No. Let's not be ridiculous. But there are so many examples of bad survival games that it’s important to remember the good ones. So that’s what we are doing on the latest RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. We're breaking stones over the heads of rubbish survival games, but cooking, salting and eating the delicious ones. Adam wraps himself up in The Long Dark but reluctantly sets Project Zomboid on fire to stay warm. Matt gets sea sickness from Subnautica but wants to swim again anyway. And Brendan freedives into Subnautica too, in an attempt to escape from all the mediocre survival games set on red planets.
]]>There's something oddly comforting about radio. Comforting because it's so familiar, so natural. Odd because it's a comfort that most of us don't really use all that much these days, at least not in the ways that games just casually assume. It's a little like the whole audio diaries thing - it makes a vague sense that everyone in a city like Rapture might record their daily crimes and schemes onto audio tapes, even though in reality that whole idea became obsolete when Facebook/Twitter added status updates.
But I do love in-game radio. It's an amazing narrative tool, a great way of filling in the gaps the screen can't show, a constant companion in the loneliest of situations, and not a bad way of making music diegetic - a term that translates to 'let's see who now sneakily Googles diegetic'. Forget Spotify. Never mind video. In RPGs, nothing can kill the radio star, unless of course you walk up to them and shoot 'em in the face. Then, sometimes. Though usually nature still finds a way of keeping them on the air.
]]>I'd been wanting to check out Doublebear's Dead State - which I'm going to loosely label 'The Walking Dead does X-COM' - for a while, but Wot I Thinkery fell to someone else upon its initial release. The free 'Reanimated' update is a fancy name for a mega-patch designed to address assorted gripes about the doomy turn-based strategy/RPG zombie survival game, and also my opportunity to finally visit the blighted town of Splendid, Texas.
]]>Dead State [official site] may have launched out of Early Access in December, but it's just received a hefty update bringing the sort of stuff I'd expect from a final pre-launch polish-o-rama.
Developers DoubleBear launched the 'Reanimated' update arrived yesterday, bringing overhauled combat balance, smarter AI, better pathfinding, new combat sounds and animations, a hardcore mode, new areas, new random encounters, bug fixes, and more to the zombie survival RPG. Cass grumbled about a few of those areas in her Wot I Think, so that's good to hear.
]]>Zombies! They're everywhere these days. Shambling up and down the road, moaning about something or other in those inaudible voices, causing long queues for the teller at your local bank. That sort of thing. They're a menace and there's just too many of them on the streets. It's enough to make one long for the days when a human's brains were their own concern.
Still, despite our zombie glut there's still unlife in the concept yet. Now you too can put this to the test with a demo for Dead State [official site], courtesy of DoubleBear Productions.
]]>Dead State has been shambling toward release for years and we've been tracking its progress since Brian Mitsoda announced the project in 2010. It looked like it might be the game that revitalised the zombie genre long before the rotters had reached saturation point. It was also one of the few old-fashioned isometric RPGs in development before Kickstarter helped the likes of Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity to burst onto the scene. Dead State's own Kickstarter in 2012 allowed Double Bear to move into full-time production and the game was finally released last week. We sent survivalist Cassandra Khaw to Splendid, Texas. Here is her report.
]]>The RPS post pigeon delivered this letter, and several others like it, to our treehouse recently:
Dear RPS, How come you haven't mentioned that Dead State is now out of Early Access? I know, zombies and all that, but the RPG's about human drama too and makers DoubleBear were founded by Brian Mitsoda (he wrote Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, don't you know!) and Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda (who's worked on Neverwinter Nights 2 and Alpha Protocol). Chuffing Bloodlines, for goodness' sake! That sounds right up your alley, so what gives?
Yrs playfully, Fictional yet Furious in Folkstone
As RPS News Editor, dear Fictional, I must apologise for the oversight and offer an explanation.
]]>Years of waiting and it comes to this. I've been excited about Dead State since I first became aware of it, long before I merged with the RPS Hivemind. Since then, I've discovered more about Doublebear's plans for the zombie survival RPG but I hadn't had a chance to play it until late last night when the game launched on Steam Early Access. Oh no! Early Access means the game will be crumbling, rotten and bug-ridden like the dead that inhabit it, right? Not so, says the man at Doublebear. This is an early section of the game rather than an early version of the entire game. The first seven days, to be precise, forming an opening act (though for backers and buyers only) rather than a beta build.
]]>You can tell turn-based zombie RPG Dead State's been in development for a while. It has been the subject of three RPS interview features in its lifetime, including one by co-founder and current panel-beater, Kieron Gillen, who conducted the original interview using carrier pigeons. We're doing it all electrically nowadays, which means I'm able to easily inform you that a demo is being prepped for backers and pre-order types. It should be out for you lucky people in January 2014, and will also be available as a Steam Early Access game.
]]>Since we first glimpsed Dead State back in 2010, it has gone through a successful Kickstarter and is now well on the way down the road to completion. We talked to project lead Brian Mitsoda about the important of writing, the value of Kickstarter, and pinball.
]]>Seeing the first footage of Dead State's zombie-smashing, looter-blasting turn-based combat might be the main draw of the video below, but it's the details that really captured my attention. I'm talking about toilet roll, "one of the ultimate luxury items", which the survivors risk their lives to nab from the backroom of a hardware store. Sure, they find food and some tools as well, but nothing makes them quite as happy as a tube of wipes. The small things are important because, as Mitsoda explains, "there's a morale drain everyday from...living in the apocalypse". It's a little known fact that 'the apocalypse' is a locally used nickname for Milton Keynes. Watch.
]]>It is with good reason that RPS has been paying close attention to the development of zombie RPG, Dead State. Created by Obsidian veterans, Brian Mitsoda and Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda, the survivalist role-player is bursting with potential. And now, as you might expect for such an ambitious indie project, it has a Kickstarter. And a trailer. We spoke to both developers (on their anniversary, no less), to get an absolutely enormous wealth of information about the game.
]]>Dead State, the zombie RPG from former Obsidian developers Brian Mitsoda and Annie Carlson, has launched a Kickstarter. And along with this comes a brand new trailer for the potentially very interesting game. We'll have a massive exclusive interview with the developers in a few moments, but to build up to that, check out the trailer below.
]]>Released when I was distracted by something that wasn't the internet over the weekend, Deadly 30 is a side-scrolling game of zombie killing, home building and exploration. More killing than building, granted, but while each of the 30 days that must be survived allow for scavenging, and the discovery and recruitment of other survivors, the nights are given over to barricade building and defense, as the hordes of dead knock on the doors and windows, possibly asking to borrow some sugar or tea. Judging by the trailer below, there's not a great deal of depth to the construction side of things so hopefully the exploration is a little more fleshed out. Fleshy enough for a zombie to feast on.
]]>I post about Kickstarter projects more often than I post about indie bundles, which is alarming and is also the reason I'd pledged not to cover any more of them this week...and yet this may not even be the last such post today. The proposed zombie survival RPG Dead State is a concept that sends shivers down my spine like a gentle caress every time I remember it exists. But then I realise that it doesn't exist, to me, as anything other than a concept and I realise I'm essentially caressing myself. Now DoubleBear have announced that they're going to start a Kickstarter, which leads me to ask, what are the criteria you look for when considering a pledge?
]]>When the Obsidian/Troika veterans Doublebear announced that they were making a Zombie-themed RPG, there was an immediate response in our comment thread. Namely, posting comments. It was then codenamed ZRPG. Now, it has a real name. It's going to be called Dead State and we've got the first hard information, screenshots and an interview with head Doublebearer Brian Mitsoda.
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