KickStarter Dead State: Reanimated

[naossano]

I dunno what the overall experience will be, but i like that they used randoms events for replayability.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Talking about piracy doesn't change the past nor the future. The fact is that people that will buy your game will buy it, and people that won't will not. Better to spend energies interacting positively with your customers rather than passive-aggressively blaming them for your emotional state. Also, it helps if you don't call all your customers scumbags on Twitter - that's actually one of the reasons I haven't taken the plunge yet.

They called their customers scumbags?

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Yeah yeah you're a small studio etc, still, attempting to moralize people over piracy isn't gonna win you any favors.

In the strange days when That War of Mine devs say it's okay to pirate their game and sell pretty damn well (and get good media attention) all over the place, going and blaming piracy is, well, a very weak option to say the least. Don't think I've seen WL2 and D: OS devs complaining about piracy either, even though in the grand scope of things, they're likely "losing" more money than DoubleBear. What is it with DoubleStudios? First, DoubleFine, then, DoubleBear.

It's not only that the zombie genre is oversaturated, it's not only that the game looks fairly "generic" from the first store glance, but it's also, yep, the involvement in the whole online debacle around the various -isms. Want more customers? Simply don't get involved - especially if you can't see both sides of the issue. But sure, if you want to lose money from the segment that was interested in your KS to begin with, sure, go ahead, go into political activism and try to shame people, that'll work. I took part in KS, and I don't regret it either, but I've still not touched the release, largely thanks to the aftertaste of Annie's attempts at politics. If she can't keep her ideology out of the 140 symbol chatbox, what are the odds that I'll find gospels on the topic in the game? Maybe there's zero, but hey, aftertaste!

THIS

 

[Angthoron]

So I take it you ingest everything given to you? That's cool. Just don't be upset that not everyone's like that.

 

[cw8]

Anyone actually found any survivors who can make the science lab? The survivors either have too much mechanical or just enough science but not both. Melina comes close but she's short of 1 science point.

 

[Zombra]

Anyone actually found any survivors who can make the science lab?

Spoiler

As of about Day 25, I haven't.

(Luckily my character is Science based so I had him start it, but since he needs to stay in the shelter to lead construction I haven't actually done it yet. Seems weird to just spend 2-3 days in the shelter to build it without going out to scavenge anything. But none of that is helpful to you I guess )

 

[Forest Dweller]

In other news, IGN has released a review:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/12/18/dead-state-review

 

[Crooked Bee]

Richard Cobbett is writing for IGN now?

Wish he would've given it a 7, at least. I mean, "6.8"? Ugh.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't really want to go there but there are certain demographic realities distinguishing New Orleans from small town Texas

Richard Cobbett is writing for IGN now?

Wish he would've given it a 7, at least. I mean, "6.8"? Ugh.

Well, he's a freelancer! Are you a mainstream gaming site? Is one of those newfangled retro games scaring you? Don't know what to do? No worries, just call Cobbett! We offer competitive rates.

 

[Ovplain]

Can't believe Mitsoda went on a cryfest about piracy.:D And the game's only been out for like 2 weeks now.:S How about waiting a year or two before crying about it, if you absolutely must? Just comes off as pathetic.:S Especially given all we know about the effects of piracy these days.
Otherwise I don't give a shit about there being no rape in the game and I find SJWife's tweets 'n shit only mildly annoying. Though it is a little bizarre, regularly lashing out at potential customers.:S And '#GamerGaters' obviously are potential customers, considering the type of game they made.
Oh, finding out that a major member of the Dead State team is clearly using the GG Blacklist definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.:S

 

[Crooked Bee]

Well, he's a freelancer! Are you a mainstream gaming site? Is one of those newfangled retro games scaring you? Don't know what to do? No worries, just call Cobbett! We offer competitive rates.

Yeah, it's funny when there is in fact just one (1) reviewer around who knows his away about retro games.

Speaks a lot about the industry, too.

 

[cw8]

Anyone actually found any survivors who can make the science lab?

Spoiler

As of about Day 25, I haven't.

(Luckily my character is Science based so I had him start it, but since he needs to stay in the shelter to lead construction I haven't actually done it yet. Seems weird to just spend 2-3 days in the shelter to build it without going out to scavenge anything. But none of that is helpful to you I guess )

Bah, my character's speech and survival build with 0 points in Science and Mechanical.

 

[Emily]

I want to just say that the armor system is the worst possible i have ever seen for this type of game.
Literally making zombies do 0 damage by the time you get riding leather armor (fairly early)
Now in a game about zombies making your main and most common enemy pointless is just beyond dumb. I just cannot understand why would you do that.
2nd armor system is stupid in general, i fought against some military guys with vests. But do you know how much damage does a 9 mm do to a vest?
ZERO
yeah so i just shot at them and did zero damage after 5 shots. Again incredibly stupid. Also essentially making melee characters pointless as well since they cannot penetrate Armour.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

You could argue CKII is a bit rapey with the concubine stuff (specially the asoiaf mod).

Did they up the rape in that mod? Haven't looked at it for a year or so I believe, might've been before Old Gods even. Can't remember. Tell me your secrets.

I want to just say that the armor system is the worst possible i have ever seen for this type of game.
Literally making zombies do 0 damage by the time you get riding leather armor (fairly early)

I don't mind that except that zombies don't get more powerful in groups. There should be some zombie adjacency bonus in combat. As it is you don't really care if you have zombies on 3 sides of one of your well equipped dudes because even if the zombies knock him to the ground and all get their "Feeding" attacks on him they're going to do 0 damage. Zombie hit chance and damage/armor penetration should increase as more zombies surround a character since the person's trying to dodge and fend off multiple monsters grabbing 'em at once. Some grapple rules would work too, but adjacency bonuses would probably be easier to implement.

All of that would make it so onesies twosies zombies are still basically meaningless to someone with good armor, but the situations where you're fighting a pile of zombies at once and/or are fighting humans and the noise attracts zombies they have the potential to kill some people.

 

[Western]

Overall I'm enjoying the game, it's a bit buggy here and there, some occasional crashes, it feels weird you can rush zombies almost from the front and hit them before they have an opportunity to strike, followers sometimes run into weird places and occasionally you hit moving zombies in hand to hand away from where they actually are, performance tanks when there are a lot of bodies.

Other criticisms are that it would be good to interact with more unique and neutral NPCs, so far there's only been one non-hostile faction, there are other neutral factions but interaction amounts to leave or get into a gun fight. Next step in evolving the game for an expansion or sequel should be for some kind of diplomacy measure and this should tie into crisis events or attacks on your fence. More positive effects could be establishing trade, gaining access to neutral bases and possible new recruits. Being able to conquer or threaten neutral bases into surrender would also be cool.

My previous comment about trade leads into another criticism, I have tonnes of everything, morale is in the thousands, everyone is happy, thousands of pounds of food, loads of fuel. Increased difficulty, scarcity is needed to make trade important. Especially trade for medicine, zombies aren't much of a threat and getting infected by them is unlikely.

It would be nice if the disease was more pathogenic, perhaps you aren't aware of people being infected unless you have a high medical skill, leaving people out to die becomes a more probable decision, antibiotics may become more valuable in terms of production and trade.

Also on the SJW thing, it does leave a sour taste in the mouth, not so much because of what they believe but their self-righteous preaching is irritating, they're like the Westboro Baptists of the progressive world. Not really feeling the love for politics in games, it's a real turn off to be preached at or criticised by ignorant hypocrites, not that I'm that smart but the bar is being set pretty low.

 

[Ninjerk]

You could argue CKII is a bit rapey with the concubine stuff (specially the asoiaf mod).

Did they up the rape in that mod? Haven't looked at it for a year or so I believe, might've been before Old Gods even. Can't remember. Tell me your secrets.

I want to just say that the armor system is the worst possible i have ever seen for this type of game.
Literally making zombies do 0 damage by the time you get riding leather armor (fairly early)

I don't mind that except that zombies don't get more powerful in groups. There should be some zombie adjacency bonus in combat. As it is you don't really care if you have zombies on 3 sides of one of your well equipped dudes because even if the zombies knock him to the ground and all get their "Feeding" attacks on him they're going to do 0 damage. Zombie hit chance and damage/armor penetration should increase as more zombies surround a character since the person's trying to dodge and fend off multiple monsters grabbing 'em at once. Some grapple rules would work too, but adjacency bonuses would probably be easier to implement.

All of that would make it so onesies twosies zombies are still basically meaningless to someone with good armor, but the situations where you're fighting a pile of zombies at once and/or are fighting humans and the noise attracts zombies they have the potential to kill some people.

It's a wonder no one thought of that before.

 

[Emily]

Armor in this game seems to make you immune to bullets and bites.
Just why would you do that in an turn based risk vs reward game. Essentially leaving only the reward part with no risk.

 

[cw8]

They just released a small patch:

We’ve released a small patch in response to your feedback on the boards; this patch addresses three of the most frequently reported concerns of players as well as provides some other miscellaneous updates as well.

Changelog (spoiler-free)
Further optimized real-time pathfinding in small areas and fixed issue with stairs.
Fixed a major faction event.
Fixed some scripting issues which made it difficult to recruit a specific ally.
Fixed allies still asking for upgrades once they've been built.
Adjusted the panic threshold for a specific ally.
Updated GUI to list AP required to open inventory in combat.
Updated an ally perk.
Updated names of some neutral characters for clarity.
Adjusted noise levels on dog bite attacks.
Updated character floats in certain faction interactions.


Happy holidays from everyone at DoubleBear

Wonder if they buffed anyone to be able to make the science lab.

 

[Davaris]

Also on the SJW thing, it does leave a sour taste in the mouth, not so much because of what they believe but their self-righteous preaching is irritating,.

You have it right. Political Correctness is a form of puritanism. Bertrand Russell wrote about these types way back in the 1920s.

http://www.panarchy.org/russell/puritanism.html

 

[Morkar Left]

Okay, you can change the perspective of Elaine on her further life.

Spoiler

This is altering her stats. Does anyone know if it matters in dialog and crisis events as well?

 

[Roguey]

I want to just say that the armor system is the worst possible i have ever seen for this type of game.
Literally making zombies do 0 damage by the time you get riding leather armor (fairly early)
Now in a game about zombies making your main and most common enemy pointless is just beyond dumb. I just cannot understand why would you do that.
2nd armor system is stupid in general, i fought against some military guys with vests. But do you know how much damage does a 9 mm do to a vest?
ZERO
yeah so i just shot at them and did zero damage after 5 shots. Again incredibly stupid. Also essentially making melee characters pointless as well since they cannot penetrate Armour.

If only they had a brilliant game designer on the team who would have set it up so that 20% of damage always goes through. If only....

 

[GloomFrost]

I want to just say that the armor system is the worst possible i have ever seen for this type of game.
Literally making zombies do 0 damage by the time you get riding leather armor (fairly early)
Now in a game about zombies making your main and most common enemy pointless is just beyond dumb. I just cannot understand why would you do that.
2nd armor system is stupid in general, i fought against some military guys with vests. But do you know how much damage does a 9 mm do to a vest?
ZERO
yeah so i just shot at them and did zero damage after 5 shots. Again incredibly stupid. Also essentially making melee characters pointless as well since they cannot penetrate Armour.

If only they had a brilliant game designer on the team who would have set it up so that 20% of damage always goes through. If only....

They would need some kind of a genius for a task that complex and difficult. Don't forget that we don't live in a fantasy fairy tale where developers could just notice and fix a bug of such epic proportions BEFORE the game is released.

 

[Starwars]

I'm about 3 hours in so I'm very early still. Have cleared out the first few maps.

-I actually quite like the combat. It feels pretty finicky when maneuvering in tight corridors and such though, it can feel pretty annoying.

-Like that you can take out single zombies quickly if you sneak up on them.

-Really like the noise mechanic. Getting swarmed by zombies can be a bad time.

-On the other hand, while I like that some of the human enemies are crazy enough to shoot like madmen, I kinda wish some of them would pull a gun only after they panic or somesuch. Just to give it a bit of flavor. But it *is* cool how dudes with guns actually are dangerous in two ways. Fun mechanic.

-I wish the allies would dole out more of their personal conversations on per-day basis rather than you being able to ask them about their backgrounds on the first day, and then... Well, the dialogue nodes just stay there. It makes the allies feel really static during the day. The little "events" that happen each day are nice but the game would've really benefitted from a more "active" interaction with your allies I think.

-The writing is good in my opinion, though it kinda feels like it's dialogue that's meant to be voiced. As such, it feels a bit weird to read at times. I think you can compare this to Bloodlines, where I feel the voiceactors really managed to bring the writing "to life" in a fantastic way. That's not knocking the writing at all but it feels a bit flat at times when you just read it.

-The shelter stuff works... OK. I find the interface for upgrading and all that a bit... I dunno. It lacks "weight" if that makes any sense at all. It really feels more like a spreadsheet or something. Playing This War of Mine, their interface really made it clear what resources you have and such, it's easy to see what you have and what building stuff needs. In Dead State, you don't get the sense that you're actually *building* stuff with your *resources*. Not a huge fan of the interface overall.

-The game feels a bit static for a game being about zombies and emotions. The locations feel sorta like "mini-puzzles" in a way. That's not bad in itself, I actually find it kinda fun, but yeah... It feels static. If the zombies shuffled around a bit, that would help a lot I think. The noise mechanic brings a nice sense of dynamic gameplay but it's not quite enough. The "feels" are slightly off.

It feels pretty addictive so far though, looking forward to playing more.

 

[Zombra]

-I wish the allies would dole out more of their personal conversations on per-day basis rather than you being able to ask them about their backgrounds on the first day, and then... Well, the dialogue nodes just stay there. It makes the allies feel really static during the day. The little "events" that happen each day are nice but the game would've really benefitted from a more "active" interaction with your allies I think.

Hang in there. It's true that they all stand in their one spot and keep their "starting" conversation options such as basic background, no matter how many times you've heard it before - BUT once you start recruiting more people, it will get to the point where 2 or 3 of them come to you every single day to bend your ear with new stuff. Pretty amazing for a game of this length.

 

[cw8]

Anyone actually found any survivors who can make the science lab?

Spoiler

As of about Day 25, I haven't.

(Luckily my character is Science based so I had him start it, but since he needs to stay in the shelter to lead construction I haven't actually done it yet. Seems weird to just spend 2-3 days in the shelter to build it without going out to scavenge anything. But none of that is helpful to you I guess )

Day 34, and Melina sorta leveled up her Science attribute by 1 point. She has 10 Mechanical, never bring her outfield, she just builds stuff all day long. And long I can build the damn Science lab.