KickStarter Dead State: Reanimated

[Atchodas]

predetermined stories in zombie apocalypse settings are always shit , ranging from TWD to dead State they all suck , imo in such games u should be making your own story in "living open world" , sadly closest to this we have SOD Breakdown where story you make is all in your head while gameplay has none of it . Maybe SOD2 will do it right way

 

[Telengard]

The worst choice they made was choosing to make a zombie apocalypse story, like at all. In a regular story, the best climax is at the end - a culmination of all that came before. In a zombie apocalypse story, the best climax is at the beginning. Then there's a second, smaller hump of excitement as 'survival' mode gets engaged. And after that it's all downhill, as nothing is going to reach that level of excitement again.

The second worst choice they made was choosing to only have 'real' zombies, instead of various zombie mutants. While a nice sop to zombie fans, this is absolutely horrific rpg. -One monster, all the way from beginning to end. If this were any other monster but zombies, the devs would have been absolutely nailed to the wall for this decision. But no, it was zombies, so everyone just masturbated to their zombie apocalypse fantasies instead of pissing all over the idea, as they should have done. I mean, this is the equivalent of someone deciding to take the rat-stomping fight at the beginning of an rpg, and making you a rat-catcher and doing that same fight over-and-over for 50 hours.

Their third worst choice was taking a bog-standard zombie apocalypse story and having the lead be your standard faceless/characterless rpg badass. Look, the only thing that makes zombie apocalypse stores work is taking regular characters into a disaster porn situation and seeing how they react, the raw emotion on their faces, and then seeing if they survive. It's survivalist porn. Take away emotion from one of the main characters, and the world becomes a regular rofl-stomp rpg, even if it is based around that one monster whose name happens to start with a zed.

Just those things alone meant that this whole idea never was going to work as a story-based rpg. Absolute shit foundation means nothing can be built upon it. Of course, some people might have been able to finish getting their masturbatory survival experience rocks off if the game had been about half the size, and thus had done a cut-and-run before the 'immersion' wore off and the stupid shown through for even the most strident zombie apocalypse fans.

 

[thesheeep]

Codex at work, again.

Yes, I wouldn't consider the game great, it's weaknesses are obvious and afaik mostly recognized by the devs themselves.
But it's still a fun enough game that I'd recommend anyone to try out.

I was quite satisfied (the first 40 days into the game or so) until it became boring, and then the ending just... nah, no spoiler. I didn't like the ending.
I didn't even mind the repetitiveness of the zombies. They are not the main enemies anyway, just a distraction that unfortunately takes far too much time in a TB game.

 

[Atchodas]

Codex at work, again.

But it's still a fun enough game that I'd recommend anyone to try out.

That is exactly what it is NOT .

And i would recommend ( honestly no codex BS ) to torrent the game and try it before you purchase it .

 

[Roguey]

They have a demo FFS

 

[Telengard]

Codex at work, again.

Yes, I wouldn't consider the game great, it's weaknesses are obvious and afaik mostly recognized by the devs themselves.
But it's still a fun enough game that I'd recommend anyone to try out.

I was quite satisfied (the first 40 days into the game or so) until it became boring, and then the ending just... nah, no spoiler. I didn't like the ending.
I didn't even mind the repetitiveness of the zombies. They are not the main enemies anyway, just a distraction that unfortunately takes far too much time in a TB game.

Allow me to put what you just said into rpg terms.

I didn't even mind the repetitiveness of the zombies. They are not the main enemies anyway, just a distraction that unfortunately takes far too much time in a TB game.

*translating...*

I didn't even even mind a 0-to-hero, 50-hour rpg filled wall-to-wall with a 1/2 Challenge Rating enemy. Grinding a 1/2 CR creature for 45 hours is so totally worth it, since the (mostly copy-pasted) boss fights are where the challenge is really at. The 45 hours of slaughtering 1/2 CR creatures is just a distraction (duh!) from the 5 hours that is the real heart of the game. It would have been better in real time, so I could turn my brain off and mindlessly waste 45 hours without having to think about it - you know, like it was an assembly line conveyor belt, where I feed the machine my mouse clicks and time - in order to get to those special 5 hours of real challenge.

Or better yet, translate the story into fantasy terms.

You are The Stranger (uh oih, that's a bad move right from the get-go - the zombie apocalypse is about the pain and shock of losing everything in one go, but The Stranger doesn't lose anything, 'cause he's - by definition - an outsider with no stake in this world. Oh well). Yes, you are The Stranger, who shipwrecks (yep!) upon a foreign shore that is much like your own, yet different. The local villagers within this new land are beset by strange animalistic creatures that have no fear, and also seemingly no instincts. How curious? Despite you being an outsider, the locals are so fearful of these mindless creatures that they immediately elect you, The Stranger, their leader and pray that you will save them. And so, these helpless villagers task The Stranger with doing everything for them, including gathering their food and water for them. And you do so, and they love you ever more grandly for it, until eventually worshiping you as their Savior-King.

Standard low-brow fantasy adventure story. With zombies. The journey of The Stranger is a hook that has nothing, can have nothing to do with the apocalypse. As a shipwrecked stranger, you stand outside of the apocalypse of this new land. That, while the entire point of apocalyptic fiction is the sudden loss of everything you ever knew, and how civilization and everything known suddenly disappears into a survivalist fantasy. But you, epic fantasy hero dude that you are, have no such journey. Your stake in this apocalypse is zero, in a world where the only stakes are about the apocalypse. Thus deflating the entire focus of the story in one go. - Excuse me while I go barf at this garbage.

 

[Mustawd]

Telengard, what are your favorite RPGs? Just curious because I don't think I ever hear you talk about them. You just talk about the decline, which is fine. But I find it odd that you never discuss games you actually like.

inb4 playing with rocks and stick are the true RPG.

 

[Atchodas]

Telengard, what are your favorite RPGs? Just curious because I don't think I ever hear you talk about them. You just talk about the decline, which is fine. But I find it odd that you never discuss games you actually like.

inb4 playing with rocks and stick are the true RPG.

At some point discussing two decade old games just gets boring and pointless
Im implying here that people who talk about decline are those who played and enjoyed games made 15-20 years ago

 

[Mustawd]

Im implying here that people who talk about decline are those who played and enjoyed games made 15-20 years ago

Uhh...yah. Those games are better.

 

[Atchodas]

Yes alot of them are better than this game

 

[Telengard]

Telengard, what are your favorite RPGs? Just curious because I don't think I ever hear you talk about them. You just talk about the decline, which is fine. But I find it odd that you never discuss games you actually like.

inb4 playing with rocks and stick are the true RPG.

I'm on record on this site praising the Gold Box series, Krondor, a number of blobbers, as well as Jagged Alliance (you might remember that one, since I last did it in my Biowhore thread). Since I'm not a fan of power gaming, I haven't had a lot of favorites post Jagged Alliance 2, and it was kind of treacly during the JA2 era already.

But, on the other hand, I delved into the indie rpg scene back in the early 2000s, because I like to see what people are doing different. Sure, most indies don't do anything different, but that's where the chance of real creativity lies. Which is something I appreciate, and why I would praise Skyrealms of Jorune (setting), though I wouldn't normally recommend playing it to the general rpg audience. Same with Twilight 2000 (potato-speak is a skill!). I even appreciate Moebius (weird art style), but would recommend playing it to no one, ever (except people who appreciate weird art, of course).

The only action rpg I've praised on here is The Summoning (not the Summoner - bleh), and I like a lot of that company's other action games too, though I've never said so here. The only IE game I've praised on here is Torment, but that was because the story transcended the weak-sauce gameplay, which is a unique happenstance.

Basically, though, I just love to talk game design, especially since I come from the much lesser known Tactician schoole of rpg fan.

 

[lightbane]

And so, these helpless villagers task The Stranger with doing everything for them, including gathering their food and water for them. And you do so, and they love you ever more grandly for it, until eventually worshiping you as their Savior-King.

If only... Nearly all of the subleaders are ungrateful bastards who are constantly looking for an excuse to kick you out, many survivors are assholes with no redeeming traits and no chance to solve the situation besides not recruiting them ever or quietly disposing of them (which will make things worse since everyone will inevitably realize what you have done, thanks to the shared telepathic link which all NPCs have), the wheel-chair bound guy is quite passive-agressive and serves as the unsubtle voice of the writers' personal opinions (and he can one-shot you during cutscenes because fuck you, that's why), the "zombie virus's cure" plotline was cut because it made things less bleak and hilariously hopeless, the other survivor parties are poorly written racist caricatures or actually reasonable people who are literally gunned off-screen for no reason, etc.

 

[Mexi]

Damn, this is just a bad game. Stop trying to act like they went in some wrong direction with the zombies. Zombies just don't lend themselves well for a turn-based game, get the fuck over it. Then you have the best dynamic of a zombie survival game half-assed here. The Shelter was just so disappointing. None of the characters get a lot of dialogue, and the crises that occurs are so few and far between.

I think a zombie RPG still has potential, but it just wasn't done right here. Probably should've stayed away from turn-base combat, which is supposed to slow combat to a complete crawl. Zombies are already supposed to be slow.

 

[Zombra]

Probably should've stayed away from turn-base combat, which is supposed to slow combat to a complete crawl. Zombies are already supposed to be slow.

Originally the zombies were all supposed to move at once. Not surprising that they couldn't make it work, but in theory that would have made a huge difference.

 

[Mexi]

Probably should've stayed away from turn-base combat, which is supposed to slow combat to a complete crawl. Zombies are already supposed to be slow.

Originally the zombies were all supposed to move at once. Not surprising that they couldn't make it work, but in theory that would have made a huge difference.

Actually, that don't sound too bad.

 

[Old One]

Despite its flaws I think Dead State has some promising concepts. A survivalist game with shelter management, including conflicts between the residents, is not a bad idea. I enjoyed foraging runs to find supplies, for example.

I don't know that I'd like to see a sequel, but I'd like to see another attempt to make a game like this. I'd ditch the zombies entirely (or at least marginalize them), improve the combat to JA2/Silent Storm standards, come up with an original (or at least somewhat original) apocalypse idea, and...well, you'd be pretty close at that point. It could be done well.

 

[Sranchammer]

I'd rather have a survivalist game based on The Last Valley. 16th century Germany would serve as a great setting.

 

[thesheeep]

It would have been better in real time, so I could turn my brain off and mindlessly waste 45 hours without having to think about it - you know, like it was an assembly line conveyor belt, where I feed the machine my mouse clicks and time - in order to get to those special 5 hours of real challenge.

Yes, because every game that does not challenge your wits to the limit is shit.

You must have a wonderfully mind numbing job (or whatever activity that fills most of your work days) if you can't enjoy some rather mindless fun in your evenings.
Sure, Dead State does not challenge your thinking a lot beyond the first few hours when you get to grasp the system (and in a few more challenging battles afterwards).
That never was what it was supposed to do - or if it was, boy, did the devs fail.

I'll just repeat again, get the game (didn't even know there was a demo, but if there is, try that!), play for a few hours to see if you like it.
If you do, play until day 40 and then watch the ending on YouTube or something.
Definitely worth what little you probably have to pay for it by now.

 

[Mastermind]

Probably should've stayed away from turn-base combat, which is supposed to slow combat to a complete crawl. Zombies are already supposed to be slow.

Originally the zombies were all supposed to move at once. Not surprising that they couldn't make it work, but in theory that would have made a huge difference.

Couldn't make it work sounds like a Todd Howard grade lie.

 

[thesheeep]

Originally the zombies were all supposed to move at once. Not surprising that they couldn't make it work, but in theory that would have made a huge difference.

Couldn't make it work sounds like a Todd Howard grade lie.

How is that a lie?
It is just a statement of incompetence. "We couldn't do it."

A lie would have been that it was technically impossible to do.

 

[cruelio]

They just needed to rip off left 4 dead where the normal zombies aren't a threat and are easily ignored/disposed of until special zombies/environmental factors get into the mix. Instead it's a zombie game where the zombies are annoying timesinks to get through that pose no threat from day 1.

Thinking about this game again make me mad. They fucked up on almost every conceivable level. Shame on Mitsoda.

 

[Mozg]

I'd have liked to have seen them try just making it so fighting any zombie by any means always causes a noise system shitstorm with dozens of new zombies spawning (have zombies scream on death or something) that would inevitably force you to flee the map by chain reaction. They needed to make killing zombies a 99% counterproductive waste if they were supposed to be immersive environmental hazards. But that would also necessitate other new systems if they still want you going into small houses with lots of blind corners to search through drawers.

 

[cherry blossom]

The game is getting an inordinate amount of shit. There is plenty bad about it, exactly the way there is plenty bad about a lot of other rpgs popular at the Codex.

Writing isn't Bloodlines grade but neiher is the scale and the mood. Whoever is/are responsible for the individual characterisations, it is pretty good fucking job. Annoying or conforming, stupid or smart, all characters are distinctive and memorable. Each has a personality to its dialogue. Considering the amount of NPCs in the game and the budget it was on, it is a stellar fucking job. You can't find half as much distinct characters in most rpgs.

General direction and overall narrative is rather loose and bland, that is another issue.

Where they really dropped ball is the (lack of) tactical depth and the hamfisted shelter mechanics. I more or less agree with Mozg above. Needed finer touches when out on the job and less baby sitting with the shelter.

It is also a world away from the original premise; living through the collapse of the society as the epidemic spreads. It was obvious from the beginning that their original thematic goals and the focus on shelter mechanics were at odds with each other.

To me, the biggest offense of the game is the finger deep tactical layer. Stationary zombies and human hostilies, tacticallt brain dead humans, shallow combat, lack of indoors exploration -the entire game had a few places with large indoor areas and they didn't have the technical framework to make them feel integrated well-.

Still, I think it's a good, enoyable game made on a shoe string budget. Especially if you like the setting.

 

[Telengard]

The major difficulty here is having 0-to-hero character development with a static 1/2 CR enemy. This isn't just broken design, it is a fundamental break with what an rpg is. The whole intent of that 0-to-hero design is the characters tackle ever-deeper challenges as they increase in power. And the enemies don't just gain in hp bloat, they gain in tactical versatility. That's what makes rpg games tick. Building an entire rpg game around a wholly unversatile, brain-dead, melee-only mook, such as a zombie, isn't just high-end broken mechanics, it is a broken foundation. You can't come back from a design decision like that. Even the really piss-poor indies at least know enough to recolor the zombies and make them ever more powerful as you go along. Hell, even the popamoliast of popamole games at least think to throw slightly harder enemies at you who are wielding slightly better equipment as the game progresses. Plus, those games don't last for fifty hours, so you're not brain-deading it for anywhere near so long.

That's right, Dead State mechanics are dumber than popamole.

 

[Telengard]

Story-wise, an apocalyptic fiction tale needs intimacy. You can't have a huge cast of characters, because that's not apocalyptic. A small group of characters (mostly normal-moron in caliber) who struggle to survive in an ever-tightening nightmare scenario - that's what the form of this fiction is. This kind of story needs a very small cast, with few extras anywhere, so that the group faces a reality that there is no help coming. All so that the viewer feels how alone and isolated this group really are. It needs that; what it doesn't need is a weird when-wilderness-creatures-attack scenario, where you trip over people every minute. That isolation is the bit that is the horror part of zombie-apocalyptic horror. The horror is not the zombies, but the isolation, and the fact that the survivors are morons who will receive no help. Lose the isolation, and you lose the horror.

Likewise, you need the sense of loss from the lead character. That is, for anyone not getting their apocalypse rocks off just being in a zombie apocalypse story, the lead is the one who expresses to the viewer why this apocalyptic vision that you're gazing upon isn't a perfectly normal situation for this imaginary world. His loss is what illustrates just how painful and broken this world is. His loss is the story.

Thus, for Dead State, the lead character needs to have been someone from the community. Such as, a police lieutenant. Possible scenario - The chief dies in the initial zombie attack. So, back at headquarters, while everyone still is shaken and doesn't know what's going on, the senior lieutenant takes charge and introduces you to the game. Then gets bit, and you have to shoot him. And so you, lowly lieutenant though you might be, end up in charge of headquarters and eventually the community, because you are the authority that's left. That's the kind of story that lays out for the viewer just what this apocalypse has cost everyone, and just what it's going to take to survive in this harsh new reality. And that kind of harsh, personal story is what makes apocalyptic fiction work.

So, we have an rpg that doesn't pay attention to one of the most basic concepts of rpg, and one that doesn't even understand the basic tenets of even the dumb nu-zombie apocalyptic fiction. Crazy, but true. The only thing Dead State's got is hording and CYOA story quests from a zany cast of characters - like it was some epic Bioware rpg and not a zombie apocalypse.