ZERO DAY (formerly Survival and Apocalypse Catch-All)

Strangeblades wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

Time for more NEO Scavenger. I hope I live longer than five minutes this time.

I lasted a whole 10 minutes until I was punched to death by a bandit.

I've been punched, shot, shot, shot, shot and shot some more. And then I think an animal killed me. That's when I wasn't starving, crippled or dying of hypothermia. Most of the time I was still wearing my freakin' hospital gown.

I found some stylin' blue jeans, a hoodie, and like 5 boots in my first few minutes. And a shotgun with .308 rounds. That's like having a car with only 3 wheels on it; so close, but so far away.

Have you managed to die from the elements yet? Is that even possible?

It felt like I was dying. Does that count? ;)

I suppose.

I lasted all of 45 seconds this time. I checked out a building, only to have the roof collapse and injure me. This attracted the attention of a looter with a meat cleaver. I had only my trusty fists and drafty hospital gown to rely on. "No biggy", I thought. "Melee is one of my specialties".

I guess "meat cleaving" was one of his.

Alright. Here we go. Going to break the 10 minute mark in NEO Scavenger. EDITED: I broke it.

I'm playing it smart this time. Starting skills were: Eagle Eye (to better spot bandits), Medic (to heal wounds delivered to me by bandits), Tracking (to hide MY tracks from bandits) and Hiding (to uh, hide, from bandits.) I should be safe now.

FIRST DAY
OK. I've wandered far from the cryo tube I woke up in. Hiding, Eagle Eying, Track Hiding. Good stuff so far.

I found a deserted town. Found two right-footed shoes. Managed to slip them on both feet. That must be uncomfortable. I found a plastic bag. Ate some saltine crackers. Crippled by a bandit after leaving the town. Everything's normal.

Started heading towards this light in the east. I check the mini-map and man it's far. Heading there now.

SECOND DAY
Accidentally took off my character's pants while alt-tabbing back and forth between the Open Office program I am using to write this post and the demo window of NEO Scavenger. I put my dude's pants back on. I think he is suspicious of me now.

...many hexes crossed later...

In my journey eastwards I found some white/yellow berries. I clicked on them to put them in my empty soup can but my guy just ate them. Maybe he did it to spite me.

...several hexes and a dozen angry glances later...

Ate some red berries. Still not dead.

...hmm. More hexes crossed....

THIRD DAY
Jackpot. I found some mushrooms and several gulps of water. I still don't have an empty water bottle to put water in. I found a stiff branch. Kidding aside, I feel pretty good about my guy's chances. He went from just a hospital gown with only a necklace to straight-up hobo with a stick.

As in previous turns at this game I am gathering trash in my plastic bag. Loose string, some wires, twigs, etc. Hopefully, I will be able to start a fire as I am now freezing. Dang, my pants came off again.

I love it. I made it to the city and I'm making a living in the shanty-town outside this walled paradise. I sold several plastic bags for an empty water bottle. Have I said, I'm living the dream? 'Cause I am.

Cool. I just met a guy who says he can get into Detroit Mega City (DMC). I tried earlier but the guards told me I didn't have a device. Next up is a simple retrieve mission. Find an urn and get a pass to the good life, the other side of the wall and into the DMC. Sounds easy enough.

Tamren wrote:

Decided to check out NEO Scavenger.

The first thing I see is a series of pictures of the developer applying lipstick so he can kiss all of the thank-you postcards.

Nice.

Yes. This man will have my money *rawrr* when the time is right. And when the game is released.

Cripes this game is hard. I haven't had a single game where I wasn't crippled within the first 60 seconds. Unless you specifically take survival traits like tracking and trapping this game is pretty much a "stumble around until you die/starve" simulator. I have no idea how you got to DMC. I can barely get a quarter of the way there.

The best strategy I've found is to take athletics, night vision, hiding, tracking, medicine, and either then trapping or botany, along with myopia and feeble to get the extra two slots. I'm bought the basic beta access, so somethings I talk about might not be in the demo.
Athletics gives you an extra action point.
Night vision lets you get more loot and makes injuring yourself while scavenging less likely.
Hiding makes it far less likely you'll attract an enemy while scavenging, and lets you sneak, which makes it far easier to run away from them.
Tracking helps keep any enemies you do come across from following you (stacks really well with sneaking) and helps you find more loot in wilderness areas.
Trapping lets you make a squirrel snare, to get more loot from forests, and allows you to skin any squirrels you catch and make gloves and a coat out of them. It will also reduce the chances of you setting off a booby trap while scavenging.
Botany lets you identify the various mushrooms and berries you come across. Some of them are poisonous and will cause you to dehydrate extremely fast. Blue berries are almost always edible, red ones are poisonous about 75% of the time, and white ones are almost always poisonous. Mushrooms are 50/50, but there's no way to tell which is which without botany. It also gives you a higher chance of finding loot in an open field, which usually means more water.
You won't need to worry about combat skills or vision range since you aren't attracting many enemies, and you can easily lose the ones you do attract. There are a few randomly spawning enemies, but out of a dozen games, I've only run into them once. There's no practical use of the mechanic, hacking, or electrician skills outside of the cryo lab. Carry weight isn't much of a concern. I can run around (with feeble) with two backpacks full of stuff and a crowbar or rifle and only be down 1 action point due to being burdened (which athletics makes up for). Lockpicking lets you build a lockpick, which is useful for finding more loot in buildings.

Something else to keep in mind is to hold off drinking anything until you can boil the water. You'll need a fire, water, and either a tin can or a metal pot. To use a tin can, you need a tiny fire, which is made by combining a lighter and either a newspaper or a handful of twigs. Boiling water this ways is ineffective since you'll need to recreate the fire each time. To use a pot, you need a campfire, which is made by either adding a stick to an existing tiny fire, or by adding a stick to the tiny fire recipe if you don't want the extra step. Once you have a campfire, you'll combine it with the pot and the water again, but this time the fire won't dye out. You can still drink most bottled water you find. Purified water in a bottle will have a price of $6 ($1 for the bottle and $5 for the water), unpurified water in a bottle will have a price of $2 ($1 for both the bottle and the water).

I do not play play many survival games, but I did really enjoy Fallout: New Vegas's hardcore mode. Crafting and managing escalating needs added a lot more tension to enemy encounters and made looting feel like scrounging. I hope Bethesda keeps that feature in for Fallout 4. The New Vegas hardcore mode combined with a more radioactive and bleak wasteland sounds like survivalist fun. My first Mall Crawl in Fallout 3 was intense, desperate, and one of the best gaming experinces of my life.

I really enjoyed trying to survive in Neo Scavenger, but I yielded the best (story)results by just high-tailing it towards the light immediately. I would only stop to pick up anything that might be laying around without scavenging. That forwarded the story to the point where Beta folks can't go any further. I prefer my feeble attempts at survival to the dash to the end, but I was curious what was over there.

One game hasn't been mentioned here and totally deserves a place in this thread (even though it has its own one): Die2Nite. I have fond memories of a few towns I managed to play with several other goodjers and man did we last a long time, as old man Prozac can attest.

In short: you are thrown with 39 other citizens into an old, desolate town and have to survive the ever increasing onslaught of zombies for as long as possible. Everything happens in real time (1 game day is one day), you scavenge wastelands for usable scraps and hidden derelict buildings.

The whole game is just rife with emergent strong stories: that time the guy saved you from zombies just three minutes before the start of the attack? The feeling of loss when you had to close the gates before the attack and leave one of your friends outside, because he didn't manage to get back in time? The feelings of camaraderie when you went scavenge hunting through zombie-infested parts of the map, knowing full well that staying behind would mean death? The relief of just barely avoiding the zombies getting into your town? The quick execution of a griefer? The game is full of those moments.

True, it demands a dedicated group of non-jerks, but with this in place it's pretty much an unforgettable experience. At least twice we managed to get to 20+days of survival (average is four).

Man, now I want to get back. Die2Nite, anyone?

What are some recipies for NEO Scavenger? I figured out how to make fire. But a bunch of other things like making snares and lockpicks I can't figure out.

Just had an hour sucked away by NEO Scavenger. Killed by a bandit the first time. Died of thirst the second time. Is there a way to collect water when it's raining? And what do the little red icons mean on a hex?

wanderingtaoist wrote:

One game hasn't been mentioned here and totally deserves a place in this thread (even though it has its own one): Die2Nite. I have fond memories of a few towns I managed to play with several other goodjers and man did we last a long time, as old man Prozac can attest.

In short: you are thrown with 39 other citizens into an old, desolate town and have to survive the ever increasing onslaught of zombies for as long as possible. Everything happens in real time (1 game day is one day), you scavenge wastelands for usable scraps and hidden derelict buildings.

The whole game is just rife with emergent strong stories: that time the guy saved you from zombies just three minutes before the start of the attack? The feeling of loss when you had to close the gates before the attack and leave one of your friends outside, because he didn't manage to get back in time? The feelings of camaraderie when you went scavenge hunting through zombie-infested parts of the map, knowing full well that staying behind would mean death? The relief of just barely avoiding the zombies getting into your town? The quick execution of a griefer? The game is full of those moments.

True, it demands a dedicated group of non-jerks, but with this in place it's pretty much an unforgettable experience. At least twice we managed to get to 20+days of survival (average is four).

Man, now I want to get back. Die2Nite, anyone?

Just added to the list to check out. I played it a bit myself but got distracted by something shiny. I'm willing to hit it up again.

Die2Nite has got this?

IMAGE(http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/ab221/Strangeblades/Survival%20and%20Post-Apocalyptic%20Games%20Catch%20All/Die2Nite.png)

How come nobody told me?

Lone Survivor just got an RPS review.

If you want the game's full effect I would skip the review and try the game. Even the review's author mentions how difficult it was to convey his experiences without spoiling the game/mood. He does a good non-spoiley job though.

OK, NeoScav sounds Awesome! Are there any Coop games like that? I tend to only play coop games anymore; its how I stay in touch with my friends that moved to other states.

No love for Banner saga? It's a different setting for a post-apocalyptic game, but it is definitely a survival game (or will be, anyway). The basic premise is that the Norse gods have gone, and your clan has to find a way to survive in a dying world. According to the Kickstarter campaign, this will involve resource management, clan/survivor/morale management, and, of course, lots of fighting (Final Fantasy Tactics-style). I'm really digging the direction Stoic is going with this-- rotoscoped and hand-animated characters on painterly backgrounds, it looks like a game that won't be so much about surviving the crazies that are left after an apocalypse, as figuring out how to move on with your lives after a cataclysm (while fighting the crazies that are left after an apocalypse).

PS. I'm EXTREMELY tempted by NEO Scavenger, but I just don't have the time! THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!!!

WipEout wrote:

No love for Banner saga? It's a different setting for a post-apocalyptic game, but it is definitely a survival game (or will be, anyway). The basic premise is that the Norse gods have gone, and your clan has to find a way to survive in a dying world. According to the Kickstarter campaign, this will involve resource management, clan/survivor/morale management, and, of course, lots of fighting (Final Fantasy Tactics-style). I'm really digging the direction Stoic is going with this-- rotoscoped and hand-animated characters on painterly backgrounds, it looks like a game that won't be so much about surviving the crazies that are left after an apocalypse, as figuring out how to move on with your lives after a cataclysm (while fighting the crazies that are left after an apocalypse).

There's tons of love for Banner Saga ... I just don't think there's enough of it out there quite yet to get excited about in this thread.

Oh yeah, I was just joking about no love for it in the above list, since there's a "coming up" portion I figured it was appropriate to the thread.

Banner Saga is still in the works, but its spiritual predecessor King of Dragon Pass is around for over a decade. Most recently you can play its iOS reincarnation, it's one of the best games for the platform and a true "gamer's game". You manage a clan that has to survive the harsh winters, flourish among other warring tribes and in the end unite other clans with you as the titular King of Dragon Pass. You wage wars, steal cattle, appease gods, take slaves (or free them, your choice), make expeditions to far away hostile places inhabited by dragons (or so the legends say). Several hundred of interactive scenes happen depending on your progress, requiring you to make a decision, which is never simply right or wrong. It's like a huge choose-your-own-adventure book combined with deep SimTribe, has wonderful writing, lavish illustration and oozes atmosphere. It's ten bucks on AppStore, but totally worth it, I played 20-30 hours and it still offers tons of replayability.

Tamren wrote:

What are some recipies for NEO Scavenger? I figured out how to make fire. But a bunch of other things like making snares and lockpicks I can't figure out.

In the beta there are little scraps of paper that have recipes on them littered throughout the world. I'm not sure if they're also in the demo or not, but here's all the recipes I've found:

Lockpick: lockpick skill + handful of metal junk (8, I think)
Snare: trapping skill + stick + handful of string (2 or 3)
Tin-can alarm: tin can + handful of metal junk + handful of string (this will wake you if an enemy comes near while you're sleeping)
Squirrel meat: dead squirrel + multi-tool
Squirrel meat & pelt: dead squirrel + multi-tool + trapping skill
Squirrel pelt glove: squirrel pelt (2 or 3) + handful of string (3)
Squirrel pelt jacket: squirrel pelt (20) + handful of string (10)
Tiny fire: newspaper/handful of twigs + lighter
Campfire: newspaper/handful of twigs + stick + lighter
Campfire: tiny fire + stick
Cooked Squirrel: squirrel meat + stick + tiny fire or campfire (supposedly you can store it in a tin can with ash from a burned out fire to keep it edible longer, I've never tried it though)
Boiled water in pot: campfire + water + metal pot
Boiled water in tin can: tiny fire + water + tin can
Purified water: water + purifying tablet
Edible berries: berries + botany skill
Poisonous berries: berries + botany skill
Edible mushroom: mushroom + botany skill
Poisonous mushroom: mushroom + botany skill
Rifle w/ sling: rifle + sling + multi-tool + handful of metal junk
Rifle w/ scope: rifle + scope + multi-tool + handful of metal junk

WipEout wrote:

Oh yeah, I was just joking about no love for it in the above list, since there's a "coming up" portion I figured it was appropriate to the thread.

Oh there's interest in Banner Saga. I just ain't gotten around to it yet.

WipEout wrote:

PS. I'm EXTREMELY tempted by NEO Scavenger, but I just don't have the time! THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!!!

You get me, bro.

WipEout wrote:

PS. I'm EXTREMELY tempted by NEO Scavenger, but I just don't have the time! THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!!!

The best thing about the Neo Scavenger demo so far is that I've lost within 10 minutes 3 times.

My second play I was starving and came across some berries. The colors and look were described in the game but I have no knowledge about berries so I skipped eating them because they could have been poisonous. The next turn I got murdered with a meat cleaver.
This game is fantastic.

It also is a great showing of how old school game design (turn based, tiles, most of the interaction is through menus) still holds merit and can actually make for a much more solid game. This game wouldn't work on the level it can work the way it is if it was an FPS or real time.

I hope the final build implements procedural generation for the maps at least as a side game mode.

I want NEO Scavenger to have no story. Just me hunting for balls of twine to sell for a crappy water bottle - with no water.

Oooo. Stalker Call of Pripyat(?) has a ridiculous mod, Stalker:Misery for ultra-hardcore gameplay. I really hope my gun jams and the magazine explodes. Can't be a survival game if my guy finishes with all of his fingers. The mod and relevant info can be found here at ModDB.

Oh and new game added. If anyone's got some info or deets Wikipedia does not let me know and I will include them in the up-top description. Oh and the game is The Last Of Us

Does someone know how to link the game names up top to the entries below? So if you click on a game name it takes you to the entry instantly instead of having to scroll down?

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

Does someone know how to link the game names up top to the entries below? So if you click on a game name it takes you to the entry instantly instead of having to scroll down?

AFAIK you can't do that with BB code

edit: looks like the html doesn't work either

test

test

edit2: it totes works

I'm sorry, but what is 'totes works'? Does that mean it 'totally works?'

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

Does someone know how to link the game names up top to the entries below? So if you click on a game name it takes you to the entry instantly instead of having to scroll down?

AFAIK you can't do that with BB code

edit: looks like the html doesn't work either

test

test

edit2: it totes works
Quote my post and see the code I used for the test text. The href in the anchor should link to the id of what's in the strong tag, which just bolds the text.

Got it and thanks.

Strangeblades wrote:

I'm sorry, but what is 'totes works'? Does that mean it 'totally works?'

If anybody ever asks you how old you are, from this day forward you can reply "very, very old."