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It has already been said, but I feel I have to say it too: "I am sure that it will be a great game that I and those like me will cherish and play for a long, long time. I am also afraid that it will enter a very tough market, and it will be hard to make potential customers aware of its strengths and intricacies."

This said, where do I buy an early copy?

I just happened across a similar game on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...bie-apocalypse

*shrug*

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScrObot (Post 73077)

I just happened across a similar game on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...bie-apocalypse

*shrug*

That's not the Soldak style and I don't think it'll be anything like that game.

Soldak always has a wonderful way of making their games special. Like most things, how you pull it off is much more important that what it actually is. Soldak is always growing an learning. After seeing the leaps they've taken in game design from DOP to Drox there's no doubt in my mind that it's going to be amazing.

Totally geeking out and cheering for Soldak!

Friggin' Ciglio, man. He just had to go and start a zombie apocalypse (as I imagine it, an unintended consequence of his zombie army).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow (Post 73053)

I know there's probably too many zombie games, movies, TV shows, and books out right now, but I like zombies. :)

Hard to argue with that.

Survival of the clans?

So, Shadow,

What, exactly, is cool about zombies (straight question, no sarcasm) and how attached are you to the 'z' word?

If we can come up with a scenario with all of the cool aspects of zombies without actually calling them that, you can still have a zombie game and dodge the marketing issues.

Say, a highly contagious plague has swept through the land which leaves its victims insane and horribly disfigured. They attack everything on sight. They're not undead so they still need to eat and they have enough sanity left to remember how to find food. So they're competing with the survivors for the food supply, and may attack the towns to get some.

Would you go for this sort of thing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roswitha (Post 73080)

The game world already contains zombies, and it seems a little silly to have both zombies and 'people who behave much like zombies but aren't called that for commercial reasons'.

The zombies of the game world, however, do not spread by biting, but by killing their enemies and raising their dead bodies (as seen in DC). In fact, I don't think it would be possible to make a medieval technology ARPG with infection-based zombies, since all melee fighters would be zombified in no time. You generally need to get hit somewhat in an ARPG or your defense stats and armor are unnecessary, whereas in infection-zombie worlds, even a single hit can turn you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluddy (Post 73081)

The zombies of the game world, however, do not spread by biting, but by killing their enemies and raising their dead bodies (as seen in DC). In fact, I don't think it would be possible to make a medieval technology ARPG with infection-based zombies, since all melee fighters would be zombified in no time. You generally need to get hit somewhat in an ARPG or your defense stats and armor are unnecessary, whereas in infection-zombie worlds, even a single hit can turn you.

Fair enough. I missed that part. I think one of the posts was talking about infection-based zombies and it threw me off.

I don't mind zombie monsters so much, but I really detest the whole Zombie Apocalypse thing, and it was the first thing that came to mind. I think if this game is advertised as a zombie game, it will run headlong into people's prejudices and they won't even bother to look at it. I only gave it a second look because I know the kind of games Soldak makes.

What if they call it a survival RPG? It's exactly the same game, but it preframes people to look at it differently.

I'm all in for zombies. Love' em (you know what I mean ^^). I can imagine this could become very very awesome just from the way you generate "random" worlds.

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Originally Posted by Bluddy (Post 73073)

I'm curious as to what vibe you're going for. Zombie games are usually about hopelessness, despair, and surviving(or not) against all odds. For example, every game of Project Zomboid opens with the line "This is the story of how you died" (or some such thing). The zombies' success is inevitable, and is just a matter of time. ARPGs, on the other hand, are about the player getting stronger, and kicking butt. Din's Curse had some of that desperation aspect to it, but your job was to beat the evil (or not) and move on to the next town.

Also, will permadeath be a default part of the game, or are you invincible as in the other games?

Additionally, a big part of the fun from zombies in DC was seeing how zombies spread from one non-zombified creature to another. If your enemies are mostly zombies, then that aspect can only translate to members of your settlement turning, and how long can that last before your settlement is gone?

I see it as a mix. Unless you are playing hardcore, the player gets more and more powerful and eventual "wins". However, the NPCs in your group are not protected in the same way, so they will likely die eventually. Although as usual this completely depends on you and how well you protect your people.

I'm guessing that the default mode will not be hardcore.

I'm currently planing on there being plenty of monsters left that can and probably will eventually be infected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuidjy (Post 73075)

This said, where do I buy an early copy?

We will probably do the pre-order/beta thing, but that's a long ways off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roswitha (Post 73080)

What, exactly, is cool about zombies (straight question, no sarcasm) and how attached are you to the 'z' word?

For me the cool thing about Zombies is that they are a multi-front enemy. They can kill you directly, turn you through infection, turn your ally into an enemy by infecting them, and turning others into enemies just because supplies run low when society breaks down.

What are your plans for the game's pacing? In Din's Curse and Drox Operative, each town/sector seemed to either be in a constantly high state of emergency or completely manageable the entire time. Do you plan to occasionally give the player a breather, even in tough scenarios? Or tweak things so sometimes everything goes wrong at once even in an easy scenario?