Don’t Starve Together – The Gorge / Quickstart and Beginners Guide

This is a quickstart guide for players who are brand new to the event. Read this short guide to get started!

Other Don’t Starve Together Guides:

The Gorge

Please note: all credit goes to ChocolateMouse!

The gorge is a 3-player co-op event. In this event wild plants do not grow or refresh, there is no health, sanity or hunger. No monsters.

There is a time limit (yellow bar at the top of the screen) and if you do not finish in time you loose.

All tools are unbreakable and you are given basic tools at the start of the game. There are several NPCs that sell you supplies on the map and the map is always the same.

To trade with an NPC or use the milling station, walk close to them and a tab will appear on the left side of the screen. Click this to open the trade menu.

The goal is to cook the right foods to earn coins and buy your escape within the time limit.

The Map

The map is the same every time. It is a small map with 5 major areas.

Spawn has several firepits, plants, animals, The Altar (for feeding the Gnaw/winning) and a goat NPC (Mumsy) around it. Just north of spawn is a Merm that sells seeds and a key to the pink area.

Northeast of spawn is a pink-colored area that is locked off until opened with a key. This area has foliage, spice, sap trees, and a Merm that sells big pots and special seeds.

East of spawn is a rock area with a goat NPC (Billy) that sells special food-gathering items. This is also where the mill (for flour/salt/spice), salt pools (for salt and fish), and the 3 safes are. (More on all that later).

South of spawn is a forest, and south east of that is a pig village. There is an Elder Pig there that trades logs for tools, and salt for keys to the safes. There’s also a never-rotting potato patch with 4 potatoes and 2 rotten crops (rot) just above the pigs.

The Gnaw

The Gnaw is represented by the yellow time meter and mouth at the top of your screen. He has three moods; happy (still), hungry (wiggly) and angry (frowning). The less happy he is, the faster the time goes away. To win you must cook meals and feed them to The Gnaw. There is an NPC (Mumsy the Goat) at spawn who tells you what kind of food to cook (what the Gnaw is craving). If the meal is the right kind then The Gnaws mood will reset to happy and time goes away slower again. Feeding the Gnaw any meal always awards you coins.

There are four kinds of coins:

  • Yellow (old coin): Buys boring stuff/basic items.
  • Silver (sapphire) and Red (red mark): Buys neat items for cooking better dishes.
  • Rainbow (Gnaws Favor): 3 will buy you the win.

The amount/kinds of coins depends on the dish cooked. You use yellow coins to cook dishes that award silver/red coins and you use silver/red coins to cook dishes that award rainbow coins. Trade 3 rainbow coins with Mumsy (The goat at spawn) for a key that unlocks the altar to win.
To unlock the alter, place the key from Mumsy into the alter.

The Player Roles

Three players usually means 3 roles. These roles tend to be assigned by level. At Lv1-10, you can expect to play as Gatherer a lot. After that expect to play as Farmer until you feel like you know enough to play Chef.

Characters in this event have unique perks and no downsides. Read the character desriptions as you select your character to learn more.

At Lv1, you can scroll down and read only “The Gatherer” role to get started quickly.

Chef (Hard Mode)

The Chef is Boss. The Chef cooks and tells other people what to do. Listen to the chef if you want to win.

When playing as the chef your goal is to cook dishes that match the Gnaws craving and manage the other players and coins. You mostly instruct the farmer and cook. Cooking is just gathering the right ingredients, putting the right foods into cookware, watching until it’s done (represented by steam coming out of the cookware, food burns fast) and then feeding The Gnaw. A strong knowledge of which NPCs sell what, exactly where everything is on the map, and memorized recipes matters a lot.

If you want to play as chef, play several games as the other roles first, especially farmer. Build up a recipe book, and practice cooking dishes in solo mode (even if you lose). If you need this guide, you’re probably not ready to play chef.

Best Chef Characters (in approximate order): Wes, Wilson, Willow, Winoa, Wolfgang, Wendy, Wx78, Wickerbottom.

Farming (Normal Mode)

Farming is important because wild plants don’t grow back. Farmers make grow and harvest of the food the Chef uses to cook and usually mill flour too. Having the map areas memorized is ideal for farmers, but otherwise is a great learning role. The chef will normally tell you what seeds to grow, and you will grow them.

As a farmer your main job is tilling the ground, planting seeds as the chef asks, fertilizing crops, and generally running errands. Farmers need a little more knowledge than a gatherer, but not as much as a chef. The most critical knowledge (other than map locations) is seed types and where to get them which I will list here:

The Merm north of spawn (Sammy) sells:

  • Fluffy seeds = (Potatoes)
  • Round seeds = (Turnips)
  • Oblong seeds = (Carrots)
  • Pointy seeds = (Onions)
  • Blue seeds = (Wheat)*
  • Mixed seeds (Anything)

The Merm in the Pink Area (Pipton) sells:

  • Spiky Seeds (Tomatoes)
  • Seed Pods (Garlic)

* All seed packets contain 3 seeds except blue/wheat which contains 4.

You will also be regularly asked to mill wheat into flour at the mill in the rock area. Farmers may also be asked to run other errands for the chef, like watch for cooked dishes, buy items from NPCs, gather berries/twigs or catch animals in a trap.

Best farmers (in approximate order): Webber, Wickerbottom, Winoa, Wx78, Wes.

The Gatherer (Braindead Easy Mode)

The gatherer role is a very easy role. It’s a support role, providing supplies to the other two characters.

Gatherers simply pick up the unbreakable axe at spawn and start chopping trees in the forest just south of spawn. Your goal is to keep camp supplied with wood, and trade with the Pig Elder on the south-east side of the forest. Immediately give some logs to camp then trade 20 logs with the Pig Elder (south-east through the forest) for 2 buckets of poop for the farmer. Then always maintain at least 20 logs at camp at all times. Continue to get logs and sometimes poop buckets until the salt goes up. Then you make salt runs (expalined in salt, keys and silver dishes) in between cutting wood.

Sometimes, as gatherer, you may be asked to pick the potatoes/rot near the pig elder or gather mushrooms from the forest. You may also be asked to tap or harvest the sap trees in the pink area or run other minor errands. But mostly you just chop wood. Forever.

Best Gatherers: Woodie, Maxwell, Wx78, Winoa.

You may note that Wigfrid isn’t listed as best anything. That’s because despite being my personal favorite, she is the worst character for this game. Her bonus is only to gathering meat, which is used about twice in any given run. If you must use Wigfrid, she’s probably best as gatherer or farmer. Also, Wx78 and Winoa are good at doing just about everything. When in doubt, pick one of those two.

Salt, Keys and Silver Dishes

Salt

Salt is an essential aspect to the game. A salt rack can be purchased from the goat in the rock area (Billy) for 8 yellow coins and set up on one of the salt water pools.

Salt takes 2.5 minutes to solidify on the salt rack then must be ground at the mill in the rock area before use. It makes 3 salt shakers. The salt rack will keep producing forever.

Salt may be applied to a dish before feeding it to The Gnaw to restore a small amount of time to the time bar.
Salt shakers (3) may be taken to the Pig Elder through the forest and traded for a key. This is usually done by the gatherer – i.e.; making a salt run.

Making a salt run is usually defined as harvesting the salt from the salt rack in the rock area, milling it, trading it to the pig elder for a key, opening a safe, and delivering the contents to the chef.

Keys

Keys are gotten by trading salt to the pig elder. The keys unlock any of 3 safes in the rock area. One of the safes is hidden behind the broken carriage, the other two are in the open at the farthest point from spawn.

Inside each safe will be 2-3 silver dishes, and either syrup equipment or a large cooking vessel. It is random what is in which safe.

Silver Dishes

Silver dishes can be used to serve food in. Food served in a silver dish or food that must be made in large cookware gives better coins than normal food. This is how you get the rainbow coins that allow you to win.

Summary

In essence, as a beginner player you will probably be playing a gatherer, and your best character is Woodie. As you learn the map better you will play as farmer more and your best character will be Webber.

The goal of the game is to cook good enough food, to get the right coins to win the round.

Salt, silver dishes or expensive ingredients are more likely to result in the 3 rainbow coins you need to win.
Salt is one of the most important parts of the game.

Learn a lot before you try to play as chef. If you play often it won’t be more than a day or two before you are teaching newbies yourself.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 15052 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*