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

[PanteraNera]

Have you tried the Project Haven demo too, brother? Another game that, along with Urban Strife, can give JA3 a run for its money.

Damn bro, I totally forgot about the game! It looks much much much more polished to what I remember. Thanks for reminding me!

 

[PanteraNera]

Come play the Urban Strife Prologue Demo at Spring NextFest!
The updated Prologue with economy NPCs and base upgrades is finally here!

After a much too short appearance in December, we promised you an improved Prologue Demo, one that embeds most of your feedback and adds more of the economy/survival layer to the mix. The time has come to reveal the new build, so we welcome you to come and try it. Below are a couple of the main features you might want to check out.

Complete overhaul of most of the HUD
The inventory/backpack has been completely redesigned, with a new player equipment and health chart that dynamically shows you the body parts that are bleeding/bandaged, the stats affected by the wounds and the debuffs you might carry. While here you might also notice the item filters present on all inventories, including a nice new SORT button to order those massive loot hauls. And we’ve begun to add new hover windows to items and HUD, showing shortcuts and other useful information. Crafting was overhauled too, but the good stuff there (attachments, armor, throwables, etc) is still in the works.

You can finally expand the Shelter!
Exploring the Shelter you should be aware that all the economy NPCs now also have a quest for you to build them a specific base upgrade. Ask them to show you the blueprints and you’ll see what they can build and what the costs in materials are and get to it! And speaking of materials, seek out Mr. Fulton-Vine in the courtyard, he will gladly take any recyclable parts, old guns, tools, spare gas. Then he will kindly stash those into the base meters, from where you can deduct them to build your upgrades (and in the future, other useful stuff, such as bullets, armor, optical kits, etc).

New map modes & no more free meals
You might also see a couple of references to “scavenger teams”. If you check out the new map you will see that there’s a WIP mode called SCOUT/SUPPLY. These are teams of refugees that you will able to send out to discover new locations for you and, once you’ve cleared them of enemies, basically haul home everything that’s not bolted down. So no more meals for free, everyone’s contributing to the common good soon! Speaking of travel, by building the Garage upgrade, you will be able to salvage certain cars and use them as squad transport, starting with Sheriff Rogers’ old police cruiser. For this to happen you would need to get rid of Lino Cesare and his thugs first though, so no, you won’t (yet) show off your new old car in the demo, but it’s coming.

First batch of QoL improvements and more coming...
We’ve given you more leeway with the impending resource crisis, compared to December build, so now you have a bit more time before any real drama happens. But this is for demo purposes only – in the main game you will have to get those refugees to work and start scavenging and building or you will have them hungry, sick and rioting ASAP. Now with all that loot, you can try visiting the traders (Honest Joe in Little Italy or Private Benny in Old Port) and check out their updated interface, showing numerical info about how they smile and rob you in clear daylight. But hey, if you don’t like what’s on offer, you can always pull out a gun and try robbing them back. If you can hold you own against bikers or soldiers armed to the teeth that is…

ENJOY!

 

[Lhynn]

We paint the world as we see it. Pompous pretentious heiress will speak like a pompous pretentious heiress, an uneducated redneck will speak like an uneducated redneck and a chinese agent that wants to pass for a poor immigrant will speak like a poor immigrant.

If that's woke, we might have different definition of wokeism.

Long as a tranny doesnt speak like a woman.

 

[Dexter]

Finally gave this a go, probably because it looks less Shovelware-y with the new portraits and some of the UI changes. The game starts with a Tutorial where a young woman named Kaylee saves (Player character) by using bandages and adrenaline after an ambulance crashed and was attacked by a horde of zombies on the highway near Atlanta, Georgia. This leads you to a simplistic character creation screen where wearing a cap is a "hair type".

ALT to highlight lootables. Turn-based Mode triggered upon combat initiation or coming into sight/hearing range of enemies. AP for actions like shooting, movement, reload (remaining AP are displayed to the right of a character's name - which for some reason isn't made clear and I only found out about after I started counting bubbles). Crouch for Stealth. Melee weapons and Crossbows are silent. SHIFT+LMB to target body parts like Torso or Head. After a brief combat Tutorial you are led to the Shelter in Urban City (hence the name of the game) where you are introduced to its leaders and your starting companions. There's various characters and elements that try to make it clear that the game is set in the South. Writing, dialogue and characters seem okay aside from the frequent typos and a bit of cringe trying to emulate American accents in text. You are made Sheriff Deputy and sent out on missions for the Shelter to repay them for saving you. You don't have much of a choice about this (or generally in dialogue).

The first party will be (Player character) who has amnesia and doesn't remember much, Kaylee the woman who saved you, probably mentally retarded Sheriff Billy Bo and nurse Lucy Li, a Chinese caricature who has a thing for refugees. Their local enemy is "The Legion" across the river, Roman Empire LARPers with their boss Caesar (Lino Cesare). If you step into homes "Owned" by a faction to look around and are seen, the people inside will attack you. On your first trip outside you'll first fight a band of looters. Combat reminds me a lot of JA2. Q/E to rotate the map. Hide behind objects for cover so the enemies miss, burst through doors/windows and the likes when it's your turn and take the best shot. If you shoot enemies in the head they sometimes fall to the ground dazed and remain dazed, allowing you to finish them off.

There's some resource and building/facilities Upgrade system for the shelter that you'll have to pay attention to regarding food, medical supplies, entertainment to keep up morale, fuel etc. that can lead to a Game Over (the game warns). Don't know about the Meta Base Supply mechanics yet tho, and especially the "real time" part of it, since I usually take my time exploring every nook and cranny of maps, looting everything that isn't bolted down and fighting every enemy available. But it kind of hints at the base becoming somewhat self-sufficient after a few Upgrades, so it might not be an issue down the road. At the very least they should Pause the game while in Menus like reading the diary, looking at the map/shelter Upgrades or in the ESC Menu when you're AFK a bit.

There's Quests that you can stumble upon in the Overworld locations that you can visit. They're indicated by NPCs with a Yellow Exclamation Mark above their head. Some of these seem to be Optional. In the Demo/Prologue there's three areas to explore: Adams Villa, where "The Legion" has their headquarters in a large Villa, The Old Port where the National Guard set up a forward base to combat a Zombie horde plaguing the area and Little Italy where Uncle Joe Hicks set up shop to sell to bikers.

It seems the best tactic against a horde of zombies is "HAMMER TIME!". Walk up to them and plonk them in the head without alerting others nearby. If it's a spawner just place your troops right outside of their reach so that they can walk right up to you but don't have enough AP to actually attack, get its attention with one char, walk back to the others and plonk them in the head as they each come close, since they will all try to get in melee range.

Some weird Loading issues where at the beginning loading the Main Menu or New Game the game appeared stuck and one or two bugs like not being able to loot a corpse that fell wrong inside a bus or near a corner aside, AI seems to still need a bit of work. For instance I took out the Moonshiners by climbing over the fence and hitting them in the head one by one with a crowbar as they were patrolling near the fence for the most part. None of them began to wonder why there's like three dead bodies of their mates lying on the ground at their feet before they were plonked over the head themselves. Took "The Legion" out the same way, here's my Hammer Squad at work sneaking into Caesar's bedroom at 5AM, a Legionnaire patrol before their heads unwittingly became improvised baseballs and a Screenshot I dubbed "The Last Legionnaire":

So yeah, I don't know if it's deliberate to be able to take out the entire Legion without even being attacked once with a HAMMER/BASEBALL BAT squad, but it certainly seems to be the cheese mechanic to use in the game right now. It's too easy and useful. Once you got 4-5 people equipped with Spiked Bats that do 40-75 Damage, usually take an enemy out in one hit SILENTLY (not alarming the horde as opposed to guns) AND knockout an enemy so he's out of the fight upon a successful hit to the head, why would you ever use any other tactic to take out groups of 2-4 enemies? Thus, the most fun fight in the Demo was the first one against the Looters I just stumbled into unprepared, before I became more aware of the mechanics and rushed people into the house to eliminate the ones inside, then found cover near the windows and had stand-off gunfights against the remaining enemies outside. They should probably do something to prevent this from becoming the "Meta" way to play the game. Either change the way blunt melee works, introduce enemies against which it doesn't or that will break up cheese tactics as part of the horde, or bite the bullet and just Alert an entire base outside of specific Stealth missions and balance around that.

Anyway, aside from that this was one of the rare games that I tended to like more the longer I played it. Wishlisted since I overall had a positive impression of it.

Some other Quality of life stuff that would be nice is pooling the inventories on a separate screen while in the Shelter, so you can more easily donate the Supplies at the respective NPCs without having to go through the inventory of every character every single time. This is also annoying when trying to trade Ammo or weapons between characters, because the game doesn't remember which Tab you had open on the last char. So you have to click every character (4-5 of them) and navigate to the "Ammo" Tab for each instead of the game making it easier by just remembering what you last clicked on. After the Caesar raid your entire Squad also starts looking like a party of LARPing Murderhobos themselves instead of keeping their distinctive looks. Maybe have a toggle for helmets or armor with more subdued design that complements characters better later in the game? Or at the very least hide them in Cutscenes at the Shelter, because this shit looks silly:

Another thread on the Codex the devs might want to check out (especially the latter pages): https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/overpaid-voice-actors-seethe-at-being-replaced-by-ai.144805/

Lots more of them Screenshots

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Good feedback, thank you.

A small note, time is paused in menus.
And there will be more types of armor available, less LARP styled.
The melee does seem a bit overpowered atm, especially for a player that knows his stealth tactics. Noted.

Interesting AI tool, we'll check it out.

 

[The_Mask]

The melee does seem a bit overpowered atm, especially for a player that knows his stealth tactics. Noted.

Hand to hand combat being overpowered, especially from stealth should be as intended. Yes, I have an agenda. Yes, I like monks.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Is this gonna be released before my 10yo daughter graduates from college?

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Is this gonna be released before my 10yo daughter graduates from college?

We're tempted to wait and see a 10 year old graduate from college, the world needs more wonder kids. Keep us posted.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Is this gonna be released before my 10yo daughter graduates from college?

We're tempted to wait a see a 10 year old graduate from college, the world needs more wonder kids. Keep us posted.

Sure, I'll post some news in 13 years.

Hopefully the game will be out by then.

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

The melee does seem a bit overpowered atm, especially for a player that knows his stealth tactics. Noted.

Hand to hand combat being overpowered, especially from stealth should be as intended. Yes, I have an agenda. Yes, I like monks.

The monks have more than one trick up their sleeve in Urban Strife.

The demo doesn't really have a weapon progression, it's more of a showcase so yea, you get your hands on some pretty mean stuff that does 300 dmg with a headshot. Everything will be better balanced in the full campaign. But if someone managed to sneak in melee range of a guard, yes, they deserve a reward. You'll be surprised how hard that is for most. Heck we've had a lot die to the zombies on the bridge in the tutorial, nevermind lay waste to the Legion using hammers.

 

[The_Mask]

The monks have more than one trick up their sleeve in Urban Strife.

The demo doesn't really have a weapon progression, it's more of a showcase so yea, you get your hands on some pretty mean stuff that does 300 dmg with a headshot. Everything will be better balanced in the full campaign. But if someone managed to sneak in melee range of a guard, yes, they deserve a reward. You'll be surprised how hard that is for most. Heck we've had a lot die to the zombies on the bridge in the tutorial, nevermind lay waste to the Legion using hammers.

Mersi frumos ca va ganditi si la cei ca mine. Va uresc mult succes!

 

[Dexter]

But if someone managed to sneak in melee range of a guard, yes, they deserve a reward. You'll be surprised how hard that is for most. Heck we've had a lot die to the zombies on the bridge in the tutorial, nevermind lay waste to the Legion using hammers.

I can get dying to the zombies on the bridge, since you don't know the game mechanics yet and are still learning. But Stealth doesn't really require player skill and isn't "rocket surgery". You just hit the "C" button on all characters and they're in Stealth and nobody can see them until they get really close. It would also be slightly different or potentially more difficult if the sight cones weren't visible if you hover over a tile. But since they are and there's usually only groups of 3-4 NPCs blobbed together, most of which don't move at all, all you have to do is switch to a melee weapon and navigate all your characters to a tile close to them that doesn't have the "red eye" symbol. They usually have blind spots behind and to the left and right side of them where you can crouch one tile away. Then just go ahead and attack them, since your characters always have the initiative engaging combat and move first. I just hope this doesn't become a viable tactic for the rest of the game once you've figured that out.

I just reloaded a Save and did a short demonstration so people can see it in action, expires in a day:

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Btw the "alerted by dead allies" is on a long to-do list for the AI, I asked. Also making the surprise attacks from the back the true real killer and less so those from front. And finally, stealth will become more refined once specializations (perks) come into play. Now even an elephant can sneak, that will change.

 

[Stavrophore]

-No party inventory, when one person picks something i can't move it to other person afterwards
Edit: nvm, there's inventory swap between members, disregard my point, although i like shared party inventory with still weight limits applied to particular party member holding items.
-The crafting menu is too much "in your face" feeling.

Otherwise i enjoy the flow of combat.

 

[Old Hans]

here is sneaking behind hordes of mindless biters, tactical combat and gun porn, so fuck the story in this case!

I feel like good solid writing is an important aspect. poorly written characters/plot can really drag everything else down until all your left with is mindlessly looting a bunch of junk like fallout 4

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

That crafting menu will go back to where is was, under its own button. The new 4k UI had to be redone at warp speed for the NextFest and not much time was left for tweaking.

 

[Stavrophore]

Few more things:
-Please merge zombie loot into one corpse
-You give too much shotgun ammo at the first map and thus zombies are not a challenge
-Give short range penalties, introduce panic mechanics, or make zombie hordes bigger to give challenge. Right now you can equip all of your party members with sawn-off shotguns, and they can clear up to 8 zombies without problem using the shot in the face tactic.

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

Did you use sawed-off shotguns to clear the zombies in Port, too? That's bloody impressive since there are about 5 spawns there that would converge on your location.

 

[Stavrophore]

Did you use sawed-off shotguns to clear the zombies in Port, too? That's bloody impressive since there are about 5 spawns there that would converge on your location.

Yes i've just cleared it using sawnoffs only. Im playing normal difficulty. The tactic is to destroy a group of 4, retreat, reload, destroy a group, retreat, reload and so on.

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

That sounds like good tactics, nothing wrong with clearing the Port playing safe, splitting the enemy and having the nerve to blast them from close distance. Did you use birdshot or home made nailshot?

 

[Stavrophore]

nailshot to the head from point blank, adjacent tile. Also can you introduce merging stuff like bandages that are half used to replenish the stack?

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

The shotgun quickly decreases in efficiency with range so if you attempt the above tactic at let's say 3 tiles (a safe "green" range for a pistol), you'd only do 25 dmg (even less, depends where the spread goes) with a headshot instead of 70/oneshot. So you've used the hand cannon exactly as it was supposed to be used, from point blank range and got excellent results. Now, if you somehow run out of ammo or trigger just 1 more zombie and get hit, then this kind of bold tactic immediately becomes suicidal because the wounds would make you lose AP. And without enough AP, you can't shoot twice and reload in the same turn. But you pulled it off and you should feel great about it.

Not sure we need to nerf the 12g nails, though. But it's a thought.

Bandages (and all consumables that had multiple uses) should've been merge capable through rclick context menu. Probably a feature we accidentally disabled. Will fix.

 

[Harthwain]

Now, if you somehow run out of ammo or trigger just 1 more zombie and get hit, then this kind of bold tactic immediately becomes suicidal because the wounds would make you lose AP.

Are the adverse effects from getting bitten by a zombie still planned? Or is there a difference between getting bitten and just getting hit?

 

[USG_Mucifikatorul]

We're still debating the pros and cons of having an infection debuff. I think for now both the bite animation and the effects are turned off.

 

[Stavrophore]

Finished the demo. I don't really comment about quality of writing as im ESL, but from what i can see its your typical zombie post-apo plot, there are some references to pop culture and overall the plot feels more on a funky stuff rather than super-serious, therefore i hope this weirdness can be leveraged to good use, otherwise it might fall flat and cringy if you overdose.

Combat and AI is generally ok with some minor issues. AI will blindly rush sometimes just to get blasted with shotgun in face. I would rather make them sit more and wait for reinforcements. Then later in the game i hope you give them more tools like smoke grenades or suppressing fire[can't look out behind corner to assess situation - enemy can leap frog that way] to make player life harder. Weapon balance is quite good and each weapon class has distinct distance of engagement. I haven't tried slugs - i hope they allow higher range of accurate fire with shotguns.

The stats looks promising and i hope they will be utilized in the game as well as with other perks and abilities. Lock picking, first aid, crafting, auto rifle operator, sniper, shotgun/breech and entry operator, law enforcement/pistol operator, athlete[more AP for movement only]. Allow use of backpacks that expand more carry weight.

I also found another minor problem - enemies when they die, they don't look the same as when they are alive, they don't feature armor model they were wearing.