Urban Strife - turn-based zombie survival RPG - now in private alpha

Well, so far we have managed to stay afloat using our own funds, for the last 4 years. But it's been a huge effort and we will need to explore some sort of funding sooner or later. Ideally the first season/episode will be released on our own (or we'll make due with some Patreon or Backer Build funding). The sales from episode 1 plus a crowdfunding campaign would go into expanding the team for a much bigger season 2. And a huge ending in season 3.

Atm we've been greenlit on Steam for a while (since been greenlit meant something). Gog, Humble Bundle we're open to all channels of distribution, as long there's a decent offer on the table. We don't care much about DRM.

But hey, it's Tuesday, it's time for another update. Today we've got another piece of shelter industry - your very own moonshine still. An apocalypse without booze is unheard of so there you go... you're set now!

 

Thursday Update: Multiagent AI Pathfingding or taking the stupid out of Artificial Intelligence.

Pathfinding in tactical squad games can be a major pain. Even in some classics of the genre, due to poor multi-agent pathing, it's a suicide move to move your soldiers all at once. More than often one of them, due to some blockage on his path, will decide it's better to go around the whole map, right into some enemies or monsters. We spent a lot of time fixing this and we are confident we've tackled the issue. Judge for yourself watching the sort video we've recorded in a quiet morning in Urban Shelter.

 

Tuesday it is screenshot day so here we go, a small preview of the ARs the Urban weapons factory used to sell.
Game will be open to modding new ones in, of course.

 

Meet Mayor J.J. Adams. A very honest politician.

 

Btw we're not dead, we haven't vanished in a dark hole, we're still working on USG. We've just been moping up all the loose bits to make everything took pretty for when the real promo stuff begins.
So we will have news soon. Things are shaping up prettty nicely, that's all we can say for now.

Oh, have a belated happy new 2019 everyone!

 

Turn Based Lovers just published a nice interview where we detail a couple of pending questions about Urban Strife. You can read it here:

https://turnbasedlovers.com/news/urban-strife-interview/

Enjoy!

 

Just in case you guys missed the big announcement:



We're going Closed Alpha in August if all goes well. While the closed alpha group will be mostly for those who want to financially support the game (and get early access), we will make sure to provide for those who do not want to purchase the full polished product or are still on the edge. Help comes in many shapes and sizes, not only with the wallet (although the more funds we have, the more talent we can afford to bring in). So everyone is invited to the party.

Alphas will have an included pre-order key with their access of course, redeamable on Steam, Gog and whatever major store we can get a deal going with.

 

More good news folks! After many many many way too many months offline, we've relaunched our website with all new content about the game, an incipient section of modding tutorials, small video snippets and screenshots and we're not even done with adding content... Next is our trailer and the Steam page. And fingers crossed everything will be ready in August for the Closed Alpha launch.

Check it out now: http://www.urbanstrifegame.com

 

Those gifs you have on the website look so god damn good. Really looking forward to this.

 

I wonder what game will come out first, this or End State

 

Looking forward to this and end state

 

For a moment I confused it for End State. Either way, it looks cool. The gifs of the webpage don't work (some of them at least), but what I've seen looks cool. It's the game Dead State wanted to be and failed (not that it's a high bar, sadly).

 

Looking good!

 

Strange but maybe some ad-blockers stop them (they're mp4s wrapped in a js slider), Here you go, these are the source movies:

This one shows shotgun pellets hitting with various effects multiple targets before losing momentum and some melee combat (with avoidance and crit). We haven't tweaked the damage numbers or the exact spread yet, but as a general line this is the effect we'd like the shotguns to have on soft unarmored bodies up close. Rifles will have the highest penetration factor for less spread with pistols and crossbows being the most silent. We'll have a special video showing weapon types and their effects before Alpha (although we do expect iterations on the stats when user feedback starts to come in).
http://www.urbanstrifegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/combat_re1-1.mp4

And this one shows a horde moving simultaneously on a single enemy turn. They do keep their personal sensors, meaning there's a range in which they become alerted and congregate towards the noise. Being stuck in combat mode because a lone zombie on the other side of town has been trying to reach you for the last 30 minutes isn't our kind of fun. We've also done a lot of work on the crowd pathfinding and while we're still improving it we're confident we're getting it to a very nice level. Anyone who has played games where you try to control (or face) multiple actors knows how ridiculous the AI pathfinding can get in crowded maps.
http://www.urbanstrifegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/horde_ai-video2.mp4

 

Steam page so I can wishlist when?

 

Can't have a proper Steam page without a trailer. And that's exactly what what's cooking next. Thanks for the thought and hold on a bit

 

I've always thought a cool idea for zombie apoc strategy game would be if you could play as the undead as well as survivors, so like the zombies are controlled by a big brain or something.

 

NO COMMENT.

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There may or may not be a faction in USG that likes zombies a lot. A faction that gives you a very interesting angle on the apocalypse in Episode 2, if you befriend them in Episode 1.

 

Damn zombie cultists. Days Gone had them too. In that one they tried to mimic the zombies as much as possible.

 

No Sir, The Cult is all about love and peace. They harbor refugees, grow herbs and mushrooms and sing Hallelujah around the fire. You Sir are very misinformed about their very good intentions. I fully recommend a soul changing experience in the scenic Camp of Second Chance.

 

Sounds good. Hey maybe I will join them...

 

Neither clicking the buy now button nor throwing money at the screen is doing anything...

 

Because that would require effort, instead of making zombies cheap bullet-sponges with no AI required.

Cultists. Cultists never change.

That guy failed his Acrobatics roll. Also, old-school zombies were hardcore and had superhuman strength.

 

The old school zombies are a bit inconsistent. Recently watched the Night of the Living dead remake and the zombies are really damn weak in that one, and a bit "not there". Like some of them you can easily just walk past within reach. Or just do judo stuff on them

 

1. There are no strings attached with Unreal Engine, we just put some money in their pocket if the game sells well.
2. We have already been greenlighted on Steam, back when Greenlight meant something, we just didn't have time to setup the page properly (and with new visuals). Google it.
3. As for the exclusivity thing, we're a small studio, we don't have to pay 50 paychecks each month so we're way less pressed than other studios when end of month comes.

Not saying money won't help development. Funds bring more & better talent that generate more & better content. That's why we're running the pre-launch closed alpha for those who want to support the game financially. That's why we've split the initial idea into 3 projects/episodes we can manage with whatever resources we have. Ideally Closed Alpha will fund the launch of Episode 1, which will fund the bigger Episode 2 and everyone will marvel at the sight of the magnificent Episode 3 when we're done. They will play out as stand-alone games and will be unique experiences in themselves, but there will be story elements that will make more sense if you play them in succession.

So our plan is to sell-out exclusively to our future players. Good plan, bad plan, it's what we have.