Rant 1131 / Don't Starve Is Good

Playing Don't Starve because NWN is getting a little dry in Chapter 2.

Two attempts so far and I haven't got past 7 days. I got a little careless the second time and tried to do too many things at night, so I barely missed relighting my fire on the 6th night by a split second. If I had survived that, I'd have time to make a few farms.


...

4th attempt has been great until winter set in, at which point everything went to shit.

3rd attempt was silly. Like the 4th, everything went smoothly until the 8th day when I felt adventurous and decided to attack a Tallbird. Died in 3 hits.

I wasn't wearing armour because I had underestimated it, which in turn was because the backpack and piggback seemed to much more useful that I didn't think this game was that combat-oriented.



My 4th try has not finished yet but it's about to. It's the 27th day and I was caught completely offguard by the dramatic changes in the environment. I was still focusing on finding manure to build more farms and had neglected to hoard food, especially since I already had 5 farms and there were ponds nearby.

More importantly, I didn't know about the sources of charcoal until the 25th day when I accidentally chopped a burnt tree that had been struck by lightning. Without charcoal, I had no idea how to build a drying rack, which would have allowed me to produce food that didn't spoil quickly.

Since all the food I knew about rot within days, hoarding food never felt like a good idea. Until now.

It's the 27th day and I have run out of food. My hunger level is almost at the level where I get HP damage and all I have left is 3 pieces of monster meat that will cause me a little more HP damage.

But that's not important. What is important is that I have no way to find more food. I have no bait for my traps and I can't fish from the frozen ponds. I can't kill monsters for their toxic meat either because my HP is too low even with the log armour I'm wearing. Seeds aren't being dropped by birds anymore and berries aren't regrowing at all.

I don't really want to give up but I don't think I have a choice. Next time, I'll get charcoal and start making jerkies.