The Dead Linger - Realistic Zombie Survival Sandbox

Eoinos

This is a game that I have been watching intently for months. Firstly let me say it is a game in development by Sandswept studios and an alpha release is expected in the coming months April - June so you can't play it yet. There is a small highly active community over at their forums which has been growing rapidly with the recent kickstarter:
The Dead Linger

Also let me say early on that the development team interact fully with the community reading every post and replying to all, so if you have a good idea they will do a pretty good job to put it in the game if it works in theory.

• Now down to the game, its basically a randomly generated world, think minecraft. Currently cities, rural areas, mountains, lakes and forests are planned. Oil-rigs are on the list suggesting seas and more terrain (biomes) are sure to follow later in development.
• The game is going to be quite realistic, little to no HUD, no health bar, items will be where you expect them eg guns only in gun shops, military bases, few houses.
• Melee weapons are in and you pretty much use anything as a weapon but I doubt a flowerpot is good against a few zombies haha
• You can craft items, and its gonna be pretty wide, mix a bear trap with a Molotov and what do you get? A Molotov bear trap no less. Freeform crafting is being discussed as the whole crafting system is not set in stone. That would allow you to combine anything with almost anything, stick and grenade, gun and flashlight ect.
• You can build, so using planks barricade a building and build you own buildings, thats a pretty simple example I thought of off the top of my head but you get the picture. This will be a big part of the game
• Vehicles are planed later in development, so cars and a fuel system. Driving, like everything is realistic, go too fast, hit something, say hello to the windscreen and almost certain death or serious injuries. Helicopters and aircraft are being considered and there difficulty too, not everyone knows instantly how to pilot one you know. Railroads look likely.
• Realistic physics, you can pick up pretty much everything so on and so forth, you know what I mean.
• There is both multiplayer and singleplayer along with pvp. So clans many clans have formed and taken an interest in the game
• Graphics will be quite good and will improve as alpha and beta progress, they will be on a level with Stalker in the beginning but that will improve.
• There is hunger which will decrease over and as you do actions, moving, walking, climbing ect. Thirst is there to my knowledge but I cant confirm

Thats all I can remember currently and I cant for the life of me find the long feature list that was posted. I would advise any of you that are interested to head over to their forums and read up on some of the topics. Feel you can add to the game? Then open and account and suggest away, but make sure you use the search function as it's possible you idea may have already been discussed.
If any of you got any questions I will try and answer them to the best of my ability.

There are some models that can be seen on there blog which is updated regularly with more and more posts coming up to alpha and beyond: Blog


The Dead Linger is on Kickstarter.
Kickstarter


The Design Director, Geoff Keene has realeased a video calling for support,

Bonus: A comic strip created by one of the forums members
Comic Strip

Help support what is sure to be a great game

richymcdermott

Another company promised something similar and promises were not match

Cough cough **

dead island


I keep an eye out for it but im not donating money , hoping the money i donated came to good use , too many developers are jumping the band wagon on what tim did ..
I wish them well but thats all

degrassinoel

I was a bit disappointed by DI too, but for a lowbudget game sandbox game this could be pretty interesting. That said, i mean c'mon.. zombies, sandbox.. like i'm not gonna at least try it

Eoinos

I don't know the promises that were made for Dead Island, and I'm actually getting that same statement alot elsewhere. I don't know if it was publishers that changed DI or if it was them trying to appeal to the mass market, either way I'm 100% the same won't happen here.
Anyway I'm not asking for peoples money, just hope you all take an interest in the game.

Zero-Cool

I thought Dead Island was brilliant. It had a brilliant debut trailer and it was an excellent game. My 2nd favourite zombie game after L4D and raging I traded it.

This new one sounds interesting but I doubt I'll ever get to play it on PS3.

Genghiz Cohen

Eoinos wrote: »

take an interest in the game.

Oh, you have my interest. Yes indeed.

Wossack

to be an fps? (sorry if shown/said, am in work so cant see pic's/vid's)

humanji

Wossack wrote: »

to be an fps? (sorry if shown/said, am in work so cant see pic's/vid's)

Yeah, it's an fps.

While I like the idea of sandbox games and zombie games, I just don't know about this. I've been watching them for a while and seen absolutely no progress being made. Not only that, but not heard a single peep out of them. Then the kickstarter trend gets motion and they jump on the bandwagon. I just don't trust that they'll do what they say. I really hope they do, but there's some niggling doubt at the back of my mind.

Eoinos

humanji wrote: »

Yeah, it's an fps.

While I like the idea of sandbox games and zombie games, I just don't know about this. I've been watching them for a while and seen absolutely no progress being made. Not only that, but not heard a single peep out of them. Then the kickstarter trend gets motion and they jump on the bandwagon. I just don't trust that they'll do what they say. I really hope they do, but there's some niggling doubt at the back of my mind.

They are on the forums daily, read every single post and reply to every single post over the last 6+ months. I don't know how many devs listen to their community that much.
This is the game most zombie fans want, an open world survival game, just so many fail to do it or do what they think will sell well with the least amount of development time.
The devs already stated they will continue to work on this project for numerous years with updates every couple of weeks.
Is it really hard to believe for once that a company is actually making the game people want?

Big Knox

Eoinos wrote: »

They are on the forums daily, read every single post and reply to every single post over the last 6+ months. I don't know how many devs listen to their community that much.
This is the game most zombie fans want, an open world survival game, just so many fail to do it or do what they think will sell well with the least amount of development time.
The devs already stated they will continue to work on this project for numerous years with updates every couple of weeks.
Is it really hard to believe for once that a company is actually making the game people want?

I don't think anyone here is questioning the devs motives or their dedication to try and deliver what they promise and listen to the community. The problem here is do they have the resources and ability to deliver on a project of this size.

No in game footage is not a good sign no matter what way you look at it. I really do wish them all the best on this as it seems like a great project, but I honestly wouldn't get my hopes up.

humanji

Eoinos wrote: »

They are on the forums daily, read every single post and reply to every single post over the last 6+ months. I don't know how many devs listen to their community that much.

They're on the forums and they're presenting very little of what they've achieved. They may very well be working too hard to spend time showing what they're doing, or they may be doing nothing and leading people on. I don't know, but I feel no reason to assume the best based on nothing.

This is the game most zombie fans want, an open world survival game, just so many fail to do it or do what they think will sell well with the least amount of development time.

And there's always a chance that this will go the way thousands of similar ideas have gone before.

The devs already stated they will continue to work on this project for numerous years with updates every couple of weeks.

Many devs say this and many devs are lying. I really hope these guys pull this off and create a hell of a game, but they're not really giving any reason to trust them so far.

Is it really hard to believe for once that a company is actually making the game people want?

Well, yes. Many companies say they are making the game that people want. Then they realise their goals were too lofty and change the game, but still claim that it's the one that people want.

This is not just my problem with this game, it's with all the kickstarter projects. You're just hoping that the people behind it aren't either lying or haven't thought it through enough. Until they demonstrate that they can do what they claim, then I'll believe it. But I think it's too risky as it stands.

Eoinos

In other news with 4 days down they managed to raise $24,000 (40%)
26 days to go so it's looking good. Notch apparently bought himself a copy

They are also considering making a video showing off the world in its current state, a short walkthrough, and something with the random world gen. Around mid-way through this month.

I think Dead Island's ultimate downfall was the debut trailer. It was so atmospheric, well shot, had a lot of emotion and created a lot of hype. Only problem was, it just couldn't live up to any of this. It wasn't that it was a bad game, its that it wasn't good enough.

This is the first I've heard of this and it's intriguing. Hopefully they can work on some of the ideas DI had and improve on them.

TerrorFirmer

I dunno if all you guys played Dead Island extensively, but I put about 80 hours into it and it was ****ing awesome - the best Zombie game out there, alongside Left4Dead, which is really a completely different game entirely, aside from sharing the zombie and first person aspects. Of course it's not without it's faults, but all in all, I thought it was epic.

It's hardly fair to compare what's essentially concept from what we can actually see to a completed game. Very, very, few games deliver on all their promises - no reason to believe this one won't be the same.

Eoinos

Another quick update.In the last 12 hours another $6,000. They are now at 50% in just 4.5 days. With 26 days left it's looking very good as pessimistic as I was. Word of mouth pays of it seems