'Don't Starve' Cheat Sheet

For those who don't know, Don't Starve is a basically a top-down Minecraft-esque survival game, set in a Tim Burton-inspired world.  Its charming appearance hides a surprisingly deep gameplay experience, with all sorts of items to craft, monsters to fight and a huge (randomly-generated) world to explore.  If you've heard about this game and are still on the fence, I strongly recommend you pick it up.  For those who are already on board, I decided to write a basic guide and provide some tips and suggestions for any new players.  Some of the stuff mentioned here could be considered spoilers, especially if you're the type of person who really values emergent gameplay.  However, I found myself increasingly indulging in this excellent wiki, and thought it would useful to have some of the more crucial information kept in one place.  I should emphasise that my strategies are not the only way of playing Don't Starve, and I don't doubt others have found equally useful alternatives.  I'd certainly recommend experimenting freely to find the best way of surviving, but these pointers should give you a hand.

The Final Frontier: Fake Space, Part 2: Orbital Boogaloo

[If you haven't read the first part of "The Final Frontier: Fake Space", this probably won't make much sense.]

Jebediah Kerman just couldn't stay awake.  He tried to keep his head up, but his eyelids felt like they were made of lead.  He couldn't help it; he allowed himself a yawn, hoping it would go unnoticed.

"Mr Kerman!" Jebediah's focus snapped to the angry Professor as he thwacked his cane against the desk.  "Finding my lecture about space a tad boring, are we?  You could do with paying attention more than most.  Your last three Ballistic High Jumps have been pathetic, barely touching 20 kilometres.  Shape up soon or you're off the Program!"  He paused, exasperated.  "That's enough for today.  Class dismissed."

Meet the Best Friends from Best Friends Video Games!

Arjybarjy (Arjun) plays games. Well... he collects games and plays them when the urge strikes (sometimes). He grew up playing a ludicrous amount of Tiger Woods PGA Tour '05. He enjoys silly games and has a spreadsheet of games that he needs to complete and challenges himself to complete more games than the year previous (ten more games!).
 

Hairwire (Jess), also plays videogames (you will notice this is an emerging theme), generally centred around fantasy RPGs and God simulators (because who doesn't love elves and dwarfs and megalomania?), but she also plays/sings/teaches music and is a closet feminist, masquerading as a gender egalitarian.  In honesty she's kind of confused about how she pigeonholes herself  - WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

Gnatasha (Tash) tends to play games to unwind. Due to her deep-seated hatred of conflict, she mainly plays RPGs, strategy and puzzle games, as well as anything with a co-op element (because friendship). She is frequently consumed by pug-lust.

Fingers333 (Dean) is an average to below average gamer. He has little to no computing skills, is easily confused and lacks any understanding of subtlety. His opinions mean nothing and yet he continues to express them. He is however passionate about gaming, particularly when it comes to games that he feels he has missed out on. 

Theris108 (James) is a recovering achievement addict.  His lowest moment was when he bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for some easy Gamerscore.  However he has turned his life around and only collects 'cheevs recreationally.  He usually favours RPGs (in which he gets far too emotionally invested), and has fond memories of growing up with point-and-click adventures.

Kingofallcosmos (Gurdeep) was born with a Master System pad in one hand, a Sega Menacer in the other, while riding atop an Amiga 500. Dismissing both the disgusting imagery of an Amiga 500-aided birth, and the fact that the Sega Menacer was released several years after he was born, he has fond memories of Amiga classics such as Paradroid 90. Those memories fade to darkness when he remembers the game Nightbreed; a game so terrifying and disturbing he would leave the room as soon as the title screen loaded. He continues to enjoy games on all formats, counting the Bioshocks, the Mass Effects, the Half-Lifes, the Sonics, the Deus Exs and the Mirror's Edge among his favourites. He still hasn't got past the loading screen on Nightbreed.

SeaKing61 (Laurie) is our least gamey gamer. A fan of simulators and making open world games as boring and monotonous as possible, he suffers from a severe phobia of any game involving magic, fantasy or trading cards. SeaKing can be identified during podcasts and multiplayer games by his long, slow, boring drawl and will be blogging about various simulators and his undying love for Orangina.

Heliosrain (Richard) is proud to admit that he loves the incongruous combination of moba games like League of Legends, simulators (Eurotruck 2), fpSsssss (BF3), RPGs (Assassin's Creed, Skyrim etc.) with a particular penchant for 2D platformer style games, of which Terraria is a favourite. His general level of noobiness when playing most games is sometimes punctuatued by a blinding ray of mediocrity which occasionally leads people to think (wrongly) that he's good at them.

This_is_jazz (Felix) really, really likes Romans.

Yoglaiiiii (Yogs) is a paranoid & confused gamer who regularly has contradictory opinions but is not afraid to say them, especially in front of Arjybarjy. His main experience and upbringing in the world of gaming have been FPS’s & racing sims, but has now in the last few years branched out into other gaming genres such as RPG’s, MOBA's and Indy games. He plans to continue his adventure into the gaming world and hopes to experience the best it has to offer. His favourite games include Carmageddon, Quake 1 & 2, The Half-Life Series, BioShock and Guitar Hero 2.    

Alex Cole (brave enough to use his real name) loves playing video games, period.  He'll give pretty much any genre a chance but certainly has a predilection for challenging platformers (think Super Meat Boy or Rayman Origins), super deep RPG's (Elder Scrolls or old-school Final Fantasy) and driving games (whether full sim like Gran Turismo or more arcade-y like Motorstorm: Pacific Rift or Trackmania). A console gamer since childhood, he wants to broaden his gaming horizons and gaming knowledge further and further, doesn't matter if the game's old or new, universally loved or controversially divisive.  And it always helps if they have a cool world to explore. He can't get enough of that shit.

Girls and Boys and Samus Aran

Today, I will be talking about Samus Aran.  Samus Aran was one of the first female protagonists in a videogame (Metroid).  Moreso, she was one who wasn't overtly sexualised, and more than that, she was a strong, independent character.  Throughout the game, Samus, a bounty hunter with very little background and this weird, oversized cyborg suit-thingy is jumping around shooting the ass off things, and turning into this awesome ball, because the suit is awesome.  Then, right at the end, she is finally revealed to be a woman (you can watch it here).  Aside from the fact that she is suddenly wearing pink and giving a cute little wave at the camera, it's still fairly cool that such a powerful, independent, ass-kicking character is actually female.

The Final Frontier: Fake Space

Jedgan Kerman was just one of a series of astronauts sent up beyond the atmosphere of his planet with one simple goal: get really far away from it.  It was essentially an explosive high jump contest: each rocket flew upwards and hopped above the planet Kerbin, before running out of fuel and falling all the way down again.  Things changed with Jedgan, though.  Focussed unswervingly on the Mün (that's right), he leapt... and didn't fall back down. He broke free of the Earth Kerbin's gravity and set off in search of his own story. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite heading directly at the Mün which meant that his particular story was drifting forever in space with no fuel left in the tank and quite far from any planet or moon of interest.

Browzings: A Dark Room and candybox - or: Text-based games are basically work, right?

If, like me, you find yourself at work with a few minutes to spare (or hours of downtime, in some cases), you might have considered playing games in-browser. There are sometimes significant chunks of my day where I'm waiting for stuff to happen, and while some people might consider this freeing, other, less optimistic people would (rightly) surmise that it soon gets really bloody boring. After reading every news, magazine and blog article on the entire internet, I started playing Facebook Apps and games on Kongregate, but quickly realised that no-one catching me unawares could fail to notice that I wasn't compiling a report and that I was, in fact, piloting a miniature spacetank or madly blasting rainbow-coloured bubbles out of a cannon.

Some people might have stopped attempting to play games at work after this somewhat troubling revelation. "I'm getting paid to be here; maybe I should stop dicking around and make myself useful?" I imagine them asking themselves, their little hearts plagued with doubt. You know what I call these chumps? Quitters. Anything is possible with a little imagination. With a bit of digging around, I came across some neat, text-based adventure games that seemed to fit the bill: I could play them without it being obvious that I was doing so, and I could leave them running while doing other stuff if necessary. (Disclaimer: I don't advocate booting these up if you're a firefighter or heart surgeon, obvs. If, however, the alternative is staring at the clock and contemplating the futility of life, I say: go nuts! Because a watched clock never ticks.)

FLASH (games) A-AAH: Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing

Typing is extremely important. If it wasn't for typing, I wouldn't be able to communicate to you, dear reader, in this format. If you are new to this whole punching-buttons-in-order-to-get-letters-to-show-up-on-that-shiny-picture-box then Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing will get you on the right track.

Girl Gamers and Porno Mods

I am a lady geek.  It is also a fairly widely accepted fact that women in games are portrayed, by and large, pretty poorly - here, Wikipedia lists all of FIVE female video game protagonists, two of which I have never heard of (possibly my bad, I'm not a RABID gamer), out of a list of hundreds, if not thousands, of mainstream video games.  In addition it links to some pretty horrendous games that actually exist.  I'm not going to go into all the things I've found here because it would make this entire post very, very long.  Longer than it's already going to be.  Some time ago, I got Skyrim for the PC in order to activate some of the mods available.  If you don't know what modding is, then basically, it's usually user-created changes to game-play.  This can range from anything to simply changing the colour of an in-game outfit, to actually fiddling about with some of the games codes in order to insert new characters/animations/locations etc.  I really enjoy Skyrim, and one of the improvements on its predecessors (Morrowind, Oblivion etc.) that I particularly liked was the fact that female armours actually look like they are made for a female, as opposed to being so intrinsically similar, if not the same as, male armour, that when fully covered, you might as well have not been given to the option to choose a gender in the first place.

Lost Childhood: Baldurs Gate

When I look back at my childhood there are certain games that stand out. Certain bosses or puzzles that would infuriate and entertain. Some of these games you would tackle on your own. Other games would be even more fun when played with friends.

In this series of blogs I plan to take a look back at those games that I never got chance to play when they were released. I will play through the first hour or so then share my experience giving an honest account of what happens and my opinion on the game itself.

One game that I have fond memories of playing is Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance on the PlayStation 2. I would go round my brother in laws house at weekends and together we would slowly make our way through the campaign in co-op mode. It played like most RPG’s do now. You are in control of a single character as you slash, shoot and cast deadly spells against anything and everything that comes your way. However the original Baldurs Gate for PC was a very different game so I thought that would be a good place to start.

As soon as the game launches you are thrust into a stunning opening cinematic. One that demonstrates exactly what late 90s PCs were capable of.  

Welcome to BFVG!

Hello and welcome to the first ever post on the Best Friends Video Games website!

As the video poorly describes we are a bunch of friends who play video games and then sometimes post them up on the YouTube and now we are writing our thoughts and talking our feels on this website!


So let's get going with some tip-top, grade A, fit-for-human-consumption, video game internet content!