Good foundation for a game and could be a classic with a content/gameplay pass or two but as it stands I find it very hard to want to play after the first playthrough. The combat is a little too simple to be engaging or encourage tinkering/strategy, the map is a little too random with no way to navigate or explore it thoughtfully, and the events are too self-contained and random. It starts to feel as though the game plays itself.

If it's on sale I think it'd be a good pickup but for me if a rogue-like (can we call these FTL-likes yet?) doesn't inspire repeat play, then the game has missed the mark.

Really hope to see some updates soon.

I really, really wanted to like March of the Living. I really did. I absolutely adore FTL, and considering this game has 'inspired by FTL' and 'FTL meets Walking Dead' all over it, I was pretty eager to give it a try. Sweet holy god was I let down. The only thing in this game that's even remotely akin to FTL is the map screen, and even that is a cluttered mess compared to FTL's. So many of the events are buggy (or perhaps just outright stupid) I honestly thought the game was still in Early Access; I had to come back and check the page to see if it was in full release. One example: there's a random encounter where the game will steal something from you, and there's not a single thing you can do to stop nor avoid it, it's based entirely on the RNG. As if this wasn't bad enough, one of the items that can be stolen is the active weapon your character currently has equipped and is HOLDING IN THEIR HANDS, yet they "won't notice it's missing until the thief is long out of sight". I understand it's random chance since this game is a "roguelike" (no, it isn't, but that's an entirely other kettle of fish), but how exactly am I supposed to play the game when the very first event I get involves my revolver being stolen OUT OF MY OWN HANDS, and me apparently not noticing it until it's too late? FTL and actual roguelikes will always give you a choice, that's part of what made them playable. If you don't think you'll survive against a ship in FTL, you have the choice to jump away and survive; if you don't want to risk your crew fighting giant alien spiders, you can leave the colony to its fate. March of the Living gives you some choices, but a lot of its events are just a random coin toss you have absolutely zero control over. Did the RNG dictate you run into the thief? Then you'll lose something the second you get to that square. That's the game in a nutshell.

That's not even getting into the basic gameplay. Your character will find random events on the roads and forests of the world, and go into the cities to scavenge and restock. There is absolutely no way to scavenge anywhere outside cities, so you're relying even more on pure luck to get by if you don't go to the special city icons on the map. Scavenging anything worthwhile will bring a horde of zombies to you nine times out of ten, which is semi-understandable...except for the fact the scavenging system is incredibly stupid. If you bring the attention of zombies onto you, the game does NOT tell you the results of your scavenging until AFTER all the zombies are killed. So if you spend 60 minutes (the maximum time, and always has a roughly 60% chance of bringing zombies) scavenging a hospital, and zombies show up, the game not only doesn't give you what you scavenged, it doesn't even TELL you if you successfully found anything or not. You can waste precious bullets killing off the 8 zombies your searching brought in, only to find that - WHOOPS! You didn't actually find anything. Likewise, if you try to flee from the zombies, you get absolutely nothing from scavenging. The stuff scavenged becomes a 'reward' for beating the zombies, and if you don't beat them, you don't get a damn thing.

Speaking of fleeing, fleeing will bring on an entire host of issues that almost always makes fighting the zombies preferable, even in the worst, dumbest of circumstances. Fleeing will make you randomly lose something, which can be something fairly minor, such as a few bullets or rations, something fairly major, like an actual inventory item, including weapons, or it can be something absurd, like an ENTIRE PARTY MEMBER. I fled from three zombies on a forest road, to conserve my and my companion's ammo. The result of fleeing? My companion (Barry was his name) 'was no where to be seen'. He was just gone, with zero explanation; not dying to the zombies, not actually trying to steal my stuff, just ♥♥♥♥ing gone. The game is FULL of random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t like that, not to mention things that are still buggy. My final death? My character literally just stood there being eaten to death by a single zombie. He refused to flee, he refused to shoot or reload his gun, he didn't swing his melee weapon, and he didn't do the 'push back' move you can use to shove away zombies that have grabbed you. He literally just stood there being eaten to death from 9 HP down to 0. Considering combat is unbelievably dull and simple (especially compared to how dynamic FTL, this game's 'inspiration' is with its combat), it's almost unbelievable that they would have problems with it.

This is a long, rambling review (and I actually have even more to say, frankly), but I just can't get over how incredibly bad and almost unfinished this game is. It honestly seems like it's still in Early Access just because of how utterly nonsensical or outright buggy it is. For god's sake, the options for choices during random events have numbers, yet another thing they took from FTL, but the numbers on your keyboard don't even activate those choices, forcing you to do it via mouse. I don't understand how the game can compare itself to FTL so much while being so bad. It's a relatively simple concept, and compared to the depth and strategies involved in FTL, which AGAIN, this game claims to have been so inspired by, it's a bog simple time sink of a game...and they still manage to fill it with the most random, unfair ♥♥♥♥. Whether it's purposeful or accidental, the choices the developers made in making this game are incredibly stupid. This game could actually be good, and I sincerely hope it is someday, but it requires an absolute buttload of polish before it's there, let alone before it comes even remotely close to being as good as FTL. If actual choices and strategic, intense combat are what you're looking for, just go play FTL again. If you're super serious about playing a post-apocalyptic survival game, then go pick up Neo Scavenger. It's a million times better than this, in terms of combat, choices, story, survival aspects, and depth. Just don't play this game, not until the developers actually give a damn about making it worthwhile instead of just cashing in on claims of "FTL meets the Walking Dead!" which this absolutely is NOT.

Had a lot of fun playing this game. It can be pretty difficult at times trying to manage your group members and your resources but I think that's what makes it so enjoyable for me. A lot of games can tend to hold your hand and this was a nice change.

The combat seems a little slow at first but the further you travel the enemies get pretty difficult and having to manage 4-5 people can get pretty chaotic and tense despite being able to pause and plan out your movements / actions. It can either be really fast-paced or really strategic depending on how people decide to play.

You come across encounters pretty frequently, and there is a decent variety between all of them. Some can be pretty serious while others can give you a laugh which helps with the games pacing. I would love to see some mod support and mods for the game later on.

What can be said about a game like this? Well, first off it's pretty much Faster Than Light without the ships, and that's not just a generalization it literally feels just like FTL but with walking.

Events happen constantly which is pretty swell in my opinion. Graphics are what you get from the screenshots and videos, they're fine. Sounds are good, combat is great, and the story is pretty wonderful to boot.

If you have the cash to pick up a copy please do, if you don't well wishlist this beast because it's the most fun I've had from an Indie game in quite some time.

I am torn on this game.

On the one side I love zombie survival games with scavenging and trying to keep alive in a setting where all the odds are stacked against you. The world is nicely presented through the writing, allthough, in not too long you will start to see events play out that you've experienced before and it starts to feel a bit dry. I also love that there's contextual use for certain items and skillsets for the other survivors should you happen to have the appropriate ones with you.

On the other hand, it's easy to grow tired of the unceasing slaps that the game doles out to you when the dice do not fall in your favour, and yes there seems to be quite a bit of dice rolling behind the scenes in this game. At one point I had two survivors who were both starting to feel the wear of travelling and needed to rest. When you're in a city you can search for a safe space to rest in, which sounded like a good idea at first. The catch is that when you search for a place like this you run the risk of running into zombies, but I thought little of it as I had only met zombies rarely while doing this.

First attempt I ran into seven zombies. With two survivors and little ammo left I decided that it wasn't really worth the trouble and fled. The game decided that doing this was to be punished by losing my other survivor. Even though the zombies only appeared from one side of the screen. You can never flee an encounter without risking loosing one of your partymembers or loose gear. Aside from the events where the game asks you if you want to approach something, it is never an option to refrain from combat with the undead without some kind of repercussion, which I find forced and ridiculous.

Searching for a second time led my main guy into a gaggle of five more zombies, which at that point I HAD to flee, which lost me my best weapon. Searching for a place to rest a third time ALSO led me into a group of undead, but at this point my main guy was so tired of trying to find a place to rest he simply died of fatigue on the spot.

Aside from that I've had survivors instantaneously die from hunger right after travelling because the health meter takes a hit immediately if you allow the hunger meter to fill up, instead of gradually taking damage after it's filled, which would avoid those annoying events alltogether.

Or the events where you roll the dice and either things go well or you get to nominate one of your party to either take a slight hit or get fatally wounded. An example of this is an event where you come across a point where a road has been blocked by a fallen tree and loads of cars. You get three choices in this event; Navigate between the cars, climb over the fallen tree or skip the whole issue alltogether and go through the woods.

Having played a good few zombie games and seen a rather large number of zombie movies I figured moving in between the cars would be bad as there would most likely be undead still strapped in the car, and climbing over the tree sounded like an event where one of the survivors would fall off. So I headed into the forest to go around. No dice, it was full of undead. So I decided the tree was the least dangerous of the two remaining options. The survivors I sent up and over promptly fell off the tree and hurt himself. In a second game I came across the same situation and decided to go for the cars. And Lo and Behold, there was a zombie hidden among the cars who grabbed my survivor and bit him in the foot, incidentially the same guy who fell off the tree in the previous example, so maybe he was just a plain unlucky guy.

I wouldn't mind these outcomes so much if there was a hint towards how successful either of these actions would be in the text, but no such luck. The game throws the dice behind the scenes and either saves you or dooms you in the process.

Luckily, the survivors, aside from the few paragraphs you get about them when you initally meet them, turned out to be pretty faceless up and until where I've played so far. This meant that everyone in the party aside from the main character, served as risk sponges, item mules and a means for safety in numbers. I'd have loved for there to be little snippets about the characters in your party and how you get along with them, the partymembers weighing in when something happens, ANYTHING just to have some kind of impact when the random dice decide that someone needs to die.

In short, if you like the idea of a decently written, bit style zombie survival game where you travel from point to point like in FTL, with arguably somewhat shallow mechanics and random numbers deciding 'yes' or 'no' outcomes, you will probably like this game.

I on the other hand found the game not quite my cup of tea for the reasons described above.

As an FTL fan, I found this game disappointing and shallow. The combat just is not enjoyable. FTL had strategy and different load outs, this one just feels gimmicky. Melee rotters, shoot and kite everything else. go to EVERY city in the first 2 sectors. never run from a fight cause you lose stuff and you can get stuff for winning. rinse, repeat, and hope the RNG doesn't slap you in the face too hard too often. Many people are enjoying the game it seems and kudos to them, just not my thing I guess.

Spent so much of my time playing this game just staring at my guy walking, how is there nothing to make that go faster....

I am a Man of Constant Sorrow

Full disclosure: review copy provided by developer/publisher!

Zombies: I know 'em, you know 'em, even your grandmother knows 'em (though she probably remembers when they were bug-eyed Haitians under a voodoo spell). Personally, I haven't been bitten (teehee) by the zombie bug: they're boring whether they're shambling, running, walking; they're boring whether they're stupid, learning, or ending John Leguizamo's career. “OOOO, METAPHORS! WE'RE THE REAL WALKING DEAD -” Shut the ♥♥♥♥ up. It's tired. It's old hat.

But I really dig this game. REALLY dig it.

March of the Living is a “you're ♥♥♥♥ed” simulator: whichever character you choose, you're ♥♥♥♥ed. You're given an objective and you have to set out on a randomly generated spider-webbed path, dealing with zamboozles and the living, all while juggling items and your own well-being. With each kilometer traversed your character (or party) will become fatigued and hungry, meaning you'll have to take less-than-opportune snack, potty, and nap breaks along the way. Since it's zombie country now there's a helpful gauge indicating how close the zombie growling is to you and, if it gets close enough, you'll be thrust into that weird FTL pause command strategy gameplay. You'll encounter sometimes as many as six zimbompos, and when you have a party of your own things can get crowded real quick. It's hard to tell pixels apart in the mosh pit but you can select actions outside of the fray using little character profiles on the top right.

As you travel you'll hit cities (distinguishable on the map because they look like skylines), and you can scavenge for more supplies... they're like reliable oasises. You'll grab health, ammo, items to trade with barterers, and weapons.

This is a procedurally generated, RNG-y affair so it comes with the usual pros and cons.

Pros: every journey is going to be a little different.

Con: ♥♥♥♥ you, did you think you were going to find a crab apple or something to eat? Enjoy a long, agonizing, drawn out death.

The writing is compelling in that FTL way... lots of encounters and scenarios, lots of characters to meet and unlock, lots of deaths to die. And it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. You're going to die an AWFUL lot, and sometimes it's just going to be straight-up NOT FAIR... but you'll persevere, in the end. You'll come back to this one because it's exciting to see how long you can hold it together, how different situations can be defused (or ignited), etc. Biggest gripe I have is the fatigue/hunger bar drops SUPER quick... but that's just me. There's also a flee mechanic in case you decide you want to cut and run from an intimidating fight... if you're alone you're liable to lose some ammo or food or an item, but if you have a party member or two you can pretty much say buh-bye to them. Of the five or six times I've fled with a party member in tow they ended up lost except ONCE, never to be seen or heard from again. Maybe that's just my RNG, I don't know.

What I do know is this is a fun one if you're looking to fill in that Organ/Oregon Trail/FTL void in your heart.

And that cover art? Brilliant. There's a zambly with maggots writhing in the sinews of his torn corpse and it is radical.

A really awesome game - fairly challenging (especially on the first couple of playthroughs) which really helps set the mood for a great survial horror. Just the right mix of survival, strategy, action and adventure, March of the Living ticks an awful lot of boxes.

Despite the simple retro graphics, I still found the game really immersive, and felt several moments of genuine fear when forced to flee from the zombie hordes. While a couple of the random events were a bit odd/confusing they were few and far between, and overall I was very happy with the game.

Apparently the person making the promotional videos didn't know you could press space to pause and be more tactical during battles (Newbs take note)

10/10

A serviceable game that is as described, a mix of FTL and The Walking Dead. But it is a mixture of the basics of both, could have been more, and may be too short for its price.

The game follows FTL in the sense that every destination node you reach would have a random event, and like FTL, it is randomized and can be good or bad. As you journey through the nodes you have to make decisions to keep yourself alive and reach your final destination.

And obviously the game follows The Walking Dead because it has zombies, guns and scavenging. Scavenging takes place in a town node where you can scavenge 5 buildings, police station, hospital, drug store, grocery and apartments.

Along the way you may be able to recruit new people. You have to manage your team's hunger and fatigue. The more people you have, the more food they have to eat, but there is strength in numbers.

Combat is simple but considering there are only so many ways to kill zombies, it does its job and there is no need to make it as complex as FTL. There are 4 main weapon types, melee, pistols, shotguns and rifles. Each gun have different firing modes such as a slower but more accurate shot which instantly kills enemies.

Unfortunately, the game also has the shortcomings of The Walking Dead. The game is short and one character takes about 2 hours to complete. All 4 characters would take about 10 hours. And like the Walking Dead, the game focuses more on story, and so doesn't have as much replayability as FTL. But unlike the Walking Dead, the story in this game is merely ok and cannot rival the well-written Walking Dead.

The game is serviceable but may not be worth the full price due to how short it can be. Currently it feels like an idea with the basics down, but hasn't been fleshed out yet. But at a higher discount, it may be worth your money.