KickStarter Dead State: Reanimated

[cherry blossom]

Yeah, you can't just find several experts-of-their-fields in a zombie apocalypse. Purely artificial.

I liked the game. I have a bucket full of shit to throw at it, but still liked the game quite a bit enough to sink 100+ hours into it. Everybody has their own "biggest problem with the game". For me the biggest sin was probably that they seem to have taken nothing from a myriad of other popular games which did one aspect or the other good enough to be a model for others.

 

[lightbane]

Yeah, you can't just find several experts-of-their-fields in a zombie apocalypse. Purely artificial.

It is, because you don't really need a high science score for anything except for a certain upgrade that needs that AND a high score tech requirement too (the mini-lab or whatever it was called which lets you produce ammo and advanced stuff), something that nothing else does if my memory is not mistaken.

The only scientist-minded guys and gals that join you appear after way too many days have passed*, or they raise their relevant skills too slowly. Meanwhile, the one good scientist you can find is someone taken by an hostile faction that is itching for an excuse to blow up your head. This wouldn't irk me much if it wasn't because of what I mentioned above.

Either way, this is one flaw of the way-too-many the game has, but this one is deliberate to increase difficulty instead of a bug.

*The fact that the endgame arrives too slowly is another issue of their own, you should have been given a "timeskip" button of some sort.

 

[Fowyr]

Dear Codexers, I have made a truly senseless thing. I made a patch for Dead State. It mostly addresses shelter inventory's cluttering.
1) 5.56 and 9mm ammo is stackable past 99.
2) All armor items are stackable and work like charm. Before the only stackable armor was firefighter's coat.
3) All weapons are fully stackable like they should be. Just look at hunting shotguns and melee weapons.
If some weapon do not stacks - load it with ammo and then unload.
4) Medical satchels are stackable for the convenience, but should be taken one by one to be refilled. Otherwise, entire stack would be refilled.
5) Weight of some items is changed. Not much, but toothbrushes and rolls of toilet paper should be lighter now.
I've tried to add satchels and soothium to the "medical" filter, but it made them unusable, so no luck.

http://filehorst.de/d/cHGjFHds

Extract items.dat, open file scripts.aod in Dead State's directory with 7zip and replace old items.dat in \data\core. Load your game, open shelter's inventory and stack everything you want. Use other characters' inventories if stack is too heavy.

 

[Mexi]

I didn't know this game had a Nexus. Mods are practically non-existent, though. Game could actually be great if some modders filled all those boring ass days with more shelter situations and follower dialogue. As it stands, the game is fucking boring when you're just passing days waiting for the game to end.

 

[agris]

You're a racist fuckhead, but I'll save your mod to .\Dead State\Mods

 

[Lhynn]

Man, i dont think this game was bad, but it was one of the most forgettable games made in the last 20 years, thats for sure. Had forgotten it even existed.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Dear Codexers, I have made a truly senseless thing. I made a patch for Dead State. It mostly addresses shelter inventory's cluttering.
1) 5.56 and 9mm ammo is stackable past 99.
2) All armor items are stackable and work like charm. Before the only stackable armor was firefighter's coat.
3) All weapons are fully stackable like they should be. Just look at hunting shotguns and melee weapons.
If some weapon do not stacks - load it with ammo and then unload.
4) Medical satchels are stackable for the convenience, but should be taken one by one to be refilled. Otherwise, entire stack would be refilled.
5) Weight of some items is changed. Not much, but toothbrushes and rolls of toilet paper should be lighter now.
I've tried to add satchels and soothium to the "medical" filter, but it made them unusable, so no luck.

http://filehorst.de/d/cHGjFHds

Extract items.dat, open file scripts.aod in Dead State's directory with 7zip and replace old items.dat in \data\core. Load your game, open shelter's inventory and stack everything you want. Use other characters' inventories if stack is too heavy.

I just uninstalled the game man, wtf.

 

[cruelio]

Dear Codexers, I have made a truly senseless thing. I made a patch for Dead State. It mostly addresses shelter inventory's cluttering.
1) 5.56 and 9mm ammo is stackable past 99.
2) All armor items are stackable and work like charm. Before the only stackable armor was firefighter's coat.
3) All weapons are fully stackable like they should be. Just look at hunting shotguns and melee weapons.
If some weapon do not stacks - load it with ammo and then unload.
4) Medical satchels are stackable for the convenience, but should be taken one by one to be refilled. Otherwise, entire stack would be refilled.
5) Weight of some items is changed. Not much, but toothbrushes and rolls of toilet paper should be lighter now.
I've tried to add satchels and soothium to the "medical" filter, but it made them unusable, so no luck.

http://filehorst.de/d/cHGjFHds

Extract items.dat, open file scripts.aod in Dead State's directory with 7zip and replace old items.dat in \data\core. Load your game, open shelter's inventory and stack everything you want. Use other characters' inventories if stack is too heavy.

This is the most insane thing I've seen in my whole life.

 

[Mortmal]

Man, i dont think this game was bad, but it was one of the most forgettable games made in the last 20 years, thats for sure. Had forgotten it even existed.

Not really i would say its one of the most underrated game, not flawless but some get a free pass on the codex for much less mostly because devs are friendly and talk on forum.

 

[Emily]

Man, i dont think this game was bad, but it was one of the most forgettable games made in the last 20 years, thats for sure. Had forgotten it even existed.

Not really i would say its one of the most underrated game, not flawless but some get a free pass on the codex for much less mostly because devs are friendly and talk on forum.

The combat system wqs horrible. And way armor worked. Even with the remastering it is just mildly less worse.

 

[zool]

I didn't know this game had a Nexus. Mods are practically non-existent, though. Game could actually be great if some modders filled all those boring ass days with more shelter situations and follower dialogue. As it stands, the game is fucking boring when you're just passing days waiting for the game to end.

Yeah and the fact that nearly all of the mods on Nexus are mods replacing portraits for NPCs says a lot about the quality of the original ones...

 

[Lhynn]

Not really i would say its one of the most underrated game, not flawless but some get a free pass on the codex for much less mostly because devs are friendly and talk on forum.

How does this adress anything i claimed? Why are you quoting me?
I said its forgettable and it is. Cant remember a single solitary good part of this game. I remember whacking zombies from behind like an asshole and thats about it.

The combat system wqs horrible. And way armor worked. Even with the remastering it is just mildly less worse.

The combat was fine. Problem was that it never evolved.
I may replay it during my vacations, too many games too little time tho.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Dead State was lots of fun despite all the flaws. People keep forgetting that shit was made with 10% of funds PoE or WL2 had. There's only so much you can do with 300k. More unique locations without constant reuse of assets, more late game content and shelter events, couple of changes to combat and it could've been something amazing.

 

[Emily]

Not really i would say its one of the most underrated game, not flawless but some get a free pass on the codex for much less mostly because devs are friendly and talk on forum.

How does this adress anything i claimed? Why are you quoting me?
I said its forgettable and it is. Cant remember a single solitary good part of this game. I remember whacking zombies from behind like an asshole and thats about it.

The combat system wqs horrible. And way armor worked. Even with the remastering it is just mildly less worse.

The combat was fine. Problem was that it never evolved.
I may replay it during my vacations, too many games too little time tho.

The original combat was that if you wore heavy armor a gun or zombies could never harm you. Making the entire zombie aspect meaningless

 

[illuknisaa]

I finished this last year and I think this game would have been amazing if there were decent mod tools. The late game (day 50+) is severely lacking in content and if there was a map editor this could be easily fixed.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I finished this last year and I think this game would have been amazing if there were decent mod tools. The late game (day 50+) is severely lacking in content and if there was a map editor this could be easily fixed.

It's not just lack of content though, it's that you lack reasons to go out and look for more content. More shelter events, more reasons to burn resources through upgrades, and some more locations would do it though.

In any case, it always pains me to see this game at 1$ tier at various bundles. Obsidian/InXile/Larian/HBS all have done very by the book, safe, unimaginative games with their Kickstarters, and even if it was fun, it was also nothing new. Mitsodas at least tried to do something original and for the most part succeeded, ie. integrating base-building and crafting into RPG narrative and having the main characters narrative focus more on the shelter drama rather than a traditional quest structure.

I'd love to see similar style of game but set in a fantasy setting, in a besieged city, where resources are running dry, situation becoming more tense as the game goes on, and different parties trying to rally the defenders or make a deal with the attackers or whatever, and MC having to navigate all that and come out with his head still attached.

 

[Jinn]

I'd love to see similar style of game but set in a fantasy setting, in a besieged city, where resources are running dry, situation becoming more tense as the game goes on, and different parties trying to rally the defenders or make a deal with the attackers or whatever, and MC having to navigate all that and come out with his head still attached.

This. Honestly, I've never tried Dead State because the concept of zombie horror is so stale I can't stomach it anymore. The rest of the game besides that sounds ambitious and interesting. I would really love to play a game like this in a more unique setting.

 

[Zombra]

I'd love to see similar style of game but set in a fantasy setting.

This. I've never tried Dead State because the concept of zombie horror is so stale I can't stomach it anymore.

I don't think a fantasy setting would solve this problem

 

[Jinn]

I don't think a fantasy setting would solve this problem

While there are certainly a good amount of zombies in most fantasy settings, they are very rarely a vital and integral part of the narrative/atmosphere. Therefore, they bother me less in that form. But like he said, something like a besieged city would be great and much more interesting to me.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

It's a cool RPG for sure. Lots of potential in the style and mechanics. I need to play it more but for 20-ish hours it was quality. Barely scratched the surface in that time (I play slow.)

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Dead State's problem wasn't combat, nor it was the zombies. For me, the main problem of the game was the ton of wasted potential, bugs, and "Eh, good enuff" design principles. The game could've been on par with Underrail and AOD if only they hired at least some additional testers and programmers, and also haven't slacked in design like they did. Oscar did a very good job on the graphics with meager resources, and environmental storytelling is sometimes great in the game. But it badly needed additional work in design and programming. They cut off a ton of stuff, zombie virus cure was the most glaring, but it's only one among many. The whole game starts feeling really unfinished at the middle and at the end.

And before someone tells me about financial issues, if it was their labour of love and the first new studio game, they could've at least hire some additional Russian or Belorussian programmers and artists, they work for much less then American ones, tighten their belts and give the game their all. Just look at poor Coles (of QFG fame), they even mortgaged their home just to make their HeroU.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

The game just needed tightening up. To be honest, I really didn't mind the mind-numbingly slow and formulaic combat, the obfuscation of the game's social mechanics, or the copy-paste level design... until the game ran out of content about halfway through. My one and only playthrough ended up with me desperately save-scumming back to a point where I had enough gas to make it through to endgame by rest-spamming because I didn't realize that I had fully explored the map and I just kept sending my car out to burn up gas in the vain hope that I'd find something more of worth. Sure you can make the argument that I was just being a retard, but it doesn't excuse the fact that I had fully exhausted the content of a game on a static time-limit by the halfway point of the time-limit.

Other than that pretty good game. Sad DoubleBear won't get to iterate on the formula.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah I think I also run out of content about day 50. Although to be fair, the ability to abuse sneak to efficiently clean entire maps packed with zombies, without burning any resources or using advanced weapons, is what caused content to run out so quickly. The combat is a slog, so you do anything to get it over with quickly, and then wham, you've picked the entire map clean.

I've actually played it twice, one playthrough on vanilla and one on Reanimated, where they made sneak-sniping zombies much harder, and on Reanimated the content lasted a lot longer. Although I still ended up rest spamming just to trigger the end-game at about...day 70 I think.

 

[Lhynn]

Social interactions was what this game did wrong. The characters werent interesting enough and the player wasnt put in interesting enough situations.
Its the only thing that it needed to get right. Almost every single person in that shelter should have been unhinged, handling them should have been challenging, more so than handling zombies. Retardation and ilogical emotional responses should have been the norm.
Instead everyone is fairly normal, and it kinda feels mundane. Ive had energy cuts more distressing than Dead State zombie apocalypse.

Just take a look at the most successful zombie franchises and you realize human drama is where its at. The player shouldnt have been the leader, just someone working under him because he is good at organizing shit. There should have been real tension between the player and the actual leader, the possibility of overthrowing him if you did things right. The idea of him sending you on suicide scavenges if you got on his bad side, which you would end up doing if you didnt suck up to him, etc. no-win scenarios should have been common ocurrence, regardless of how well the player did.

Also the player character should have been the only one leveling up, to keep the challenge while retaining a sense of progression and to drive home the point of how some useless people are useless, no matter what, they are a burden and getting rid of them would probably be for the better, but its evil and wrong.

So much wasted potential because they didnt get it.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Social interactions was what this game did wrong. The characters werent interesting enough and the player wasnt put in interesting enough situations.
Its the only thing that it needed to get right. Almost every single person in that shelter should have been unhinged, handling them should have been challenging, more so than handling zombies. Retardation and ilogical emotional responses should have been the norm.
Instead everyone is fairly normal, and it kinda feels mundane. Ive had energy cuts more distressing than Dead State zombie apocalypse.

Just take a look at the most successful zombie franchises and you realize human drama is where its at. The player shouldnt have been the leader, just someone working under him because he is good at organizing shit. There should have been real tension between the player and the actual leader, the possibility of overthrowing him if you did things right. The idea of him sending you on suicide scavenges if you got on his bad side, which you would end up doing if you didnt suck up to him, etc. no-win scenarios should have been common ocurrence, regardless of how well the player did.

Also the player character should have been the only one leveling up, to keep the challenge while retaining a sense of progression and to drive home the point of how some useless people are useless, no matter what, they are a burden and getting rid of them would probably be for the better, but its evil and wrong.

So much wasted potential because they didnt get it.

So, you want every character be similar to Mia (stupid sister of that science chick)? If the characters were as stupid and illogical as they are in Walking Dead, then the game would've been even worse and practically unbearable. I hate this trope that in zombie apocalypse people magically become retarded (PTSD doesn't work that way), nobody is thinking straight and everyone is making stupid decisions. If anything, I'd wanted somewhat more capable people in my shelter, in the vein of that Vietnam Vet and Faggot Ranger. Instead I get rapist nerds and manipulative preachers and retarded alt-rock female singers.