There’s something oddly comforting about radio. Comforting because it’s so familiar, so natural. Odd because it’s a comfort that most of us don’t really use all that much these days, at least not in the ways that games just casually assume. It’s a little like the whole audio diaries thing – it makes a vague> sense that everyone in a city like Rapture might record their daily crimes and schemes onto audio tapes, even though in reality that whole idea became obsolete when Facebook/Twitter added status updates.

But I do love in-game radio. It’s an amazing narrative tool, a great way of filling in the gaps the screen can’t show, a constant companion in the loneliest of situations, and not a bad way of making music diegetic – a term that translates to ‘let’s see who now sneakily Googles diegetic’. Forget Spotify. Never mind video. In RPGs, nothing can kill the radio star, unless of course you walk up to them and shoot ‘em in the face. Then, sometimes. Though usually nature still finds a way of keeping them on the air.

… [visit site to read more]

I’d been wanting to check out Doublebear’s Dead State – which I’m going to loosely label ‘The Walking Dead does X-COM’ – for a while, but Wot I Thinkery fell to someone else upon its initial release. The free ‘Reanimated’ update is a fancy name for a mega-patch designed to address assorted gripes about the doomy turn-based strategy/RPG zombie survival game, and also my opportunity to finally visit the blighted town of Splendid, Texas.

… [visit site to read more]

Dead State [official site] may have launched out of Early Access in December, but it’s just received a hefty update bringing the sort of stuff I’d expect from a final pre-launch polish-o-rama.

Developers DoubleBear launched the ‘Reanimated’ update arrived yesterday, bringing overhauled combat balance, smarter AI, better pathfinding, new combat sounds and animations, a hardcore mode, new areas, new random encounters, bug fixes, and more to the zombie survival RPG. Cass grumbled about a few of those areas in her Wot I Think, so that’s good to hear.

… [visit site to read more]

Zombies! They’re everywhere these days. Shambling up and down the road, moaning about something or other in those inaudible voices, causing long queues for the teller at your local bank. That sort of thing. They’re a menace and there’s just too many of them on the streets. It’s enough to make one long for the days when a human’s brains were their own concern.

Still, despite our zombie glut there’s still unlife in the concept yet. Now you too can put this to the test with a demo for Dead State [official site], courtesy of DoubleBear Productions.

… [visit site to read more]

Dead State has been shambling toward release for years and we’ve been tracking its progress since Brian Mitsoda announced the project in 2010. It looked like it might be the game that revitalised the zombie genre long before the rotters had reached saturation point. It was also one of the few old-fashioned isometric RPGs in development before Kickstarter helped the likes of Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity to burst onto the scene. Dead State’s own Kickstarter in 2012 allowed Double Bear to move into full-time production and the game was finally released last week. We sent survivalist Cassandra Khaw to Splendid, Texas. Here is her report.>

… [visit site to read more]

The RPS post pigeon delivered this letter, and several others like it, to our treehouse recently:

Dear RPS,How come you haven’t mentioned that Dead State is now out of Early Access? I know, zombies and all that, but the RPG’s about human drama too and makers DoubleBear were founded by Brian Mitsoda (he wrote Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, don’t you know!) and Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda (who’s worked on Neverwinter Nights 2 and Alpha Protocol). Chuffing Bloodlines, for goodness’ sake! That sounds right up your alley, so what gives?

Yrs playfully,Fictional yet Furious in Folkstone

As RPS News Editor, dear Fictional, I must apologise for the oversight and offer an explanation.

… [visit site to read more]

Years of waiting and it comes to this. I’ve been excited about Dead State since I first became aware of it, long before I merged with the RPS Hivemind. Since then, I’ve discovered more about Doublebear’s plans for the zombie survival RPG but I hadn’t had a chance to play it until late last night when the game launched on Steam Early Access. Oh no! Early Access means the game will be crumbling, rotten and bug-ridden like the dead that inhabit it, right? Not so, says the man at Doublebear. This is an early section of the game rather than an early version of the entire game. The first seven days, to be precise, forming an opening act (though for backers and buyers only) rather than a beta build.

… [visit site to read more]