Survivalist News

[p]It turns out that the latest Proton patch for Steam Deck (Proton 9.0-3) broke Survivalist again. I didn't realize that for a while as I stupidly didn't twig where some crash reports people sent me had come from, but I've now released a new patch to fix it - many thanks to those who reported it! ːJoeWheelerApprovesː I also found some Out of Sync errors playing online co-op between a PC and a Steam Deck and fixed those.

Look, it works! ːGreenStrainː[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]So it's now working on Proton 9.0-3. Previously I had it working on Proton 7.0-6 and I believe it still did on Proton 8.0-5. I have some concerns about the current "Experimental" Proton build so I advise you not to use that. If you read this news post in the future and you have a problem with the game on Steam Deck, try going to Settings -> Compatibility and switching to one of the above versions of Proton (and let me know at [email protected]).[/p][p][/p][p]I've also added some command line arguments, which might be of interest to people running the game with Proton on a Linux PC or Steam Deck. You can enter those by right clicking the game in your Steam library and putting them in the general tab under Launch Options. [/p]

• [p] force_steam_deck - This makes the game pretend it's running on Steam Deck, which enables all the various hacks I added to get it working (which normally would only be enabled if the game detects it's on Steam Deck). So in theory it might also run on Linux with Proton on a PC.
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• [p] force_not_steam_deck - This disables all those hacks even if it detects it's on Steam Deck.
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[p]To be clear though, this game doesn't officially support Linux as a platform, I'm just trying to ensure it works on Steam Deck and if that means it also runs on Linux with Proton that's just a nice bonus.[/p]

It has come to my attention that Survivalist crashes on Steam Deck as soon as you start a new game - or at least it used to, as I've now issued a patch which fixes that. Hooray!

I've tested that you can at least start a new game and get as far as Fort Kohai on Proton 7.0-5 and Proton 7.0-6. As it turned out there were multiple issues, and they were all a bit weird and arbitrary, maybe Valve will fix them in a later version of Proton - or maybe they'll introduce more bugs, who knows. If you read this news post in the future and you have a problem with the game, try going to Settings -> Compatibility and switching to one of the above versions of Proton (and let me know at [email protected]).

It's a pretty great game for the Steam Deck, being originally designed around a gamepad and all. Hopefully I can get it green tick verified now.

I've released a new version of Survivalist, v72, which greatly improves the Italian translation. Michela, who did the Italian translation for Survivalist: Invisible Strain has gone over it and carefully re-written most of the lines to be more fluent. We've also taken a few features from Invisible Strain which allow the game to handle gender suffixes, pronouns, and suchlike correctly in a bunch of situations where it wasn't before. For example, the line "You saved me/Alice/Bob from being bitten" could be translated variously as:

Mi hai salvata quando mi stavano per mordere
Mi hai salvato quando mi stavano per mordere
Hai salvato Alice quando la stavano per mordere
Hai salvato Bob quando lo stavano per mordere

depending on the gender of the person who got saved, and whether or not they are the person speaking. (Hope I got that right).

There's also a number of typo fixes for the English. And I've added a feature to specify the savegame path in command line arguments (aka Steam Launch Options), e.g. -save_game_path c:\\SurvivalistSaveGames. This is useful to fix a rare error that crops up occasionally.

If you liked Survivalist you'll probably like Invisible Strain even more ːsteamhappyː It has the same basic mechanics - talking to anyone you meet, recruiting survivors, building a base, battling the infected and human enemies, online co-op, etc.

But there are a huge number of improvements and new features! Much better graphics, a new third person view, stealth, melee weapons, hunting rabbits, chopping down trees, building fires to keep warm, setting traps, skinning dead bodies and throwing the meat to attract zombies, lots of choices besides combat! And of course there's the scary new invisible strain itself. It currently takes place on a randomly generated world map, so there's a huge amount of replayability. I'm going to be writing a story mode while it's in early access.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1054510/Survivalist_Invisible_Strain/

I've been working on this since about 2016, it has been in beta testing for almost a year and it'll continue to be worked on for at least that long again I expect as I need to write the story mode. Buy it and help shape the development over the next year or so! And there's a launch discount if you buy it this week.

https://youtu.be/oziHsAsiVBk

It's happening! The sequel to Survivalist, "Survivalist: Invisible Strain" has been in beta for nearly a year and it's time to make it available for everyone. Early Access starts on 1st June 2020! Of course, early access is just the beginning - it'll be in there for a pretty long time, at least a year I would say, while I add more stuff and work on story mode.

I've posted a new gameplay trailer, which is basically a cut-down version of a playthrough I did last week. The somewhat tragic adventures of Brody Cantu and his gang, the Ugly Snakes:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
As you can see, it has been almost completely rebuilt with a ton of new features - stealth, melee weapons, rabbit hunting, traps, better graphics and a more traditional first person camera (though still including the same RTS elements), weather, character customization, the disturbing threat of invisible strain itself, and more. It's launching with Sandbox Mode, which means every game will take place on a randomly generated map. While it's in early access I'll work on a story mode, and the editor too so people can make their own stories if they want.

The early access price will be $6.99, but there'll be a 25% launch discount so you can get it for around $5.25 in the first week.