Don't Starve Launch Interview

Don't Starve launches today after a lengthy period in beta, and we found out more about the survival/adventure game at PAX from Klei Entertainment's Alia McCutcheon.

In particular, McCutcheon revealed the studio's plans for the game going forward, explaining how they intend to release more content, preset worlds, and even more story.

He told us: "We'll keep developing for another six months, release some new features and new content, and in that time we want to develop the characters a little bit more, and probably a few presets for the world generation so we can give people more options for that kind of thing. Maybe give them a little more story, it just depends what happens."

Also, during our interview McCutcheon reveals how the game got started, and that they're experimenting with a new kind of business model (the lengthy beta), despite the recent success of games like Shank 2 and Mark of the Ninja, which took a very different route:

"We tried to do this as kind of an experiment, we wanted to try something new, try a new business model, and see what we could learn from that. And as each part of the experiment progressed we decided "we need to take this a little bit further". It started on Google Chrome, and when we moved from Google Chrome to Steam it got even better for us and so we thought: "OK, we'll keep going".

It's one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had making a game... every week we look through the forum, and it's really fun to talk to everybody and get the feedback on the things they like and the things they don't like."

He then went on to explain the pros and cons of independent development: "You can't take as many risks when you're working for a publisher, because they can say "no". And they can say "no" about things that you absolutely, truly think are the right thing for the game. I think in the case where you don't have a publisher it's your risk, it's your dime, it's your time."

"You're putting your arse on the line and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But on the other hand you can take a risk on something that could turn out to be truly great."