History VideoGame / DontStarve

** Glow berries, also found in the caves, are a subversion. At first they appear to be a small plant with a fruit that gives off a faint blue light... until you get close, at which point they're revealed to be the stalked, glowing lures of giant wormlike predators [[AlluringAnglerfish using your attraction to light to draw you within striking range]].

*** When examining butter, Wilson will exclaim [[CantBelieveItsNot "I can't believe it's butter!"]]

* YouNoTakeCandle: The Pig folk speak in this manner, including playable pig Wilba, though she somehow combines it with YeOldeEnglish.

* MischiefMakingMonkeys: Splumonkeys, monkeys that dwell in caves and live inside barrels. They [[BanditMook rob players of their inventory]] and throw manure in combat. If a Splumonkey manages to steal a hat, it'll wear the hat.

* WithThisHerring:
** In the Gorge event, the locals of the Elder Bog are supposedly friendly allies who want to help you feed the Gnaw and escape safely, but gameplay balance means that they end up charging you money for supplies that you desperately need and can't afford, leading to the team dying on badly planned-out rounds.
** The Swamp Pigs are an exception, as they also desperately need materials to rebuild their destroyed houses, and the Swamp Pig Elder makes trades mostly using the abundant Logs as currency. Still, it's hard to see why everyone else (Mumsy, Billy, Sammy, and Pipton) need those coins in the first place. Mumsy even gives you 10 old coins to start with, only to demand that you trade off 6 of them with her to buy a basic cookware kit.

** Bath bombs are made from flower petals and nitre. Presumably the nitre is required because it's an ingredient in actual bombs, but it won't do anything without a fuel to react with and a heat source. In real life bath bombs to contain an an acid and a base which react to cause the fizzing.

** Interestingly, night ''itself'' in ''Don't Starve'' is deadly, which after about five to ten will deal a massive [[ArmorPiercingAttack armor-piercing blow]] on the player's health and moderate damage on sanity until you enter a lit area or use a light source of some kind (light from fireflies counts)

* VagueAge: None of the characters in this game have a definite age. Some characters look like children; but due to the stylized nature of the art design and their in-game models ([[SuperDeformed all player characters have big heads and small bodies of the same proportions]]), they may actually be much older than they appear. While not exact ages, WordOfGod has revealed that [[http://40.media.tumblr.com/8fe3cbceb464a2af70841c836df87968/tumblr_n7agtgKXrC1s6uv27o1_400.png Wilson is in his early 30s and Willow is in her early 20s]].

* CatsHaveNineLives: The Hollow Stump starts off able to spawn nine Catcoons. Lost "lives" can regenerate over time as long as it still has at least one left, making it a little less clear whether these are meant to be the "same" Catcoon or not, but it's still a clear reference to the myth.

** All playable characters [[spoiler:bar Maxwell]] have names that start with "W", like Wilson, Willow, Wolfgang, Wendy, and so on. [[spoiler:Although Maxwell's real name is '''W'''illiam Carter.]]

** The "saplings" never grow into trees, so they seem to actually be shrubs. Not that hey ever have leaves either.

* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: Pengulls. They’ve been described as classy.

---> [[spoiler:'''Maxwell:''' I suppose I deserve that]].

* LetterMotif: All the playable characters have name or surname that begin with 'W'. As a matter of fact, the only one who breaks this rule is Maxwell.
** Lampshaded in that [[spoiler:Maxwell's playable character file is called Waxwell. And his real name is William Carter]]. He even lampshades it himself in-game.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefalo Beefalo]] are real animals which are a hybrid of a cow and a bison. They don't look much like in-game Beefalo though, which more closely resemble yaks.

* NumerologicalMotif: A more recent one, but 13.

** Taken UpToEleven with the Mosaic biome, which is a literal patchwork of different land types; it primarily consists of forest turf, but it also contains swamp turf, rocky turf, savanna turf, cobblestone[[note]]Apart from the set piece for the Metal Potato Thing, this is the only place where cobblestone generates naturally.[[/note]], and even turfless ground that can't be moved with a pitchfork. There are also holes in the landmass that lead down to the ocean.

* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: The Aporkalypse event in ''Hamlet'' features one. It makes it AlwaysNight in-game, along with turning the DeathWorld nature of the game UpToEleven, thankfully, it can be manipulated or even skipped with the Aporkalypse calendar in-game if the player doesn’t want to partake in that. You still have to ''find'' the Aporkalypse calendar first, but the game gives you plenty of time to explore the map (at least 60 in-game days).

* NiceHat: You can craft headwear in the game. All of them possess unique properties when worn like sanity recovery, built-in light source, warmth during the winter, bee protection or armor.

* BerserkButton: Bunnymen are normally quite docile, but they ''despise'' all forms of meat, and having any in your inventory enrages them, turning them hostile. The character Webber is also a walking BerserkButton for any mob that would normally be friendly/neutral. Merms and Pigmen will kill each other on sight, which includes the playable Merm Wurt.
* BigBad: Maxwell is the primary antagonist of ''Don't Starve'', and you can confront him directly in the Adventure Mode. However, it becomes apparent that Maxwell himself is a prisoner of [[GreaterScopeVillain a higher power, Them]]. In ''Don't Starve Together'', [[spoiler:Charlie takes over as the primary antagonist]]. [[spoiler:The Moon itself]] also becomes a main villain in the second Don't Starve Together expansion.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Spider Queen. From the DLC ''Reign of Giants'', there's the Dragonfly. Queen Womant from ''Hamlet'' also qualifies.

* BioluminescenceIsCool: Fireflies can be caught at night and used to craft the Miner Hat. An item just called "Bioluminescence" (presumably bacterial) can be snagged from the seas of ''Shipwrecked'' and crafted into Bottle Lanterns.

* BossInMookClothing: Tallbirds. They tend to be encountered in the same areas as [[{{Mooks}} spiders]], but they have a ''fuckton'' of health and can kill an unarmored character in two hits. (Unless you're playing as [[LightningBruiser Wolfgang]], in which case they kill you in four hits).
** Don't Starve Together introduces the Rockjaw, a painfully persistent shark that is vulnerable for very little time and nigh impossible to outrun (outsail?).

** Played straight with [[spoiler:Maxwell]], who starts the game with several powerful late-game items and has considerable passive sanity regeneration. Unlocking [[spoiler: him]] requires beating adventure mode by clearing five increasingly-nasty challenge maps, ''consecutively''. Any player capable of beating [[ThatOneLevel Darkness]] likely does not need any more help.

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Characters will take damage from overheating if their body temperature rises above 65°C and from freezing if it drops below 0°C. In real life, hyperthermia occurs at over 38°C and hypothermia occurs at under 35°C, just a few degrees above or below body temperature, and death would occur far, far before reaching 65°C or 0°C.

** The Meat Effigy, which requires beard hair, but not necessarily from a ''person's'' beard.
** The Pan Flute, since the Mandrake it consumes doesn't seem to be visible anywhere on the item.
** The most blatant example is the Old Bell in ''Reign of Giants'', which bears absolutely no resemblance to the ingredients used to craft it.

* VendorTrash: Played straight with certain items that are dug up from graves, such as buttons and kazoos, since they literally have no tangible use but can be traded to the Pig King for large sums of Golden Nuggets.