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Cat Brained from State of Decay. =^_^=
12 years ago
Why am I cat brained?
Wellll... okay, here we go in no particular order.
I've submitted a piece of work for consideration by a publisher. I do not want to name names or anything like that for fear of jinxing it, but needless to say this has me rocking in my seat every time the email light flashes on my phone. It's almost as bad as auditions from back in high school... and the only thing I ever remembered from those was that I never got into anything. :P
So, to help kill the tension, I bought the Breakdown DLC for State of Decay. BIG MISTAKE.
State of Decay, for all it's bugs and occasional weirdness, has to be the second most addictive game to play I've ever gotten my hands on. The first being Xenogears. But I'll save my Xenogears rant for another time *FISTSHAKE AT MONOLITH!*
If you've ever played this game, I am sure that you are well aware of what I am talking about, but if not, I will give you a breakdown of the game.
State of Decay is the bastard child of GTA and Left 4 Dead. It is an open world zombie survival environment that uses a combination of inventive gameplay and minimalist storytelling to create a situation where you must be proactive to survive. In the main plot, you start off playing Marcus Campbell and his buddy Ed just back from a fishing trip... having spent 2 weeks in the middle of nowhere and oblivious to the fact that the world has collapsed into anarchy. Along the way you meet former military officer Maya Torres, who was hunting in the area, and watched her former army buddies get turned into Zed chow.
Here's where it gets interesting in my opinion... there is no main character. Yes, there are named characters that are there from your beginning of the regular game, but, you do not need them to complete the game. If they die... they're gone. People are as finite a resource as everything else in the game. So suddenly... NPC #1138 isn't just #1138, he or she is suddenly a person in your community with all the benefits and flaws that come with it. Sometimes they need to be taken out for a walk and talked to... sometimes they need a little training. And sometimes, they go out and never come back.
Breakdown takes this mechanic further.
Gone is the plot to the main game, gone are the starting characters and their slow build-up to being hip deep in the Apocalypse. You are given the chance to start with either 1 random character, or a series of special 'hero' characters you unlock by doing things during Breakdown. Some of them have special skills no one else gets, some of them are just unique looking, or start with cool stuff.
Meet Diana Archer.
For those that play... Diana started off with Accountant, Nimble, Played Golf, and Problem Solver. She was my random character for my second attempted playthrough after botching my first.
Diana is awesome. First off, unlike a lot of my guys who carry bladed weapons, she uses blunt objects. Specifically a police snap baton. Why? Because it's light, it's strong, and it's portable. Her pistol of choice is a .22LR pistol because it's quiet, carries a lot of ammo, and pops zombie heads. When she finds cool things, she says 'Winner winner, chicken dinner.'
In a game where everyone feels a little bit throwaway, she has stood out as my prime character. The one who always gets in trouble, but always comes back. The person who I think if I lost at this point I would stop playing. That's the emotional investment. In a way, the game forces you to choose favorites, and spend time on them, because you know the next time 'round is going to be much rougher on you, and you'll need people who are better prepared. They have unique looks, and they have personalities that are picked from a stock of a dozen or so, but they still come off as sounding a bit different for each of them.
Once Diana was built up, I ended up picking two other survivors. Ofelia and Myles. Ofelia is a bitchy former Army Medic and Mechanic who went from being the biggest pain in my butt to my number two. Myles was a daydreamer and caterer who I used to take out 3 Big 'Uns with some tactics and a little luck.
In a game where story is minimalized down to nearly nothing, except building up to get the heck outta dodge, you find yourself creating stories for everyone in your head, and hating any time they come into such danger that you're scared to lose them. To me, this is a brilliant thing to have for a game like this, and probably the reason why I've put off projects until the new year...
Cat brain is still Writer Brain.
Wellll... okay, here we go in no particular order.
I've submitted a piece of work for consideration by a publisher. I do not want to name names or anything like that for fear of jinxing it, but needless to say this has me rocking in my seat every time the email light flashes on my phone. It's almost as bad as auditions from back in high school... and the only thing I ever remembered from those was that I never got into anything. :P
So, to help kill the tension, I bought the Breakdown DLC for State of Decay. BIG MISTAKE.
State of Decay, for all it's bugs and occasional weirdness, has to be the second most addictive game to play I've ever gotten my hands on. The first being Xenogears. But I'll save my Xenogears rant for another time *FISTSHAKE AT MONOLITH!*
If you've ever played this game, I am sure that you are well aware of what I am talking about, but if not, I will give you a breakdown of the game.
State of Decay is the bastard child of GTA and Left 4 Dead. It is an open world zombie survival environment that uses a combination of inventive gameplay and minimalist storytelling to create a situation where you must be proactive to survive. In the main plot, you start off playing Marcus Campbell and his buddy Ed just back from a fishing trip... having spent 2 weeks in the middle of nowhere and oblivious to the fact that the world has collapsed into anarchy. Along the way you meet former military officer Maya Torres, who was hunting in the area, and watched her former army buddies get turned into Zed chow.
Here's where it gets interesting in my opinion... there is no main character. Yes, there are named characters that are there from your beginning of the regular game, but, you do not need them to complete the game. If they die... they're gone. People are as finite a resource as everything else in the game. So suddenly... NPC #1138 isn't just #1138, he or she is suddenly a person in your community with all the benefits and flaws that come with it. Sometimes they need to be taken out for a walk and talked to... sometimes they need a little training. And sometimes, they go out and never come back.
Breakdown takes this mechanic further.
Gone is the plot to the main game, gone are the starting characters and their slow build-up to being hip deep in the Apocalypse. You are given the chance to start with either 1 random character, or a series of special 'hero' characters you unlock by doing things during Breakdown. Some of them have special skills no one else gets, some of them are just unique looking, or start with cool stuff.
Meet Diana Archer.
For those that play... Diana started off with Accountant, Nimble, Played Golf, and Problem Solver. She was my random character for my second attempted playthrough after botching my first.
Diana is awesome. First off, unlike a lot of my guys who carry bladed weapons, she uses blunt objects. Specifically a police snap baton. Why? Because it's light, it's strong, and it's portable. Her pistol of choice is a .22LR pistol because it's quiet, carries a lot of ammo, and pops zombie heads. When she finds cool things, she says 'Winner winner, chicken dinner.'
In a game where everyone feels a little bit throwaway, she has stood out as my prime character. The one who always gets in trouble, but always comes back. The person who I think if I lost at this point I would stop playing. That's the emotional investment. In a way, the game forces you to choose favorites, and spend time on them, because you know the next time 'round is going to be much rougher on you, and you'll need people who are better prepared. They have unique looks, and they have personalities that are picked from a stock of a dozen or so, but they still come off as sounding a bit different for each of them.
Once Diana was built up, I ended up picking two other survivors. Ofelia and Myles. Ofelia is a bitchy former Army Medic and Mechanic who went from being the biggest pain in my butt to my number two. Myles was a daydreamer and caterer who I used to take out 3 Big 'Uns with some tactics and a little luck.
In a game where story is minimalized down to nearly nothing, except building up to get the heck outta dodge, you find yourself creating stories for everyone in your head, and hating any time they come into such danger that you're scared to lose them. To me, this is a brilliant thing to have for a game like this, and probably the reason why I've put off projects until the new year...
Cat brain is still Writer Brain.
