Guide to Playing the 4 Seasons of "Don't Starve: Pocket Edition"

Don't Starve in a Nutshell

If you have ever played or are still playing this game, I know that you'll agree when I say that this is a difficult survival game where starving is the least of your problems.

Don't Starve is a survival video game created by a Canadian game company called Klei Entertainment. It was initially released in 2013 available for PC, console, cross-platform, and mobile. You'll play as a character, whether chosen or random, plunged into a strange, odd wilderness teeming with creatures, ridiculously unknown dangers, and mind-boggling surprises.

Sounds promising, and the promises live up to their expectations.

The Gist: Surviving Until You're Done

The basics of the game include:

1. Choosing your desired character to plunge into the "Constant," a randomly generated world.
2. Scavenging and saving resources, and using them to craft structures and items.
3. Foraging, farming, and hunting for food.
4. Learning resilience and proactiveness from the game's four seasons.
5. Overall preparing and surviving multiple tribulations.

Most may enjoy the first season, Autumn, and will instantly stop playing the game if they come to Winter or Summer because their characters would either die from freezing, overheating, sogginess, hunger, mob attacks, or even self-induced accidents. But I tell you this, these are nothing compared to a more heck of a load of other things in store for you. YouTube tutorials from other players and wiki articles may help you identify this stuff, and navigate through it.

The real learning curve begins when you're playing, experiencing, and immersing in the game by yourself, or with friends. I am, however, going to help you survive the coming seasons inside Don't Starve: Reign of Giants. These tips apply to solo players, but some may apply to DST. These may also vary on the character that you will use in the game.

These guides are some strategies I've learned from reading and learning through other people's guides, tips, tricks, and articles. These are some of the guides I've also learned myself from playing the game.

Remember to have fun while you're at it. This game will never be easy, but the immense payoff of actually playing so well in it is worth your practice and time.

How to Survive the Seasons?

Guides for Surviving the First Autumn (Day 1-20)

Autumn can be your first default season if you have not tweaked anything from the world settings. If not, there's a 50-50 chance of your game starting at Autumn or Spring.

The first Autumn may seem like a piece of cake to new players: not many mobs and monsters, plenty of resources, and no spawning of Autumn's Seasonal giant Bearger. But fret not, my good friend. I mean, sure, there can still be momentary rains here and there that'll leave you soggy, but that can be ignored for now. As soon as Day One starts, you have to forage a lot of food that you can grab and collect as many basic resources that you will need for your future material crafting and structure prototyping. You can collect food lying around like carrots, berries, and even birchnuts from fallen birch nut trees while most of the basic resources are twigs, grass, rocks, flint, wood, and, most importantly, gold nuggets.

Explore the map as much as you can during day and dusk to locate your biomes, such as the Savanna, Mosaic, Grasslands, Forest, and Rockyland. You can also venture into the Desidious Forest to locate the Pig King to trade trinkets for gold nuggets. You can also go to the Marsh to collect reeds, tentacle spikes from defeated Tentacles, fish and frog legs from slain Merms, and Spider loot like monster meats, silks, and spider glands.

Most importantly, learn how to explore the world even at night. The night will kill you, not unless you have light sources. Using a torch in the early game, or any portable light sources, can get you anywhere that will save you time and get you as much resources, so long as there are no immediate hostile mobs that can attack within your vicinity.

The Gizmondo: The Biggest Failure in Video Game History?

In short, locate a suitable main base location. You can also look for set pieces, but watch out for traps. You also have to locate the Walrus Camps for the upcoming Winter and mark them on your map using traps or signs.

Try to quickly locate the "Things" as soon as possible as these will be used for your next world transportation. You can also look for Maxwell's Door and try out his Adventure Mode where five harsh challenges await you, typically recommended for experienced players ready to overcome five harshest possible challenges to, canonically, beat the game.

If you fail to locate these "Things," as well as its portal, that's okay since you can do that in the coming Seasons. For now, you have to build a Science Machine and an Alchemy Engine. If you have located and destroyed some (some, not all) Pig houses by using a hammer from your explorations, you can use that resource to prototype your next needed materials.

Though optional, quickly craft a Backpack or a Piggyback for more resource slots. Prototype a Regal Shovel and collect as many twig turfs, grass turfs, and berry bushes that you need to relocate near your base's location.

If you manage to locate a Beefalo herd, collect their poo, smash bone doodads to collect bones, and make Buckets-o-poop to fertilize your twig and grass turfs from your resource farm. Expand your food and resource farms, create an Ice Box, place down your Drying Racks, and position your Crock Pots.

The first thorn on your sides will be the the first and subsequent hound waves. Once you hear loud and distant barking, you have got to be prepared to defend your character at that point. You will need to craft Football Helmets or Log Suits for armor and a Spear for a weapon, or better a Ham Bat, since these periodic hound waves will come at you every eight to ten days with each increasing in numbers than the last. If you manage to slay these hounds, collect their loot for future usage.

Collect some silk from spiders and try slaying a few Beefalo for meat, Beefalo fur, and a potential Beefalo Horn. Quickly craft a Beefalo Hat and a Thermal Stone, as these will be importantly used for Winter.

Remember that you only have at least 20 days to do all of these cumbersome, menial, yet important tasks. But it can also depend on how you modified your world generation options i.e. setting the length of the Seasons before you play or having a very long day.

If you have nothing else to do, collect as many resources and store them inside your crafted chests and gather more food because Winter is coming.

Guides for Surviving Winter (Day 21-36)

As the white snow falls and as your in-game character shiver in the looming cold, Winter has come to freeze your noggin.

Winter is the next Season in Don't Starve, and it can be quite intimidating for most players. But if you have done your preparations during Autumn, this season can be and will be easy enough even for inexperienced players.

Winter begins as soon as Day 20 hits, and you'll notice that your character will seldom freeze come night time even before it comes. Equip your warm clothing and always have a heated Thermal Stone with you, especially if you want to venture out in the freezing temperatures. Because sooner or later, your character will suffer from constant hypothermia and you'll be there watching your health diminish every second you're not nearby any heat source.

The game's fruits, vegetables, trees, and other plants suffer from Winter since they will never (or even rarely) grow back. Ponds for potential fish resources will also be frozen. Your whole map will be covered from falling snow and constant snowstorms limits your environmental visibility.

A good thing about this season is that food spoilage is slower than ever, but you also only have limited food sources on the list. Periodic hunting by following Suspicious Dirt Piles will often guarantee you meat. Importantly, a Winter Koalefant where its trunk is needed to craft a tier 3 warm clothing called Puffy Vest should you want / need one will make you survive the Winter days for longer.

Pengulls will jump from the ocean if you travel near the sides of the biomes. They are neutral mobs. Attack one, and you'll be done for if not prepared since Pengulls share a mob mentality. They will walk toward their nesting grounds surrounded by small glaciers that you can mine for ice and will lay eggs that you can collect after Winter.

One more most important task during Winter is to always visit the Walrus Camps, where MacTusk and two Winter hounds reside. Slay MacTusks for a potential rare items like Walrus Tusk needed to craft a Walking Cane, an item with no durability, half the damage of a spear, and a percentage increase in speed. Or for a potential Tam O' Shanter, a tier 2 warm clothing with one of the highest Sanity gain bonus in the game.

Hound waves will also be present, along with Blue hounds. Blue hounds, when killed, will lower your character's temperature and might have them frozen in place. Blue hounds could also potentially drop blue gems needed for magic and ancient crafting materials.You can construct a Prestihatitator and a Shadow Manipulator during this season to prototype certain magical and ancient items.

You can also prototype more needed structures and items if you have the necessary materials, travel to more unexplored locations, and prepare for Spring by building Lightning Rods near your base.

The days are shorter, while the dusks and nights will be even longer in-game. You can craft a Tent to skip the long nights if you want to, but sleeping in these Tents will take time and Hunger from your character. Starvation is the least of the problems in the game, but if you do starve, your character's health will suffer from constant damage penalties. This is essentially important for Winter, since food resources will be scarce if you're not keen on looking for alternatives.