Dead State Zombie RPG Revealed - interview
(hx) 09:08 PM CEST - Aug,25 2010
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The zombie RPG from Obsidian/Troika veteran Brian Mitsoda had
so far been known only under its codename, ZRPG, but now Rock, Paper, Shotgun has the reveal on its
title, Dead State, along with screenshots
and an interview. Here's an excerpt:
RPS: Can you elaborate on your vision of zombies? What are you
trying to evoke in the game? What kind of things have influenced you?
Brian Mitsoda: On paper, our zombies are really not
supposed to be threatening. They're dumb, they're slow, they're
unorganized - your very basic shambling corpse. They're only dangerous
when you forget about them. Make too much noise, get cornered, ignore
them - that's when they get dangerous. Most games deal with a Night of
the Living Dead scenario where you have to survive one night, one wave,
one map. We're dealing with a long-term zombie threat, where you have
to worry about keeping people fed, friends getting bit and infected
while scavenging, and the desperation of other human beings. Honestly,
the game is not about the zombies, but about how people react to a
crisis and what they are willing to do to other human beings and even
members of their group to stay alive or protect their own. The zombies
are just a cause, like economic collapse or a massive earthquake, and
it's really the human self-preservation instinct and the survivor
mentality that we're interested in portraying.
I think the interesting thing about a disaster is this mentality that
everything is going to be okay - that 'someone' is going to come in and
save me, of course. This idea that as long as you aren't in immediate
danger, you can keep your head down and hope the problem will go away.
We're short-term thinking creatures and we don't like to think of the
big picture implications of our actions - global warming, borrowing
money, cutting education/space spending. I think rationally we want to
believe the governments of the world would mobilize quick enough to
stop a zombie plague (only infected people rise from the dead in our
game) but I think that generally we're only mobilized when we are
directly threatened. By the time people start to notice the dead
walking in their neck of the woods, the problem has spread beyond
containment. The zombies in Dead State are a faceless (sometimes
literally) force and dealing with the zombie problem is a lot like
waging a war on an ideal.
RPS: The Combat system will be turn-based, without full party
control - though with room for you to equip characters - and heavy on
psychological modelling. What are you trying to evoke with the system?
Brian Mitsoda: As I was mentioning earlier, we
wanted to make our allies feel as though they were individuals rather
than extensions of the player. They can be ordered around by the
player, but as to whether they will follow that order or not depends on
their ability, their aversion to the task, and their respect for the
player's commands. That might make it sound like they will NEVER do
anything you say, but really what it means is if your ally is scared of
zombies and you tell him to run into a pack of zombies, he's most
likely going to ignore the order or do it and possibly start panicking
as the zombies start to mob him. Each ally has different perks and
personalities, and most of these can be altered by your interaction
with them. Through dialogue/time they might grow to respect you and be
more likely to put themselves in danger to protect you or your
encouragement might make them fearlessly aggressive - there's quite a
few ways you can shape their behavior, and not always in healthy,
feel-good back-patting.
The big difference in our group and something like Jagged Alliance is
these are normal people with little to no combat experience, not a
veteran squad of commandos, so they handle like you'd expect them to.
It's best to think of them as intelligent Gradius options - they're
there to assist and absorb damage. They make combat much easier than
going it alone, but they can die and you're really going to have to
work at it to bring everyone home all the time. Sometimes you may have
to let someone go to get the rest of your group out safely. If everyone
else is at the rally point and one ally is still in that house
surrounded by ten zombies, let 'em go, 'cause they're gone.
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