Don’t Starve. Games now! 7 hits developed in days

Don't Starve came about as a 48-hour game jam, after which, despite the sympathy the developers had for it, the game was shelved for another two years. They did not return to the project until 2012, when their native studio Klei Entertainment was finishing work on Mark of Ninja.

Interest in Don't Starve was whetted by ongoing fad for survival games, in which players had to discover the rules that govern the world for themselves. While the creators quote Minecraft as inspiration, the distinctive, gloomy atmosphere is certainly reminiscent of Tim Burton's films and books by H. P. Lovecraft.

The game was made available as a free download in 2012. The community contributed to correcting the errors and adding several changes, including the mechanics of spoiling food. At the time, the creators debated whether Don't Starve should go free-to-play, but eventually abandoned the idea, and the game went into distribution in April 2013 and was a spectacular success. Suffice it to say that by the end of the first year, Klei Entertainment sold over a million copies of the game, and Don't Starve received a lot of add-ons and a multiplayer version released in 2014 under the name Don't Starve Together.

1. More about Don't Starve