I played a lot and once had a really good run and got really far. After that I didn't want to play any more because it felt it would take too long to ever get beyond that run.
Some kind of checkpoint from which you could start when you die would probably work better for me.
I read somewhere that you can survive on salty water as long as you don't leave it until you are severely dehydrated. You need to let your body adapt.
It was from research on how to survive lost at sea.
Not drinking water at all is a definite death sentence.
Edit: Looking a bit more into this, sea water will also kill you as it does dehydrate because your kidneys will try to deposit excess salt into your urin, but is unable to create urin that is saltier than sea water. You simply start peeing more than you drink.
Note that only a few years earlier I was rebooting the computer whenever I got stuck in King's Quest, which was a lot, since I didn't understand english.
Good thing you brought it up, though. I was really confused about where midwest turned out to be.