As the concept draft appeared on the screen, everyone's attention was drawn to Don't Starve.
At the front of the draft, Lucas had already prepared some early art for the game.
In a wilderness, a messy-haired little figure sat by a campfire, while monsters like spiders and wild boars slowly closed in from the distance.
The drawings weren't colored yet, but the game's art style was clear at first glance.
"Is this a survival game?"
"The art style looks so weird, kind of thick lines, feels like a Western cartoon?"
"Is it something like It Takes Two or Overcooked? A co-op type of game?"
Looking at the title Don't Starve and the concept art on the screen, everyone started whispering and guessing what kind of game it was.
"As the name Don't Starve suggests, the player's goal is simple: don't die. Survival is the only core of the whole game."
"You collect stones, branches, make hunting tools, climb the tech tree, build your own camp, and then explore the unknown world, all just to live longer."
"At the same time, players may go insane from facing strange monsters, freeze to death from the cold, starve to death, or get killed by wild creatures out in the world."
Lucas explained one of the core ideas behind Don't Starve.
"Any questions?" Lucas asked.
Hector rubbed his chin as he stared at the concept art on the big screen. "So this is a survival game? But Lucas, if it's too hard, won't players just quit?"
Rachel nodded. "Yeah, Lucas. Dark Souls worked because it was a big-budget game, with top-level graphics, story, and action. But Don't Starve is clearly a small-scale project. Without those things to keep players hooked, won't the difficulty scare them off right away?"
"Seriously, why do you all think this is a game made to suffer?" Lucas felt a little speechless.
A strange art style, plus being a survival game…
With things like going insane, freezing to death, starving, and monster attacks,
It did sound like the player would constantly be close to death.
Given that Lucas had made Dark Souls before, and Silent Hill PT, and that hammer-swinging tearjerker game, plus the newly launched Death Mode,
it was no surprise their first thought was "another suffering game."
"There will be difficulty, sure. But unlike Dark Souls, players here can make choices," Lucas explained, still a bit exasperated.
Did he really look like a designer who only wanted to torture players? That was just unfair. No trust at all!
"Alright, let me walk you through the real design plan. The core is survival. Players explore, gather…"
After explaining the design ideas behind Don't Starve in detail, everyone went back to their work.
In his past life, Don't Starve was a very unique small-scale game.
Even though it was indie, its sales were scarier than some AAA titles.
On Steam, Don't Starve sold over ten million copies.
Later, when TX published it on the WeGame store, it sold over a million in the first month, and soon hit three million in just a short time.
Of course, there were reasons behind that. At first, Don't Starve was just single-player. It had charm, but no big breakout moment.
The real explosion came when the co-op version was released. That's when sales skyrocketed.
That's why they chose this game as their next project.
On one hand, because of Don't Starve's strength and charm. On the other, because it fit Nebula Games' future store strategy.
They wanted to use Don't Starve as a testing ground, to see how much interest players had in survival and sandbox-style games.
As a sandbox game, there were other possible picks—like Valheim, or the huge names Minecraft and Terraria.
But in this parallel world, sandbox hadn't really caught on yet. Lucas had noticed some games with sandbox elements,
but none had formed into a proper genre.
Players weren't very familiar with it.
Releasing Don't Starve first would be a good test.
Because compared to the others, Don't Starve had one very clear advantage.
Its goal was crystal clear.
In most sandbox games with huge freedom, new players often got lost right away if they hadn't played similar games before.
In the past, many Minecraft players couldn't even tell the difference between Creative and Survival modes when they first started.
Forget the complicated tools—some didn't even know how to craft a workbench.
For most new players, the only two things they did at the start were dig dirt and punch trees.
Part of that came from weak tutorials, but the bigger reason was too much freedom, leaving players new to sandbox games totally lost.
Don't Starve, on the other hand, was more direct. Whether it was survival, adventure, or co-op,
the game told players right away: in this strange world, explore, gather resources, build, and survive as long as you can.
It gave them a clear main goal from the start: survival.
With that as their direction, players wouldn't feel completely lost. They knew their job was to survive, and everything they did worked toward that.
And through that goal, they could slowly discover the sandbox elements, and enjoy the rich content Don't Starve offered.
Different maps and terrains—plains, swamps, grasslands, mines, forests, caves—each with different resources and different monsters.
On top of that, the game's core rules even included seasons.
It rains a lot in spring, and crops grow faster than in other seasons.
In summer, things can catch fire on their own, and the character's body temperature rises quickly, leading to heatstroke.
In winter, crops grow slowly, and the character's body temperature drops fast, causing frostbite.
With random map generation settings added in, every survival journey gives players a completely different experience.
On the other hand, as a sandbox game, another big part of the fun comes from all kinds of mods.
Back in the day, Minecraft stayed popular for over a decade, and mods played a huge part in that success.
In this area, the Nebula Games platform already has a strong base thanks to the creative workshop for Overcooked and Fall Guys.
Even now, Overcooked and Fall Guys still have plenty of active players, and the main reason is the thriving mod community.
The platform users and the creative workshop are all in place.
The only thing left is to see how players respond to Don't Starve.
(End of The Chapter)
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