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Dead State |OT|

Z

zkylon

zkylewd
2iqloV4.png


no one was making a thread for this game so i figured i'd do a quick one just stealing things from steam...

Info:

Developer/Publisher: DoubleBear Productions
Release Date: december 4th, 2014
Genre: turn based RPG survival x-com thing
Rating: mature i guess?

buy it on steam or gog for $30!

what doublebear has to say about their game:
Dead State is a compelling, high-tension survival RPG set in central Texas at the collapse of civilization and the dawn of the undead apocalypse.
As society is beginning to fall apart, the player must organize a group of survivors together, fortify a shelter, scout for food and supplies, negotiate with or defend against other factions, and maintain order inside the shelter as humanity teeters on the brink of extinction. Dead State is a full-fledged RPG featuring base building and management, turn-based tactical combat, and reactive story and dialogue with an emphasis on survival at any cost.

Attract new allies, scavenge food and supplies, and protect your shelter at any cost. Do you have what it takes to lead a desperate group through a crisis? This is your chance to find out.
Click to expand...

what i have to say about their game:
dead state is the falloutiest game i've played since arcanum

it's got the two quickslots for weapons, special moves for melee weapons, the context sensitive cursors, the world map, stat+skill character system, perks, everything. and then it goes a bit x-com-y and gives you a base to manage with like resources and training the other survivors and keeping them happy and making sure they get antibiotics so they don't turn into zombies and all that fun stuff

it's supposed to have also a lot of clever writing, tho i haven't encountered a lot of that. i'm guessing that's cos i only played a bit of the game and most of the time you spend it scavenging and killing other looters and stuff. that said i did find funny stuff, and characters i could have an influence on, and last time i left it there was a bit of a three way power struggle about to happen in the shelter, so things look promising, specially since the game's directed and written by fucking brian mitsoda.

yeah it's not the prettiest game ever and it's definitely gonna be a janky one but you know, fallout stuff is fun!
Click to expand...

Media:

some not very attractive pictures of menus and fallout stuff





launch trailer



Reviews:

RPS
eurogamer
IGN
PC Gamer

---

i'm bad at titles so i couldn't come up with anything

sorry
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
Only played a bit early on but so far impressed at the changes. Still fairly rough around the edges, but digging it.
 
L

Luigi87

Member
Been waiting so long for this. When it went up for KS, I was glad that it did and backed it immediately. Didn't really play any of the beta because I wanted the completed game... Hard to believe it's finally here @_@
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Jawmuncher said:
No title....that's a new one.
Click to expand...

sorry

i couldn't come up with anything :(

Luigi87 said:
Been waiting so long for this. When it went up for KS, I was glad that it did and backed it immediately. Didn't really play any of the beta because I wanted the completed game... Hard to believe it's finally here @_@
Click to expand...

i know right?

i still remember hearing for the first time about this and seeing tiny updates every like 8 months or something

i feel like they really put the kickstarter money to good use
 
L

Leb

Member
I loved VTMB and so I'd love for this to succeed, but I feel like picking zombies and PC gaming, two of the least popular things in the world, maybe wasn't the best approach.
 
C

Coffee Dog

Banned
Haha, nice OT, and thanks for impressions.

I'll grab this if more good impressions roll in. I really hope this is fun, I loved Brian Mitsoda's work on Bloodlines.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
thanks!

Leb said:
I loved VTMB and so I'd love for this to succeed, but I feel like picking zombies and PC gaming, two of the least popular things in the world, maybe wasn't the best approach.
Click to expand...
i'm confused by this post but i do think zombies are kind of lame in the moment we're living in

maybe when development started or a year and a half ago when walking dead was super popular it would've garnered a bit more interest, but right now the zombie thing is kind of not great

pc gaming tho, i don't think that's too bad, specially since the game's pretty tailor made for a specific pc crowd (turn based, lots of menus and stats and numbers and all taht)
 
M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Kind of cautiously optimistic, but, as is the case with a lot of kickstarter games I've been following, I might give this a few months post-release to really sink into. Wasteland 2, Divinity, etc...have had much improved efforts that way.

but I feel like picking zombies and PC gaming, two of the least popular things in the world, maybe wasn't the best approach.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit confused, unless you mean when people 'find out' that it's an old-school rpg with action point limitations, (presumably) clunky/old school menu navigation, and a limited base-building process hindered by invariably random factors, they're are going to not be pleased.

Either that or I'm missing some sarcasm somewhere.
 
V

Volodja

Member
Was waiting for this thread to show up.
Played a bit, restarted once because I wasn't liking the flow of the game with my first character.

Very very very early impression.
For now the game feels jankier than Wasteland 2 did and right from the get go it has been buggier than that game was as well and considering how much WL2 kind of fell apart later on, that could be somewhat worrying.
A few minor annoyances with the controls and interface make it a little worse to handle too, and WL wasn't exactly amazing on that front either but I'll get used to its rhythm.
Alseo, let's be honest, anybody that is interested in a game like this probably has a refined palate for jankiness anyway.

Aside from that I haven't been able to see much, but I've found 1 fight that I pretty much had to avoid for now so that's promising as far as difficulty goes, gotta see if it's just the classic russian rulette with shitty percentages on shots that you can often get early on in games like this when your characters have bad equipment and skills or if it's gonna hold up later on. For the moment getting attacked by multiple people with guns while the availabilty of ammo is what it is and your people seem to be barely able to hit anything is a real problem and that's fine.
Haven't really had a choice to see if the dialogues and interactions are good or not, got just as far as day 3 and there has been very little to do on the front, really.

Leb said:
I loved VTMB and so I'd love for this to succeed, but I feel like picking zombies and PC gaming, two of the least popular things in the world, maybe wasn't the best approach.
Click to expand...
PC gaming is that unpopular, huh? News to me.
 
Werewolf Jones

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
Played it for a few hours today, got up to the Pharmacy and I can't really get any further. My PC is actually that bad I can't even play this without slow down. lol.
 
V

Volodja

Member
GreatCharleston said:
Played it for a few hours today, got up to the Pharmacy and I can't really get any further. My PC is actually that bad I can't even play this without slow down. lol.
Click to expand...
In case you have it enabled, try disabling V-Sync, when I was messing around with the graphic options it gave me pretty bad choppiness.
Just do it before loading the save, otherwise it locks your camera and stops drawing the UI, at least it does for me. And then I can't reload until I restart because otherwise it just locks on the loading screen.


Also the game crashed to desktop when I deleted a savegame.
 
M

Memorabilia

Member
Leb said:
I loved VTMB and so I'd love for this to succeed, but I feel like picking zombies and PC gaming, two of the least popular things in the world, maybe wasn't the best approach.
Click to expand...

Sarcasm?

The Walking Dead is the number one show on TV. The comic sells like hot-cakes. The Walking Dead game sells well. Zombie games in general may feel played out to many (especially in the GAF echo chamber), but many others (like myself) seemingly cant get enough. I think if its well done it'll find a nice niche in the zombie genre. Edit: And although I play on consoles I do have a nice gaming PC as well and think that saying PC gaming isn't popular is, well, borderline delusional.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
yeah i think if you're playing this game you gotta come expecting some jankiness. if you can't tolerate that then ok the game's not for you.

it's important to bear in mind this game had about a tenth of the budget that wasteland 2 had

kurahador said:
How buggy is it?
Click to expand...
from what i played, it wasn't super buggy, tho like i said, it was pretty janky

the major bugs i ran into were pretty big and got fixed as early access went on so i'm sure the game's gonna need patching but it didn't seem particularly broken

the bigger issue i see with the game so far is the same i saw in divinity and wasteland 2: inventory management
 
V

Volodja

Member
zkylon said:
yeah i think if you're playing this game you gotta come expecting some jankiness. if you can't tolerate that then ok the game's not for you.

it's important to bear in mind this game had about a tenth of the budget that wasteland 2 had
Click to expand...
Yes, it's pretty obvious, but the comparison just came instantly to me because they kind of feel like they are back to back as far as timing goes and while some of that janky feel can be ascribed to the lack of funds, I would also say that part of it isn't.
But let's be clear, I'm not trying to put down the game, I'm excited to dig into it. All these troubles can be easily forgotten and even become kind of charming in the face of interesting choices.
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
One question I still have is does the game have a full plot with a goal and endings or is it like a survive as long as you can story?
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Volodja said:
Yes, it's pretty obvious, but the comparison just came instantly to me because they kind of feel like they are back to back as far as timing goes and while some of that janky feel can be ascribed to the lack of funds, I would also say that part of it isn't.
But let's be clear, I'm not trying to put down the game, I'm excited to dig into it. All these troubles can be easily forgotten and even become kind of charming in the face of interesting choices.
Click to expand...
yeah, you're totally right. they probably could've scaled it down but i think that would've lessened the game somewhat. to make another comparison, massive chalice is a game that's similar to dead state (x-com management, turn based combat, etc.) but that had its scope scaled down so it could have frankly beautiful visuals and sound. well like, from what i played (which btw was not all that much) i feel like massive chalice is not that enjoyable because it lacks the depth and amount of content that something like dead state has

also the charming part is kind of interesting because i found myself reminded a lot of mount & blade when playing dead state. both games have pretty simple side characters with bios and everything but then you build a lot of personality around them for how they fare in combat and what they tend to do

for instance i really liked renee cos she was the medic and that was super useful. and the cop guy in my save couldn't hit anyone ever so he ended up being like some sort of comic relief during fights

all of that i find pretty fascinating and enjoyable, specially when you then go back to the shelter and they have a few actually well written lines of dialogue and you can give them a treat with like batteries for their mp3 player or something

Bebpo said:
One question I still have is does the game have a full plot with a goal and endings or is it like a survive as long as you can story?
Click to expand...

there's a plot and there are multiple endings based on your decisions

the game gives you a general direction of what you should do but it's a lot about
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
a secret-boss said:
Pm the mod

Dead State (OT) Its not Atlanta Georgia
Click to expand...

which mod? first time i ever make an ot

i was thinking of doing something like Z-COM or something but i think that's kind of lame, but there ends my imagination

i also have no idea what you said means but sure!
 
V

Volodja

Member
zkylon said:
yeah, you're totally right. they probably could've scaled it down but i think that would've lessened the game somewhat. to make another comparison, massive chalice is a game that's similar to dead state (x-com management, turn based combat, etc.) but that had its scope scaled down so it could have frankly beautiful visuals and sound. well like, from what i played (which btw was not all that much) i feel like massive chalice is not that enjoyable because it lacks the depth and amount of content that something like dead state has

also the charming part is kind of interesting because i found myself reminded a lot of mount & blade when playing dead state. both games have pretty simple side characters with bios and everything but then you build a lot of personality around them for how they fare in combat and what they tend to do

for instance i really liked renee cos she was the medic and that was super useful. and the cop guy in my save couldn't hit anyone ever so he ended up being like some sort of comic relief during fights

all of that i find pretty fascinating and enjoyable, specially when you then go back to the shelter and they have a few actually well written lines of dialogue and you can give them a treat with like batteries for their mp3 player or something



there's a plot and there are multiple endings based on your decisions

the game gives you a general direction of what you should do but it's a lot about
Click to expand...
For sure, I wouldn't want them to scale back on amount of dialogue or game content to do away with some of that jank, that's for sure, especially when some of the big contributing factors to this feel are things like the menus that have a big visual impact at first but end up being quite secondary after you get used to them (if they keep being serviceable, that is). Sure prettier art on them or a better arrangement in screens like the character creation ones (which are really quite basic) would be nice, but they are definitely not an actual issue, at least for me. And speaking of M&B the menus for that were pretty damn basic too, although the occasional art that some of them had was amazing.

For now I can say that one thing that impacts immersion a little is the lack of any spoken dialogue. Having some comments and communications and words outside of the panting when low on hp would've made the world feel more alive...but that's definitely a budget matter, so I can understand the reason there isn't any...or at least I haven't found any yet. But then again up until now I'm still getting the same lines of dialogue I got at the beginning, so I look forward to the point where I'll get some more reactions out of my fellow inhabitants of the shelter to make everything a little more interesting and lively.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
i think the way it works is this:

there are "events" in which you get real dialogue. there's a few of these every day and they're triggered by your decisions and your relationship with other characters. so if you've antagonized someone they'll show up a few days later to yell at you or something. there's also special events like finding some dude at the fence asking for shelter or something like that. these are well written and fun and interesting

then there's the in-shelter dialogue, which is pretty throwaway dialogue mostly meant for getting information out of characters. so they tell you what they like, what they can do in combat, what they think about the shelter, etc. this is pretty lame and would probably be better fit for a menu or something

also i think the dialogue screen deserved much better art. i dunno why they stuck with that black box thing, it's hideous. it's weird cos i don't think the interface art is bad looking like in wasteland 2, it could be more serviceable but i find it pleasing to look at at least. it's just that big black box looks pretty bad :/
 
B

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
I like the OT without a title. It seems spartan and utilitarian - appropriate for scavenging in a zombie filled, post-apocalyptic world.

Nice work.
 
G

gabbo

Member
This has been on the periphery of my radar since it's KS, but I didn't know it was this close to completion.

Will likely pick it up on gog in the near future
 
G

Gazoinks

Member
Well, Arcanum is possibly my favorite game evar (and I also love VTMB), so I should probably get this even if I'm a bit sick of zombies. One more for the RPG pile!
 
D

Durante

Member
Great job on the OT.

They just released a patch (v.1.0.0.12):
Changelog:
Fixed crash that occurred when attempting to load game without saves.
Fixed an issue where changing graphic settings in-game caused visual glitches
Fixed text cut-off issues that occurred in some GUIs
Multiple pathfinding issues fixed, including:
Fixed allies occasionally giving up on following you up or down stairs
Fixed most occurrences of characters occasionally sharing a square
Fixed an issue with enemies occasionally not attacking you
Fixed most occurrences of enemy 'pacing' in combat
Fixed issue where characters occasionally stopped a square or two away from their destination
Changed incorrect hovertext on pending custom portrait button - this is a planned post-release feature
Fixed incorrect data text
Adjusted/balanced morale loss and drain
Fixed game freeze that occurred when attempting to upgrade cars.
Fixed Getz amount of time unavailable
Fixed a couple outstanding dialogue bugs
Click to expand...
 
V

Volodja

Member
Oh no, no more enemies trying to merge into my character in one square and becoming untargetable? I will miss that!
Seems like they fixed quite a few of the bugs I experienced.
 
E

epmode

Member
I realize no one cares about this but me and maybe two other people but this game could really use some UI scaling. Menus are tough to read at 1600p. Downsampling will be a problem as well.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
thanks for the kind words people

Volodja said:
Oh no, no more enemies trying to merge into my character in one square and becoming untargetable? I will miss that!
Seems like they fixed quite a few of the bugs I experienced.
Click to expand...

i think they fixed that a while ago but i'm not 100% sure

but notable bugs like non stacking ammo and some savegame corruptions were fixed during early access

i feel like this is undoubtedly gonna be a buggy and janky game but i think it's still pretty good in spite of it

Durante said:
Great job on the OT.

They just released a patch (v.1.0.0.12):
Click to expand...
"Fixed crash that occurred when attempting to load game without saves."

damn that's not something nice to launch with lol

i expect some massive patches like with wasteland 2, so people holding off might be onto something

epmode said:
I realize no one cares about this but me and maybe two other people but this game could really use some UI scaling. Menus are tough to read at 1600p. Downsampling will be a problem as well.
Click to expand...
this might be fixable

they didn't have proper menus for a lot of things until this patch so they mad add that in later
 
P

peakish

Member
I might get around to this game later this weekend, if I get in the mood for an RPG. Good to see it finally releasing!
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
Once Grim Dawn and Age of Decadence finally release I think that'll be the trifecta of development hell RPGs I've been waiting on for years.
 
F

Frecklestein

Banned
I suggested "Scars and Stripes" for the OT in the SteamGAF thread.. But I guess nothing is better than it... I guess..

nice OT, will keep an eye out c:
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Frecklestein said:
I suggested "Scars and Stripes" for the OT in the SteamGAF thread.. But I guess nothing is better than it... I guess..

nice OT, will keep an eye out c:
Click to expand...

sorry i didn't see that until posting the thread and i didn't really get it so just went like this
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
oh this isnt another multiplayer bullshit? actually interested now then
 
J

JBourne

maybe tomorrow it rains
I'm really interested in this and put it in my wishlist the moment I saw XCOM mentioned, but it's very hard for me to justify a $30 purchase for myself so close to Christmas. I still have more gifts to buy.

I look forward to following this thread and giving the game a shot come January. Hopefully it's had some of the jank patched out by then.
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
JBourne said:
I'm really interested in this and put it in my wishlist the moment I saw XCOM mentioned, but it's very hard for me to justify a $30 purchase for myself so close to Christmas. I still have more gifts to buy.

I look forward to following this thread and giving the game a shot come January. Hopefully it's had some of the jank patched out by then.
Click to expand...

XCOM is probably a generous comparison combat wise. I'd say the bigger comparisons are probably State of Decay + early Fallout game combat and skill stuff.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
it's pretty much the exact same combat as fallout

neither game is too demanding or too good overall, but it's serviceable and it's a good representation of your progress with your level and your equipment

the base management isn't exactly x-com either, but it's also really enjoyable

it's just that the gameplay loop of managing both your resources/upgrades/base and personally doing turn based combat that evokes the comparison
 
D

Durante

Member
I gave the game a short try (very short, basically just the character creation and tutorial), and I already like two things in particular. Perk selection every N levels for each skill:
239840_2014-12-04_00080lp2.jpg


This:
239840_2014-12-04_000polyt.png


epmode said:
I realize no one cares about this but me and maybe two other people but this game could really use some UI scaling. Menus are tough to read at 1600p. Downsampling will be a problem as well.
Click to expand...
It's a forward renderer, so at least you can use hardware AA.
 
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