News: Lurching towards the PC sometime next year.
DoubleBear Productions has revealed the first details about Dead State, an RPG that heavily focuses on the survival aspect of a zombie apocalypse.
If you've ever wanted to put the theories espoused in The Zombie Survival Guide to the test, Dead State is the game for you. Players will be tasked with defending a shelter (in this case, a school), fortifying the barriers, managing the other survivors and foraging for food and supplies in a world now overrun by zombies.
The developer has posted an extensive game FAQ on their site and Rock Paper Shotgun recently sat down with DoubleBear's Brian Mitsoda, who further explained the ways of the world in Dead State.
The RPS interview is a great read and Mitsoda and touches on many of the different ways the development team plans to implement the Morale system and Panic reactions in the game:
Mitsoda: We have certain situations Ц crisis events Ц that require the player to make especially difficult decisions. These decisions affect the law or policies of the shelter's inhabitants, and most every ally will lose or gain confidence in you when you make these decisions. If you have authority figures in the school, they will want to recommend a course of action and depending on how well they respect you or if you consider their advice, they may be able to persuade other allies that you made the right choice.
For example, one crisis involves the supply of antibiotics running low and dealing with the school's infected allies. You might want to make finding antibiotics a priority or give them to a few key people, or kick the infected out, but it's not an easy decision and some people are going to die, some will hate you, and some will think you run a tight ship. This is the political side of being a leader, and I think it's one of the more exciting parts of the game's story mechanics.
Dead State is currently being developed as a PC-exclusive with a "When it's done... but definitely not in 2010" release date.
We'll be watching this one very closely.