Quick Look: Survivor Squad

Is it sad that I just spent like 30 seconds refreshing the page to get to this?

@hs_alpha_wolf: yes.

@hs_alpha_wolf:

Yes.

But I did it too which is just as sad.

Games are sad.

Is it Next Gen yet?

Well hey there early morning quick look.

the NEXT GENERATION OF GAMES!...... is on Steam.

Ironically, Patrick sounds like Drew.

God dame Vinny. DREW TRUSTED YOU

Patrick actually sounds like Patrick.

My theory about zombie games is the following. If you can't code AI you do a puzzle game. If you're terrible at coding AI you do a zombie game. Thoughts?

XD HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

This looks like funzies

Has there been a Vinny Drew Quick Look before?

I feel like that combo has come up in like Load Our Last Save, or Flight Club, but I can't think of the last time a Quick Look was just the video production crew, with none of the usual editorial staff.

EDIT: Haha, Vinny is terrible at this game. It's adorable. I've played enough Frozen Synapse to find Vinny's play style...somewhat aggravating.

Looks like someone's been reading up on World War One.

Love the look of this game.

This game looks super easy as long as you aren't dumb about positioning.

I was literally looking at this game like 2 days ago thinking "I could really use a quick look on this." Looked neat, but pictures don't tell the whole truth.

@larrydavis said:

The only thing I noticed in the Quick Look that seemed kind of cheap was that the Leaper/Hunter things seemed to have crazy range. I swear that even when all the survivors were facing one of them (but the Leaper was just far enough away that they couldn't see him in their cone of vision), the Leaper was able to jump from out of their field of view all the way onto one of them.

That seems like potentially cheap, unavoidable damage, in that I don't see how you avoid taking at least one hit from that. But I haven't played the game so maybe there is some way you can get longer vision range or long range guns or something so that if you creep forward slowly you can take those (and the Spitters) out before they land a hit on you.

But yeah, especially with unlimited ammo, this game seems like Teleglitch except if it were mad easy, and you get 4 dudes instead of 1, and you can pause to assign movement orders whenever you want. Still, based on the graphics and hilariously homemade voice acting, I'm assuming this is somebody's like first commercial video game project, and it's not bad game for presumably a small, inexperienced dev.

@larrydavis: Yeah it was only $7.00 on steam so I picked it up and even with a laptop touchpad and unlimited pausing it was super easy. The item management and the sheer amount of things that you can't take with you early on is the real challenge. You really have to look at what you absolutely need and take that, until you get the bigger bags/more guys of course.

This looks like fun, but i would never send in my Drew's alone, Vinny!

Drew.0!

Hah :-)

A top down State of Decay?

Sent Drew in alone....dude..harsh lol

Drew can survive anything!!

NEVER. EVER. EVER. Follow Vinny in the Post Apocalypse. Damn man, only concerned with yourself.

The more they kept discussing features that would make the game awesome, the less i became interested. Still might pick it up, as i normally do with indies, but yea seeing more of what could have been.

Kind of reminds me of Cannon Fodder, less fun though :(

Drew 2.0 looks more like a Jeff.

Is there some ghosting on this video?

Lol poor drew.

Honestly I will say you have design a game around the resources you have as an indie developer. It's very important to not try to build that MMO or huge project that you want to jump right into. That said it would be like saying "You make a single player game cause you can't program net-code." which honestly isn't true half the time or more. In fact I am writing a game now and I really wish I could figure out a way to put multiplayer in because I love coding net-code. Some games just call for different features. Zombies are a really good survival/horde enemy. This game would be the same if you replaced Zombies with Aliens, Infested plant monsters or anything else. They wanted to make a survival horror game that had tactics in it. A lot of the features they request in the game wouldn't be too terribly difficult to implement.

If you would allow me to nerd out for a second, take a "search all feature". All you would do is create an algorythm (read: loop that checks all the search points in a given building) and provide the nearest point. and create a small system to make sure the characters don't go to the same search point which is easy because you can just keep that in memory with a bool of the search object or an array of pointers to the search objects taken... Does this make sense? (sorry if it doesn't)

Anyways. Yes and no, games are usually designed around resources but they never truly hinder indie games. Those are games create from people wanting to learn and expand on what they are doing. At least from what I have seen :)

Game looks fun enough, but I really hate the art style. Looks super amateurish, and not even in an endearing way.

@deltaalphabravo: I think it's artefacting from the video player. It's more noticeable in dark games, and even playing a video in HD doesn't get rid of most of it.

@mjbrune: Yea. Fair point. I think resources and priorities is a better way to frame that thought. Whether it'd be time, money, or skilled resource, devs pick their priority. It's the same in every area of business development really.

It's just a thought that crossed my mind seeing so many puzzle games and zombie games, and it occurred to me that these genres seem like achievable projects for small teams. If I had to do my first game or do it with a team of 2-3, I'd probably pick a turn-based combat system or something to lower the complexity.

I recall playing Half Life 1 when it came out, and I was pretty impressed by the human AI (the army dudes that come to blow the facility to bury you) that worked in formation, went and took cover; it was the first time I noticed the AI wasn't just walking towards me shooting bullets. It was noticeable in contrast to those monsters in HL who mostly just charge at you. I found enjoyment fighting enemies that weren't just charging at me. I took cover, they took cover, I picked my shot, they picked their shots. They seemed like believable humans that didn't have a death wish. Recently seeing all the zombie games, I wondered if it was a way to avoid the AI challenge in a way; monsters that just walk toward you in a horde. You don't need to pretend they are intelligent or have a sense of self-preservation.

'OH NO....DREW!!!!!! They're just feeding on you. Sorry Drew.'

Drew2.0 I think I am wanting this game.

Game looks good. Steam sale at the end of the month so i'll be picking it up then.

I bought this game ages ago when it was in some alpha/beta state. Played it a bit, seemed to have some good ideas, and completely forgot to keep up with the development and even that I owned it. After seeing the QL and checking out the site, it seems the guy who made this even provided Steam keys to all those early buyers. It doesn't seem to have changed much since then, unfortunately. I do hope the dev earns a decent amount of money on it though. With a bigger budget this could make for a pretty good sequel!

Yeah, I was going to say this. I know next to nothing about development, but there's got to be budding artists out there willing to contribute work for just a name on the credit scroll in return.

Yeah the art could have definitely been better, but at least the game isn't all that expensive either. Looks quite alright overall.

Yeah, it looked really interesting. I'm not super familiar with games like these. I played Advance Wars years ago, then XCOM last year (again as we speak), and Fire Emblem when that came out earlier this year. I realize they aren't really the same thing, but it's the closest point of reference I have, and I've loved all of them. This seems like it might scratch that same itch, you know?

I think ditching the portraits entirely would help a ton. There's really no need for them; they're just a weak link in the entire chain.

Otherwise, they've got a cool thing going here. I'm a fan of the CRPG style mechanics.

Intriguing concept, may be true. Devs would be the ones who know that it's that instead of circumstancial evidence.

A little Frozen Synapse, a dash of Hotline Miami, and a pinch of XCOM? Just can't bring myself to pay full price on a Steam game 4-6 weeks before the winter sale, though.

This should have ended with robot Drew turning on Vinny, thus bringing forth the robot/zombie apocalypse.

After getting Drew killed, Vinny had to get rid of the only witness - Patrick. You just can't trust anyone in a zombie apocalypse.