An extraordinary collection of indie games is currently discounted on Steam as part of developer Klei Entertainment's weekend sale. Naturally, Klei's greatest hits are all discounted, but notably so are a few games that they had a hand in or just really like. The sale runs through 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m Eastern) Monday, November 13.

The star of the sale is easily the Best of Klei Bundle. At 77 percent off, the $20 bundle gets you Don't Starve and both its Reign of Giants and Shipwrecked DLCs; Don't Starve Together, for which Klei is currently running the free Forge event; Mark of the Ninja and its Special Edition DLC; as well as Invisible Inc. and its Contingency Plan DLC. 

They're all great, and all available individually, but the bundle discount is definitely the better deal. But if you've got a hankering for Don't Starve in particular, check out the $13 Don't Starve Mega Pack.  

Shank and Shank 2, two of Klei's earliest games, are both $2.50 at 75 percent off. Likewise, Eets Munchies, Klei's 2014 puzzler, is under $2 at 75 percent off.

You'll also find a few games that aren't Klei's. Developer Brace Yourself Games' Crypt of the NecroDancer is $3 at 80 percent off, and Red Hook Studio's Darkest Dungeon is $10 at 60 percent off. Additionally, Slick Entertainment's Viking Squad is $7.50 at 50 percent off. 

This has been a strong week for indie sales. Of the 500-plus games discounted in this week's Steam sale, violent indie darlings Hotline Miami and They Bleed Pixels are clear standouts. There's also publisher Degica's Steam sale, which includes RPG Maker and the criminally overlooked adventure game OneShot. Like Klei's sale, both run through Monday, November 13. 

Fans of not starving will be pleased to hear that Don't Starve developer Klei Entertainment has unveiled new single-player DLC called Don't Starve: Hamlet. There's also a free content update for Don't Starve: Shipwrecked that's now in beta testing, and a series of new events for Don't Starve Together that will get underway in November with a six-player co-op challenge called The Forge. 

First on the list is Don't Starve: Hamlet, in which the intrepid hero Wilson stumbles upon a lost town of aristocratic Pigmen and decides to pay a visit. "Reacquaint to city life with pig shops, houses, new items, biomes and more, or delve into the ancient pig ruins and try your hand at treasure hunting in this new single player expansion," the Steam page says. As DLC it requires the original Don't Starve, and it's expected to be out sometime in the first half of 2018. 

Don't Starve Together: The Forge will be the first in a series of time-limited game modes "that create a new way to play with the cast of Don’t Starve," Klei explained. "They serve as a way to mix up the experience, allowing us to try crazy new things without breaking the core game. Events are free for everyone who owns DST to play and will be coming in November." 

The Forge will feature new creatures and bosses with their own unique attack patterns, new character traits and combat bonuses, and of course new weapons, armor, items, and combat abilities. Event-specific skins will be up for grabs, and the skin system is being changed up as well: They'll drop far more frequently than they have previously, and if you end up with duplicates you'll be able to scrap them at a new trader, and then craft something else. As well as earning them in-game, players will also have the option to buy a single Warrior Skin Set for $3, or the full collection for $13. Like other skins, they're purely cosmetic, but "purchase of the Warrior Set will help us fund further content and events like this one." 

"We hope that with this mechanism, we can both continue creating great free content while also supporting the development team," Klei wrote. "In addition, this method of funding allows us to provide content to all our players, instead of splitting the player community if we implemented it with a DLC paywall." 

And finally, the free Don't Starve: Shipwrecked content update is available now in a separate beta branch on Steam. Instructions for switching to it are available here, the password is "shipwreckedbeta," and as always when it comes to beta stuff, bear in mind that things could go wrong so dive in at your own risk. There's no word on when it will go fully live that I can see, but here's what it does: 

World:

• Crockodogs. Will hound you at land and sea.
• Ballphin followers and the Ballphin Den.
• Roe. New food item. Stocks the fish farm.
• Cormorants. New sea bird. Source of Roe.
• Tar Slick. Pools of crude oil bubbling on the surface of the water.
• Tar. New resource.
• 3 new variety of tropical fish.
• Rainbow Jellyfish.
• Coral Nubbin. Replant coral after it's mined.
• Ox will produce offspring.

New Craftables

• Galley and Sea Lab. Make your base at sea.
• Sea Yard. Keeps your ship repaired on the water.
• Tar Extractor. Gets Tar from Tar Slick.
• Tar Suit. Temporary protection from wetness.
• Tar patch. A sticky situation.
• Oil Lamp. Quick lightsource for land and sea.
• Fish Farms. Grow food on the water.
• Encrusted Boat.
• Quackering Ram. New craftable for the Quacken Beak.
• Sea wall. Water craftable wall. Blocks waves.
• Tropical Bouillabaisse. New recipe with new tropical fish.
• Caviar. New recipe with Roe

Most patch notes are boring. Fixed a bug that stopped a menu from opening properly. D.Va's Defense Matrix doesn't last as long. Wukong's attack speed is 10 percent slower. That's the usual stuff, chronicling important but dull balance changes across years of a game's life. And then there are patch notes like this: "Added cat butchery." "Made all undead respectful of one another." "Tigerman does not have ears."

That's the good stuff.

Those are the kinds of wonderfully crazy patch notes Dwarf Fortress has given us over the years. Determined to top the absurdity of Dwarf Fortress's bizarre changelogs, I put on my deerstalker, grabbed my magnifying glass, and set out to find the strangest patch notes in the history of PC gaming. These absurdities are the result. 

Rimworld

Alpha 12

• Colonists will visit graves of dead colonists for a joy activity. 

Alpha 16

• New alert: Unhappy nudity 

Alpha 17

• Raiders will no longer compulsively attack doors. 

---

Conan Exiles

Patch 15.2.2017

• Rhinos should no longer try to walk through players 

Patch 15.2.2017

• Emus now give less XP 

Patch 23.02.2017

• Players can no longer use chairs to travel great distances 

Update 24

• Imps, ostriches and other non-humanoids no longer go bonkers if you hit them with a truncheon 

Update 25

• Seeing dead people can now lead to great rewards 

Update 28

• Fixed a small issue where a player in some instances could walk underwater. 

--- 

Rust

Update 149

• Bucket no longer hostile to peacekeepers 

Update 152

• Pumpkins only have 1 season (instead of 7) 

August 28, 2014

• Bald inmate digging grows hair bug fixed 

---  

Terraria

1.2.0.2

• The game will no longer look for the square root of zero. 

1.2.1

• Mice can no longer spawn in hell 

1.2.3

• Red Stucco no longer spreads corruption. 

---  

The Sims 4

02/04/2016

• Sims carving pumpkins or working at a woodworking table will no longer ignore Sims who die near them. 

02/04/2016

• Babies will no longer send text messages congratulating your Sims on their marriage, engagement, or pregnancy. 

01/12/2017

• Confident children will no longer get a whim to practice pick-up lines. 

05/25/2017

• Babies will no longer change skin tone when they are picked up. 

---  

Don't Starve

January 29th 2013

• Darts and poop won't magically accumulate at the world origin. 

October 1st 2013

• You can no longer trade with sleeping pigs. 

November 19th 2013

• You can properly deploy or murder captured butterflies 

---  

Ark: Survival Evolved

254.9

• Beers can no longer be eaten by Dinos 

---  

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

1.2

• Taking items from dead owned creatures is no longer a crime 

--- 

World of Warcraft

1.3.0

• The quest NPC Khan Jehn no longer becomes confused and unresponsive 

1.4.0

• Roast Raptor now has an more appropriate inventory sound 

2.1.0

• Fixed an error where some characters appeared to be drinking while standing up 

2.4.0

• Zapetta will no longer become confused about whether the zeppelin in Orgrimmar is arriving or leaving 

3.1.0

• Yaaarrrr! now has a detailed tooltip 

--- 

Uplink

1.314 

• Fixed : Dead or jailed people don't answer their phones 

1.35 

• Fixed : LAN Spoof progress graphic overflow 
• Fixed : Time freezing and unclickable buttons on computers running for several weeks

--- 

Everquest

July 10, 2001 

• Reevaluated the values of the various fish fillets 

--- 

August 15, 2001 

• The Giant Tree Flayer is now Large instead of Tiny 

December 6, 2001 

• Fixed a bug that was preventing characters from being bald 

--- 

Two Worlds 2

1.4

• Horse behaviour - improved 

--- 

Battlefield 1942

1.2 

• Bots do not jump in and out of vehicles anymore 

--- 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

1.02 

• Dead party members will no longer show up later in the game. What with thembeing dead and all 

--- 

Black and White

1.1 

• The word "Death" no longer said when villagers die of old age
• Creature doesn't become constipated if you punish him for pooing 

--- 

No One Lives Forever 2

1.3 

• Fixed problems with camera rotation after slipping on a banana 

--- 

Hitman: Codename 47

Patch 1 

• Dancer in "Gunrunner's Paradise" is no longer confused by dead bodies 

Last year during the PC Gaming Show E3 broadcast, Klei Entertainment revealed Oxygen Not Included, the studio's highly-scientific take on the colony sim genre. With Oxygen Not Included hitting Early Access last month, it's already time to show off something new. This year the talented Canadian developer will reveal another completely new project live on the PC Gaming Show stage at E3.

Watch the PC Gaming Show Monday, June 12 at 10 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern, 6 PM BST) on twitch.tv/pcgamer, Steam, or Facebook to see it first.

Because we live in an unjust world Don't Starve isn't getting an official movie. But, as we live on the internet now, the team at Cinesaurus figured what the hell and gave it a go anyway. I'm glad they did, because their Tim Burton-esque 'trailer' is pretty charming.

The official synopsis explains the approach to bringing Don't Starve to the little big screen. "The trailer is designed as if Tim Burton had directed the movie for the fantastic video game world. The story starts as a group of five strangers are transported into a mysterious wilderness. They must survive against a scheming magician in this dark, nightmarish landscape of magic... or starve trying."

It runs for about six minutes, and hits nearly every dramatic beat a full feature would typically have warning: spoilers for a fake movie while showcasing some clever (and clumsy) recreations of characters, creatures, and machinery from the game. Overall, it's not surprising how well Don't Starve's art directions works in a live action format.

Don't Starve superfans will especially enjoy the FX dedicated to bringing Woody the werebeaver to life, plus Abigail's ghostly sister Wendy putting in an appearance. Cinesaurus might be on to something here. Someone get Klei on the horn.

Returning to Don t Starve s world of goth survival whimsy is like slipping into a bubble bath full of piranha. You re happy, but braced for impact. The Shipwrecked DLC is currently in Early Access, so some content remains to be added and balance changes will be made based on feedback, (there s a roadmap here), but what s available now feels like a sufficiently interesting twist on the formula to make me want to spend a lot time in the tropical deathtrap that Klei Entertainment and Capybara Games have co-developed.

The key change is the setting. You wake on an island amidst the wreckage of a boat, and from there it s the familiar Don t Starve rush to gather resources, build tools, and harvest food before the onset of night, which is lethal without the protection of fire. But whereas in previous iterations you could pretty much just scout for a plum location—ideally with Beefalo and plenty of fresh veg located within walking distance—and then turtle up at your base, in Shipwrecked you re aggressively encouraged to explore.

Inevitably, the ocean life is not an easy one. Building a basic raft is easy enough, but it s fragile and slow. Soon you ll want to upgrade to a rowboat, which can be equipped with a thatch sail and even a lantern for night maneuvers. Waves vary in height, and timed right can be used for a speed boost, but there s a risk/reward payoff because if you take on too much water your items will get sodden, and ultimately you can sink.

Each procedurally-generated world is an archipelago, with different biomes spread across islands which vary wildly in size. Because certain items remain crucial to progress—like gold nuggets to build your first science machine, or spider silk to craft bug nets—there s almost no point in laying down roots until you ve secured a decent source of the most important materials. Which is going to mean heading out to sea.

Whilst sailing you ll discover coral reefs, which can be mined and then turned into limestone, plus jellyfish and seaweed to cook back in your crock pot. In about half a dozen playthroughs I ve only been attacked once on water, which was by a Sea Hound that I evaded easily enough after the initial ohshitohshit reaction. I suspect my relative safety so far is because the Tiger Shark boss has yet to be implemented. When that thing is prowling the waters, weaponising your boat with cannons will likely become a more pressing concern. Boats can also be equipped with trawl nets that will scoop up fish, mussels, useless junk, and—if you re lucky—rare items depending on what season you re in.

Climate of fear

As ever, it s climate that s the big killer in Don t Starve. You start off in the false sense of security that is the Mild Season, when it s comparatively easy to find food and make shelter. That s followed by Hurricane Season, which is about exactly as rough as it sounds. If you haven t bothered building a lightning rod, your sweet camp will be zapped to a smouldering insurance claim within seconds of the first storm starting. Then there s to hail to contend with. You can pick up hailstones and use them as filler in crockpot recipes (much like sticks), but beware that a bug currently means that those icy nuggets left on the ground will constantly bang into any walls you ve built, eventually destroying them. The developers are working on a fix.

After the hurricanes comes Monsoon Season. Here the land will get progressively more flooded, potentially waterlogging your vital crafting machines. (Semi-pro tip: craft a chiminea early because the flames will stay sheltered from wind and rain.) Making matters worse—in Don t Starve, it s always worse—poisonous mosquitoes begin to spawn in flooded areas. Getting poisoned, which can also happen from snake and spider bites, results in a swift, panicky death unless you ve crafted some anti-venom. Unfortunately, to craft anti-venom you first need to kill one of the poisonous critters, ideally before it kills you, and hope it drops a venom gland. The mechanic is a source of complaint in the community and also on the balance to-do list.

Dry Season comes last and sees overheating become an issue. Or not, if like me you ve already lashed together a siesta lean-to and an ice making machine. Admittedly, neither of those were much help when I was overwhelmed by a pack of dogs (which are still a thing) and didn t have my ghostly twin sister around to help out. (I ve mostly been playing as Wendy— The Bereaved , whose spectral sibling is great at killing mobs, but plan to try Walani, who comes with a surfboard, soon.) As for the rest of Dry Season, it apparently features volcanic eruptions. Good luck staving off fiery rocks with a bamboo umbrella. I have to confess I haven t encountered this yet as my best save lasted around 50 days—a far cry from the 300+ marathon I managed to pull off in the vanilla game. Still, I m definitely feeling the old compulsion to keep playing.

Super monkey balls

Double screening is one of the great joys of PC gaming, and I play a lot of my favourite games while half-watching TV shows on the other monitor. But with Don t Starve I have to stick to music or, at most, a podcast, because I can t risk taking my eyes off what s happening. That s how fatal poisonings happen. There s actually almost an RTS vibe to it, because maximising the efficiency of your clicks leads to the most efficient resource haul. But the meta game is all about gearing up to survive the next season. Once you find the right groove, it s remarkable how safe Shipwrecked starts to feel. Which is usually exactly when the piranha in the bath sinks its teeth into your balls.

Shipwrecked sadly doesn t do anything to fix some of the structural problems Don t Starve has always suffered from. After a great run comes to an end, it feels onerous to have to slog through the early hours of busywork required to construct an even half-decent homestead. Also, the variation between a new world in which vital resources are initially spawned nearby and one in which you struggle to find anything useful feels way too wide. Perhaps the world-building algorithm can be tweaked so the initial RNG doesn t have quite such a big impact. Or maybe that would reduce the thrill of discovery.

Much of Don t Starve s considerable magic resides in stumbling across something you haven t found before, then working out how to benefit from it. I ve spent some time trying to work out how to farm Shipwrecked s prime apes—infuriatingly cute monkeys which steal any nearby items you drop—for their meat and manure. You can distract them with a Silly Monkey Ball, but it costs a lot of stuff to craft. In a final act of desperation I tried to burn the entire forest around them, but as I was whispering the horror, the horror , they emerged unscathed and stole my coconuts. Still, at least the weather s nice. For now.

Shipwrecked, the Don't Starve expansion that traps poor Wilson (or whichever of the other oddball characters you prefer) on a tropical archipelago, hit Steam Early Access on December 1 and has earned an overwhelmingly positive response from nearly 1400 players. There's still quite a bit more content to come, though, and so yesterday developer Klei Entertainment revealed its roadmap for the next couple of months.

There are three more characters to be added to the game, and three new big-assed bosses, including the Tiger Shark. A new biome will also be added, and there are also plans for more Shipwrecked-specific set pieces and world items. But the most impactful changes may may be made through behind-the-scenes balance changes, which will be made over the course of the coming updates.

This game takes a long time to play, and you will encounter different scenarios each time you play. Players constantly encounter situations that we never even imagined. Because of this, when we add new content to Don t Starve the initial tuning is, for the most part, our best guess on what will play well, Klei's Bryce Doig explained. Your feedback on these new systems is worth its weight in gold (how much does text on the internet weigh?) when we adjust the tuning of systems as it allows us to make much more informed decisions than we would otherwise be able to make.

The plan is to add new content through updates released every three weeks, beginning with the next one in mid-January and concluding at the end of February. After that there will be an update dedicated entirely to bug fixes and balance changes, Klei said. Of course, it should be noted that all of these times are just estimates of our schedule and may very well change. We'll have some impressions of Shipwrecked on the site next week. 

Announced back in August, the next major Don't Starve expansion will launch into Early Access on December 1. Dubbed Shipwrecked, the Early Access period will be fully playable, with "new seasons, creatures, biomes". New ways to die are also promised, which is just as well.

"As always, during early access we will be releasing regular updates containing new content as well as tweaks and bug fixes based on your input," a spokesperson for publisher Klei wrote on the game's forums. As the name suggests, Shipwrecked will have you spending a lot of time in boats, and hopefully not too much time drowning in the water outside of boats.

Don't Starve has seen a number of substantial additions since its initial release in 2013. The biggest one was Don't Starve Together, which is a multiplayer co-op version of the main game. Oh, and the Reign of Giants DLC was pretty decent too.

No word as yet on when the expansion will finish up in Early Access, and studio Capy Games is still working on world migration, which won't be available on December 1.

If you love being lost in a cruel world accompanied only by the morbid sense that your own death draws closer with each step—and hey, who doesn't?—then boy have I got great news for you! Klei Entertainment has announced a new single-player expansion for Don't Starve, called Shipwrecked. Coming later this Fall, it's actually not being developed by Klei, but by Capy—developers of Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP, Super Time Force Ultra, and Below.

The announcement says Shipwrecked will bring "new playable characters, biomes, creatures and seasonal effects."  Somewhat obviously, the entire expansion will have a seafaring theme and add sailing to the game, which is the first time water has done more than impede your progress in Don't Starve. There's no word when (or even if) Shipwrecked will make it to the multiplayer version, Don't Starve Together, but you can expect the single-player version to hit PC, Mac, and Linux this fall.

"I'm a survivor," sang Destiny's Child in 2001; thus proving once and for all that three people are better at tackling a harsh wilderness (and/or shitty boyfriends) than one. In recognition of that, Klei has given all owners of their survival game Don't Starve a free copy of standalone multiplayer expansion Don't Starve Together.

The multiplayer component was always due to be given, for free, to Don't Starve owners on completion of its time in Early Access. Despite this, Don't Starve Together is not yet out of beta. Klei has decided to hand it out nonetheless. If you owned Don't Starve prior to June 3, you now own Don't Starve Together, too.

"Today, we welcome 2 million new players into the Don't Starve Together community," writes Klei. "Thank you once again to everyone who supported us on this journey."

As for future buyers of Don't Starve, you won't receive a copy of the expandalone. Instead, Klei has released a Don't Starve Mega Pack, featuring both games, and an extra giftable copy of Don't Starve Together, for 17/$20.

If you're eligible for a copy but don't know where it is, head over to Klei's FAQ page.