Don't Starve Preview

Don't Starve is an upcoming survival game from Klei Entertainment (known for such titles as Shank, Mark of The Ninja, Shank 2) and pits you, Wilson, against not only beasts and bugs but the wilderness itself in a struggle to survive.

I had seen very little on this game when I was given it. I knew that it was a survival game and that was about it. You start the game, laying on your back in the middle of a newly, randomly generated, world filled with god knows what. From here, there are no hints or tips, no tutorials or quests, you are simply left to your own devices with one objective, survive.

It didn't take long to realise that I had to collect resources in order to not starve and so went about running around a grassy forest picking up twigs, flint and bits of grass by left-clicking on them. From here, I created some tools to aid me, namely an axe and went about chopping down trees and hunting rabbits. It's all fun and games collecting resources until dusk settles in and night begins to fall. It became rather apparent that I needed to figure out how exactly I was going to survive the night segment of this game. I popped open the side panel which displays all of the things you can build and what materials are needed to do so. I clicked on the tab "Light" and saw that I could make a fire but I didn't have enough flint to do so. Running like around like a headless chicken, I scoured the landscape for a single piece of flint. The clock was rapidly spinning towards night and just before I thought all hope was lost, I found my flint and set up a small fire. I threw some meat onto the fire and settled in for the night. Luckily, I made it this time but what lurks in the dark, nobody knows. All you see is pitch black on the screen and your health slowly start to deplete.

It cycled like this for a while. Gathering resources during the day and sleeping at night. It is a slow task but you slowly build up your base camp, unlocking new craftable objects to aid you in your bid to survive. You unlock new objects by inputting collected resources into a Science Machine which will increase your intelligence which you then use to unlock the new objects.

The game has a very unique style to it in which the entire game looks hand sketched. This only adds to the creepiness of the night as you're huddled round a fire and spiders and other monsters are just outside the boundary of your light. You can't see them, but you know they're there!

The longer you survive, the more experience points you acquire. The more experience points you acquire, the more characters you can play with. Each character has a different attributes. Wilson, your starting character can grow a magnificent beard, Willow is immune to fire, creates a fire automatically at night and takes less damage from eating monster meat, Wendy has a "special visitor" at night, Wolfgang has higher health, a larger stomach and stronger melee attacks and there is another character, Wickerbottom which is to be announced.

I'm hoping to see multiplayer action in the coming updates, as this would be a perfect addition for this game and am really looking forward to the full release in March 2013.