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Dead State Kickstarter project by DoubleBear Productions [Ended, $332K funded]

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L

Llyranor

Member
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70755535/dead-state-the-zombie-survival-rpg

afaeffbcc5e2c49efe8a4e50ca93694a_large.jpg


-A PC RPG with stats, skills, and perks that make a huge difference on your character’s abilities.

-Dozens of characters with branching, reactive dialogue, and randomized events that unfold over months of in-game time – player decisions and the death of loved ones can change relationships drastically.

-Turn-based combat where line-of-sight and noise affect whether you are spotted or not, making for extremely tense encounters.

-Base-building mechanics featuring multiple upgrades, NPC jobs, and item manufacturing.

-Scavenging mechanics that require players to find supplies, weapons, armor, and other items to keep their allies fed and alive.

-A morale system that factors in player success/failure, allies’ faith in the player, and the overall strength of the shelter.

-Crisis Event dialogues that factor in political maneuvering and making difficult choices that affect your whole shelter.

-Reactive AI that responds realistically to combat situations, player commands, and the state of panic from the presence of zombies.
Click to expand...

I love the concept of the game (focuses on human survival and interaction with other humans, keeping the group intact/alive - instead of just killing zombies)

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Update 1: RPS interview http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/06/just-survive-dead-state-interview/#more-110939
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Update 2:

- http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2012/06/26/dead-state-interview-zombie-brian-mitsoda/
- http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=4534
- http://justpressstart.net/?p=10205

Some choice quotes from recent updates/previews:
Dead State is all about human survival and psychology in the wake of a global disaster. You need allies for security, but they also need food, and that can lead to morale issues. Your goal is to keep the shelter from falling apart, going out into the dead-filled streets and towns looking for food and other supplies, dealing with the much smarter and unpredictable humans, and trying to keep your shelter fence up while improving the conditions inside.
Allies bring issues to you, are assigned jobs, build items, upgrade the shelter and handle crises. On the area map, you can travel to known locations, find random encounters or events, and harvest wild sources of food. On the combat maps, you can explore in real time, find items and supplies, enter turn-based combat with humans or zombies, and sometimes meet other characters or groups.
Click to expand...

Definitely, we were inspired by Jagged Alliance and X-Com, and alsoFallout, which was pretty much the game that directly got me into the industry – I applied to Interplay directly after playing it. Our allies can die, same as the characters in any of those games.
I’d say we were also mildly influenced by the base-building in the old PlayStation game Suikoden, and some of the turn-based mechanics/balance of Final Fantasy Tactics. As far as the dialogue goes, I wanted to make sure that the characters were as strong as the dialogue that people associate me with for Bloodlines, but with a deeper morale and political aspect to the management of the many personalities in the shelter.
Click to expand...

One of the biggest components of Dead State is the writing. With dozens of characters, item descriptions, and loads of game text, there’s a lot to experience. We’ve got over 10,000 lines of branching dialogue – to give you some perspective, the average screenplay contains about 1000 lines of linear story. For our dialogue, we need to create reactivity for relationships with other allies, the character’s respect for the player, character mood, concerns for events happening in and out of the shelter, and personal requests. As you can imagine, this takes a bit of scripting and time to write, rewrite, and implement – and every ally in the shelter has dozens of nodes of reactivity, including some random events.
Click to expand...

We’ve got dozens of potential allies currently, and we’d like to add to that eventually – whether that’s from a stretch goal or post-release support. There’s a lot of dialogue and scripting for each one – around the same amount or more than the most complex Bloodlines characters – so adding them isn’t trivial.
Click to expand...
In Dead State, anyone who gets bit turns into a zombie within three days. For some reason, antibiotics will keep the disease at bay, but only if an infected human keeps taking them. Since bites are pretty easy to spot, there’s never any mystery of who is infected, but you better believe keeping around infected people is a contentious position at the shelter. When antibiotics start to run out, you will have to handle the situation, and let’s say the options are not always going to make everyone happy.
Click to expand...

No game is going to be completely reactive AI that generates new responses on the fly, but we’re going to provide a lot of reactivity, lots of branching in character arcs, lots of dependencies on the situation and what other allies are there. We don’t think every player is going to find every ally, nor are they going to have every ally alive for all possible scenarios. We have a lot of dependencies that roll a situation into the next ally on the list – for example, if a character is targeting a certain personality type at the shelter for a conflict, if their primary “target” isn’t there, they will go with the next best one. It’s the same with allies imparting information – if you’ve heard about a place from one of them, the other won’t tell you. We have some random elements thrown in on quite a few dependencies too. It’s a lot of scripting, but interaction is one of our key features.
Click to expand...

Also, the stretch goals:
$180,000 - The Weapon Pack [GOOOOOOALLLLLL!!!!!]

$210k - New Areas (Military Base, Regional Airport, County Fair, Mall)

$240k - More Attack Animations, 2 New Allies, 2 New Shelter Upgrades.

$260k - More Character Creation Options, More Zombie Variety, Post-Release Game Modifiers

$300k - The City Area (High risk, high reward), 1 New Ally

$330k - Animals Added, Dog Allies Added

$360k - Mini-Expansion For Backers After Release (Adds military-grade weapons and zones of control)
Click to expand...
 
S

Salsa

Member
I think there was already a thread, but people should be more aware of this so whatever. Looks great, been following since conception.
 
G

Grayman

Member
SalsaShark said:
I think there was already a thread, but people should be more aware of this so whatever. Looks great, been following since conception.
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I think the last thread was when we discussed how the game had been sputtering and dieing on its own before kick starter. I will think about this one.
 
T

tilting_msh

Neo Member
Shai-Tan said:
day-z doesn't belong in the thread title. they share zombies and survival that's about it
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Yeah, I thought the same thing as soon as I saw the title. Besides zombies the two games are nothing alike. Very misleading.

Anyways, I've been watching this game since it was announced. The trailer looks awesome. So excited!! I will def be backing this.
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
YES, will fund gladly. I've been waiting for something like this but purely single player unlike Dayz, and more of a RPG too. The feature list sounds amazing.
 
Lactose_Intolerant

Lactose_Intolerant

Member
Not interested in single player. Its all about working with groups of people that are out for themselves. Day Z and Die2Nite have taught me that. The zombies aren't the real monsters in these games.
 
C

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I've been following this for a while. I'm completely bored of zombies, but I funded this because it's turn-based, it's Mitsoda, and the zombies aren't the core of the game.
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Lactose_Intolerant said:
Not interested in single player. Its all about working with groups of people that are out for themselves. Day Z and Die2Nite have taught me that. The zombies aren't the real monsters in these games.
Click to expand...

The fact I won't have to deal with trolling asshole players means I'm immediately interested. That's the only thing stopping me from playing that mod. Real people suck to play games with.
 
S

sangreal

Member
Thread title makes no sense. Erroneous use of the abbreviation 'e.g' instead of 'i.e'. They don't mean the same thing.
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Haven't watched the video yet but launching your KS during E3 isn't smart, Mitsoda.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Gold Member
Lactose_Intolerant said:
Not interested in single player. Its all about working with groups of people that are out for themselves. Day Z and Die2Nite have taught me that. The zombies aren't the real monsters in these games.
Click to expand...
Which is exactly the same point that this RPG makes.
It's all about social interaction and resource management during a break down of traditional society; zombies here are merely a McGuffin to set things in motion.
 
L

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Shame I have no money to fund this atm. But I'm definitely keeping a eye on it. Hopefully it all goes well for them; this game deserves to be made.
 
S

Spectacular Dr Dawg

Member
The lower tiers aren't very interesting. And they don't have a 10k tier, which is strange.
I don't really care about the soundtrack but I backed at $30 anyway because I really want this to get made.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Damn, what a shitty timing to launch your Kickstarter. Pledged 30 bucks already and might bump it to 50, but launching this week was a dumb dumb idea.
 
T

Trigger

Member
Shitty start time is shitty, but hot damn do I want this to come out. First kickstarter I'll be pledging to
when I get paid
.

Also: I doubt DayZ players would be this interested. The game is essentially an RPG. Similar themes sure, but they're different genres entirely.
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
We'll see where my funds are by then. Some of the stuff they say is wonderfully refreshing, such as explaining why nobody makes RPGs, rather than just saying "nobody makes RPGs because they enjoy the monies too much", hoping to get the Down With The Industry! Vote (this was honestly the one big problem I had with the WL2 kickstarter).
 
L

Llyranor

Member
Well, I thought the Day-Z reference was spot-on :( Dead State was the first thing I thought of when I first read about Day-Z (survival 'at all cost', and humans being the bigger threat than zombies), but anyway.

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RPS interview:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/06/just-survive-dead-state-interview/#more-110939

Brian: I think there’s going to be a lot of shifting over to the survival aspect as people get bored of the same old shoot/burn/rototill a whole mess of zombies gameplay. You’ve seen that with the Day Z mod, Project Zomboid, and a couple of other games. There’s definitely a lot of room to explore those themes with different types of gameplay, just as there’s a lot of different approaches that zombie movies/fiction take. It’s definitely hitting a certain spot for a lot of gamers. I think that there’s going to be some burnout, and rightfully so (I am burnt out on generic “kill zombies” games) but if you’re designing a game around an aspect that hasn’t been explored, I think you’ll get even the “not another zombie game” crowd to give your game a look. But we are making a game rather than a treatise on zombies and the human psyche, so things like the RPG systems, characters and dialogue, and combat balance all have much higher priorities than trying to redefine the zombie metaphor.

There will be some subtle prodding and examination of the zombie phenomenon, but the player is really going to have to dig deep to get some of that – I really don’t want to throw themes in people’s faces and yell, “isn’t this shit deep and tragic and the human condition, and yeah?!” Spoilers, but in our game, we’re not trying to hook people by slowly revealing this mystery of what caused the zombie apocalypse – it happened, nobody knows why, now deal with it.
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Annie: Survival is the primary goal – but it’s the sort of BUT AT WHAT COST question that’s hiding behind that. What kind of leader are you going to be?

Brian: There are a lot of short and long term solutions or goals for the player to pursue. They’re not all nice – maybe your allies get shafted, maybe you go the extra mile for people at the expense of your popularity, maybe you just keep going in the shelter until the end. As for the zombies, they just keep on going – there is no getting rid of them.
Click to expand...

Brian: There are lots of kinds of food and they all have “nutritional” values that make some more worthwhile than others. There are even some foods that can hurt morale if you’re reduced to eating them (hint: if you’re in the cafeteria, don’t order the “apocalypse chicken”). Cooking is part of the game in that you can assign someone with a high enough skill to cook for the shelter as a daily job, giving you a small morale bonus. That’s helpful, if you can spare the warm body to do it – that’s one less person not fixing the fence or scavenging for food.
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RPS: You’ve talked about ‘crisis events’, such as running out of antibiotics. Are these things that emerge out of the simulation or do they occur randomly?

Brian: They occur when certain criteria are met, so in a sense, yes, they are something that is going to happen through gameplay choices. Running low on antibiotics or food will trigger that particular crisis event, which will give you the chance to make a decision that people will buy you some time or a heap of scorn, depending on how you sell it or how much political clout you have with your sub-leads. There are quite a few crisis event triggers and most of them mean making a major decision that will affect the shelter for a time or particular allies at the shelter. They are one of my favorite parts of the game and I think they’re one of the systems that makes Dead State unique.
Click to expand...
RPS: Roughly, how much time is spent exploring compared to dealing with issues back at the shelter? Or will that vary depending on play style?

Brian: It depends on how many allies you have. I think the more you find, the harder the game gets and the more time you have to dedicate to breaking them in and satisfying them. You will probably have to go out and scavenge most days. And, naturally, we’ll make sure some trouble finds you if things are getting routine. We always, always want to make sure that you’re juggling a few problems all at once.
Click to expand...
RPS: The other human groups, such as a survivalist militia, presumably have their own shelters. Is it possible to drive them out and move into their home, abandoning the school?

Brian: It’s not possible to take over their places because you’re probably going to compromise the security of the place trying to take it over (to be quite honest, it would be a scripting nightmare to have to rig multiple areas with the complexity of the shelter). But, you can try taking them on in combat if you really want – there are other, better ways to deal with other groups. The risks are great for going in guns blazing, but the rewards are worth it. However, not risking multiple allies’ lives and playing it smarter could lead to less immediate loot but less of a morale H-bomb to have to clean up after. Keep in mind, most of the groups in the game are still around because they’re organized/tough enough to have made it this far. Going up against another scavenging party and going up against a survivor base is the difference between a fist fight and a gun battle.

Annie: Most of all, we’ve tried to make the school an attractive place to hold on to – it’s defensible, adaptable, and equipped with certain amenities that make it the most practical place to settle in. So in our mind it was less a question of “CAN you take an enemy’s base” and more “why bother with land? We just want their stuff!”
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You and any sub-leaders at your shelter will gather to discuss the options. You are ultimately responsible for deciding the course of action – say, if there’s a food shortage, do you refuse to cut rations, cut rations and take a morale hit, or do you get rid of some personnel – however, the sub-leaders can make a difference if they take the same stance as you or are loyal/bought off by you. When sub-leaders are mostly on your side, they will help convince people that you’re making the right call, which can result in a morale bonus or reduced penalty. Even if your decision isn’t popular, it’s okay – if it’s going to lead to less trouble down the line (like starvation) always pick the option you think is going to be right for you and try to win over the sub-leads and other allies for the next crisis event.
Click to expand...
Brian: Allies are still AI-based. The systems that control them are by no means final and polished at this stage in development (one of the things the Kickstarter will allow us to do is to expand our programming department) but the basics of ally AI are based on assigned behavior archetypes that modify basic responses. For example, the “medic” will always try to heal injured allies as a rule, but if they have the “partner” AI, they will always look out for their friend as a priority. Human enemies also have these behaviors – for example, a “coward” is always going to try to keep their distance when wounded, while an “ambush” AI is always going to try and get an attack of opportunity on the player’s party.
Additionally, there are group commands that can alter the ally behavior assuming they aren’t panicking or berserk. Rally points can be set (great for getting them to meet at the exit), guard behavior can be assigned (great for watching an entry point), or enemy priority can be set. You’re not completely dependent on the AI to cooperate – there’s a lot you can do to modify basic behaviors. Ultimately, we want people to remember that they are commanding normal people with their own quirks, not a trained squad or generic grunts.
Click to expand...
Brian: Allies aren’t easily replaced – there are a set number of them in the game. However, allies don’t immediately die when they reach zero HP, but go into a knocked out state. If the player or their medic can get to them before they die, they can revive them and bandage them up enough to hopefully get them back to the shelter. It’s best to swap out allies often as we have statuses that don’t go away immediately. Efficient management of allies in and out of combat is a big part of the game. We don’t want the game to be too hard, and we may have an “easy” mode if it becomes difficult for most players to keep allies alive, but we do want it to be possible to get into a situation where the player isn’t going to survive to the end, just like in X-Com or Civilization. We’ve talked about possibly adding dogs as allies (which would be easier to write), but as it stands, they are going to have to be a stretch goal, since they’re a bit out of scope (Do you like dogs? Do you think it would be totally badass to sic a dog on a zombie? If so, think about possibly contributing more to Dead State.)
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C

charsace

Member
Playing Project Zomboid made me real excited for this and I love PZ. Because this has a more experienced dev who has made some great stuff.

I would love to see valve take this to the next level with the LFD engine.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
Some parts do look Sims like which made me suddenly realize that if EA is working on Sims Zombies I would not be shocked.

DennisK4 said:
Proud backer.

You should be one too.
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I've been waiting for this game for three years, so I'll do what I have to in order for this to get funded.

I only wish I had more to give.

This is scratching an itch I've had for a long time.


charsace said:
Playing Project Zomboid made me real excited for this and I love PZ. Because this has a more experienced dev who has made some great stuff.

I would love to see valve take this to the next level with the LFD engine.
Click to expand...

I waited to buy PZ because of this game, but finally bought it six months ago because I thought DS might end up as vaporware. Now that it's not and now that I see it's going to be turned based, I believe both can survive and I'll play and enjoy both, as well as Day Z.
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Not that I have anything against wasteland 2 (I contributed to that too) but I wish this would have been the one to get $3+ million. It's not even $100k yet in almost a week. Thankfully the goal is really low.
 
T

TheBear

Member
Backed! Out of the games I've backed (Double Fine, Wasteland and this) this would have to be the most exciting prospect! Cannot wait
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
How many days until their 180k bonus deadline is met? They really set the bar impossibly high for themselves, specially launching on E3.
 
T

Trigger

Member
zkylon said:
How many days until their 180k bonus deadline is met? They really set the bar impossibly high for themselves, specially launching on E3.
Click to expand...

It was. The biggest hurdle will definitely be generating interest. None of the higher reward tiers sound good to be honest.
 
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