This achievement isn't nearly as difficult as its high ratio/low completion implies. Tough, yes, but definitely doable by anyone who enjoys the game and has a modicum of patience and skill. While the procedurally-generated nature of the game makes a precise walk-through impossible, I have a few specific suggestions that should help anyone struggling with this.
Unlocking this AchievementMaxwell is unlocked by surviving 5 random, challenging worlds in
Adventure Mode without dying. This mode is accessed after starting a game in Survival Mode and locating Maxwell's Door on the map. Once you enter the door, you'll spawn in one of 5 random worlds with no possessions (excluding any a character initially spawns with) and have to find the 4 things (crank, box, ring, and metal potato) while surviving the unique challenges these worlds throw at you. Dying in any of these worlds without having a touch stone activated, a meat effigy built or a life-giving amulet equipped will result in a game over and being punted back into Survival Mode right outside of Maxwell's Door.
General Suggestions*
Disable the Reign of Giants DLC*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal *** - RoG is a ton of fun for Don't Starve vets, but substantially increases the difficulty of the game and is unnecessary for this achievement
*
Use WX-78 as your character*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- Adventure Mode can be won with any character, but WX-78 (the robot) is by far the easiest to use. His biggest advantage is that he can eat gears, boosting his base stats from being below average (100 health/100 hunger/100 sanity) to ridiculously overpowered (400/200/300). Upgrades carry over from world to world, so by world 5, you've got a massive advantage over weaker characters. Additionally, gears can be eaten as consumable food, which is excellent because they stack up to 40 quantity, heal both health and sanity in addition to hunger, and they never spoil.
*
Pre-build structures before moving to the next world*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- By far the most useful tip when tackling Adventure Mode. When moving from one world to the next, you can only load 4 items into the machine to carry over into the next world. However, any structures you have built - but not placed - also carry over. So while the first world is tough as you are starting from scratch, future worlds become MUCH simpler when you can immediately set up vital structures like the crock pot and a fire pit without having to scavenge for resources.
-This only works for placeable structures. Once you find the resources for a hammer, you can use it to destroy unneeded structures, recovering some of the raw materials used in their creation.
-To pre-build an item, create the item, then press B to cancel its placement on the map. It will then appear highlighted blue in your creation menu and will be available whenever you choose to place it.
*
Winter Tips*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- Don't light a campfire every time you need to heat up your thermal stone. Find an isolated tree, drop your stone right next to it and then set the tree on fire with a torch. This will save you time and resources over constantly needing wood/grass for fires and flint/twigs for axes. Done correctly, you can equip a torch, light a tree on fire and then immediately equip an axe or other tool and avoid using any percentage of your torch. Two trees will completely heat a thermal stone.
- A fully heated thermal stone also gives off a tiny amount of light. It's not really enough to see the map, but it is enough to avoid being killed by the darkness. Use this to your advantage to explore at night without using torches and wasting scarce resources.
- Hats off when next to a fire. You don't need the warmth at that time and taking it off will extend its life by a few days.
*
Mushroom, Mushroom*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- Mushrooms are absolutely essential for overcoming the challenges of Adventure Mode. Dig up mushrooms with a shovel to immediately receive two of them. Here's a quick rundown of their effects:
-Green Mushrooms: Cooked greenies increase sanity by +15. Raw greenies reduce sanity significantly (-50), useful when trying to lower one's sanity to get past obelisk sanity barriers.
-Blue Mushrooms: Eaten raw, these heal you by + 20 and reduce your sanity by -15. Cooked, they reduce your health by -3, but increase sanity by +10.
-Red Mushrooms: Useful only as filler for crock pot recipes.
*
Fully prepare before moving to the next world*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal *** - Stats carry over when advancing worlds, so make sure you've fully healed your health/sanity/hunger stats before using the portal .
- Ensure all possible structures are pre-built and ready to roll before moving on. You may not use most of them, but having access to their resources in a pinch is helpful.
- Max stack whatever 4 items you are bringing from one world to the next. Whatever you choose, bring a full load of it. For the first world, I usually bring a stack of 20 gold (for luxury tools), 40 spiderwebs (useful for bird traps, bug nets), as many gears as a world has, and 40 grass. If one can be found or built, I bring a walking cane instead of the spiderwebs and a Tam O'Shanter instead of the grass.
*
Be fast, not furious*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- Don't Starve is a ton of fun once you know the basics, but even experienced players die fast when they get reckless. I've put a couple hundred hours into this game across multiple platforms and consider myself an expert, yet while playing for the first time on my Xbone, I died on World 4 because I got sloppy and picked an unnecessary fight with a pigman. Game over man, game over.
You're going to fail. You're going to die, lose a bunch of progress and have to start over. It's inevitable. Don't get angry at the game for being unfair, get motivated to do better the next go round. Figure out what you did wrong and avoid doing that the next time.
Most enemies can be bypassed by running away, the main reason I suggest getting a walking stick ASAP. If you have to fight, make sure to armor up and kite the enemies, If you get overwhelmed or your armor breaks, immediately retreat and recover.
*
Take Back the Night*
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***In a game where the dark can literally kill you, this may seem like a crazy suggestion. However, learning to safely utilize time during the night (which is typically 1/3 to 1/4 of the total day) is a key skill in mastering Don't Starve.
- The easiest and safest thing to do at night is to sleep through it. Only do this if you absolutely need to recover health/sanity and only if you have an abundance of food.
- More useful is to build a campfire near trees or rocks and spend the night mining or harvesting lumber. If you don't need wood or rocks/flint/gold, use the night to cook food and eat or build any tools/equipment/structures you'll need during the day.
- My personal favorite way to spend the night is running around the map's edge with a torch exploring and harvesting fireflies. Typically, there aren't too many threats flush with the edge, so you can safely traverse the world's limits at night and fill in the middle of the map during the day. While it isn't necessary to fully explore the worlds during Adventure Mode, I completely explore any area I'm in before moving on to avoid missing anything useful.
I don't suggest exploring anywhere near killer bees at night, as they are tough to dodge during the day and a nightmare to dodge in the dark. Swamps are also dangerous at night, but most of the enemies are too busy killing each other. Stay mobile and avoid walking near spider nests and you should be fine.
Stage Specific TipsA Cold Reception May appear chapters 1-3
Difficulty: 3.5/5
Days to complete: 10-12
Weather: Starts with 6 days of rainy summer followed by 3 days of winter, then repeats. Always at least one resource that will be rare.
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- The frequent rain during summer can complicate things for WX-78. The health drain caused by the rain is a nuisance, but only dangerous if you stop paying attention. It's less of a concern because occasionally WX-78 will be struck by lightning, which restores 100 health, reduces sanity by 33 and increases movement speed by 50%. Recovering from the sanity drop is a constant concern, so dig up and stockpile any green or blue mushrooms you find and have a few cooked in case you get hit.
- When struck by lightning, WX-78 is fast and emits a ring of light slightly smaller than a torch. This is a great time to explore the night, as you don't need a torch and are fast.
- Rain puts out campfires and torches faster, so make sure you are keeping an eye on your light/fire supplies. Be careful about exploring forests during heavy rain, as lightning that doesn't hit you will generally set something on fire and burn the entire forest down.
- Frogs will rain from the sky two or three times during the six days of summer, Don't attack any, as the entire mob will then swarm you. Instead, carry a trap with you and drop it in the path of any frogs pursuing you. They'll get snared and you'll have a tasty frog leg to cook and eat. You can also lure swarms of frogs near other hostile mobs, like killer bees or tentacles, and watch all hell break loose. After the slaughter, run around and pick up all the free food!
- Prepare for winter! Even though it is only 3 days long, winter can be nasty if you haven't taken steps to prepare for it. Build a thermal stone ASAP, at the very least, and a pair of rabbit earmuffs.
- Resource shortages can be a problem on this world depending on what is in short supply. The worst, in my opinion, is when flint is hard to find, as this seriously hinders your ability to harvest most resources. You should be able to quickly determine what shortage you are facing and if you notice flint is hard to find, save two for a pickaxe and immediately make finding mine-able rocks a priority.
* If saplings are in short supply, spiky trees/bushes are usually more plentiful. Burn the trees and dig up the bushes. Burned spiky trees give you 1 twig and 1 charcoal (and occasionally a log) with one swing of the axe, instead of 10 swings for 1 twig and a stump you can dig up. Digging up spiky bushes prevents the damage taken from harvesting (-3 when unarmored) and gives you 1 twig and a spiky bush plant, a great source of fuel for fires.
The Game is AfootMay appear chapters 1-4
Difficulty: 3/5
Days to complete: 18-20
Weather: Starts with 10 days of winter followed by an endless summer.
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***- This one seems tough on the surface, but really isn't too bad once you understand how to tackle it. The first few days should be spent harvesting resources in the central spawn area ( which is quite safe) and mapping out the locations of the four pathways/blockades. One path will be blocked by spiders, one by clockwork automatons, one by tallbirds and one by tentacles. Start your base away from the spiders and within short range of the tentacles. All the blockades can be run through without engaging any enemies, which is strongly encouraged as you will be heavily outnumbered.
- You have 10 days of winter at the start. While simply surviving them is tough and may seem like only priority, there are two things I suggest doing in that first winter period. The first is easy. Walk along the water's edge and get as many pengals to spawn as possible, some near hostile mobs like tallbirds and tentacles. They'll end up fighting each other and you can reap the spoils of their battles. The ones that don't spawn near monsters will abandon their eggs around day 9 or 10 for some cheap and easy food/filler. This will happen naturally as you explore, so don't worry too much about it.
Task 2 is a little tougher. If this is your first world and you haven't yet acquired a walking cane, track down a walrus camp and kill a Mactusk before winter ends. They seem to spawn most frequently past the tallbird blockade. Don't attempt this until you've got a football helmet, wooden armor and some healing supplies. Acquire pigskin for the football helmet by using a hammer to destroy impaled pig heads found along roads in the swampy area. If you're lucky, walrus camps will be near beefalo or tallbirds and Mactusks will die engaging them instead of you.
- Sometime after Day 6, you'll hear the throaty rumblings signaling a Deerclops attack. As soon as this happens, get in the swampy area. A few tentacles will make relatively short work of a Deerclops, although you may have to lure it near tentacles if it kills the first few.
- Once winter has ended and you have enough supplies to comfortably fight, it's time to kill some robots. Each automaton you kill nets you two gears and this world is a target-rich environment. In addition to the four (2 bishops, 2 nights) near the portal, there should be an additional 8-12 automatons located in the marble forest section of the map. Kill em all. Don't eat the gears immediately (unless you need the hunger/health/sanity restoration), as this is your stockpile to keep handy as backup food throughout Adventure Mode.
- This is a good map to acquire fireflies in preparation of World 5, Darkness. The nights are lengthy and resources for night adventures are plentiful. Fireflies can be found primarily in woodlands (dark green on map) and less frequently on meadows (light green).
I'll update with stage-specific tips as I go (replaying this now on my Xbone for the cheeves and to refresh my memory), but I'll happily answer questions in the comments or via msg for anyone who asks. My first guide, so be gentle and if you have suggestions/additions, post them in the comments. Cheers!