[Archive] Infested, Pestilent and...

Hello once again, Survivors!

Today we’re going to get back to talking about the narrative.

About a month ago, we wrote an archive post called "Striving for Humanity," in which we talked about what we were trying to achieve with the game's narrative and the challenges we faced along the way.

Now, as we prepare for the road ahead, we're about to undergo another major upheaval in the way we present our narrative.

So, to do that, we like to share our thoughts and interpretation of the game's central narrative keyword, "Medieval Monster Apocalypse.”

We'll start by talking about the "Creature Apocalypse" that we've been building around the "Zombie" motif.


[h3]Combining “Turn-based Strategy” and “Zombie Apocalypse”[/h3]
Zombies have always been a popular theme in games, and each one has a slightly different interpretation: The <Resident Evil> series uses detailed atmospheric depictions to create psychological horror, <They are Billions> is characterized by the sheer number of zombies that are constantly coming after you, and <Project Zomboid> is centered around the “Environment" itself in a zombie apocalypse.

While trying to create a new zombie type enemy in this setting it’s natural to think, how can we bring some uniqueness to the table here?

Our initial inspiration came from Zombicide, which we found appealing because of the emotion of accomplishing objectives and escaping against a constant stream of zombies through tactical play, involving sight/noise, route design, and combat.

While the tactical choice of killing is a valid one, we saw the challenge of "at what point should you fight and at what point should you avoid combat" as a unique selling point because the end goal is to escape, as the zombies are far more numerous than the players can possibly kill.

In addition, we felt that the scavenging element of the game, where you open the doors of abandoned houses potentially revealing zombies, and only being able to get the supplies you need by scavenging these dangerous places was a good fit for the theme.



If you break these points down into keywords, they can be summarized as [Numerous enemies that are hard to wipe out], [Combat that is optional], and [Scavenging for supplies indoors]. We've already talked a lot in the dev notes about how we've been building things like the "Sight/Noise", "Alarm", and "Chase" systems to bring these elements to life...

However, the question of what and who these “Zombies” should be was another issue.


[h3]First "Zombie" setting: "People who died in the Black Death.”[/h3]
Initially, we prioritized the gameplay features of a strategy game rather than giving the zombies themselves a strong narrative or setting, such as having a top-down view of the terrain and keeping the characters as small as possible for a perceivable "mass" feel.

So, with just the general idea that people who died in the Black Death were reanimated, we worked quickly to create the game as seen below, with the corpses dressed in medieval peasant’s clothing, showing how the disease had deformed their bodies - abscesses, black coloration, rotting tissue.



While this version worked for the tactical gameplay we were going for, there were a few things we didn't like.

The biggest issue was that the characters and enemies were too "cute" for the atmosphere we wanted. This was a choice based around visibility and the ability to distinguish a large number of units. If we were going for a light hack-and-slash zombie mood, it would have been a good match.



However, as we started thinking about building a more serious narrative with "Humanity" as a keyword mentioned in the previous post, we realized that it would be impossible to achieve in this direction.



The zombies did have a deformed feel to them which was good, but the characters had to wear masks or helmets because we felt if their eyes or faces were visible it diminished the mood.



However, it was difficult to represent a wide variety of characters in this form, and it was also challenging to justify why all the survivors are wearing masks.



Also, unlike the board game Zombicide, which was focused on playing one-shots, we knew that if we wanted to create a campaign experience that lasted over the timeframe we were aiming for, we needed "Character Purpose" - a narrative plot. Where are these characters going? What are they doing? What are they trying to do with the resources they've collected on the map?

To accomplish these requirements within the "Medieval" theme, we reworked the narrative to be one where players are "Escaping the Black Death by fleeing to the Holy Land.”


[h3]Second Setting: Pilgrims' Escape to the Holy Land[/h3]
In some cases, during the actual Black Death outbreaks of the Middle Ages, there are accounts of people who believed they could escape the plague by reaching some sort of sacred place, such as a "Cathedral" or "Holy Place," in order to survive the scourge.

With this in mind, the idea was to create a narrative of a pilgrimage of sorts, where ordinary medieval people faced the unthinkable and believed that they could be saved by reaching the Holy Land...

Gathering resources on the map is about survival along the way, and constantly gathering weapons/food/medicine/etc. is the only way to persevere in a world overrun by monsters.

As for the artwork, it took a lot of research and trial and error with reference games with similar ratios and perspectives to come up with a specification that would "get as close as possible to the mood we wanted" while still allowing for a large number of enemies on screen.

We gathered the resulting real-world game resources and created the concept art below, which was released on Reddit around November 2020. (Original Post Link)



Thankfully, we received a lot of positive responses and it's been an important source of motivation for us throughout development.

Based on this reaction, we assumed that the theme and presentation of the game was validated, and we only needed to complete the content and systems needed for actual gameplay.

Of course, it wasn't easy, and we've already talked about the process of changing the focus of the gameplay in two archive posts (#1, #2).

Eventually, however, the underlying "Creatures" changed along with the gameplay, and we're looking forward to sharing the story of how the Pestilent, plague-ridden corpses, became Infested, the current Early Access version of the creatures, in a coming post.

As I was writing this post, I realized that it’s essentially the narrative/art perspective of the first archive post that we shared. Looking back, it seems like we’ve been through so many changes and reworks to reach the place we’re at now!

As a developer it’s always difficult to let go of an idea that you’ve worked so hard on and start over, but when you know wholeheartedly the direction you’re heading is the right one, you simply have to trust the process!

Next week, we’ll be back with the story of how the Infested came about!

Until then as always, thanks for reading!
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