Survival games
polycounter lvl 19
TL;DR: Eager to hear which survival games you've played/are playing, and what makes them unique besides their themes.
I was playing Stomping Land's today; ~45 minutes on my lunch. I had enough time to join a small server, ask people for help, and eventually join a 'Tribe' of friendly people who were willing to give me a crash course on the game.
I couldn't help but wonder, though, that if I remove the theme from the game - being some kind of hunter surviving a period which dinosaurs roamed the earth - what the unique element of the survival genre is that Stomping Lands brings.
Granted, I've only played for 45 minutes so I am sure it is out there. I am sure a Polycounters who's played it much longer than me can chime in and say what's what. But to get to my point a little faster, I wanted to ask what it was that the majority of popular survival games have that make them unique. Or is the 'theme' enough?
Some commonalities between all Survival games:
What's the special sauce that makes a survival game stand out? So let's say that these 4 things (+health) are the main ingredients in a Survival game. Besides themes, what have the popular survival games done that have made them unique? I'll start on the two I've played the most:
Minecraft: To me its the games robust, dare I say 'endless', possibilities of what can be built in the game. And not just built, but actually introduce new function to the world in addition to their form. Monster farms, calculators, and so on. "Redstone" is, to me anyway, what makes Minecraft stand out. Mix that with its unique visual style and accessibility (anyone can play, easy to learn and hard to master) and it stands out.
Day Z: Of the survival games I've played, this one is the most punishing. And I don't mean when you have to suffer through its control scheme and game-breaking bugs. What I mean is it can take a long, long time to feel an ounce of comfort when playing your character in Day Z. You can be killed by anything, anywhere, and at any time. You'll have moments where you feel safe, but at any moment someone you'll never see or even know their name can kill you. And the will kill you. What makes Day Z so unique, to me, is other players and the impact they can have on all other aspects of the game. The amount of emergent experiences we've seen from the game via Youtube or playing it ourselves shows just how robust of a social game Day Z is. For a game about surviving the zombie apocalypse, the zombies are the weakest part of the experience.
Eager to hear which survival games you've played/are playing, and what makes them unique besides their themes.
I was playing Stomping Land's today; ~45 minutes on my lunch. I had enough time to join a small server, ask people for help, and eventually join a 'Tribe' of friendly people who were willing to give me a crash course on the game.
I couldn't help but wonder, though, that if I remove the theme from the game - being some kind of hunter surviving a period which dinosaurs roamed the earth - what the unique element of the survival genre is that Stomping Lands brings.
Granted, I've only played for 45 minutes so I am sure it is out there. I am sure a Polycounters who's played it much longer than me can chime in and say what's what. But to get to my point a little faster, I wanted to ask what it was that the majority of popular survival games have that make them unique. Or is the 'theme' enough?
Some commonalities between all Survival games:
- It's "survival", so health is the defining factor of whether you live or die. All other mechanics feed in to health. I haven't seen an alternative to this. (E.g. If you get super sad, you die. Or if you get very poor, the game/your time with that character ends.)
- Crafting. Find items, build ingredients, craft items. These items lend themselves to 'health', but also expediting certain abilities the player already has: Gather faster, move faster, breathe more, get stronger, store more things, etc.
- Generally lacking objective. "Don't die", typically, is your objective. I read recently that No Man's Sky has an objective of getting to the center of the universe. That's ambiguous enough to still offer opportunity to players to define their own objectives while still projecting them towards an end-goal.
- Customization. Usually specific to the characters. Clothing, hair colour, eye colour, nationalities, backgrounds, race, etc.
- Community/Social. I don't mean Facebook and/or Twitter integration. I mean playing with friends, playing with strangers, and the impact that can have on all other areas of commonalities found in survival games. E.g. Is it typically passive like in Minecraft, or is it anxiety-inducing like Day Z? Is there a game where seeing someone else = a shining, positive light each time?
What's the special sauce that makes a survival game stand out? So let's say that these 4 things (+health) are the main ingredients in a Survival game. Besides themes, what have the popular survival games done that have made them unique? I'll start on the two I've played the most:
Minecraft: To me its the games robust, dare I say 'endless', possibilities of what can be built in the game. And not just built, but actually introduce new function to the world in addition to their form. Monster farms, calculators, and so on. "Redstone" is, to me anyway, what makes Minecraft stand out. Mix that with its unique visual style and accessibility (anyone can play, easy to learn and hard to master) and it stands out.
Day Z: Of the survival games I've played, this one is the most punishing. And I don't mean when you have to suffer through its control scheme and game-breaking bugs. What I mean is it can take a long, long time to feel an ounce of comfort when playing your character in Day Z. You can be killed by anything, anywhere, and at any time. You'll have moments where you feel safe, but at any moment someone you'll never see or even know their name can kill you. And the will kill you. What makes Day Z so unique, to me, is other players and the impact they can have on all other aspects of the game. The amount of emergent experiences we've seen from the game via Youtube or playing it ourselves shows just how robust of a social game Day Z is. For a game about surviving the zombie apocalypse, the zombies are the weakest part of the experience.
Eager to hear which survival games you've played/are playing, and what makes them unique besides their themes.
Replies
If I had to make a guess, players just love the idea of being able to enter a gigantic world and do whatever they want. This type of experience hasn't really be done before as most games tend to have some very obvious limits. In DayZ, if you want to tie some stranger up and harass them, then force them to drink poison, you can do it.
I suppose the closest thing to this kind of game would be some MMOs, but with most traditional MMOs, you're stuck following a pre-written questline which often leads to repetitive gameplay (grind enemies, deliver quests, etc.) I see a lot of people make videos on their "adventures" in DayZ where they are roleplaying and basically writing their own stories. Some people like to hop on and just shoot anybody they see whereas others want to pretend to be completely different people. Additionally, zombies seem to play a very minimal role in the game once you dedicate time to a character and stay alive for some time.
The game is essentially an open world PVP experience without the gameplay rules of an MMO (if you want to try attacking some stranger in an MMO, better hope they aren't 6x your level or they'll turn around despite you getting the first hit and they'll drop you in a second.)
I'm looking forward to No Man's Sky but I'd imagine it would draw in a very different crowd of gamers. From my limited experience with DayZ, a lot of people just like pretending to be bandits rather than getting to sit back and explore a large unknown universe.
Edit: Unique feature... Aimbot Ai Missions, just in case you weren't having a bad enough day already.
it was baller when it was more about watching out for zombies than what it seems to be now. what I've seen from streams, it's all about getting dudes nekkid. zombies are never a factor.
back in the days you really had to sneak all over the place..
now its some sort of homo-simulator I guess?
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No one in a survival game is there to survive or be friendly, you either go in with friends or you have a crappy time
I am tired of survival games tbh.
Yup, I enjoy the survival aspect so my friends and I used to play co-op on a private WarZ server.
So if you're sick of constantly getting ganked by heavily armed bandits, you should try State of Decay. It's a single player game for Xbox 360 & Windows (there's even talks of a tv show and possible multiplayer sequel)
It's got a mix of randomness & storyline. You start out stranded with your buddy but you eventually meet up with a group where the real game begins. You have to scrounge for food, medicine and building supplies for the group, random things pop up that you have to take care of but there's also storyline missions that progress the game. These are the best zombies I've seen in a survival game, these are slow zombies that can climb fences, smash down doors or bust through windows. They also throw in rare special zombies like Left 4 Dead that can be a real challenge.
The death system is interesting, you can play as any survivor in your group who considers you your friend and isn't occupied at the moment. You will level up your character as you play but you also get tired after too much scavanging so the game pushes you to switch around characters. If that survivor dies, oh well, that's one less member of your group!
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It's a bit of a different style to most of the others mentioned here being more of a pure survival game set in an entirely randomised world. It's more focused on building up infrastructure and becoming self sufficient than fighting off hordes of zombies or naked loonies though there's still plenty of chance for you to get mauled by wild dogs or enraged penguins. Or getting cold, wet, hungry, depressed or standing in the dark without a light source for more than a couple of seconds.
It has a really impressive level of detail and there are still new things I'm stumbling across months after I first traded a TF2 hat for it.
It has all or most of the "special sauce" ingredients of a survival game, focusing on health, thirst, hunger, and stamina. Is a topdown perspective game with simple, clear pixel art, non-invasive music, elegant UI, lots of exploration, lots of crafting and discovery, sense of fear & urgency, mystery, and an elegant setup to your character story.
some notes:
At one point I felt great loss while playing. I had a game going for at least 7 days. Built up a huge house around the entrance to a cave, and had lots of chests full of goodies i found around the world to continue improving my house. Then I discovered how to make a boat. I got excited, made the boat and decided to explore off my wonderful little island. Then... i got lost. I couldn't find my way back to the island. I have never felt such panic and anxiety in a game (well, maybe Hardcore Diablo 3 characters), but I had just lost my way... and felt like i had started the game over again without dying. I resolved to build a new home, and after about 6 more days of playing I sailed again to find more ore to make armor, and stumbled on my old home. It was glorious. Feel it is pretty unique for this game to not only have you feel fear, but also ownership, responsibility, and gives you the opportunity to create a home, and feel at home while in an area you claim.
I also fought a bear in a ring of fire once. I lost, but it was great.
The mod differs from DayZ in that it focuses more on promoting PVP vs the 'survival' elements of DayZ. You still need food and water, but it is very simple compared to DayZ. You can loosely choose where you spawn on the map (East Coast, West Coast, Central) and there are also player classes, which determine who you can kill and what the rewards/penalties are for doing so. Each class has three levels, with increasing perks/benefits. Rangers/Nomads are the 'good guys' and can kill only Outlaws/Hunters (the bad guys. Survivalists can only kill Hunters (for no point gain) and the "None" class, whom every class can kill as a "none" is an opt-out of the class system. It's quite different to DayZ and works well. I've had some crazy fun on the mod but it can also be immensly frustrating mostly due to Arma 3 being the most amazing fuckaround. Some of the bugs that exist or have existed are astonishing. You also need a really stable internet connection (which I don't) otherwise you're in for a baaad time. So the game certainly has its ups and downs but when you've got a good group of people, you can get through even the most ridiculous bs.
The main appeal about this mod to me is the combat and damage system. As well as Arma 3's ballistics system and advanced stances (various modes of crouching/standing) the developers overhauled the player damage system. There are three tiers of bleeding and some effects of hydrostatic shock. If someone gets hit center mass with 7.62 you know they're near death probably seconds from bleeding out. And if they don't have a field dressing for their tier 2 bleeding? No chance. When you've spent hours getting your gear and location you really want to stay alive, so when you take shots you panic. There's not much else like it. It's like the panic you get from playing Amnesia, but in this you can be the monster causing the fear. There's also custom hitzones for the heart, any caliber to the head is instant death, you can pass out from blood loss, and being tactical/prepared is what helps you prevail. But no one lives forever. Finding other people's hidden stashes / vehicles is also great too. The two armoured vehicles you can get in this are so immensely valuable it's piratically a different game if your group has one.
If DayZ simplified with more of a combat focus interests you, here's some videos of us playing, not from my POV... nfsw language of course:
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has a cool visual style too!
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Neo scavenger is a game I picked up at random when looking through early access games on steam, it's a turnbased hexagonal-tile survival game with lots of interaction/permutations and details in surviving.
Lots of reactions to cold, diseases, with actual wounds that needs treatment.
Combat is raw, filthy and changes like the rest of the game depending on situation and context awareness.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/248860/
I was playing State of Decay and really enjoyed the feeling of "I need to get shit done", with the semirandom events coming in while I'm tired, injured and trying to complete some other task. Knowing that this character that I've spent time talking to can die out there if I don't go save them was a pretty big rush. Now I'm midgame and have a bunch of loot and I'm finding it less engaging and challenging, and feel that I can take a bit more time goofing around.
Health: That screenshot from Neo Scavenger looks very enticing, I was just looking at this game actually. It's a well established mechanism, but I think a more realistic survival game needs something more complex to handle your overall health. "I feel like crap today because I ran for 5 miles yesterday, haven't eaten much and have a bit of a fever and these damn bugs won't leave me alone.", instead of "I am at 12/30 HP because a monster bit me, but I have a healing potion"
It's more about the scenario and the stories that unfold, and a game that reacts to you as much as you to it. In STALKER:Misery, your loot tier isn't necessarily tied to the tier of mobs you're fighting, crafting is mostly tweaking your gear and making food, it's not an overly complex system or AI. But the game feels alive. It's hard as hell and sucks you right in. Players repeating the stories that they just played out are about as interesting as actually playing, and I think that storytelling aspect is what's most important. (just like in a good tabletop game)
It's not like other sorts of games where most aspects are just explained with pop-up windows or obvious dialogue. You might know something is dangerous because it almost killed you and you had to haul ass running off towards god-knows-where, not because the game said "These guys are dangerous, hit the commands in the order they appear to kill it!"
I like aspects of the genre and enjoy some good survival/survival-horror type games, but I certainly don't have interest in all of them. Multiplayer survival games, wouldn't screw with it for an instant. Immersion is a big thing in survival games, the necessity of learning about the world to survive makes things very immersive and that can get thrown out the window quick if other assholes (real people) are involved.
I'll have to check in to some of the games mentioned here when I get some time.
It's ironic that you mention DayZ and Minecraft, I'm actually watching a stream of a game that's literally both games combined. Minecraft style blocks with DayZ zombies, crafting, vehicles, cooking, hunting, PvP, weapons, etc. It's called Unturned and it's free to play right now I think.
One interesting aspect it has is morale. If your character gets too depressed for too long and he/she will commit suicide... Keep morale up by eating yummy food, playing video games, recreational drug use, or reading interesting books/magazines(porn, lol) (as opposed to the boring ones which teach advanced skills.). Get injured, sick/infected, go thirsty/hungry, go too long without a fix (if you happen to be addicted to something), or eat disgusting things (still haven't tried tainted zombie meat... but curious...) and morale drops.
Death by dehydration seems to be a constant worry in the games I've played, not so much starvation (yet...). Sleeping is a nerve racking ordeal. Zombies/creatures are pretty brutal too but with some good equipment and an increase in your fighting skills and things get a little bit easier (I think overconfidence will likely get my current character killed sooner rather than later...). Acid rain and background radiation are constant worries as well. The game starts in Spring, sometimes it gets a little too hot to wear protective clothes and armor and Winter is coming... cold may prove to be a challenge as well.
As with most roguelikes Cataclysm DDA has some extremely deep gameplay but little to no visuals (tileset or ASCII) and a pretty horrible UI. Still I find it quite immersive and great fun.
I'm a super big fan of cataclysm!, it's likely one of the best ascii roguelike survival games out there.
the original creator of cataclysm: https://twitter.com/whalesdev is currently working on cataclysm 2, which is a from the ground up rewrite of a game, more of what he wanted cataclysm to be, z-levels already in there.
It's up on github in its current form: https://github.com/Whales/Cataclysm2
Yeah Cataclysm 2 sounds cool! I think Dark Days Ahead is still progressing beyond the original Cataclysm, just waiting on non-broken NPCs and multiple z levels for skyscrapers etc.
I played Neo Scavenger way back when it was first put up online years ago. Loved the feel and setting. IIRC I had a pack full of iSlabs and some kind of nanotech something I was hoping to sell in town when I encountered an inventory bug which crashed the game on a side quest. I've been meaning to try it out again since I bought it in one the humble bundles a little while ago.
@moose:
Wayward sounds interesting, thanks for mentioning it.