[Originally posted on 2th of February 2024 ]
“Stealth zombie survival battleground”
TLDR:
Early testing was fun
Zombies are brutal
Died to hunger more than battle
Punishing on hardware
Enjoyable concept that needs work
How to play
Test session live on Epic at set times
Game Loop
Before jumping into the map you select your avatar - currently, there are only 2 choices - mechanically the same, but with different appearances.
After clicking play you are randomly dropped into the map
The location is populated with a variety of buildings and areas that you would expect in a city
Using the in-game map you can see special areas, such as the police station, as well as a highlighted area
This highlighted area is where the extraction helicopter will be during the extraction period
But you need to survive long enough to make it to extraction
You have health, stamina, water, and food meters.
The food and water meters go down over time, so you must search for food and water.
Your stamina limits how many times you can attack, if you haven’t found a weapon yet you’ll be doing this with your fists.
You’ll find weapons, food, water, medicines, and valuables in the various locations.
These valuables have a points value attached to them. These points decide where you position on the leaderboard.
However, your points mean nothing if you die.
There is a final type of item you’ll find in the game - these are briefcases that contain NFTs. If you extract with these you get the NFTs.
Whilst you are doing all of this zombies are trying to kill you, as well as potentially some players.
You have several goals, collect as many valuables points as possible, be 1 of the 3 players able to extract
As only 3 players can extract, this puts pressure on any teams you form with other players.
If you die you have to start all over again in a new round.
Game feel
With it being an early build it is very punishing on your hardware - at one point using 15gb of memory.
Due to this even on my rig (which is very decent) some of the gameplay was a little choppy
However, I did enjoy the overall aim of the game
Once you get the hang of the controls movement and searching become easy
The attack animations were always the same, so after a few attacks it was easy to understand how to combat the zombies
That being said the zombies weren’t messing around - they only needed to attack you once or twice to take you down
But even then I mainly died of hunger - only parts of the buildings are open, so finding food can be a bit hit or miss
I do like the water and health meter as keeps you moving, but either there needs to be more food or it decreases slower
It also always felt like it was night even though extraction was normally after about 3 or 4 days
Having 3 people able to extract was a good choice mechanic - once extraction started you could either keep gathering points and hope no one extracted first or just rush the point with your current score
I didn’t get to explore all the map, so there is potential for replayability with getting dropped in different spawns each time.
Rating
The idea and mechanics were enjoyable
The choppy play was a bit frustrating
Dying of hunger in a zombie game is underwhelming
I did enjoy myself and am going to keep an eye on the project
I wouldn’t rate it yet as it still feels too early.
Web3 integration
The survivors are NFTs
Some of the equipment you find and extract with are NFTs
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