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Description

I’ve been playing a lot of Don’t Starve recently (thanks Steam sale). Going into it I knew only two things: It was the origin of a silly TF2 hair and what bunny-catching tips I had learned from Gopher’s first Let’s Play of it. I have been avoiding any sort of spoilers, tips, and wikis and was instead feeling my way through with much trial and error, making some exception for fanart as I subsist on a diet of the stuff. You would likely have yelled at me for the number of times I had passed by the eye bone, having not found use for it the first time I picked it up. Unlike Minecraft, which I played with the wiki near at hand, I wanted the experience of discovering the mechanics as I went. It was a delight to discover that when everything gets too crazy, the best thing to do is go for a walk and pick some flowers. Wilson’s running commentary has been of varying helpfulness and we don’t always agree, but in my self-imposed solitude it was just about all I had to go off of. I had no idea how we got here, where ‘here’ may be or where we’re meant to go.

As such I didn’t think much of the strange stone statue when I discovered it. Having recently found the Maxwell statue surrounded by tree statues, I simply assumed this was a world full of various strange statues. However I abstained from harvesting it for rock. “I'm not sure what that's supposed to be” piped up Wilson unhelpfully. I figured that meant it was a reference to something lost on me. But then when I returned one moonlit night I fell in love with Glommer. To my dismay it wasn’t long before the pig-dogs got Glommer and Wilson soon after. I wasn’t sure what gameplay significance the creature had, unlike the immediately useful Chester, but I was somehow even more attached to it. Some lives later we were re-united. By happenstance, huddled around the fire one night, I discovered that shoving Wilson’s face right into Glommer’s restored a decent amount of sanity. Being nearby did nothing. Touching maybe helped a little. But to really get the full effect they had to be all up in each other’s hitboxes: cuddling distance. Through that life Glommer became my sometimes slimy, gross but cute, bizarre fuzzy blue Martian bee link to sanity. The pig-dogs got it again, and it was heartbreaking. But Wilson pressed on, and the next full moon came soon and I saw a familiar fuzzy blue mark appear on my map and ran to it. That life was my longest yet at 66 days before more pig-dogs than Wilson could possibly fight took Glommer again and chased Wilson and his one dying torch into the night.

Glommer’s sanity-restoring fuzz reminded me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin stomps grumpily up to a sun-basking Hobbes, rubs his face into Hobbes’ belly and walks away smiling. Rather than try and dig up the strip to do a direct reference I drew this: a tribute to the healing power of having a furry friend to cuddle through the long dark nights, and keep the monsters at bay.

Unless those monsters are pig-dogs. Pig-dogs suck.

Don't Starve (c) Klei Entertainment

Description

I’ve been playing a lot of Don’t Starve recently (thanks Steam sale). Going into it I knew only two things: It was the origin of a silly TF2 hair and what bunny-catching tips I had learned from Gopher’s first Let’s Play of it. I have been avoiding any sort of spoilers, tips, and wikis and was instead feeling my way through with much trial and error, making some exception for fanart as I subsist on a diet of the stuff. You would likely have yelled at me for the number of times I had passed by the eye bone, having not found use for it the first time I picked it up. Unlike Minecraft, which I played with the wiki near at hand, I wanted the experience of discovering the mechanics as I went. It was a delight to discover that when everything gets too crazy, the best thing to do is go for a walk and pick some flowers. Wilson’s running commentary has been of varying helpfulness and we don’t always agree, but in my self-imposed solitude it was just about all I had to go off of. I had no idea how we got here, where ‘here’ may be or where we’re meant to go.

As such I didn’t think much of the strange stone statue when I discovered it. Having recently found the Maxwell statue surrounded by tree statues, I simply assumed this was a world full of various strange statues. However I abstained from harvesting it for rock. “I'm not sure what that's supposed to be” piped up Wilson unhelpfully. I figured that meant it was a reference to something lost on me. But then when I returned one moonlit night I fell in love with Glommer. To my dismay it wasn’t long before the pig-dogs got Glommer and Wilson soon after. I wasn’t sure what gameplay significance the creature had, unlike the immediately useful Chester, but I was somehow even more attached to it. Some lives later we were re-united. By happenstance, huddled around the fire one night, I discovered that shoving Wilson’s face right into Glommer’s restored a decent amount of sanity. Being nearby did nothing. Touching maybe helped a little. But to really get the full effect they had to be all up in each other’s hitboxes: cuddling distance. Through that life Glommer became my sometimes slimy, gross but cute, bizarre fuzzy blue Martian bee link to sanity. The pig-dogs got it again, and it was heartbreaking. But Wilson pressed on, and the next full moon came soon and I saw a familiar fuzzy blue mark appear on my map and ran to it. That life was my longest yet at 66 days before more pig-dogs than Wilson could possibly fight took Glommer again and chased Wilson and his one dying torch into the night.

Glommer’s sanity-restoring fuzz reminded me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin stomps grumpily up to a sun-basking Hobbes, rubs his face into Hobbes’ belly and walks away smiling. Rather than try and dig up the strip to do a direct reference I drew this: a tribute to the healing power of having a furry friend to cuddle through the long dark nights, and keep the monsters at bay.

Unless those monsters are pig-dogs. Pig-dogs suck.

Don't Starve (c) Klei Entertainment