How survival games get hunger and thirst wrong, and how to fix it
I was about thirty minutes into my first game of Grav, one of many Early Access survival sandbox games, and I was doing all the usual survival sandbox things: exploring, collecting resources, fighting creatures, and crafting weapons and armor. I suddenly realized the things I wasn't doing: starving to death or dying of thirst. In fact, I couldn't even initially tell if there was a hunger and thirst system in Grav at all. There were no icons or meters on my screen to indicate it, eating and drinking didn't seem to be an actual pressing need in the build I was playing.
In some ways, I found this to be a refreshing change. Having played so many survival games, it was nice to simply focus on exploration, combat, and crafting instead of scrabbling about for food and water. The thing is, hunger and thirst are absolutely critical to survival games, and I realized the reason I was happy to not have to bother with them in Grav is because so many other survival games get them wrong.
Having a robust, logical, and interesting hunger and thirst system is essential to most survival games. In many games (such as Don't Starve) hunger and thirst are the driving motivators, and in other games they're just two of a number of activities you need to perform to survive. Having to eat and drink can drive players to explore the world, take chances, keep moving, or, in the case of games with farming, establish a home base. Sharing food with other players can lead to friendships and betrayals, or just provide a reason to interact with people or join a group. The threat of starvation and dehydration can create moments of tension and desperation, and force players to make difficult decisions.
When the system is flawed, it drags down all of those wonderful elements and can make a game a real drag to play. Here's how survival games can do a better job with hunger and thirst.
Make it initially forgiving
A cursory glance through Steam shows that around 60 survival games have appeared in the past few years, over 50 of which are in Early Access. Chances are, the survival game you're playing (or developing) isn't done. With bugs, crashes, unfinished features, and other issues, there's already a lot of things that can drive new players away, and now that refunds can be issued over Steam, developers need to worry not just about attracting players but making sure they stick around. Why not begin by placing the hunger and thirst system on the forgiving side of the spectrum, even if you eventually plan for it to be a real challenge?
Hunger and thirst need to provide a sense of urgency, but too much urgency can be a bad thing. An early build of TUG required me to eat almost constantly because my hunger meter dropped so quickly. I basically had to run from bush to bush gathering fruit and cramming it into my mouth. At one point I starved to death while holding food in my hand. As a result, I almost immediately lost interest. Starving to death is something that should happen in survival games, but not constantly and not at the expense of other features.