Let's play Fort Zombie!

[Multi-headed Cow]

Yes, yet another zombie-filled post apocalyptic survival game. Though this is less of a roguelike than Rogue Survivor and Cataclysm, it does have randomly generated missions, chunks of town, loot, etc. The game controls poorly, looks rather ugly, has alarmingly bad performance given the graphics, and is generally buggy. All that said it still manages to be entertaining and give you a good feel of scrounging for resources surrounded by zombies. Mostly.
As usual, if interested about videogame, here is a link. http://www.fortzombie.com/

Since this isn't a pure roguelike, I'm adding a poll where you fine Codexers can decide if this should be ironman or not. This game is realtime so I might not be as good about snapping pictures, but I'll try.

Character creation! You're always named Ben Riley, and always look like that silly bastard on the left, but otherwise you can customize yourself. Pre-made occupations (Or classes) are paramedic, soldier, police officer, construction worker, ex-con, trucker, doctor, reporter, and college student. In a Bethesda type move, class selection just gives you pre-selected skills. You can rejigger them a bit at character creation, and they can increase during the game naturally.
Skills not listed are: blades, carpentry, electrical, mechanical, metal working, sneak, lock pick, medicine, scout, submachine gun, and rifle. Since I'm going easier difficulty for this LP, I'll take the class police officer and take 10 (The most I can) out of hand to hand (Fistfighting zombies? No. NO) and put 5 in spot and 5 in interaction. Spot can increase loot found from containers, give better missions, and is generally useful. Interaction helps you try to recruit survivors who are sometimes obstinate shitheads and don't want to come with you.

Continuing with our easy theme, we'll make the police station our fort. One of the first things you do in Fort Zombie is head toward your selected fort and clear it out. Your goal after that point is to gather up as much food, as many survivors, and as many resources as you can and make the fort as well defended (Via armed survivors, traps, barricades, etc) as possible for the ITZ coming at the end of the game.

IT BEGINS. Conveniently, you are provided with some tutorial chests full of goodies to start the game with!

Revolver, crowbar, and a can of Fud!

Using the magic of the search command (The yellow circle spreading out around Ben) we've determined that yes, these other two containers have treasure! You have to do this with most everything in Fort Zombie instead of being presented with what's lootable and what isn't. It also means you can pass over useful shelves in stores if you're not paying attention to where you've searched.
In the chest, we find a ton more ammo for our crappy revolver (The absolute worst gun in the game), a Beretta (And 90 rounds for it), and a MRE. The burnt shelf contains Eat Flakes and a first aid kit.

Our inventory. And now it's time to follow the quest compass to our fort!

Each time you enter a mission and are in the town view the world is randomly generated. There's no stashing goods at familiar spots to pick up later, you have to take what you can with you to your fort. You will eventually get an eye for what randomly generated buildings and locations may have good loot and would be worth checking out en route to/from a mission though, and almost EVERY building in the game can be entered and searched. Yes, YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE IN FORT ZOMBIE. YOU SEE THAT MOUNTAIN? YOU CAN CLIMB IT.
Time to start heading east down the road. The green bar in the lower lefthand portion of the screen is stamina, which goes down from melee fighting and sprinting. Zombies can be attracted by sight and sound but not smell in Fort Zombie so if you've got a swarm after you, sprinting out of LOS is a viable option.

And since we've moved out of "Hateful tutorialbaby" zone, zombies have better sight range. While checking out a garage sale across the way, two jogging zombies are coming toward us. There are no out and out sprinting zombies in Fort Zombie, but there are a few zombie types. Joggers naturally move slightly faster (And look goofy as shit) than others. 50 pistol skill don't fail me now!

I had forgotten how fucking bad this pistol is. Change of plan involved taking 11 damage and running like a baby and losing them around a corner.

And now a shambler has spotted Ben. PISTOL PISTOL PISTOL. Also worth mentioning at this point that that first aid kit we found? Can't be used in adventures to heal HP. It provides 10 medicine units, and medicine units are used when advancing the game world one turn (Day) at the fort, and healing is provided then and is tied to survivors' medical skills and rest. Yeah, that 11 damage is a slightly bigger deal than it might seem.

Blew off the zombie's arm and head. HEROISM! The shuffler came across the street from a temporary triage station. Medicine? Medicine! First tent checked provides us with a bottle of painkillers, second tent has a bottle of antibiotics and a couple zombies. I switch to the Beretta for marginally less assy ranged combat and take them both down in 5 shots.

Willy the Fox's Burgerorium. Naaaaaaaah.

Three zombies and that's where I need to go. Looks like a jogger, a shuffler and a fireman zombie with an axe.

Jogger zombie noticed me, but a headshot as he entered medium range (Which is uncomfortably close in this game) took care of him. The noise attracted the other zombies so I ready myself for more.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!

Oh god. While regaining stamina from running past a couple of zombies, I didn't hear these three sneak up on me. Fortunately the hedge is protecting me for now. Football zombies will charge and tackle at close range. The zombies scramble over the hedge and I run for it, avoiding them too. There's no XP and so no reason to kill zombies when they can be avoided. Skills improve with use.

After more running and zombie dodging, the police station is finally in view!

Time to clear it out! Once we do, we don't want to click the done button just yet. If you don't pick up any lootable items in your fort when you first clear it, you won't get them at all.
Zombies killed: 4
Loot found: 4 cans of Popzi, 2 cans of Cola-Cola, a jar of peach preserves, a can of Soylent greens, 2 boxes of revolver ammo, 4 boxes of shotgun shells
Pictures of our new home:

The rough layout of the police station is the ground floor with various rooms, the basement which has a few cells and the parking garage, the second floor which has view (And firing lines) to the ground floor lobby, and stairs leading up to the roof.

Our first view of the fort screen. This is where you'll select missions and decide what other survivors who have joined your group are up to. You can also stash items at your fort, for your group as a whole to use or just for storage.

The fort's inventory after we move over all the food and medicine we picked up (And the shotgun shells since we can't use them yet). Not well supplied, but it's just Ben at the moment so it doesn't much matter. There are no missions for the first day beyond clearing the fort, so time to end turn!

Continuing the journal entry:
"Anyway. Just in case the kids end up having to study it in school, or the next guy who comes along just happens to be a gal? I'm going to skip the foul language and go light on the gruesome details. The day may come when ladies and small children won't necessarily know what a zombie looks like up close. Or what a zombie smells like up close, for that matter. If I can spare them a little of what I've been through, I'm glad of it.

Today was my first day inside the Piety city limits. I left my squat on the outskirts of town at dawn, moving as quietly as I could through the streets. The place has been hit pretty hard; there are dead walking everywhere, and plenty of dead that aren't going to get up again too. There have been fires, but they've been self-contained so far. No evidence of the wildfires that I've seen burning in the big cities, but the smell of charred wood and plastic and flesh still hangs in the air.

The town is pretty much what I expected. Other looters have tossed the place thoroughly and taken most anything that was in plain sight. Still plenty of goodies if you know how to search for them, though! And there are still survivors here. I see signs of them everywhere. A fire still smoldering in an abandoned trash can in the alley. A littler of empty cans with the remains of a cold Kenball dinner still wet on the inside. A dirty mattress with the candle beside it, dragged into a hidden corner in the ruins of an old house. Not to mention the spray paint on the walls...

My mission today was to capture a new base of operations. Soon as I hit the city limits, I headed for the police station. It didn't take too long to clean it out, and I must say... It was well worth the trouble. Tonight I'll have a secure place to sleep for the first time in weeks. And as I suspected, the place has got real potential. Lumber is never going to be a problem!"
And the non-story reports of the journal:
Ate 7 food units today, got a decent night of rest and used the painkiller and healed 1 HP.
Beretta skill has increased to level 2, Colt detective (Shitty revolver) has increased to level 2, sneak has increased to level 4.

3 missions available the next day. One survivor mission, one supplies mission, and one weapon mission. There's finite amount of time to run missions per day, so we may be able to do two missions a day. POSSIBLY more but I wouldn't count on it. Where should Ben head first next day, Codex?

And as a side note, this LP is a fair chunk more time consuming than RS or Cataclysm so I may be slower updating it than I was with those. Sorta depends if I get Fort Zombie mania again or not. I'll also try to cut down on the picture taking a bit in future updates. At least, fewer pictures while going to and from the goal of missions.

 

[Lindblum]

Guns, can't protect yourself with that peashooter.

Savescum. If updates are going to take longer then just take your time. I don't want this LP to end prematurely.

 

[Berekän]

Are you playing with the graphical options set to Prosper? Jesus christ, can't believe this game's from 2009

Also, go for survivors, you need cannon fodder to throw to the zombies.

 

[lightbane]

IF the game is buggy, savescum to prevent future headaches and rage. Also, I vote for more guns and survivors.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Are you playing with the graphical options set to Prosper? Jesus christ, can't believe this game's from 2009

Those settings are mostly (Shadows are on high, not highest) on the highest setting. The game's currently $10 and I think wasn't any more than $20 at launch, and Kerberos (The developers of this and the Sword of the Stars series) aren't very good at eyecandy. The one redeeming feature is how almost every (Buildings on the edge of the available play space are used as walls) building can be entered, and doors and windows can be broken. It's ugly, but functional.

What's NOT functional about it is the aiming system. I didn't go into (any) detail on the controls, but they're pretty fucked up. WASD for movement, shift for sprint, space for jump, things are seeming normal. Then you realize that you have to hold RMB to move the camera around, mouse movement without it just moves that aiming reticule. Your guy won't even aim until you click LMB once which puts him in combat stance, and then you have to point the reticule at what/where you want to fire and Ben will spin around like a maniac trying to aim at that spot, then LMB again to shoot. Things get even weirder when zombies get to melee and you're using firearms and trying to aim as your guy is spazzing out. Melee is slightly more manageable since it's mainly just clicking on zombies when they get close, and it CAN be quite effective, but since you're in bitey range and it burns up stamina it's risky. With guns at least if things go south you've likely got enough stamina to jog/sprint away.

IF the game is buggy, savescum to prevent future headaches and rage. Also, I vote for more guns and survivors.

To the game's credit, I don't think I've had a save or crash bug before. The bugginess usually comes from bad pathfinding, sub-optimal performance (Running lower resolution windowed for the LP cleared that up nicely though) and similar in-game annoyances. You can only save back at the fort anyway, so there's only so much savescumming you can do.

 

[Arpad]

What were they on if the control design's like that? Anyway, get some guns.

 

[Ashery]

Guns, and then survivors if you have time.

 

[Azira]

Weapons and supplies. Need to get yourself set up better before getting more mouths to feed.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

5 guns to 1 survivor (With secondaries going to 2 survivor 1 food). Looks like it's time for firearms and bros before food! Travel time for the supposed weapon/ammo stash is 3:51. Ben's goal will be to hopefully sneak to the weapons, grab as much as he can, and sneak back to the exit. Without backup I'm going to try to limit side-looting unless easy opportunities present themselves.
Time to start the game proper, no more popamole tutorial and getting the fortress! Though you can (And likely will) die in the tutorial before you get a good sense of when to fight and when to run.

Of course we get a dotted line for travel! Ben arrives at the mission location without incident (It's possible to have encounters/zombie attacks while traveling) and we immediately hear a gunshot and see three zombies lurching toward us. A football zombie and two normal shamblers. All three are taken down in a single shot each. Score!

A fourth shambler coming down the road, and to the right you can see the source of the gunfire. A police zombie. Police and soldier zombies vaguely remember how to use guns and will fire inaccurately at you. Even though they're poor shots, they're still extremely dangerous as guns do a hell of a lot of damage and a lucky hit from a zombie can ruin your day. The screen also shows our mission objective is to the north, which is right down the center of this map chunk. No trying to hug the wall of the map for relative safety this time, we're in the shit now. Danger everywhere! The shambler is again taken out in a single shot. Gaining two ranks of Beretta-specific skill helps. Sort of like in Cataclysm, specific skills give greater bonuses than general skills.
Using cunning zombie avoiding techniques learned by playing way more of this game than I probably should have, I avoid the police zombie by running down the road and spotting a group of 4-5 zombies. I then run between the brown and blue houses on the left, jump over a picket fence in the back yard, and enter the blue house through the back door.

Random shitty house interior! It may not look like much, but being able to duck inside buildings for cover is a key skill you want to learn to avoid zombies well, and is one of the attractive features of the game. Of course it's entirely possible there are zombies in the house, so part of the skill is determining what looks safe and what doesn't at a glance. I didn't notice any movement from the blue house while running up, didn't hear noises, no "Damage popups" of zombies smashing anything, seems safe enough to try.
Since we're in here to avoid zombies and there's no danger, time for a quick poke around. Houses often don't have valuable items, but food isn't too uncommon and there's a chance there may be something else. As it turns out, there's nothing. Nothing that shows up with our 30 points of spot, at least.

Ok, all those words I typed about heading for safe looking houses? Not always viable. We continue heading north on the same side of the road as the blue house, but the next lot over was a graveyard. May explain the large number of zombies in the area. In an attempt to avoid the graveyard I run to the nearest building, which was a heavily boarded up house with a broken glass door. 3 shamblers killed, no damage taken.
Nothing useful in the house, though there were signs of people who got eaten, and in the attic they had some mannequin heads sitting next to cans of spraypaint and bowling balls. I dunno. I also notice the Beretta is getting lower on ammo, so I decide to switch to the shitty revolver. I'd rather have a more reliable gun in reserve if need-be. It also doesn't hurt to have another loaded firearm to switch to since reloading is a slow process in Fort Zombie.

As I head downstairs to continue the adventure, a new shambler wandered in to the house. I killed it easily enough in a few shots, but the revolver is still crappy. Things are still dangerous outside as there are 3-5 zombies wandering around that park to the north where I need to go. From the boarded up windows I can see the location to the northeast (right of the park) is a burned down building which doesn't provide much cover, but the building to the northwest (left of the park) appears to be a store of some kind. Store is probably the best bet for safe advancement, so...
NOPE. As soon as Ben steps foot outside, I notice a pack of 3-4 zombies hanging around outside the store. Shit. New plan, lure zombies hiding in the park to this house and murder them, then run through the park and hope for the best? Plan? PLAN.
One zombie down in 4 shots. 3 more milling about on the front lawn after being attracted over. Second zombie down in two shots, a third zombie is attacking the front door. Where'd the other zombie go? Third zombie down in a single shot, no sign of fourth zombie when stepping outside.

Yeah, about that burnt building? Change of plan yet again. This one relatively intact corner looked safe enough, and a lack of zombies around it inspired me to sprint over. More zeds by the park, and some of the zombies by the store were starting to advance on the house from the gunfire. Appears this was a Burgerorium. Not really worth searching burnt buildings unless you see an unburnt and likely looking container.
By using the power of camera abuse, I look over the corner of the burnt building. Our objective is somewhere to the west of us now, I'm guessing either those army-looking trucks or the shack next to them. Few zombies in the area, but all the fences should provide some cover. Time to hop out the window and jog over!

As it turns out, I was wrong. The stash was in the park all along! Judging by the layout of this area and the trucks nearby, I'm guessing I'm behind a gun store. Before making a run toward the mission objective I'll see if I can step inside and if there's anything worth taking.

I glance inside, and sure enough it's a burnt gun store with a few zombies wandering inside. It looked like there were some undamaged crates which I want to check out, though. As I'm absorbing all this, a zombie wanders across from the second back door and attacks me. 6 shots from the revolver doesn't down it, so I resort to bludgeoning it with the crowbar, Gordon Freeman-style. It does manage to get a hit in before dying though.

3 more zombies killed later, and the loot from the burnt gun store totals: a car battery, a can of black powder, a box of 7.62mm, and a box of shotgun shells. Bit disappointing considering all the danger, but since Ben only took one hit it's not too terrible. Now to get to our objective. I can see at least two zombies moving around in the park, and know there have to be more. Since the park is exposed doing a snatch and run seems riskier than I'd like, so it's time to bait and murder zombies again. 4 zombies killed, and the park area should be safe enough though Ben took a bit more damage. One of the zombies killed was wearing an apron and he came from a building, so I'm sorely tempted to check it out and see if I can grab some food while I'm out here.

Yes, this is as dangerous as it looks. No sooner do I take this picture, than two zombies burst out of the bushes and attack. I somehow manage to revolver and crowbar them to death without taking damage. Phew. Time to reload and move back to the loot.
Our haul (Including from that black chest, which when searched had more (Arguably the REAL) swag):
A 9mm Beretta
A 9mm Beretta with attached flashlight
2 boxes of 9mm ammo
3 boxes of .458 ammo
2 boxes of .303cal ammo
1 box of 5.56mm ammo
1 box of 7.62mm ammo
2 boxes of shotgun shells
A Lee Enfield rifle (Uses .303) with attached flashlight
An M1 Garand rifle (Uses 7.62)
3 MREs
And finally a baseball bat

The two rifles are a nice find although we have barely any ammo for them. Still, that could've been far worse. Once the loot is collected, we sprint across the road and hide in the barricaded house. Now to make it back to the exit, this rewards remembering the path you took assuming it was safe and you cleared zombies en route.

We make it back without incident!

I throw all the unused ammo, weapons, and food in the stockpile in the fort. I don't feel comfortable using the rifles on Ben with such limited skill in them and such limited ammo. I will replace his Beretta with the one with a flashlight, though. Also worth mentioning at this point that the large numbers given under each of the meters is how much of a thing will be consumed when you end turn, not how much you have.
The fort's totals are: Medicine 25 units, food 73 units, fuel 10 units, power 0 units. Fuel is typically used by the generators to provide power, but who needs power? Best to hide in this building in the dark.

Looks like there should PROBABLY be enough daylight out to make a run for the survivors since they were the second favorite by far. No idea if I'll keep this update pace up, but I am getting back in the Fort Zombie mood by playing again so I'll see if I can knock out at least one update a day.

 

[Azira]

Nice rifles. Since the vote favoured followers, let's hope you find someone with the skill to use one of those things.

 

[laclongquan]

WTF? No tits but it looks interesting enough to warrant trying after NWN2MOTB and IWD2

 

[Norfleet]

All I remember about this game is that it was awful and got hammered in reviews, and that when I tried it, I got the impression it wasn't even worth the marginal effort I had spent in not removing it from inventory and deleted quickly. Did a patch make it not suck or something?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Did a patch make it not suck or something?

Kinda, yeah. As mentioned it still has bad performance and pathfinding and controls and sound, and zombies can and will sometimes clip through walls (Happened once or twice during this last update) but apart from all that it's relatively solid. Patches made a few UI tweaks better and made the performance a hair better, and pathfinding, and shit just about everything. And this character setup and fort are about as easy as you can go and it still requires some finesse and planning which I enjoy.

As an example, here're the latest patchnotes for 1.07 (From July 2010), which I hadn't really played with until now. Aiming reticule listing short, medium, and long range is useful as fuck for aiming with this terrible system, especially how short all the ranges are. Hell, scroll up a bit and look at the screen where Ben's in the burned gun store. Mouse is pointed at a counter he's right next to, and it says medium range.

Fixes
1- Fixed crash from diving through certain windows.
2- Fixed crashes due to NPC special abilities.
3- Fixed zombie climbing bug that allowed zombies to pass through walls and doors.
4- Improved Zombie and NPC pathing in many tight spaces.


Changes
1- Small range extensions for all handguns
2- Increased number of zombies in final battle.
3- More accurate targeting locations on zombies.
4- Targeting Reticle now shows whether target is at Short, Medium, Long or out of range.
5- Out of range shooting now suffers from very large accuracy deviation.
6- Increased zombie ability to climb.
7- The destabilizing influence of the Deadworld has imbued small objects around Piety with magical attributes.
8- Medical healing now starts in the torso and spreads outwards
9- Can now stay out on missions till 4 AM.


Additions
1- NPC AI now accepts range (s/m/l) commands for engaging enemies.
2- Guns now come with Tac light variants to aid in night missions.
3- 2 new firearms...M1911a pistol and Model 70 Savage hunting rifle.
4- 3 new melee weapons...Machete, Sickle and Pitchfork
5- New properties such as the Corn Maze and Theater of Evil.
6- Skills now display rated AND final calculation levels
7- Night now comes earlier over the course of the game...harder levels result in faster progressions of night fall.

I sure as shit wouldn't call it a great game, but if the idea behind the game appeals to you it's worth trying. It's the ARMA of zombie games and I'm its Skyway. M:

 

[pipka]

will read more

 

[Krraloth]

Cool game bro. Are you going for survivors?
I confess I voted ironman before reading of the bugs, so savescum all you want.

 

[Fafnir]

keep up the good work!

 

[dextermorgan]

will read more

This. Also, no sudden death please, I'd like to see you take this to the end.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

This looks really fun... at least to read about. Try to go all the way if you can.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I removed it from inventory only to have it crash on me several times... couldn't make it so far as the actual fort even, as the one time the game worked long enough for me to get there I got careless and bumrushed by the zombees inside.

So keep showing off those mad skillz of yours, will be following.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Time to head out to the survivor mission!

Our entrance point was relatively zombie-free, but a crashed and burning firetruck was nearby with two firemen zombies who started lurching toward us, so first priority was running in to this random house for cover. Looks like the objective is north-northeast from spawn.
FUCK! As I was checking out the house, 3 zombies bashed the back door down. Time to run out the front door and run to the neighboring house.

This... Doesn't look much better. Yet strangely enough, a quick search of the shelves in the bathroom turns up a first aid kit. Score!
Escaping from that house just as zombies show up, we run inside a shed in a back yard. A search of the shelf turns up 3 rolls of duct tape and a box of nails, items useful for traps/barricades back at the fort. Less useful at the moment, since building traps and barricades takes significant time depending on the skills of the person assigned to work on it.
The house by the shed turned up a box of .303 ammo.

If I was a bettin' man I'd wager the heavily barricaded house with barbed wire (Not pictured due to bad popin) and pointed stakes on the picket fence is likely our target to find a survivor. The front door's locked and the back door is barricaded so we can't get in, time to pick the lock Gordon Freeman style.

This place is kind of a dump. Hello? HELLO? Time to head upstairs I guess.

Uh...

Portia Smith joins the party! Even though she's a child, she's still surprisingly useful to take on missions. Her high scout skill reduces travel time and chances of zombie encounters between missions, and her high spot skill makes her good at searching. The only disadvantage (And it's a big one) to having an NPC search for you, horrible pathfinding in buildings. My general strategy when playing Fort Zombie is to take survivors with me on missions and have them tag along outdoors, and then tell them to wait while I explore buildings. Supposedly the pathfinding has improved with 1.07, I guess we'll see. I'm also not sure of Ben's actual spot skill with his stats totaled in, so I check. 52. Probably not a big enough difference to be worried about. Still, scout is useful.
Time to head to the attic and finish checking the building out. No lootable items so far.

It looks to me like a black 13 year old girl with a giant bloody fucking axe was protecting two pudgy bald old white dudes hiding in the attic with a gumball machine and kid posters and a PC and a couple beds. SUCH IS LIFE IN THE ZONE, STALKER~

Algernon and Arthur join the party! Algernon's respectable at first aid and rifles, and Arthur's pretty great at various construction skills and fantastic at interaction, although I'm not sure if NPC interaction helps you recruit other NPCs or not.
I equip Arthur with the shitty revolver and 4 boxes of ammo for it, and Algernon gets the baseball bat. Even though he seemingly has low pistol skill, NPCs in Fort Zombie are almost always a better shot than the player, even at lower skill. Since I ran my way over here instead of killing zombies we may be fighting for the exit, so arming the NPCs seems like a decent idea.
A zombie entered the house via the broken front door while I was checking out the rest of it, but it is crowbarred to death with relative ease. I spend a while waiting for the NPCs to make their way down stairs. Looks like the pathfinding may be improved but still quite shitty.

COME, COMRADES. TO THE POLICE STATION.
We encounter a cop zombie by a Willy the Fox's on our way to the exit. This calls for whipping out a Beretta, not going to take chances with a gunzombie. He's taken out with ease before he manages to hit anyone.

3 zombies incoming. All look like standard shufflers. Time to switch back to crowbar and get stuck in wit da boyz.

ARTHUR YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE YOU SHOT ME! YOU SHOT ME IN THE BACK!

Ok, 4 zombies. A football zombie (Not really pictured, not sure why I'm incapable of taking a picture of one) came out of nowhere and tackled me, but our zergswarm did alright.

We manage to finally bumble to the exit and get back to the fort.
Back at the fort, we store our limited finds from the mission and listen to the biographies/histories of each survivor. I'll just type them out, since they're long enough and the text window for them in-game is small enough they'd be many pictures each. Here are their stories verbatim.

Algernon Blackwood:
"I was retired six years when the rumors started to go around about the outbreak in Africa. Sickness and violence were nothing new, of course, but friends of mine on the international beat were running scared. The natives were bailing out of West Africa in masses, an exodus like no one had ever seen before. They weren't just leaving-they actes as if they wouldn't ever go back again. They'd seen refugees before, whole families were carrying the old, the young, the sick and wounded, on handcarts piled with farming tools and cooking pots-all their worldly possessions. But this time those refugees had to fight for space on the roads with panicked herds of wild animals and long convoys of military trucks and tanks. Even the warlords and their soldiers, the corrupt politicians and the relief workers were running. People walked if they couldn't run, crawled if they couldn't walk--always moving east and north, trying to escape what was coming.

A friend of mine fought his way through the mob to look for the truth in Cameroon and Ghana. He wound up in a mental asylum. The message he left on my answering machine was spooky-he went on for nearly five minutes, babbling about zombies and evil wizards and living darkness. Poor Arthur. Even I thought he had lost his mind, but he was a better reporter and a better friend than I ever knew. He tried to give me the scoop of a lifetime. Damn shame I didn't listen."


Arthur Machen:
"Clarissa and I were in the airport when we first heard that the plague had broken out at home. I suppose I was an old fool to be traveling in such dangerous times. But I've spent a lifetime waiting to be old enough to play a truly great Lear-how could I say no to the part? And at my age, how many more chances will there be to top the bill at the Globe?

It was the sort of bedlam I hadn't seen since the Blitz. It brought back memories thick and fast-I felt like a boy again. The panic, the desperation on every face as people suddenly realized how far they were from their families. The raised voices and the anger and the tears as they fought and begged for a seat aboard the first transport home.

I upgraded our tickets immediately to first class and got us two seats aboard a plane to Philadelphia. But the military jets forced us to land to La Guardia, and Clarissa and I were separated there at the quarantine camp- she was taken to the women's facility and I was sent to the men's. I tried to fight them, knowing what it would do to poor Clarissa to be taken to a camp again, after all these years. But they wouldn't listen, and there was no way out-she made me see that in the end. They promised us we would be allowed to leave once we had proven we weren't infected.

The city fell three days later. By the time I reached the women's facility, it was burning, and the dead were pouring through the walls. She was gone. My Clarissa was gone."



Portia Smith:
"I hid in a church for a while, along with a few other people. I don't know why--there wasn't really any food there, and no one had any weapons. But there was something about the way that the light would come down from the windows, the way the candles and the curtains and the pews smelled. It was comforting, I guess? I think a lot of other people felt the same way.

If you're looking for more people in town, you might check the church to see if they're still there. Strange to say, but I'm around you, it's almost the same as being in the Church. I feel as if I'm standing in the light."

It's 6:40PM in the game world now, and it's 4 hours one way to the last mission on the map. Time to advance to the next day. Our food consumption went from 7 used a day to 21. With 73 available we'll be alright for a few days though.

No story additions in the journal, but here are the vaguely noteworthy parts:
Algernon Blackwood gained 2 points in clubs, 2 points in interaction, sneak increased to 45, spot to 2.
Arthur Machen gained 2 points of Colt Detective, sneak increased to 24, spot to 21.
Portia Smith reached 2 points in blades, 14 interaction, 33 scout, 4 sneak, 38 spot.
Ben's (Ours) skill in Beretta increased to 3, clubs to 32, Colt Detective to 3, lock pick (Attempted it before crowbaring) to 2, scout to 2, sneak to 7, spot to 31.

Morale: I'm hurt pretty bad, and it is affecting my morale. Morale is reduced by 1
Saving Portia Smith improves morale by 1.
Our reputation improved by 5.

The next day. One of the supply missions specifically mentions food, the other says "Supplies". The survivor missions are two "A few people were spotted in this area, they may need help" and one "Someone was shouting for help in this area".

WHAT'S THE PLAN, CODEX? Specifically food mission, "Supplies" mission, a survivor mission? Should we take the whole gang with us, or just some, and if so who? We could assign some/all of them to make barricades in the fort, but we should have plenty of time for that later. The large counter in the upper-left of the screen lists how much time we have until ITZ comes, so we've got 11 days to go.

 

[kazgar]

lol at 13 yr old with drivers license.

assume you should keep the actor at base building shit, he's got skills for it and sounds like pathfinding with a full squad will be more painful than trying with less.

take the girl, and go for food, then supplies everything else is based on that right now? you've got 3 days of food without any more peeps. guess it depends if the zombies get harder or not.

other dude can busy himself doing something or other.

 

[Azira]

Food > Supplies > Survivors

Have Arthur stay at home, making traps. No sense in bringing along an old geezer who shoots people in the back.

[EDIT] Oh, and maybe giving Algernon a rifle is a good idea, depending on ammo available? At least he has a decent skill.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Algernon could be good with a rifle, and we found another box of .303 on that run. Algernon also has a good first aid score though, which we could designate him the fort's nurse. A nurse's job is stay at the fort and use first aid skill and medicine to increase healing when ending turn, up to a max (IIRC) of 5 additional HP. If we find someone with a good medicine skill, they can take the doctor job which does the same thing only with a max of 10 HP. I believe if he's set to that when before we leave on our first mission, he's locked on that for the rest of the day and can't be changed before resting. I think. Not actually sure.
Probably should take the axe from Portia and give it to Arthur since he's good with blade skill. Another thing I didn't think of until now. Though if we leave him at base building barricades he won't need it.

 

[Trash]

Nice. Played this one at release and the general bugginess and bad controlls then killed it for me. Did like the fact that zombies kept chasing me. Gave a nice paranoid feeling to the missions.

Anyway, you're going to need food and supplies. After that happens you might look into trying to get more survivors.

Leave the old guys to build shit and play nurse and the girl with you to scout.

 

[Azira]

Is there any reason not to designate him as nurse? That +5 healing sounds really useful. Would he be blocked from doing missions if he's designated?