Interview with Brian Mitsoda about Dead State
Thomas: Please describe “Dead State” shortly in your own words. What were your inspirations?
Brian: Dead State was our attempt to adapt The Wind in the Willows into an RPG. We took some liberties and ended up with a game that is a lot more like the original Dawn of the Dead, meaning a focus on how humans deal with major upheaval in the natural order of things. We made the game with a threadbare budget of $300k, which is almost nothing for an RPG.
Our budget shaped a lot of what we could and couldn’t do in the game, but overall we stayed pretty true to the original vision presented in the Kickstarter, which is to say that we have a huge map, dozens of allies, branching dialogues, a morale/crisis system that impacts the sub-leaders and interactions, character development with multiple skills and perks, survival-based gameplay, and a story that captures a lot of the bleakness and desperation of the zombie genre. It was physically and mentally destructive to develop – please play it if you have the chance!
Thomas: What is the current state of “Dead State”? In your opinion, is the game now completely finished? Will there be more content from your side?
Brian: Dead State: Reanimated is probably going to be the last significant update to the game, aside from a few minor fixes. We’ve never charged for DLC and the downside to that for us is that the game doesn’t generate the money to sustain months of developing new content. After years of developing Dead State, the DoubleBear team is ready to move on to our next game.
Brian: Dead State was our attempt to adapt The Wind in the Willows into an RPG. We took some liberties and ended up with a game that is a lot more like the original Dawn of the Dead, meaning a focus on how humans deal with major upheaval in the natural order of things. We made the game with a threadbare budget of $300k, which is almost nothing for an RPG.
Our budget shaped a lot of what we could and couldn’t do in the game, but overall we stayed pretty true to the original vision presented in the Kickstarter, which is to say that we have a huge map, dozens of allies, branching dialogues, a morale/crisis system that impacts the sub-leaders and interactions, character development with multiple skills and perks, survival-based gameplay, and a story that captures a lot of the bleakness and desperation of the zombie genre. It was physically and mentally destructive to develop – please play it if you have the chance!
Thomas: What is the current state of “Dead State”? In your opinion, is the game now completely finished? Will there be more content from your side?
Brian: Dead State: Reanimated is probably going to be the last significant update to the game, aside from a few minor fixes. We’ve never charged for DLC and the downside to that for us is that the game doesn’t generate the money to sustain months of developing new content. After years of developing Dead State, the DoubleBear team is ready to move on to our next game.
