EDIT: I now have 138 hours in DST and 11 in Don’t Starve, still using the strategy laid out in this guide. My longest run is somewhere between 100-200 days including deep caves (which I might add to this guide soon but still figuring out). EDIT 2: I now have 258 hours in this game. Most of the fundamentals here still make sense. There’s more new content than when this was initially written, but it doesn’t have an impact on the fundamentals. Bonus tip: when playing with more than one player, having a Wendy is useful - Abigail (her ghost) does a great job of cleaning up large swaths of enemies (like tier 3 spider dens). I’ve been playing DST for about two months now. In that time, I’ve learned how to pretty consistently make it through one entire year. This is absolutely not the only way to play (which is the beauty of the game) but it’s a very linear and consistent direction for making sure you survive at least one year. My longest time with this strategy is day 78 and just destroyed the Bearger… doing pretty well! How to use this guide Consider the main section of this guide a walkthrough of the first year rotation. Read through the entire thing so you get a sense of what the goals are and then refer to it as you play. If you’re unsure about an item, how to get something, or I fail to be explicit somewhere please refer to the Don’t Starve Wiki: http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Don%27t_Starve_Wiki ​ ​ This guide will assume you’re playing as the classic man himself -- Wilson. I’ve suggested some mods that you can find at the bottom of this guide. They’re very optional but make the experience marginally easier while you figure out the game. Anyway, here we go! Basics ● Biome: A type of environment in Don’t Starve. ○ Examples: Forest. Swamp. Savanna. Rock. ● Durability: How many uses and item has (or how long it will last). ○ Example Uses: Butterfly net costs 10% durability each swing. ○ Example Time: While wearing clothing, the % will tick down. ● Food Spoilage: The state of a food item. ○ Green: Fresh = Eat ○ Yellow: Stale = Eat, but loses a lot of bonus ○ Red: Spoiled = Don’t Eat ● Set-Piece: A rare and naturally spawned set of items or structures that behave in an unexpected way. ○ Example: The Icebox trap (which destroyed me in one game)! Pre-Game It’s important to remember that you cannot survive at night without being near a source of light. A foe named Charlie will attack you if you remain in darkness. How to survive this: in your pre-camp stage, you’ll want to use campfires (or if you’re unable to make those, have a couple torches on hand). Fun Fact: The portal you spawn at in the beginning is a source of light. Use that as a last resort. Pre-Camp Day 1: Find Flint Why? Flint is used in all the basic tools. Think of getting flint as opening the door to all the other ​ important resources in the game. Where? Flint is often laying on the ground in certain types of Biomes. ​ Notes: If you don’t find Flint by Day 3 you’re not looking fast enough. Gather berries and carrots ​ as you travel to stay healthy but remember your priority is flint. Best case scenario: You find flint very quickly. Then, spend the day picking food and ​ grass/twigs. Pro-Tip: During pre-camp, find dense areas of trees at night to camp by. Spend the night time logging for wood. This is a great way to maximize your time. If you can’t find trees, you’ll still want to spend the night near some resource -- whether that’s 6 twigs, 3 rocks, or whatever. Using your time in DST wisely is important. Bonus-Tip: Camping in swamps is a little dangerous early on so I’d recommend staying away from them at night. This is only because you may be unarmed and tentacles are a pain in the butt. Camping near spiders is also not recommended because they move about at dusk and night. Day 2-7: Explore the map (Look for the best spot to camp). Also Puppies Why? Because of the problems and encounters that Don’t Starve throws at you, there’s some ​ specific things you’ll want to create your base near. Where?: The primary thing you’re looking for is Beefalo. You also want to hopefully come ​ across spiders, gold rocks, the “chess” scene which has mechanical looking creatures, and a Swamp biome. Other bonus things to find early are the Pig King, Glommer’s Statue, Set-Pieces, and Bees. Note: The reason we want to find all of these is they provide very specific and important ​ resources. ● Beefalo ○ Beefalo wool, horns, and poop. Also protection from puppies. ● Spiders ○ Silk. ● Chess Scene ○ Gears ● Swamp ○ Reeds ● Gold Rocks ○ Gold ● Pig King ○ Gold ● Glommer’s Statue ○ Pan Flute ● Bees ○ Honey Also during these days, you want to prioritize exploration over food. Find enough berries, carrots, and such to keep yourself from starving but not so much that is slows down exploring. You want to know your map. Doing this with multiple players makes it a lot easier too! Finally, don’t forget to use roads while exploring. In fact, you should spend about 70% of your time on road while exploring -- only venturing off to find food. Bonus Tip 1: If you find a lot of Gold Rocks, feel free to begin mining about 3-6 of these. Use the gold to build a science machine backpack ASAP so you can hold more items. You may also ​ ​ want to build a spear and a log suit if you do this in case you decide to engage in combat. ​ ​ ​ ​ Bonus Tip 2: Make and keep a garland on at all times to keep your sanity up (helps early on but ​ ​ after you start developing your camp it’s not worth it). Keep in mind that simply picking a flower gives you about 5 sanity. If you get low, go pick some flowers. Low sanity means you start seeing creatures (other players may disagree, but I like to keep my bars up). That said, no need to panic until your sanity is getting below half. EDIT: I no longer use the garland. Doesn’t seem necessary. Picking flowers restores sanity, so I just leave them be until I need the brain juice. The sexiest tips If your sanity is low, cooked green mushrooms will restore 20 sanity at the cost of 1 health. ​ ​ ​ ​ Very, very worth it. If you’re at your wits end, you can even dig up mushrooms with a shovel (but they won’t grow back there). These are found mostly in the deciduous biome. Good to have a few in stock. Cooked blue mushrooms also restore 10 sanity at the loss of 3 health. ​ ​ ​ ​ Note that this will not work for Wigfrid since she only eats meat. Puppies After getting the basics of not dying at night and keeping your stats at bay, the first thing that will probably kill you is a hound attack. At some point, you’ll hear barking and your character will claim that puppies are coming (I forget what they say exactly but it’ll be unprompted dialogue). Hounds will spawn and chase after your character. This is where living near Beefalo is awesome. Hounds will occasionally bark and when they do, there is a chance they will switch targets if another target is nearby. In this case, Beefalo. The whole Beefalo herd will then turn on the Hound and kill it. So to reiterate -- when you hear the barking and your character says the puppies are coming, go find the Beefalo you’ve camped near. You should have at least a Log Suit and if you can, a Football Helmet and Spear ready for ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ when the Puppies come. You can kill a small number of them by yourself with proper kiting (read combat section later which explains this). If you’re away from camp and this occurs, remember that Hounds can also target other creatures like Spiders and Pigs. Lastly, you may be thrown off if the hounds come at night. Three ways I recommend dealing with this: 1. Make a Miners Hat ASAP which lets you see at night by wearing it on your head. This is ​ ​ a bit advanced though, especially if you’re going to rush it. 2. Create a campfire near the Beefalo. You could even make two that are somewhat spaced from each other. This creates a large zone of light safety. 3. Carry some torches and use that to keep yourself lit while using the Beefalo for safety. If you opt for number 2, I still recommend having one-two torches at this moment in case your fire dies (such as a shadow hand). Day 7-10: Gather important resources and begin camp (Pan Flute) Why? Now that you know where things are, you need to get them! Beginning a camp lets you ​ create structures that help you survive (in a centralized location). Where? The best place to set up camp is one biome removed from Beefalo (this is because ​ they will become aggressive in Spring when they are in heat). The more Beefalo you camp near, the better. Other things to have within 3-5 biome range are Spiders, a Swamp, and a Rock biome.