Brian, huge fan of the writing and tactics of Vampire: TMB. What new ideas does Dead State bring to the table given the long history of zombie / end-of-the-world games?
Dead State is the zombie game about humans. The zombies in our game aren’t a direct threat, but a slow, creeping, ever-present danger. They are always out there, but humans – both enemies and allies – are more dangerous. For example, if you run out of food and morale starts to drop, allies might start to lose faith in you, and some that were already not fans of you might use the opportunity to move against you. Human enemies in combat are far more dangerous than individual zombies, and if they start shooting, they make noise that attracts zombies, making the situation even more dangerous. We really don’t want to make a “shoot zombies, lol” game – this is a game that concentrates on the human survival instinct and what it drives people to do.
That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear, I’ve always wanted an RPG that hinges on survival instinct instead of combat.
Does the pressure to collect resources in the wild help with just survival and morale, or can you craft and improve your base in interesting and unique ways?
You can upgrade the shelter with a bunch of new rooms/features to improve your chances of survival. For example, a garden that produces some additional food or a science lab to develop new weapons. But, you will need to assign allies to certain jobs to make use of many of your upgrades.
What kind of enemies and/or challenges can we expect to face in the game?
We’ve got normal undead – stupid shamblers that respond to noise and seeing humans. No special zombies. And we’ve got humans – you can’t predict what they’ll do. They could be looters that are more scared of you than the zombies, and we have more skilled enemies that might be smart enough and organized enough to take on your whole squad. There’s a lot of variation in the human AI behavior. Zombies will attack any human, not just your group, so you can use them to your advantage sometimes.
What can we expect in the way of vehicles and weaponry?
Vehicles will be similar to what the car was in Fallout 2, mostly modifying the range you can travel around the world map. You won’t be able to run it around town and enter combat with it.
Regarding weapons, there are melee and ranged ones. Ranged ones go from small firearms to rifles, and have several mods that can be attached to them. Melee weapons have special abilities, and we have improvised weapons like clawhammers and screwdrivers, and others like bats, knives, axes, baton, etc.
Also, guns are powerful but loud – they are pretty much a dinner bell to the zombies. Melee weapons are quieter, but you have to get within range of zombies/humans to use them. We also have special weapons such as noisemakers to lure zombies and Molotov cocktails to set anything in a small area on fire.
Have you decided when and how players will be able to save their game in Dead State?
Yes, and partially we’re tying that into difficulty. You can save anytime in the normal mode, but for higher difficulty levels, you will be restricted to a save at the beginning of the day and an autosave if you quit out. We’re still tweaking those settings, but we want a harder mode for people who don’t like to be tempted to back out of bad decisions or dead allies, to make it more realistic.
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What about influences from other media? e.g. games like Dead Rising, shows like Jericho, comics like The Walking Dead, and movies like Dawn of the Dead.
Yes on Jericho – really good show about what happens when you’re cut off from communication and left on your own. Dead Rising – a little, mostly their survival mode. Dawn of the Dead – best zombie movie ever and the Romero trilogy is definitely a big influence on us. We didn’t really read The Walking Dead or World War Z until we were in production – World War Z was great, gave up on The Walking Dead after the prison bit. We’ve got some stories about our development and influences in The Making of Dead State book – much more than I can type out here.
Brian, what was your favorite part of the plot of Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines, and is there anything in particular from the storytelling style (devices, themes, etc) in that game that influenced the story you are telling with Dead State?
Plot for Bloodlines – I don’t know about plot, but I had a lot of fun doing all the characters. Doing the Voermans and Gary plus setting up their special cameras was a lot of fun. But I liked so much about working on the characters in that game, especially bringing them to life in the VO studio. Had a lot of fun with the radio too – which, why not, I’ll announce that there is a radio sequence in Dead State. You heard it here first!
As far as the storytelling in Dead State goes, a lot of that is coming from personal experience because I’ve lived through a pretty bad hurricane and I’ve seen what a crisis does to people. It’s not always pretty. Obviously, Dawn of the Dead had a lot of influence on the project. Also, I’d say No Country for Old Men by the Coen brothers probably helped me realize the setting a bit.
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Hey Brian, considering that the focus of the game is on humanity and how it develops under the duress of a zombie apocalypse, what are your goals in writing the characters for the game? Are you going to explore sociopolitical themes such as: misogyny, racism, sexism, class issues, drug abuse, and morality? Thanks for reading and answering our questions!
We definitely don’t want to shy away from obvious issues that come with throwing a bunch of humans together and turning up the tension, but we don’t want to end up doing anything that’s closer to exploitation or cliche. We’re handling it in a pretty mature way. Also, we want to make sure the player feels that they are the leader and people are more upset by their choices than their race or gender, which would get old pretty quick. If we throw in sociopolitical commentary, it will be subtle – I hate being beat over the head with that stuff. It just smacks of a writer trying too hard. Hope that makes sense. I definitely could have emphasized some of the scenarios in our game for controversy points in the press (coughLara Croftcough) but I hate doing that sort of thing.
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