Making Fake Blood

Ever needed to make fake blood for your cosplays, parties or whatever reason? (For making a dead chicken, check out this tutorial!) Here's a recipe I'd like to share!

Short backstory: I actually looked up the internet for recipes but a lot of the ingredients cannot be easily found in Malaysia. I was rushing for time as this dead chicken was an event prop that I needed the next day. Gathering whatever info there was on the internet and after identifying a few key ingredients, I came up with this! Super cheap and easy to make!

What you'll need:
- red food colouring
- cocoa powder
- water

First, get a container (disposable cause I don't think it will be sunshine and butterflies to wash this thing after lol) and a plastic spoon (disposable preferably, for the same reason).

Scoop about 3-4 spoonfuls of cocoa powder into the container. Pour the entire bottle (25ml) of red food colouring into the mix, and add 1.5 parts of water.

Mix gently with the spoon. It might be hard to melt the cocoa powder so you can choose to use warm water instead of regular tap water.

 Adjust according to your needs. If you need more diluted blood, put more water. If you need more concentrated blood, put less water. If you need clumpy blood, you can try adding corn starch. :D

Once it's well mixed, you should see something like the above. Now you can paint it onto your props and/or costumes. It's perfectly safe and edible too, since ingredients used are all food items.

That's all~ Have fun!

How to: Don't Starve - Traps!

Most people get the misconception that if you are going to hunt something, you will need to fight it and kill it.

While that could be done, there are actually easier methods to hunt or gather certain resources - via the use of traps.

There are in general, 3 kinda of traps - traps, tooth traps, bird traps.

Traps are craftable using 6 grass and 2 twigs, under the survival tab. Baits (food items) can be placed under traps, but is not advisable as it is a waste of precious food items, since they are scarce. Instead, there are other ways to trap your prey without the use of bait. Any form of trigger by animals will cause the trap to fall. When a trap falls, it may successfully catch a creature, or it may also fail, in which you would need to reset it.

a trap with a prey in it

Rabbits
Rabbits give morsels when killed, and 2 rabbits and a twig could be used to craft rabbit earmuffs - a clothing item that can help you keep warm during winter.

Rabbits spawn from rabbit holes. At dusk, or when they are scared, rabbits will run back to their holes. This means that traps can be placed on the rabbit hole itself. When dusk arrives, rabbits will run towards their holes and trigger the trap.

Similarly, you can place a trap on rabbit holes, and scare a nearby rabbit. It will run towards the rabbit hole and trigger the trap. A bait can also be place in line with the trap, so that when a rabbit moves towards to bait, it will trigger the trap since they walk in a straight line to their targets.

However, chasing a rabbit back towards the rabbit hole takes more practice as the direction and position of the player, rabbit and trap all makes a difference. This also applies for putting the bait in line with traps. Hence, the simplest method would be to simply set a number of traps on a number of rabbit holes, as the catch rate can be 100% if you place it right.

Spiders
Spiders give silk, gland, and monster meat which are all very useful items required for making other things. Since spiders are aggressive creatures, it is often troublesome to fight them since they will attack you.

The use of traps enables you to safely and easily farm all these drops from spiders without the need to risk your health.

All you need to do is make a few traps, don't even need any food bait for this. To help you gauge, if the spider den you are trying to farm from is tier 1, 1 trap is sufficient; if its tier 2, then make 2 traps; and so on. This is because when u go near the spider den, the number of spiders that emerge each time depends on the level of the spider den. If it is at tier 2, 2 spiders will emerge when u go near the den.

The moment u go near (on the sticky surface around the spider den), spiders emerge and will chase you. As you walk away from the den, place a trap in your path (or have it placed before hand, either way is fine) and walk through the trap. Spiders will chase you in a straight line and will trigger the traps in their path.

Simply collect the sprung traps to obtain whatever loot that was supposed to drop if you would've killed the spider. This ensures an easy and efficient way to farming silk and glands without having to put on any armor, weapons, or risk hurting yourself.

How to: Surviving in Don't Starve

Previously I made a post on the things you need to do to establish a good start in Don't Starve. Here's part II - tips for surviving.

So now you have a base with a fire pit and Science Machine.

Next, make an Alchemy Engine. Essentially, Alchemy engine is also a science machine but a higher tier one. It will unlock even more recipes which will help you in your survival. To make an alchemy engine, you will need 4 boards, 2 cut stones, and 6 gold nuggets/2 electrical doodads (RoG). To make boards and cut stones, simply go to the 'Refine' tab near the science machine and refine these items. In RoG, electrical doodads are needed for crafting alchemy engine. Electrical doodads are found under the 'Science' tab and can be made by using 2 gold nuggets and 1 cut stone.

Food
Basic:
[1] Gathering
To make things easy, first of all, make yourself a backpack (4 grass, 4 twigs). Backpack gives you extra 8 slots in your inventory, which makes gathering that much more convenient! Common food stuff that you can gather includes carrots, berries, seeds, mushrooms and birch nuts (RoG). For meat items, you can kill rabbits for morsels or spiders/hounds for monster meat. You can also kill other animals like Gobblers (that annoying turkey that steals your berries) for drumsticks. But I wouldn't recommend this as Gobblers run quite fast and you would end up wasting a lot of time chasing it down.

Cooked food normally have better stat restoration than raw food. Do take note on mushrooms because eating a certain type of mushroom raw/cooked will give you different effects! Here's a simple summary on mushrooms:

- Green mushrooms
Comes out during dusk, buried in the day and at night.
Raw: restore hunger, minus a lot of sanity! never eat this mushroom raw, seriously. Unless you wanna decrease your sanity on purpose, which I wouldn't recommend for beginners...
Cooked: minus 1 hp, but increases sanity

- Blue mushrooms
Only comes out at night, buried during the day and dusk.
Raw: restores health and hunger, but decreases sanity
Cooked: decreases health, increases sanity

- Red mushrooms
Comes out in the day, buried at dusk and at night.
Raw: restore hunger, but decreases health
Cooked: adds 1 hp, decreases sanity

[2] Planting
Make a shovel. Now when you go out gathering supplies, dig up berry bushes, saplings and grass. Bring them back and plant them around your base, for easy gathering of resources in the future. For berry bushes and grass, you will need to fertilize them after transplanting them. Here's where you will need to pick up poop from beefalo. :)
A fun tip: If you find a pig village, they often have a different type of berry bushes. It's essentially the same thing but they look cooler. You can steal these and plant them near your base too!

The cool ones found in Pig villages

[3] Farming
You will need lots of poop for this. With Science Machine, you will be able to craft basic farm using 8 grass, 4 poop, and 4 logs. Seeds which you've picked up can be planted in the farm. You can either wait for them to grow or fertilize it to hasten the process using poop/rot (rot is obtained from spoiled food items). With an alchemy engine, you can craft improved farm using 10 grass, 6 poop, and 4 rocks. Crops in improved farms grow faster than those in basic farms. Similarly, you can fertilize them to make it even faster. If you can afford it, craft improved farms without making any basic farms.

*I'm used to referring to manure as 'poop', cause, they are. When I say poop, I mean manure. Heh.

Advance:
[1] Bee box
Crafted under 'Food' tab, using 2 boards, 1 honeycomb and 4 live bees. To obtain honeycomb, you will need to break down an existing bee hive. To catch bees, you will need to make a bug net using 4 twigs, 2 silk and 1 rope (refined from grass). Plant flowers around the bee box for the bees to make honey. The more flowers you have, the faster the bees will produce honey. Honey is a very good food item as it can be stored for a relatively long time, and can be used to make honey poultice.

[2] Crock pot
Also under 'Food' tab. You can make this using 3 cut stones, 6 charcoals, and 6 twigs. You can get charcoal by setting evergreens on fire, and chopping it down after it is burnt. Crock pot allows you to combine 4 food items to make food with better stats. Simply combining ingredients will end up with wet goop, which does not restore any points to any stat. Here's a crockpot simulator which is super helpful for cooking using a crockpot.

this is the yummiest recipe you can make in crockpot, trust me. :P

[3] Drying rack
Can be crafted using 3 twigs, 2 charcoals, and 3 ropes. This drying rack isn't for clothes (lol), its for meat! Meat items (raw) can be hung onto drying racks, and will become jerky after some time. Compared to raw or cooked meat, jerkies can be kept for a longer period of time before going bad.

Basic protection
There are many wearable items that will give you different amount of physical damage protection. For me, personally, I would recommend a log suit and spear. The materials are easy to gather and they give a reasonable amount of basic protection. Making a log suit requires 8 logs and 2 ropes, while making a spear requires 2 twigs, 1 rope, and 1 flint. You don't have to wear these all the time. Equip them when you are about to engage in a fight or forsee that something is coming to attack you (hounds, for example). Take note that, when you equip the log suit, you will drop your backpack.

The next Don't Starve tutorial will be a detailed guide on making a bee box and establishing a bee farm.

How to: Don't Starve - A comprehensive guide for starting out in Don't Starve

Day 198, with surplus of food, a comfortable and established base. Doesnt seem like I'm dying anytime soon.

Most people feel that it's difficult to survive in Don't Starve. That is not true. As long as you know how to make full use of resources, know when to do what/when not to do what, plan your schedule (yes because walking and exploring takes a hell lot of time) and more, you'll be surviving Maxwell's harsh, cruel world like a boss.

I previously made a tutorial on how to get rid of killer bees here. You can check it out if you ever need to clear a large amount of killer bee hives.

A bit of back story..

When I first started playing this game, no one thought me what to do. But I kept playing because I liked the Tim Burton art style of this game, and how challenging it is. In my first game, I barely survived one day, as I was killed by Darkness. Subsequently, I survived 3 days, 5 days, and I see myself surviving more and more days as I played. It was difficult because no one taught me what to do. No one gave me any tips on surviving anything - hound attacks, winter, keeping my stats up, etc. I learned everything the hard way through lots of reading and experimenting myself. But I'm going to share some tips with you, and hopefully the game won't be as punishing for you as it was for me.

Starting out in Don't Starve...

The first thing you need to look out for would be flint and twig.

flint

twig

This is because you will need 1 flint and 1 twig to make an axe, which will be needed to chop down trees (and birch trees in RoG). You will absolutely need to chop down trees asap because you would need to make fire for the night, as staying in complete darkness will cost you your life. After making an axe (tools tab), chop down evergreens, as well as collect grass. You will need 2 logs and 3 grass to make a campfire.

Gather whatever resources you can as you go, especially food items that you will easily (normally) find around the place you spawn on day 1. These include carrots, berries (on berry bushes), and seeds. Try to gather as many rocks and gold nuggets as well, as you will need these to establish a base. To gather rocks, make a pickaxe (also in tools tab) by using 2 twigs and 2 flints, and then mine boulders. 

Type 1 gives you only rocks.

Type 2 gives you rocks, nitrile and flint.

Type 3 gives you rocks and gold nuggets!

The map is revealed as you explore the area, like in World of Warcraft and many other games. Try to walk and uncover as much area as you can, asap. There are many types of biomes in Don't Starve; the one you should find asap before settling down/creating your base, would be Savanna, with Beefalos. This is quite important for survival as beefalos drop poop (manure) which has many purposes. It can be used as fuel for fire, to make farms, and to fertilize crops and plants.

Once you have found a Beefalo biome, set up permanent camp nearby (not directly beside beefalo herds or in the middle of them, as when beefalos go in heat, they will be aggresive). To set up a permanent camp, start with a fire pit which is made by using 2 logs and 12 rocks (this is where you need a lot of rocks!). Then, proceed to making a Science Machine (under science tab) using 4 rocks, 4 logs, and 1 gold nugget. Having a Science Machine will unlock more recipes. To make something, gather the required materials and prototype it at the Science Machine.

Hope this is helpful! The next blog post will be on more tips on how to survive and maintain your stats. :D

How to: Get rid of killer bees!

I am going to share with you how to effectively get rid of killer bee hives in Don't Starve. I'm doing this because initially when I encounter this problem and went on the internet to search for solutions, there wasn't much information and suggestions included more expensive options like having a pan flute (which only has 10 uses before you need to make a new one) to put them to sleep while you destroy the hive. That's not going to work in the long run too, because well, they will wake up and hence it's not a permanent solution.

When I come across the lureplant page on the wiki, I realised I have found my solution. Previously, I've seen people suggesting having lureplant farms for harvesting leafy meat and what not, but did not suggest that they could be used for clearing killer bee hives.

I thought about it, and tried it out - using lureplants to clear these annoying hives. It works and it's pretty easy to pull off. So as long as you know how to kite, even a new player can do this quite easily.

See, these things are pretty troublesome as these killer bee hives normally spawn really close together, and more often than not, they block off certain paths and you cannot explore further due to their presence. The moment you walk close, 6 killer bees will emerge from each hive and chase after you.

killer bee hives, spawned really close together.

What you need, is easy enough to obtain - Lureplants.

First of all, lureplants only grow on places where you have previously explored, so when you see lureplants, kill it, and the eyeplants if they have also spawned, to obtain a fleshy bulb.

a fleshy bulb

a planted fleshy bulb

eyeplant spawned around lureplant

Bring your fleshy bulb to where the killer bee hives are, and plant them as close to the killer bee hives as you can.

as seen on the minimap after planting a lureplant in the middle of 3 killer bee hives

Wait for 2 days for the lureplant to grow and spawn eyeplants around it. Proceed to walk by the killer bee hives, and kite them to where the eyeplants are. Remember to wear protective gear since there may still be a chance for you to get stung (though quite unlikely).

3 hives of killer bees on my tail

eyeplants eating up my problems, one by one.

Do take note that while you're kiting, do not stand right next to an eyeplant as they will attack you too.

Can't really tell you in exact detail how to run, where to stand, how to kite, etc. You'll have to experiment it yourself based on what I have shown you here.

Once the entire killer bee hive has been cleared, go back to the hive and destroy it to collect 3 honey and 1 honeycomb, similar to a normal bee hive. 

pick up the loot - honey which can be eaten, and honey comb which can be used for bee box construction

Do not wait too long to do this as every 30 seconds, a new killer bee will respawn from the hive, even while you're hitting it. This is why it is advisable to plant the lureplant close to the hive so you don't have to kite too far and waste too much time (also, bees will lose interest and stop chasing if you're out of a certain range).

A lureplant will dangle leafy meat as a 'bait' to attract nearby mobs. Killing a lureplant will allow you to harvest the leafy meat.

Sometimes a lureplant can also dangle meat that it has obtained from a previous kill. This one killed a turkey previously and hence, it's dangling a drumstick.

The cool thing about lureplants is that, once you're done with clearing the killer bee hives, you can kill the lureplant and obtain whatever loot was supposed to drop from what it has eaten previously, plus leafy meat and a fleshy bulb for your next use.

Each eyeplant takes only 1 hit from any weapon to retreat back to the ground, making it easy to clear a path to the center where you can destroy the lureplant.

And that's it! Simple as that. Hope this will help you not to starve. Hahahaha!