Project Zombie : Part Three (aka Rebuild 2)

The PZ games have followed the trend of Romero's trilogy:

The first game/movie was tense, deadly and featured a African-American protagonist who was dead by the end of the film. The second/movie dealt with the 'safehouse ennui' comes after survival is secured, the zombie are seen as less of threat than bikers and roadies' with guns. The final movies is about trying to re-build and the conflicts between the surviving power structures (military and science). Therefore I propose the next PZ game be played using 'Rebuild 2' (from my best of zombies list).

The game is not multiplayer but I can run the game and everyone (using their same characters) can either become the leader, give science advice, volunteer as a a scavenger, choose what part of the city to investigate. This allows us to 'zoom out' of PZ and play in the big picture. The story would be that with a generator, gas and the beginnings of a wooden barricade our Farm became the nucleus for Muldraugh/WestPoint re-building - which is where Rebuild begins.

We can even re-name the Rebuild city to Muldraugh and set the city size to small. We can also name and customize the leader. The setting of difficulty would be on 'challenging' to keep the stakes high. I beleive there is enough raw material in Rebuild to roleplay with (including a few moral choices/game surprises).

Right now I'm listening to the Rebuild soundtrack as I type and it is amazing. I stand-by by recommendation of Rebuild2 as one of the best free flash-games I've stumbled across.



The music is from an album called The Talking Book - Bill Gould & Jared Blum [2011] (unfortunately youtube has taken down most of the links)


In tracking down the soundtrack I've noticed Rebuild3 is in Steam early-access! This game deserves your support.  I would still suggest Rebuild2 as our next choice because it is simpler and would be easier to play on the forums - but I am really happy this game is getting the attention it deserves. Interestingly the designers are a husband & wife team.

The tagline for Rebuild3 is "Why just persist in the post-apocalypse when you could view it as a fixer-upper?" and I agree 100%. PZ should have stuck to their original ideal and made a gory nihilist zombie-apocalypse (almost black humour Sims parody) but instead they made a 'winnable' zombie-survivalist simulator which is pointless and basically Hobbesian/right-wing in politics. If I'm going to live in the post-zombie apocalypse I want to be able to re-build and have fun doing it (i.e there are farms but you aren't the farmer).

Back in the day when I couldn't afford games on steam I used to play flash games almost exclusively, this was definitely in my top five, I played both one and two and I've been watching number three build for some time now. I do think that it could be an interesting game for us to play on the side but I think I have something that might be even better!

http://die2nite.wikia.com/wiki/Die2Nite_Wiki

Die2nite Might just be exactly what We are looking for, I used to play quite a long time ago but as in most Zombie games I lost interest because I didn't have a dedicated group to play with. I honestly think this offers everything that we could ever want when it comes to the zombie apocalypse, the only downside is that you have to log on once every day, it can only be for 10 minutes or a couple hours depending on what there is to do Or what you decide to do but if you don't log on then all your stamina goes to waste.

The premises for the Game is 40 online people Make their way to a makeshift Outpost In the middle of a Wasteland, they have limited amount of supplies food and most importantly water, their main job is to go out scouting in the wasteland bring back supplies and use their energy to build defenses, and of course to rebuild society. Every night however, The zombies will attack, and if the town defense is high enough zombies will be fought off. And thus begins a new day! Now the highlights of this game are the sheer teamwork and coordination that needs to be put in by at least half of the town for you to have a successful run, and a successful run for a new town is anywhere from 10 to 20 days of survival. Each day the citizens need to decide who goes out to scout for supplies food and weapons, who stays in town and builds with the materials brought back, and of course if the defenses are lacking, who joins the night watch and risks their life to fend off the zombies! The game Has also been around for a very long time so it's been fine tuned.

The highlight of this game however is the sheer amount of role-play that goes on in each town, which has their own Dedicated forum! Another highlight and extreme downfall of the game is that sometimes you can get a very shady pick of people In your town, these people Are mainly referred to as Grefer's, The ones looking to screw over the group so they themselves benefit. Depending on how long the game goes on, Theft, murder and trickery can become quite rampant in your makeshift Settlement.

http://www.die2nite.com/#ghost?go=ghost/maps;sk=c2a22


Oh I almost forgot to mention the intrigue! In the center of each town there is a bank which all citizens compile items such as building equipment drugs food water pouches and all manner of miscellaneous junk. The interesting thing is that there is a record of who puts what in and who takes what out. I think you all understand where this is leading Taking out unnecessary items for your own benefit or hoarding items like food and weapons are severely looked down upon.... you of course don't have a unlimited inventory So you can't always hide these items with you, you only Start off with a small backpack to keep your scavenged items in. You can of course place items you find in your house but everybody will be able to see it, unless of course you build a curtain in your house. Oh did I mention that each player house is very customizable? But of course these customizations take construction materials, which could be used to better defend the town instead of just you.....

The game-play for Die2nite was intriguing and has me curious. I'm going watch a few more videos of it to see where the game goes and get a feel for it.

The reason I suggest Rebuild2 is that for the next two week we won't be able to play together online and somedays we will be busy with birthdays and traveling. So I wanted a game that had low commitment and was 'turn-based'/'could be saved' so it could be played over the forums.

Oh I'm totally fine with playing it in the meantime! I'm just making suggestions for later down the road :) I'm also going to be jumping back into die2nite to see how much Has changed, I think it's been almost 3 years since I last played!

Also for die2nite, we will be able to create a coalition, doing this will allow one person to bring in all members of the Coalition into one game So we don't have to worry about not getting into the same town or not all being online to jump into a specific town.

Here is a good review of Die2Nite. The game was originally designed in France which helps explain it's interesting game-play.

[...]it’s a relatively easy process to turn enough of the town against them to get them banished, or even hung. Alex Dodds, developer of Motion Twin, couldn’t resist sharing this story with me:

During the French beta, a group of 6 friends acted up in a town, stealing and generally being unproductive in order to get banished. They then staged a revolt (this is a game mod which will soon be activated in Die2Nite), which means that all the citizens of a town are banished and the formerly banished are reinstated as citizens, thus only giving those 6 players access to the well and the water supply. They proceeded to tell the banished citizens that they would only get water in return for work carried out on construction sites, and for objects found in the World Beyond. They managed to instil a system of slavery, which worked very well, and the town lasted some time! Sometimes the devious thrive in Die2Nite!

The game has many different directions that the citizens can take it, and the key aspects of democracy or the possibility of a dictatorship make the game all the more exciting! Though sadly the game does suffer from a large problem. Though the problem only affects beginner towns, Whenever you join a beginner town there's always a possibility that upwards of half the people that join with you are going to take a look at the game, Judge it because it's not the mainstream zombie killing game that they thought it was and then never come back, Which to me is ridiculous because it's honestly a great game and it only truly shows itself when you're in a competent town. Getting in a competent town is sometimes possible if you join with the randoms, but generally you need at least 100 soul points to get into the veteran area of the game. Which could take anywhere between two weeks to a month depending on how lucky you are and how long you survive :)

It strange how killing zombies has become a 'comfort food' to some people and if isn't the same old re-assuring thing they don't like it

If you do manage to have a good game in Die2Nite - let us know. I'm intrigued by the format and game itself.

Oh I've had wonderful games in the past! So wonderful that I actually bought hero days for an absurd amount of money so I could play as a guardian of my town (one of the reasons why I absolutely love the game was because I could fulfill my Shepherd nature with the flock that comprised of the new and inexperienced, And that was made very easy by becoming a hero) and I have enough soul points to play in the big leagues. Heroes are basically exactly what they sound like, they're the extraordinary people that keep the group together in a zombie apocalypse, but you definitely don't need to be one to have fun in the game as about 90% are just normal residents. I believe the hero types are guardian, scavenger, Scout, engineer, and tamer. Though I decided to make a new character so I wouldn't have to use up my remaining hero days familiarizing myself with the game again.

And trust me, having a five-man coalition that all know each other and are competent are usually enough to pull a town through for the first four or five days.

Survived day one, just barely though.... Had to take some performance-enhancing drugs to finish up the wall defenses and close the gates, four people got lost outside and perished during the night. From the look in most of the townsfolk's eyes I'd say their zombies already.... Doubt I'll be getting much help from them from now on. I think the town will last from two more days, three if were lucky. Then I'll have to move on....