There’s a fantastic new indie game out in beta right now called Don’t Starve. It’s a survival game, and the title is good advice, as I forgot to eat several times while playing a character searching for food and shelter.
The game is rogue-like, and the goal is pretty simple: survive as many days as possible, through summer and winter seasons, without starving, being killed, or being eaten by a grue. Yep, during the day/night cycle the night is deadly around the midnight hour without a light source. It has a permanent death feature, but this is offset somewhat by resurrection altars that can be found or built. There’s also a sanity meter and if it gets too low the player starts to hallucinate and the world becomes more sinister.
Right now I’m waiting until the beta is a bit more finished before I resume playing again. The game is presented as a sandbox with a plot, but it doesn’t seem far enough along to figure out the story. Overall it reminds me of Nethack, Minecraft, and the art style reminds me of Tim Burton’s movies with a bit of Caroline.