Teachable Moments

Teachable Moments

Don’t Starve teaches us how to properly attempt the game of life in a survival format. It serves as a survival guide or a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” for our everyday lives. The message or idea that is trying to be conveyed is to respect nature and the natural order of the universe. In life we must decide what we aim to accomplish and what affects the accomplishment will have on our surroundings. This game helps to demonstrate the concept that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, for every choice a consequence. Furthermore, we must also decide what we aim to change for our benefit meanwhile being aware that it will change us in the process. In the game, the character needs to eat in order to continue living and moving towards the determined goals. One of those goals is to create a settlement, a place to feel more comfortable to aid in staving off the insanity from the wilderness. This can be seen in life as we constantly move towards our goals of becoming individuals and truly earning things to call our own. We strive for achievement and success so that we can be at peace with our surroundings and we hope to give ourselves better chances for future success. In order for us to continue to play the game of life and potentially be successful, we must find ways to combat the natural self-doubt and internal struggles associated with self-improvement and progression. Just as the main character seeks to escape his imprisonment and overcome a perilous realm, we seek to overcome similar adversities in our world. We often find ourselves directly under the control of others and seek some degree of freedom. While working towards that freedom we must implement different techniques in order to survive. Many times, survival causes us to do things that we wouldn’t normally choose to do. In the game an example of this can be seen in the act of eating raw meat or killing an animal. These actions translate to selling ourselves short and being impatient in our own survival in our world. By finding alternatives to killing animals in the game, the player learns alternatives to harming others to satisfy selfish personal desires. Don’t Starve teaches us to be aware of the inherently ruthless nature of life and how to find a useful middle ground between resisting and exploiting that nature.