Don’t Starve Beta – Preview
Recently the people at Klei entertainment were nice enough to send us a code for the beta of their new game Don’t Starve. I was fortunate enough to be the one to test out this new upcoming game by the makers of Shank and Mark of the Ninja and see what it was all about.
So straight of the bat you can see Klei is taking a new road with Don’t Starve. Where as the two shank games and Mark of The Ninja had a very nice looking hand drawn comic book style, Don’t Starve goes in a completely different direction. It’s still has that nice hand drawn look but as soon as you see this game the first thing that’ll pop into your head will very likely be Tim Burton, as the game looks like something that could have come straight out of the mind of the eccentric movie director. Now don’t get me wrong here, like i said the game has a very Tim Burton esque style to it when it comes to the graphic design but this doesn’t mean Klei doesn’t do their own thing with it and the style just works, I mean it fits the game perfectly.
So what is the game? Well, Don’t starve is a Top down survival game with some rogue-like elements to it.Now what do I mean when i say survival game? Well basically you get dropped on a deserted island by some weird guy and you have to try and survive by collecting resources to turn into weapons and food to survive. At night you’ll want to make sure you can make some form of fire because if you don’t you’ll run into the things hiding in the dark and trust me, that’s an encounter that won’t end well for you.
For a game being in beta i have to say it performs pretty great and feels pretty complete. The game already has a pretty decent and varied crafting system with stuff going from a simple axe to an amulet that revives you when you die, you’ll want to get that last one, trust me because dying is a pretty big deal in this game. Still Klei is doing a great job updating the game one a regular basis with patches ever 2-3 weeks that don’t just bring bug-fixes but actual significant changes often based on the feedback by the community and I have to say it, feels good to see these smaller developers really interacting with their communities and fans, working with them to create awesome games. It gives me hope that the games industry hasn’t become just big faceless corporations who make games based on what their market research says will sell. That there’s still people working in it who makes games because they love them and are passionate about them. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are a lot of passionate people working on big triple A titles, but I feel often those people just don’t get the creative liberty smaller indie developers get, and it’s that creativity we’ll need to keep the industry evolving and not stagnate.
Alright, after that small rant I feel it might be a good time to round up this article. All in all i really like what I’ve seen from Don’t Starve so far and I can’t wait to see how the game looks like on release in March. If you’re interested in the game head on over to Klei’s website here to check the game out for yourself and, if you like what you see, maybe consider buying it right now, since if you buy it right now you get access to the beta yourself plus a ton of other extra things. If you’re not convinced just yet, be sure to check out our full review of the game once it comes out.
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