[Tips & Tricks] The only Don't Starve game guide you'll ever need

If you’ve not read our Don’t Starve game review, then you should. Surviving this game can be tricky and you’ll die a few times. So, I did the dying for you and came up with a list of things you should do and look out for to survive this game!

For the most part, surviving day to day life in Don’t Starve is pretty easy once you learn the do’s and don’t of life there. From the get go, you should focus and getting the essentials to start getting food on your “table” and surviving the night. These are actually grass and sticks, which are essentially the most common in the game.

Camp Fire -> Research Thingamajig -> Fire pit -> Crock Pot

The Crock pot allows you to produce food out of anything and also helps you generate better quality food. Four Meats give you a “Meaty Stew”, four fruits give you a “Fruit Medley”, four vege’s give you a “Ratatouille”. Mixing and matching them may come up with unique foods, such as the “Stuffed Eggplant”, so explore away!

DO’s

Once you’ve built your first tool, which is normally an Axe, get some wood ready for the night. Try and obtain a fire pit instead of a normal camp fire. A fire pit can be restarted and its considerably safer.
Choose a suitable location for a permanent camp. Normally i place myself near a few things – a. A bunch of bunny holes, b. near beefalos, but not TOO near, as they tend to crowd.
Chop trees that have already grown. You can see the difference, a fully grown tree is wide and tall. The reasoning behind this is that you will gain more wood and also acorns for you to plant new trees.
Collect flint where ever you find them, as they are the main component of your tools.
Get a shovel and dig up saplings and grass tufts. You can then place them where you want them near your camp. You can also do this for Berry Trees, but you’ll need to fertilize them.
Save up food for the next day. While you may have unlimited food later on, you never know when you run into trouble, so carrying a little bit of food around is essential.
Make sure you make armor the minute you can, as they absorb all damage until they are broken. Hunt only with the spear or weapons you pick up, as do they considerably more damage to monsters.
Research as much as possible in your first run. Do this by harvesting Grass Tufts and Saplings, as they provide 20 points per tuft/sapling. Otherwise, you can go dig up some graves. As research carries over, don’t be afraid to spend on it. Your points carry over too!
Pick up flowers when you see them. Feed them to pigs for manure, which is essential for farming. You can also use them to fertilize berry trees once they run out. Pigs are awesome when you need to farm wood, as they can help you cut them down.

It’s night time and you can’t see anything!

DONT’s

Don’t start fires near burnable objects, which is essentially everything. Unless you have built a fire pit (which is the safer version), don’t even try. You can however, do it if you intend to make charcoal.
Don’t ever eat Monster Meat. While it helps you regain some hunger, you lose health in the process.
Don’t feed Monster Meat to ANYTHING. Feeding them to pigs will turn them to Were-pigs, which will effectively kill you, especially in the earlier parts of the game.
Don’t bring pigs along to monster fights. Why? Pigs eat meat from the ground and monsters randomly drop Monster Meat from time to time. You’ll never know if they turn on you later.
Don’t leave food on the ground, this includes seeds, flower petals, berries and meat. Like the issue above, rabbits, birds, turkey’s come and gobble your food up. You can leave wood and stone on the ground though, since there hasn’t been a monster that eats them 🙂
Don’t wait until the last minute before you light a fire. This is because the minute it reaches night, it’s pitch black and you won’t be able to click anything. 2-3 wood is normally sufficient to last the entire night or if you’re a total cheapskate, use 2 torches.
Don’t place acorns too close together. Besides the fact that they eventually block you, they have a high chance of spawning Ents too, for some reason. I’ve gotten a few Ent spawns right next to my camp, simply because I was a tad bit lazy to spread them out. I was lucky to survive that too.

Turn the run into a chase. Don’t be afraid to kite your enemies. All monster attacks have delays which you can take advantage of.

Why?

Later in the game, you will find the Pig King whom trades meat for gold nuggets, which will be the main component in your higher end tools. Researching that as soon as possible is important, since gold tools last 10x longer and all you need to reproduce them is sticks and food, essentially something you’ve already made “limitless” in your camp. Try your best to aim for a crock pot as soon as possible as well, since it will eventually be the main source of high quality food.

Grass and sticks are essential for making traps. Place traps as close to a bunny hole as possible and you’ve pretty much secured yourself unlimited food. Grass Tufts and Saplings regrow after a few days, which makes it easier for you to collect later on, however, for better use of your time, you might still want to go out hunting them and use them for research or placing more near your camp.

Flint is important earlier in the game as they can be rare depending on the map. It also takes 4 – 5 pick hits to take out a mining point, which is approximately 20% of the picks durability. Each point also normally gives you 1-2 flints and these points are rare, non-replenish-able and diminishes quickly. While you may not use much of the stone in the beginning, you’ll notice you’ll have a lack of it later on, unless you hunt for the mining areas.

Also, I never found a real use of farms. They are terribly hard to maintain, due to its need for manure and seeds, and produce random vegetables, which are hard to store. (You can’t stack different vegetables together). Either way, there are unlimited bunnies in the game and from the example camp I placed above, you should have no issue, unless you get a werepig attack. I hope that helps you survive another day in Don’t Starve! Good Luck!

FAQ: Ask me anything

What should I focus on first?

Get food.

Do I really need to build a fire?

Yes, you do. Fire is crucial. Keeps you warm at night. For you to cook your food. Keeps predators at bay!

Monster Meat looks delicious, can I eat it?

They feed your hunger pangs, but you lose health in the process.

Are you playing “Don’t Starve”? What is your strategy? Share with us! Do comment! 😛

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