied by a carnivalesque soundtrack that, while immediately catchy, lacks any sort of variation and quickly led me to switch it off and search for my own creepy music to play in the background. This atmosphere of a child’s storybook gone awry is aided by a novelesque menu system and comically blunt bits of story. Like a popup book from the mind of Tim Burton, the gothic-inspired look makes even the most benign shrubbery seem threatening. The moment I landed in my randomly generated world I was struck by an immense appreciation for the paper-cutout graphical style and whimsical presentation. Some adventurers will view this freedom as a liberating canvas on which they can express their patience, creativity, and bravery, but this complete lack of direction or goals beyond simply staying alive prevented me from ever really bonding with Don’t Starve.

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