When comparing Oxygen Not Included vs Don't Starve Together, the Slant community recommends Oxygen Not Included for most people. In the question“What are the best Simulation games on Steam?” Oxygen Not Included is ranked 9th while Don't Starve Together is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Oxygen Not Included is:
For a light-hearted game, Oxygen Not Included takes laws of physics and biology very seriously. Characters, or Duplicants, require regular meals and fresh water. They can hold their breath, but only for a limited time. Extremely cold and hot temperatures hurt them. Given high enough stress level, they can even experience nervous breakdown that causes them to vomit excessively or start binge-eating colonie's food supplies.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Realistic game mechanics
For a light-hearted game, Oxygen Not Included takes laws of physics and biology very seriously. Characters, or Duplicants, require regular meals and fresh water. They can hold their breath, but only for a limited time. Extremely cold and hot temperatures hurt them. Given high enough stress level, they can even experience nervous breakdown that causes them to vomit excessively or start binge-eating colonie's food supplies.
Pro Loveable, cute characters
Every Duplicant has a name and unique appearance, as well as personal traits. They are very cute and funny, which makes you fully invested in their well-being.
Pro Requires advanced planning
This game provides a real challenge when it comes to planning your base's inner layout. You need to take into account gas and fluid dynamics to ensure that your Duplicants have breathable air and aren't intoxicated by contaminated water.
Pro Couch co-op makes the game even more fun as you all learn together
Getting together a group of friends to play Don't Starve Together adds a lot of enjoyment to the game. If you're all first timers, learning how to survive as you go along is amazing, since you get to share in the learning process and the experience together. As you craft and build your own forts, farms, and more, you find more and more ways to learn how to survive, making things less daunting than if you play the game alone.
Pro Pleasantly twisted sense of humor
There's a dark sense of humor that pervades the game. There's a humanoid spider boy who can grow a beard of silk. There's a living chest called Chester who acts like a dog. There's also silly info text, werepigs, trees that retaliate when you chop them, and many other things.
Pro Deep and varied crafting system
The crafting system has a lot of depth to it and there are tons of items to make. Starting with the recipe for a torch and a pickaxe. You can also make weapons, armor, and various laboratories that enable new technologies. Building new stuff and advancing is the key to surviving the coming winter.
Pro Tweak the gameplay settings to fit any skill level
The game gives you a lot of customization options. You can change the length of day, weather patterns, and spawn rates for resources and monsters. This allows you to adjust the difficulty level to suit your skill and preference.
Pro Unique mix of 2D and 3D art offers a change of pace
Don't Starve Together has a very unique art style that places two-dimensional characters in a three-dimensional setting. Even the waves in the sea look like cardboard cutouts used in a puppet show. This look and feel to the graphics is a nice change of pace from ultra-realistic games.
Pro The further you get, the more you will learn
Starting out you'll only be gathering twigs and grass, maybe chop a tree. You'll also gather basic food such as mushrooms and carrots. Then you'll start building your encampment, learning how the day/night cycle and the seasons work. Later on you'll start building massive farms, refridgerators, fortifications, and many other things. All of this is done for the sake of not starving.
As the game progresses, you will encounter mechanics such as drought, forest fires, the rainy, season, the cold and many others. To counteract these you need to plan properly and will probably die the first time around. Once your knowledge reaches a certain level, you'll be able to survive indefinitely.
Pro Great replay value
Don't Starve Together has randomly generated (customizable) levels, unlockable characters, a story mode, and you can also play it with up to 5 other friends. All of this helps keep subsequent attempts/playthroughs fresh.
Cons
Con Maps are limited in size, causing you to eventually lose
Since the map size is limited, so is the supply of resources, meaning that sooner or later you invariably loose the game.
Con Steep learning curve
The first few attempts will last only a couple of in-game days. This is because the game has various punishing mechanics, which you can only learn through trial and error. One such mechanic is the darkness, which will kill you in under a minute if you don't have a light source. Followed by packs of hounds that randomly spawn to kill you. In most cases preparation is key and you can't prepare without knowledge.
Con Can get repetitive
You'll have to repeatedly collect a lot of basic materials like twigs, grass, and ore. This is because most of the starting recipes share the same required materials. Even later in the game you'll be doing many repetitive tasks. Gathering enough firewood for winter is especially bad because you have to chop down dozens of trees. All of this is made worse by the limited inventory space, causing you to make the same trip multiple times.