George Hodgson: I'm not a captain. I'm not made of that.
Cornelius Hickey: You can be whatever you need to be now. Survival is a nasty piece of business. But we do what we have to do. We reconfigure. We reinvent. We rearrange.
The basic goal of Dread Hunger is to provide coal for the boiler to get the ship moving, sail to the other end of the map, and break through the ice blocking the journey forward. This is a simple task made difficult by the basic needs of food and warmth, the most inhospitable conditions found on the planet, and one or two cannibals looking to turn you and your crewmen into dinner.
The Ship[]
The Ship maintenance is composed of three things; Coal, Wood, and Nails. Coal will allow your ship to move forward. Wood and Nails will repair any damage dealt to the hull if the ship is damaged by ice bergs, explosives, or the Polar Bear. The more Coal you put in the boiler, the longer your ship can venture for without having to refuel. If your ship sinks, there is no hope of finding the Passage or returning home.
The Crew[]
Up to eleven (Totem Mod) crew members will take part on this voyage, with each requiring food and warmth. Food can be acquired through hunting animals and cooking the harvested meat at a stove (or eaten raw if you are truly desperate). Warmth can be acquired through a multitude of facilities; the stove, the boiler, and various fireplaces found on the map. However, both cooking & warmth require the use of fuel (coal, wood, blubber, etc.). In addition to their physical requirements, crewmen can get agitated, stressed, and paranoid. Careful not to take a musket to the back for behaving suspiciously.
The Great White Nothing[]
Outside your ship is a vast, desolate, frozen wasteland. Initially, it may seem like a beautiful and austere place; a winter wonderland. But, those feelings of awe and fascination of the unknown are quickly snuffed out by the reality of the situation. Wolves roam wild in search of food. The waters of the ocean can freeze a man solid in under a minute. A blizzard approaches in only a few short days, when not even your strongest fire will keep you warm enough to survive all while a great sheet of ice blocks your ships path. As a great Arctic Explorer once said, "This place wants us dead." You should do your best not to dawdle here too long.
The Great Iceberg[]
There are many icebergs on the map, however, they only do small damage to the ship. But, not for the large iceberg at the end of the map. In order for the crew to win, the crew must obtain the nitroglycerin. The crew must use the nitroglycerin to blow up the large iceberg blocking the ship at the end of the map in able to clear way for the ship. However, it is a hard and time consuming task. Usually, it would take an entire day for the crew to obtain the nitroglycerin and blow the iceberg up...and a lot of the time, the crew could be killed by the creatures, or even the Thralls, blocking the way...