Rogue Survivor Alpha 6

[roguedjack]

New new release.
Still Alpha but not really.  

Download & More
Check the blog:
http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/

About

Rogue Survivor is a free zombie survival roguelike sandbox game with unique features and modding support.
The game takes place in a town famous for being the headquarters of the powerful CHAR Corporation.You wake up amidst the chaos and you must find ways to survive.

Survive in the city

    * Play as living or undead.
    * Survive the zombies!... and the humans.
    * The undeads get stronger every day.
    * Find food and shelter... but you're not alone.
    * Reincarnate when you die and continue playing as another character.
    * Graphic tiles, mouse support and musics.

Interact with NPCs

    * Fight raiding gangs.
    * AI controlled survivors are trying to survive just like you.
    * Trade with other survivors.
    * Lead a band of survivors.   
    * Get help from the National Guard.
    * Commit murders...
    * ...but watch out for the police.
    * ...and of course beware the undeads.

A dynamic game world

    * A dynamic procedural world.
    * A city with different districts, buildings, sewers and subway.
    * Push or destroy objects, build barricades.
    * Day/Night cycle.
    * Weather.
    * Things happen all the time, the world is not waiting for you.

Get tools, skills and friends

    * Learn skills by surviving to see a new sunrise.
    * Scavange items and barricading material.
    * Various weapons and items. 
    * Get followers and turn them into useful buddies.

Learn, Customize and MOD

    * In-game manual and hint system.
    * Redefine the keys.
    * Wide range of options to configure the gameplay and the difficulty.
    * Resizable game window, playable on any resolution.
    * More than 10 original musics.
    * Mod the graphics, musics, actors, items and skills.
    * Selection of different rendering and audio engines.


New features are added with each update!
Grab the latest version on the download page!
For Windows systems only.

[roguedjack]

Updated for Alpha 6 release.

[Vanguard]

Looks cool.  I'll have to give it a shot.

[Vanguard]

Alright, well I've played a round of the game, and here's my response:

First, the core concept is good.  It feels like I'm in constant danger, equipment seems valuable, enemies seem dangerous, and all of that.  Fun stuff.  I can't comment on the balance yet since I've only just started with it.

Leveling up based on days survived instead of kills is a nice idea.  Discourages grinding, and encourages playing like a true desperate survivor.

Getting the game running was kind of a pain.  The default sound/graphics options didn't work for me, and I had to download the configuration executable to change them separately from the game itself.

I'm not a fan of keeping saves in the "my documents" folder instead of in the same folder as the game, but I guess that's personal preference.

I also didn't care for the hints the game throws at you as you play.  The concept is fine, but the little reminder is intrusive, and I didn't see a way to turn it off after starting a round.  I recommend a key to turn off future hints at the hint screen instead of only making it available in the options menu.

It's possible to rebind the exit/cancel key from escape to something else, and this can make it impossible to get out of certain menus.  When the aforementioned situation came up, the game resisted my attempts to shut it down.  I'd much rather have the option of using the close button, even if it means losing my save data.

Is there a way to reset keybindings to their defaults?  I didn't see if if there was.

Basically, I think the gameplay itself is fun, but there are a lot of other things that need work.

[roguedjack]

Thanks for the comments.

Getting the game running was kind of a pain.  The default sound/graphics options didn't work for me, and I had to download the configuration executable to change them separately from the game itself.

This is an oversight in this release, the configuration program was supposed to be included in the download.

I'm not a fan of keeping saves in the "my documents" folder instead of in the same folder as the game, but I guess that's personal preference.

Same for me tbh, but some people who use the installer can't find their program files folder. At least everyone knows where their documents folder is.

I also didn't care for the hints the game throws at you as you play.  The concept is fine, but the little reminder is intrusive, and I didn't see a way to turn it off after starting a round.  I recommend a key to turn off future hints at the hint screen instead of only making it available in the options menu.

You can access the options in game to disable the hints. Shift-O. Remember you can access the keys with Shift-K (its in the welcome banner).

It's possible to rebind the exit/cancel key from escape to something else, and this can make it impossible to get out of certain menus.  When the aforementioned situation came up, the game resisted my attempts to shut it down. 

I don't understand this. Why it is impossible? The ESC key doesn't work? Are you running the game on a laptop or notebook?

Is there a way to reset keybindings to their defaults?  I didn't see if if there was.

No.

Basically, I think the gameplay itself is fun, but there are a lot of other things that need work.

Don't hesitate to tell me about these "lot of other things" I'm here for that.

[Vanguard]

I don't understand this. Why it is impossible? The ESC key doesn't work? Are you running the game on a laptop or notebook?

Just a regular desktop computer.  What happened was I accidentally set one of the commands to the escape key in the keybindings menu while I was still getting my bearings in the game.  This apparently made it so ESC was no longer bound to exit/cancel.  Later, I was messing around with firearms, and I attempted to fire when I could see a zombie, but couldn't shoot him.  I couldn't shoot, and ESC wouldn't bring me out of the firing menu because of the keybinding issue, so I was stuck there until I forced the program to close.

Edit:

The combat assistant is a pretty nifty feature.  I've never thought of something like that before.

I really like how the player is just another generic character in the world.  Everyone else can do everything you can do, and you don't get treated like you're special.

Should the player be treated as a murderer for killing another civilian in self defense?

[roguedjack]

I understand the ESC thing. You redefined the key for exit for the game keeps mentioning ESC as the exit key. I'll fix that.

Self-defence counting as murder seems to really annoy the players. I'll add code and data to handle self-defence cases.

[Vanguard]

Is it common knowledge that cars are a survivor's best friend?  I just figured it out last game I played and man, it makes such a difference.  I lasted for over 3 weeks that time.

Do the national guard guys stop showing up or become really rare after a certain amount of time or something?  It seems like there are no NPCs around who can stand up to the undead between the time when the national guard guys stop coming and when the survivors start showing up, and by then the undead have an unbreakable grip on the world.

I understand that it's supposed to be pretty desperate by that point (and it is!) but I think the game is a lot more fun when you're interacting with your fellow survivors.

Do zombies start upgrading automatically after a while?  I see a lot of the zombie princes, but I don't see enough survivors for that many of them to be plausible.

[roguedjack]

Is it common knowledge that cars are a survivor's best friend?  I just figured it out last game I played and man, it makes such a difference.  I lasted for over 3 weeks that time.

Indeed cars barricades can be very effective. But remember that ZMs and high-tier zombified can push them. If you are patient enough you can make very strong barricades. That's ok with me, as you must invest time doing this rather than getting supplies for instance.
I reduced their numbers in 6.0 and might consider adding more restrictions to their usage, such as needing someone to help you pushing them.

Do the national guard guys stop showing up or become really rare after a certain amount of time or something?  It seems like there are no NPCs around who can stand up to the undead between the time when the national guard guys stop coming and when the survivors start showing up, and by then the undead have an unbreakable grip on the world.

I understand that it's supposed to be pretty desperate by that point (and it is!) but I think the game is a lot more fun when you're interacting with your fellow survivors.

Other stuff is supposed to happen that is not implemented yet, but it is supposed to be harder and harder as time pass anyway.

Do zombies start upgrading automatically after a while?  I see a lot of the zombie princes, but I don't see enough survivors for that many of them to be plausible.

Correct.  Invasion events (the midnight zombie thing) bring more and more high-level zombies : each zombie that invade has a % chance to be upgraded, this % increase over time.
The rationale is that they come from other places where they already killed enough people to upgrade.

[That Fellow]

Damn, this game's pretty epic, just decided to say that. You may want to check out the Bay12 page for this, it's pretty active.