Tag Archives: survival

Game Spotlight — Don’t Starve

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Though I wrote in a blogpost back in January that I might take up streaming on a regular basis, it is a theory that worked better on paper than it did in real life. I work a full-time job and I am in the process of writing a story. I have other activities that take up a lot of my time. And I lack a good PC that will let me play the more graphics-laden immersive games I like, such as Mass Effect Andromeda, Fallout 4, Subnautica, and several upcoming titles.

During a vacation from work, I decided to broadcast a streaming session. I sent out a notification to several Discord channels I’ve been following and started an hour-long broadcast on August 15. The game I picked was a popular title I’d favored for a while – Don’t Starve. To make it easier on myself, I tweaked the game settings to lessen the amount of monsters encountered and increase my odds of survival.

The one thing that surprised me was that several of my viewers had never played this game and had no idea what it was about. Some of them did express interest in trying it themselves based on what they saw.

For those unfamiliar with this title, Don’t Starve is a game that focuses on base building, harvesting resources, crafting items needed to survive, and fending off monster attacks. I try my best at it, but I think the longest I’ve made it is 80 to 90 days. I haven’t really mastered making it through the winter or summer, but the game can be modified to remove those seasons entirely.

Don’t Starve is a very complex and layered game that can be difficult to master, but quite rewarding when you figure it out. For starters, you can pick from one of fifteen characters from the base game and DLC – each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Initially, you only start with one – all the others can be unlocked depending on time spent playing the game or if certain conditions are met. My personal favorites are Webber, a humanoid spider who can live amongst the normal spiders without fear of attack, and WX-78, a robot that can upgrade its stats by chowing down on gears.

Each playthrough of Don’t Starve generally starts you out near a forest grove unless you’re playing the Shipwrecked DLC – but more on that later. Constructing an axe to chop down trees and a pickaxe to mine stone is a must early on since one of the things you’ll want right away is a permanent campsite. But it’s generally good to wait until you find an ideal location for your base before you hunker down.

The thing about Don’t Starve is that the land you find yourself inhabiting has a number of different environments to explore, such as forests, deserts, swamps, and prairies. Each of these environments or biomes contains their own unique harvestables or food sources you’ll need for long-term survival. Finding a base location that’s close to many of them will really help out in the long run.

Some of the early structures you’ll want for your settlement are farm plots to plant seeds and an icebox to keep food from spoiling too quickly. It also helps to construct armor and a suitable weapon to lessen the damage you take from inevitable monster attacks. The rest, you’ll have to discover for yourself.

And for those who do master the base game and are looking for an additional challenge, the Shipwrecked DLC offers a radically different adventure. In this scenario, you must construct a sailing vessel to move from island to island in search of resources to survive. Shipwrecked offers a whole new set of obstacles and dangers to overcome and feels like a completely separate game from Don’t Starve.

There is also another DLC called Hamlet due out this December. I don’t know many details, but Hamlet will bring a village into the mix where goods can be traded. I don’t know if this add-on will make the game easier, but I look forward to finding out.

I hope you all enjoyed this article and that Don’t Starve sounds like a game you might be interested in. Whatever your feelings, be sure to share them in the comments below.

The Revenant – A Good Idea for a Novel – Part 1 of 2

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screenshot-2016-10-05-06-39-34Michael Punke found enough good ideas in the journals about Hugh Glass to write a novel. At the end of the book, the author acknowledged his historical uncertainties. Alejandro G. Inarritu also found good ideas in The Revenant about the life of Hugh Glass. Inarritu strayed far enough from the Punke story to barely (or shall I say bear-ly) resemble the novel. For weeks, I wondered why Inarritu changed the story. Why mess with a good thing?

The answer to that question came unexpectedly in a screenwriting class. In this two part series, Part One explores the highlights of the novel.  Then, Part Two will show why the screenplay requires a different story and where the screenplay excels. In terms of the classic elements of story, The Revenant is rich in conflict, characters and resolution, which is the structure of the story, the plot.

It’s a Good Book When . . .

1) The action scenes are hazardous to my health.  Mesmerized by each blow of the grizzly bear’s paw, I listen to the audio book, slowing in my driving speed. Other cars are whipping past at 90mph. My car rocks in their wake until the bear’s final swipe. Punke’s novel drops stunning action into almost every scene. Action is conflict. And in this novel, the conflict is evenly spread between nature, man and self. In one scene, a snake strikes with deadly poison. Visualizing the scene, I can hardly grip the steering wheel. Also, I’m thankful I tackled this story in the heat of summer, because I feel cold in 90 degree weather. Other hazards include the frontier skirmishes with different tribes–a few fur trappers against what seems like an Arikara army. I want to duck for cover under the dashboard from the assault of arrows. For self-conflict, Glass battles his own desire for revenge when he finds Bridger, one of the volunteers left to care for him. Bridger’s haunted and tortured thoughts echo in my memory foreshadowing what is to come. Punke writes, “Stunned silence filled the room as the men struggled to comprehend the vision before them. Unlike the others, Bridger understood instantly. In his mind he had seen this vision before. His guilt swelled up, churning like a paddle wheel in his stomach. He wanted desperately to flee. How do you escape something that comes from inside? The revenant, he knew, searched for him” (p. 201).

2) The characters’ problems are larger than life. As I open the refrigerator to pull out a ready-made dinner in my heated house with clean running water, I lose appreciation for the survival challenges of two hundred years ago. The Revenant is written about fur trappers in 1823. Survival requires creativity, skill and courage. Glass must somehow find food without a knife, gun or a fast food restaurant on every corner. The descriptions of ways to trap small animals, catch fish and defeat other predators draw in the mystified urban reader. Along Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Glass must find shelter and eventually transportation. I marvel at the “live or die” mentality that forces Glass to confront wolves feeding at a buffalo carcass. Without food, Glass will be too weak to heal, to live, and most importantly to seek revenge.

3) When revenge is not so sweet. The Revenant is an object story. This revenge-fueled obsession is because of a stolen gun. Punke devotes pages to describing the Anstadt, “a so-called Kentucky flintlock, made, like most of the great arms of the day by German craftsmen in Pennsylvania” (p. 18). Two hundred years ago, a gun was life, and Glass trusted his life to his reliable and beautiful gun. That’s why the novel’s bear attack has Glass drop to one knee and aim to shoot the bear’s heart at exactly the right distance to kill. Punke builds rich backstories for Fitzgerald and his motive to take the gun and continue in his corrupt ways. The stolen knife, however, fills Bridger with guilt. As for resolution, stories end with the character either accomplishing the goal or not. Glass finds both Bridger and Fitzgerald (not much of a spoiler). Each reader will have to decide whether Glass is satisfied with the non-Hollywood ending.

In summary, the novel adds a rich historical perspective of life on the frontier. Scenes with French voyageurs, Yellow Horse and an unlucky Captain Henry heighten this storytelling. A quick internet search on Hugh Glass brings poems, songs, historical accounts and movies. The lore and fictional accounts elevate Hugh Glass to legend. Each fictional remake of the fur trapper and mountain man adds to his story. In Part two of “The Revenant – A Good Idea for a Film,” the legend shifts in a new direction.