Review: Don't Starve, or at least try not to

Just recently I've discovered a new game which fits the "survival game" genre. Not sure how old this video game genre is, but if you don't know what it is, it's basically what Minecraft and Terraria would likely be under. Games where the main objective is to provide your character with basic necessities to stay alive. In all these games it seems that building and gathering resources are the tasks that you will spend most of your time performing. While Minecraft if a 1st person fully 3D game and Terraria is a plataformer, Don't Starve comes somewhere in between. Almost like an isometric game but you can move the screen around as well. The game has a very neat feel to it, reminds me a lot of a Tim Burton movie, a bit sinister while a bit comical. 

Don't Starve doesn't really have a tutorial and a bit like minecraft, it requires you to experiment in order to learn how things work. The one help of this particular game is that recipes for things are shown to you up front once you have the science machine. The majority of your time will be spent collecting things and managing your resources, but it's all a lot of fun since there is enough to keep you interested for a long time.

First thing you have to do once you begin the game is gather materials for your first night. Most importantly materials to make a fire pit, unless you just use a dinky torch, and some berries or other food items. It's actually quite challenging initially to keep you character alive. The game gets more difficult as you go, with winter starting at day 20 and the raging dogs of the full moon. At night, it is very difficult to be productive because if you are caught in complete darkness you quickly die, so you need to keep a fire going and you need to have gathered the minimum needed to survive for another day. Much like on Minecraft, having the wiki open as you play is probably recommended.

Overall I was happy to spend the 15 dollars for this game after I played a bit of a pirated copy. This game kept me interested for many hours already and I foresee this trend continuing for a while longer. If you enjoy building games like minecraft with a slight edge of desperation and the fact that there is no real objective aside from not dying, which is a goal you will never achieve, this game is for you. 

Hints and Tips:

For the most part you actually don't need to use the mouse if you don't want to. Most basic actions like item collection and other actions based on what tool you have equipped can be done by pressing the space bar and holding it. This is great for convenience and for making your character do things quicker.

Don't set up your permanent camp right away. I've found that I do a lot better if I spend one or two full days exploring different areas and biomes to pick the perfect settling spot. Personally I like to have a few things nearby when I set my permanent camp. I like having Beefalos for manure, spiders for silk, frogs for food. If I can settle in the junction between a few different biomes that's even better since you may want an easy source of different things close by. I've read a lot of people that like camping near the pig folks as they can help protect you (by giving them monster meat) as well as providing manure. Often they also have sources of food around too.

Don't overlook any one of your stats, I often get complacent after a while without running hungry until I'm almost dying of starvation only to find out I have no food anywhere near me. 

If your sanity isn't at 100%, pick up flowers as you go (+5 sanity and a bit of health). You know you are going insane when it's a few minutes before dark and you have to go on a mad and desperate hunt for flowers. It perfectly illustrates how your character is doing.

Farming is a good thing to get started early. So look for a source of a lot of manure as well as grass to build yourself some farm plots.

Review: DotA 2, the best things in life are free

About a month ago DotA 2 was finally released as a final version (ie. no longer Beta). I made sure to sign up for it as soon as I found out on Steam. After less than a day of waiting I got my pass and wow, this is an amazing game. Dota 2 is my fist MOBA (multiplayer online batlle arena) game, which for those that don't know is a genre of games that began with the original DotA and now include the popular League of Legends as well as others like HoN.

Basically the idea behind a MOBA is seemingly simple but the game itself gets very complex and technical. You have an even map with 2 starting points, one for each team, as well as 3 lanes where teams must clear in order to get to the other team's base. Each lane has 3 sets of towers that must be destroyed by the opposing team with the help of "creeps", which are foot soldiers that help the teams out.  A team consists of 5 players and the objective as I mentioned is to destroy the other team's Ancient.

If both teams just sit and do nothing, waves of creeps will just fight each other and the game will probably be stagnantly stopped forever. However, with help from each of the 5 heroes, creeps push lanes towards the enemy towers until they can start damaging the tower. Heroes all start at level 1 with a small amount of gold. From there players gain experience through being close to the dying enemy units, and gold is obtained by delivering last hits on enemy units. This is an important aspect of the game since only one player can last hit. Players that keep getting last hits (LH) will accumulate gold faster than his team mates, and if you are more efficient than your opponent, you will also gain more than him/her. The interesting bit of the game is the variety of strategies available to move through the enemy's lanes. The most common is the use of 2 heroes on each side lane and one hero in the middle lane. This allows the middle lane hero to gather gold and experience faster than the side lanes, since he does not have to share XP or gold with anyone (although gold is usually not shared). Also the mid lane is the safest lane since towers are closer together, offering more protection from enemy attacks. Side lanes will often consist of a carry and a support, which are some of the different roles heroes can have. This is a lot like in sports where you have a football striker for instance, whose role is to score goals and pressure the opposition offensively. You have defenders that keep the ball away from their own goal. The carry is the player that will have to become the strongest of their team because they will be the ones doing most of the pushing and killing towards the end of the game, they "carry" the team at the end. Support are there to assist the carry in harassing the other team and helping him farm for gold and XP as much as possible. There are other roles that are a bit more complex as well, such as roamers/gankers which are heroes that tend to be more mobile offering more map awareness to his team mates as well as help in killing enemy heroes when opportunities arise. There are initiators, which tend to be heroes good at starting fights with abilities that put the enemy in positions where they have to react, usually leading to combat. You also have pushers, which are heroes that are specialized in killing enemy creeps as well as towers, allowing the team to move through the enemy's lane quickly when it is uncontested. You can also have nukers, which are heroes that are able to do a lot of AoE (Area of effect) damage, and can be great for team fights, farming or lane pushing in some cases.

Aside from the game itself, Dota 2 has a great and growing community. Just last week was the International, which is basically DotA 2 world cup, and it was such a great event to watch. This was the first time I've watched an eSport event, and I must say it was very exciting. Really, just as exciting as a good football or hockey game. The coverage was great, exciting and professional. I urge anyone interested in video games to check these games out, they will surprise you in how thrilling it can actually be to watch people play video games.

I'm really only touching the surface of this game with this post, but I think the main message I want to convey is that DotA 2 is a great fun game for anyone interested in a deep strategic game that could potentially consume a lot of your free time. I'll give this game a 9.5/10.