Urban Strife - turn-based zombie survival RPG - now available on Early Access

[Alienman]

Project Haven looks kind of nice, but it gives nuXCom vibe.

Gameplay wise it's the opposite of nuXcom. It got time-unites with realistic ballistics, etc.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Brothers behind Cyber Knights: Flashpoint have tendency for tight and deep mechanics and upgrading and fixing games over years.
But this is their first tacticool RPG - they were doing mostly space trading games before, so we will see

Not really.
They made Templar Battleforce and Heroes of Steel, which both are decent tacticools.

 

[ropetight]

Brothers behind Cyber Knights: Flashpoint have tendency for tight and deep mechanics and upgrading and fixing games over years.
But this is their first tacticool RPG - they were doing mostly space trading games before, so we will see

Not really.
They made Templar Battleforce and Heroes of Steel, which both are decent tacticools.

You are right - I even bought them, but forgot bout those twwo.
I hope that jump in graphics quality will not mean dumbing down of the game.

Trese Brothers made like 300 updates/patches to the Star Traders: Frontiers - I doubt they are finished yet.
Lots of different mechanics and complexity in that game.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Wait, isnt End State 1 Finnish man job that was dead in the water years ago while he made crappy mobile shovelware?

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Well, it only took us a year (actually a bit more) and we're back with another Urban Strife public demo. We've had some discussions within the team and with some of our veteran testers and we've decided that the best option will be to release an updated Prologue demo, now with a functional base and economy. In addition to that we've redone a lot of the inventory interface, animations and mechanics because looting was one of the major gripes testers had with the game back in 2021. A lot of other improvements have taken place, but we won't spoil your surprise.

You won't get perks & weapon attachments yet (I mean true "JA2 style" attachment system, not just a crafting/combo recipe), those are slated for somewhere next month, but there will be 2 more festivals after this one and we'll show up at each of them with new features. You also won't actually build anything in Prologue (since that's the scope of the prologue, to rescue the architect of the Shelter and start upgrading it). But the survival economy will function and everything you loot will be of importance to that.

 

[jackofshadows]

Well, it only took us a year (actually a bit more) and we're back with another Urban Strife public demo.

I'm curious: is there any significant progress been made backstage regarding content or you're just still shaping up this slice of the game basically?

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Actually in the last year the focus has been on the main campaign (outside these prologue sectors). The mid-late game maps are in production as we speak and should be ready for combat and rpg scripting early next year. Being present at 3 festivals is an element of disturbance but on the other hand will get us to be very disciplined and strict with progress.

The prologue has benefited indirectly from the development. We haven't prepped it for the purpose of the demo, on the contrary, it feels now more as part of the main game than an isolated bit. We debated whether to show the prologue or go for a newer map in the demo but in the end the consensus was that it's better to give those who didn't play the prologue a chance to do it while those who already played will hopefully appreciate the improvements.

If you are curious about the other maps, check our dev blogs:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/710230/allnews/

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

We're scheduled to be featured on Friday @ #TurnBasedFest on twitch.tv/Zemalf stream. The stream will start at 12 EST / 17 GMT and that's when we'll launch the new demo. We'll be on the chat answering questions for the duration of the stream. We also have Zemalf some full release keys to give away during the event. Demo, of course, will require no keys, just a Steam account.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[agris]

To make it easy for people, here's the demo:

release note

The new Urban Strife demo is launching Friday, December 9th, during an official launch party hosted on Zemalf, starting at 12 EST (17 GMT).

Urban Strife is joining another 300 turn-based games or so for the #TurnBasedFest event and you'll be able to download and play the demo for the entire duration. We'll come back with an updated demo in January and again, in February, for Spring NextFest!

The new demo is built on the latest production Unreal Engine (4.27) and thus comes with native 4k support. The entire interface has been upgraded to this new resolution, with some changes/improvement and additions to the shelter economy and looting HUD.

Speaking of looting, the entire system has been reworked, based on Loot Areas (more details in our DevBlogs) and container item preferences and should make more sense. No more pants found in fridges and no more spam cans rescued out of toilets. Cars and containers also change visual state when looted - that will also come in handy to quickly figure out what's up for grabs.

Combat wise we're on the second AI iteration and working on third already. The weapon load-out has been adjusted for all INTENDED enemies to fit the early game states of the Prologue. There are still main factions representatives present as an introduction to the game story and you can attack them, but beware, they're much well armed than a poor scavenger.

Finally, the main RPG quest lines have been streamlined for more logical completion. And there will be a looming shelter crisis you need to keep an eye on due to low resources, so make sure you do not forget about the folks back home. There will be NPCs in the base that will take your looted food (Kitchen Chef), medicine (Doctor) and morale (Mayor) items if you care to donate them.

Hope you'll enjoy the updates to the game and have a good time playing the demo!

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Also the biggest change affecting combat are the zombie spawners. People playing the old demo complained the zombies were too few and harmless, not fit for a zombie apocalypse. Now with the spawner mechanic if you play bad you get yourself in trouble with them asap. Spawners look like piles of dead people and are scattered in various places. Each of them has a total number of waves, consisting of X number of zombies (depending on difficulty), but only IF they are alerted. You can destroy the spawners by burning the bodies with a molotov cocktail.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is the new demo out already?

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

It's been out since Friday? If you want to install it today might be the last day you can do that. Festival is over tomorrow and it will be taken offline for fixes and upgrades.

 

[agris]

It's been out since Friday? If you want to install it today might be the last day you can do that. Festival is over tomorrow and it will be taken offline for fixes and upgrades.

Taking your demo offline continues to be a really puzzling move to me. If one of the goals is to build buzz through word-of-mouth via players, severely restricting people's ability to try your game to some narrow slice of days is completely incongruent with that.

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

It's not a decision we've taken on a whim.

 

[luj1]

Also the biggest change affecting combat are the zombie spawners. People playing the old demo complained the zombies were too few and harmless, not fit for a zombie apocalypse. Now with the spawner mechanic if you play bad you get yourself in trouble with them asap. Spawners look like piles of dead people and are scattered in various places. Each of them has a total number of waves, consisting of X number of zombies (depending on difficulty), but only IF they are alerted. You can destroy the spawners by burning the bodies with a molotov cocktail.

Good idea, I like it

Please don't make this game too easy and zombies too harmless

Dying Light 1 is totally a different game than Urban Strife, but they had some nice ideas about zombies and day/night cycle, just saying

Do you have any different kind of zombies or zombie dynamics except horde AI and spawners?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

It's not a decision we've taken on a whim.

So is the demo going to be back online again?

 

[luj1]

The new Urban Strife demo is launching Friday, December 9th, during an official launch party hosted on Zemalf, starting at 12 EST (17 GMT).

Deserves to be posted on the front page, but 1) it doesn't involve Sawyer, 2) it's a real RPG, and 3) Shillfinitron didn't get free copies

 

[Maggot]

I had no idea the demo was even out, this should have been front page news.

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

We'll have a new demo (probably) at a Steam festival in January and 100% we'll be attending Steam NextFest in February. The January participation depends a lot of we can isolate the base building part somehow and showcase it and might be too much of a headache so it's not yet a certainty. Our programmer can only work 26 hours a day and no more, when all is said and done...

The zombies will always be kept "vanilla" with no additional skills, like fast attacks or exploding zombies (State of Decay comes to mind). But... if lets say a base of fully geared soldiers becomes infected, you will face zombies in full kevlar gear. Good luck scoring headshot kills with .22 then. Other than that, we plan to keep the variations "natural", as they would've occurred in an alternate reality. We tried a small example in the demo with the bus victims. They were "fresh" zombies, hours since they turned so we didn't use the standard zombie body type, but normal refugees that moved and behaved like zombies. Funny enough, some thought our zombie models looked too much like civilians (duh!). But you get the idea.

 

[Harthwain]

Our programmer can only work 26 hours a day and no more, when all is said and done...

Senpai, teach me your ways!

 

[Maggot]

Gameplay is still great, but the dialogue could use some proofreading. Not a big fan of the new portraits either.

 

[PanteraNera]

Lol second time I missed the chance to try out the demo. Well on the bright side, it is for the better, I don't want to get to excited and waiting till 2025 for release.

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Just keep in mind we'll have a demo at the Spring NextFest 100%. Maybe one in January at smaller fest, not sure yet.

 

[spectre]

I just got told about the game yesterday and downloaded the demo with big plans to give it a serious spin today.... fuck me, right?