Isn’t it always the case? You’re flying your hot air balloon when you wind up crash landing in some strange jungle? Now you have to grab your trusty machete and try to survive. Don’t Starve: Hamlet offers new challenges to long-time players, including the inclusion of actual civilization. These eight beginner tips for Don’t Starve: Hamlet can help you survive your unexpected jungle adventure.
Note that these tips are from the Early Access version of the game, so they may become obsolete as the game is updated.
1. Find the hamlet
One of the first things you’ll want to do is to find the titular Hamlet. It’s a relatively safe place with streetlamps that can help you save resources you’d normally spend on fires. Keep on the move while avoiding the deep jungle and collecting easily collected resources like food, twigs and rocks. If you see grassy terrain divided up by what look like white lines, you’re getting close. The trees in the outskirts also drop seeds no matter the season, making them a good place to get logs. The grass tufts there are also can be picked without using a machete
2. Get some flint
Just like in the main game and Shipwrecked, flint is a very important resource for making tools. However, it seems to be a bit more uncommon in Hamlet. A beginner tip for Don’t Starve: Hamlet includes where to discover it. Not counting purchasing it at a shop, there are a few decent ways:
- Chase Dung Beetles into trees to knock them off their dung ball, then break it apart for some resources.
- Dig in dung piles. Note that this damages your sanity each time you dig.
- Flip stone slabs. Just watch for the occasional viper.
- When you get a pickaxe, you can go into Cave Clefts to mine the rocks in there. They’re also a good source of gold nuggets.
3. Living a life of banditry
If you really need some resources, the outskirts of the Hamlet has a variety of farms growing various resources, like berries, grass, and flowers. Unsurprisingly, taking things from them will anger the royal guards who will chase after you. They aren’t too quick, though, so you can flee from them if you don’t want to fight. If you want them to forget your theft, you’ll have to kill the guard, which will eventually spawn a new one who doesn’t remember your thievery. If you’re playing as Wilba, one of the new characters in Hamlet, you can take as much as you want because you’re Pig Royalty.
4. Watch out for poison
Making a return from Shipwrecked, poison can cause a real number on you if you’re not careful in your combat or dietary decisions. It’s not as deadly as it was originally in Shipwrecked but being poisoned can do a real number on your health and sanity. If you don’t want to wait three days for it to pass, heed my beginner tip for Don’t Starve: Hamlet and buy some Anti Venom from a Mud Spa in the Hamlet for 5 Oincs. The ways you can get poisoned in Hamlet are:
- Eating a tuber, raw or cooked. Unless it was harvested during the Lush season.
- Eating poison dart frog legs, raw or cooked. Probably more obvious that they’re poisonous.
- Getting hit by a scorpion. They normally spawn in ruins, but can also drop from chopped down rainforest trees, so be alert!
5. “Guards! Guards!”
Just like in the regular game, you’ll face periodic attacks by monsters. In Hamlet, they take the form of vampire bats. If you still pretty green and don’t want to deal with them, royal guards will fight any enemy that gets close to them. They’re also effective at dealing with masked pigs that try to steal your Oincs. Just note that the pig guards that fight with torches tend to destroy any loot that would drop.
6. Garden your way to riches
Tired of cleaning poop off the streets or trading in items to earn Oincs? Beginner tip for Don’t Starve: Hamlet #6: If you make a pair of shears from two twigs and two iron ores, you can use them for a much more mundane usage: gardening. Every time you trim some unkempt plants in the Hamlet, you get two clippings. They can be traded to Shopkeep pigs (the female ones with blonde hair and big smiles) for one Oinc each. Even better, there’s no limit on how many you can trade in per day, so you can get tons of Oincs from them. Each use of the shears uses 5% of their durability, so you can get 40 Oincs from each pair of shears.
7. Become a homeowner
If you can save up 50 Oincs, you can go to the town hall and buy yourself a deed of home ownership. When you buy it, the Slanty Shanty located in town becomes your new home. The home comes with a light to keep you safe from the darkness, enemiess can’t get in, and it protects you from all sorts of weather effects. You can also spend Oincs on remodeling the house if you’re feeling like customizing it. An additional beginner tip for Don’t Starve: Hamlet is to explore to avoid starving, but your house makes a great place to hide from danger and to store your stuff.
8. Prepare for the seasons
Hamlet has three unique seasons, each with their own unique challenges. Assuming you haven’t changed any options, Hamlet games start off in the Temperate season, which is equivalent to Autumn in the base game. However, the other two seasons have special weather effects that can be hazardous if they catch you off guard.
- During the Humid season, there’s much more rain, like Spring in the base game or Monsoon season in Shipwrecked. Occasionally, a thick fog will surround the player. Not only does this drastically reduce visibility, but the humidity will greatly reduce your character’s movement speed if they’re wearing anything in the body or hat slot. If you’re wearing a pith helmet, you can negate the movement penalty, allowing you to wear something in the body slot without being slowed.
- The Lush season causes a surge of plant growth. Brambles grow across the land, preventing travel unless cut down. Rainforest trees drop seeds. Tubers become edible without being poisoned. However, you’ll also have to deal with Hay Fever. Having Hay Fever causes your character to occasionally sneeze, stunning them, lowering their sanity, and making them drop items. You can prevent Hay Fever by wearing a gas mask (don’t wear it too long; it drains sanity as well) or by eating seed pods (dropped by trees on the outskirts of the Hamlet,) nettles (grows in deep jungle during the Humid season,) or nettle rolls (made in a crock pot with three nettles and anything but a mandrake.) Keep in mind that if you’re playing as Wigfrid, you can’t use any of the culinary options due to her carnivorous Valkyrie nature.
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