Urban Strife News

Urban Strife brings together a complete package for the strategy fan: turn-based combat, RPG with character development and post-apocalypse survival. A true “Jagged Alliance meets The Walking Dead” of the modern era.

Built on Unreal Engine, Urban Strife brings turn-based strategy onto a solid platform and makes full use of it with advanced AI systems, realistic ballistics calculations, cover based on material penetration and spectacular scenery with dynamic day/time cycles. But while under the hood everything is brand new, Urban Strife comes with a user interface and battle controls that are trusted and familiar to the old-school gamer and easy to pick up by the new generations.

In Urban Strife you will command a group of quirky, slightly deranged militia and try to ensure the survival of the Urban Shelter, a small community somewhere at the foothills of the Appalachians. While on the field you will have full control over your group’s actions and engage them in exploring, trading, making allies and most important, fighting to stay alive. At home, you will manage supply and logistics, upgrade the base, heal, and train your fighters. It is up to you to organize supply runs to kickstart your shelter industry, upgrade your weapons, deal with the inevitable emergencies, and prepare for the inevitable re-emergence of the undead horde that almost wiped off civilization two years before.

Check out BoxMacLeod's channels here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/BoxMacLeod
twitch.tv/boxmacleod

Urban Strife Prologue Demo [Hardcore][EN] by Kordanor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvivzjvNVfM

Urban Strife - Пошаговая тактика. Выживание, зомби, строительство базы. Смотрим демку.
https://youtu.be/vkbLaFfgtkM

Urban Strife brings together a complete package for the strategy fan: turn-based combat, RPG with character development and post-apocalypse survival. A true “Jagged Alliance meets The Walking Dead” of the modern era.

Built on Unreal Engine, Urban Strife brings turn-based strategy onto a solid platform and makes full use of it with advanced AI systems, realistic ballistics calculations, cover based on material penetration and spectacular scenery with dynamic day/time cycles. But while under the hood everything is brand new, Urban Strife comes with a user interface and battle controls that are trusted and familiar to the old-school gamer and easy to pick up by the new generations.

In Urban Strife you will command a group of quirky, slightly deranged militia and try to ensure the survival of the Urban Shelter, a small community somewhere at the foothills of the Appalachians. While on the field you will have full control over your group’s actions and engage them in exploring, trading, making allies and most important, fighting to stay alive. At home, you will manage supply and logistics, upgrade the base, heal, and train your fighters. It is up to you to organize supply runs to kickstart your shelter industry, upgrade your weapons, deal with the inevitable emergencies, and prepare for the inevitable re-emergence of the undead horde that almost wiped off civilization two years before.

Check out BoxMacLeod's channels here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/BoxMacLeod
https://www.twitch.tv/boxmacleod

[h2]Survival Industry[/h2]

Your base in Urban now has a fully functional survival industry with a complete development tree. It is based on building blueprints that carry a cost in workers and raw resources (the shelter already has a few old facilities, those come pre-built).



The new industry produces resources directly needed to keep the general population alive, healthy and happy but also defensive upgrades that increase your shelter’s survival rating. You also have workshops that can mass fabricate stuff that your team needs in their adventures (beside your own “backpack crafting" possibilities).

Some of these will require to be staffed with workers and it will be up to you to balance the allocation of the workforce between the scavengers teams sent out to harvest raw materials and those hired to work inside the walls.



Blueprints can be found through RPG, exploring the city and/or you can acquire them from your allies, when you manage to befriend a faction. Two thirds of the plans are free to unlock as an independent settlement (a third is actually already unlocked, just not built yet).

[h2]Crisis & Consequences[/h2]

With a survival industry you need proper consequences for that sense of impending disaster an apocalypse needs to feel real. Don't worry, you won't miss the signs. You will get advance warnings from the civilian population when something is about to go wrong.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

But if you ignore them and allow the shelter to go into deep red, you will pay the price and generate a crisis situation. Then it's all about how long you take to solve the crisis. The longer you take, the harsher the penalties/damages will be. Fail to recover before the deadline and your hopes and dreams to save humanity will be savagely crushed.



[h2]The Strategic Campaign: Alliances & War[/h2]

In the post-apoc Urban, the powers-to-be are aligned under the leadership of three major underground leaders, each with his own view on how humans should spend the few remaining days on Earth. We have explained previously the differences between their beliefs. One more thing to note is that the benefits you get as their ally are quite different too - and the tasks they require from you as well.



As powerful as these figures might be, reigning in an apocalyptic society is more about shrewd alliances than steamrolling everyone. Thus their influence comes from their acolytes, the local barons and warlords that hold & defend the actual territories and resources. These lords will be the ones that you will first come face to face with, before you’ll get anywhere near the faction leaders. The way you deal with the local chiefs will determine if they’ll consider you a friend or an enemy. If you manage to gain the support of a majority, their faction will become your ally. If you aggro too many, the faction will declare war against the Shelter and you will become KOS in their territory.

The benefit of having a strong faction as ally will become evident once the threat of the main zombie horde will creep closer. With hard work & sacrifices you can fight off the undead alone, of course. Yet an ally will allow your Shelter's scavengers to gather raw materials in peace in their territory, their traders will have a more generous inventory on offer and they'll reward your allegiance with unique rewards in items and blueprints.

Finally, taking one of the main faction as ally will also bring a specific theme to the new world you’re building, so you might want to go on a few test runs before committing to riding with a bunch of drunk bikers, worshiping the undead or making friends with army drill sergeants.

[h2]Tutorial level & dynamic help widget[/h2]



You will start the game in a micro tutorial level, that will both introduce you into the story and teach you basic gameplay elements. Just follow the instructions in the new Help Widget. This widget will show up each time there are new elements in the game and offer quick help to the new players. It is not game blocking and you will be able to close it once you have acquired enough experience.

[h2]Streamlined dialogue system [/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We felt the need to speed up the dialog delivery so we implemented a new system with a single output for the player (previously after you made your choice at the bottom, you had to read the full dialogue text over your avatar's head, on the scene). The new system distracts you less and also reduces the workload for future game localizations.

[h2]New graphical assets[/h2]

We have already shown these new graphic assets on our social media and they got a very warm reception so they are worth mentioning here too. Our vehicle collection has been expanded with an iconic RV and the lonely zombie males now have an accompanying set of lovely zombie ladies with a matching appetite for human brains.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]4k HUD elements[/h2]

We are reworking all our main HUD elements for 4k resolution (instead of upscaling them) for maximum viewing quality on high end displays.

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

PS: Thank you for the continued support and if you have made it this far down the text, why not add Urban Strife to your wishlist? And get more people to do it, it really helps!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/710230/Urban_Strife/

[h2]Reputation checks and faction affinity in RPG[/h2]
The RPG layer got an update with a new set of checks: faction checkpoints that allow you to pass through only if you accumulate enough reputation and a faction affinity check during dialogues that opens shortcuts and interesting avenues if you bring along the right team mate.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Shared inventory for quest items and crafting[/h2]
Inventory management was made a bit easier when it comes to delivering quest items - no need to browse through everyone’s backpack anymore. If a party member has the needed object, you can deliver it and finish your quest. The same shared inventory system will be applied when backpack crafting, but only if the player specifically allows crafting to use the shared inventories. This way you won’t need to explain to Billy Bo why his favorite whiskey is now a Molotov cocktail.
And since we never mentioned this - yes, we do have a shared base storage for stashing all those precious looted candy wrappers and second hand syringes. Rejoice!

[h2]Special weak point for zombies[/h2]
We have promised body parts damage that makes a difference and the first step in this direction is a classic - hitting zombies anywhere but the head will only result in minimal damage, while headshots will usually put them down in one turn. This makes even the vanilla zombies a bit of a challenge (and a waste of ammo if you didn’t get the memo and start spraying from a distance).

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]KO state from stamina/blunt damage[/h2]
When it comes to human opponents, we promised stamina will play a big role in combat and it does now. Blunt weapons in particular will have the same calming effect on agitated enemies as a mule kick to the face. Good option if you either want to pass through a zone without potentially embarrassing (allied) faction kills or you just want to save ammo and deal your enemies quietly.

[h2]Faction makeshift armor[/h2]
Nothing says post-apocalypse more than crazy armor outfits and your Urban warlords will not disappoint you. Your first taste of madness will be The Scavenger Legion, parked just outside your base and dressed up as Roman legionnaires. Well, whatever they could come up with that resembled Roman armor at least. So do not miss the chance to get your hands on a fancy bladed helmet. Owner’s head attached optional.



[h2]Female avatar & classic ballistic armor choices[/h2]
More customization options for your avatar are coming. Our artists have completed a set of female body alter-alter egos that will be available when you start your adventure in Urban. John Doe, meet Jane Doe. Speaking of the player's avatar, we have designed classic ballistic protection as well, for those who would stay away from makeshift faction armor.



[h2]New cover animations[/h2]
Peeking around corners now has a special animation that exposes you only partially. With realistic ballistics, what-they-see-is-what-they-shoot so presenting your entire self to the enemy isn’t smart. You’re still exposed because you do have the advantage of preserving line of sight on the incoming enemies so there’s a factor of risk vs reward that has to be balanced. Also, while peeking in and out of cover your NPC needs to know how to deal with occupied tiles, so we programmed a special, team-friendly, step back move.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Save/Load system[/h2]
No more Ironman runs when testing the build! Only those who managed to finish the entire 2h of the alpha test can understand how harsh it is to make a mistake somewhere near the end and be forced to restart. Definitely not for everyone and while we salute the brave ones who will try that in the full campaign, the rest of us normies are content to have a working Save/Load system in USG.

[h2]Shelter economy prototype[/h2]
We’re testing the first prototype of a shelter industry/upgrade tree. It is the first step into designing a complete, functional base economy and also the foundation for the whole survival metagame. Once complete it will also be linked with the RPG layer in order to produce meaningful and satisfying mission rewards.

[h2]New Maps Sneak Peek![/h2]
Our level designers have also been hard at work making awesome, handcrafted levels for the game. Here are three major landmarks of our beloved town of Urban:


The Courthouse

The Railway Station

The City Hospital

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

PS: Thank you for the continued support and if you have made it this far down the text, why not add Urban Strife to your wishlist? And get more people to do it, it really helps!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/710230/Urban_Strife/

[h2]Life & Body Parts Health[/h2]
Urban Strife is about combat and survival so all things considered, we decided to turn health into a system, instead of a character stat. LIFE, or overall health, has a very special meter. Life meter is, of course, critical because once it reaches zero, you are dead. This being said, body parts have their own internal HP too and damage received by them is weighted differently when applied to a NPC's life. For example, a head shot will do about 3x damage to global health, but a wounded hand will have a much smaller effect. This makes body armor (that protects the head and the torso) way more important and leaving the limbs exposed avoids the Juggernaut effect (which is not desirable in a survival, low-tech game). Killing an armored enemy simply by attacking the limbs is a difficult feat, but bleeding and crippling will severely impact his/her combat ability so at least you have a fighting chance.

[h2]Bleeding[/h2]
Any attack type can generate a bleed tick so for each wound you will lose a small amount of HP, over time. Of course, a blade will cause worse bleeding than a blunt weapon. If someone in your group is bleeding, that character will try to remind you, from time to time, to patch him/her up. You should do so because, while not overly aggressive (unless you are full of holes), bleeding drains from global health directly, no matter where the wound is located. This can cause massive life loss if left unattended. First because these "bleeding ticks" are cumulative so more holes means more gushing blood. Second because it will take a while for the bleeding to stop on its own and the wound to close. If you bandage early, you'll avoid losing a lot of HP and keep fighting. Of course, trauma itself will remove a portion of your life, too. So trying to bounce bullets off your chest is still a bad idea.



[h2]Bandages and Medical Kits[/h2]
Bandages are the most basic and readily available hemorrhage fixes. One bandage stops all bleeding on a body part and is consumed thereafter. Bandages stack in inventory.
Med kits are advanced tools and they will consume a portion of their condition when used to stop a wound from bleeding. Partially consumed kits can be merged one into another to save inventory space.



[h2]Immolation[/h2]
Fire deals damage over time to exposed body parts. Walking through fire will result, for example, in burns to the feet. But once you catch fire, immolation will spread to adjacent body parts and can result in a very unpleasant death. Even if you walk away from the fire, immolation will persist and keep your character in a “disabled” state for a short period of time, unable to do much beyond desperately trying to extinguish the flames.

[h2]Crippling Effects & Damage Types[/h2]
When their HP meter drops below a certain point, all body parts generate “crippling” penalties. Crippled hands will lower your dexterity, gravely wounded legs will drop your agility, etc.
Body armor will come with different protection for each type of damage. Possible types of damage are:

• Ballistic (kinetic damage done by bullets and arrows)
  
• Stab/Slash (bladed, pointed stuff that makes you bleed profusely)
  
• Blunt (weapons that will cause less bleeding, but generate increased pain)
  
• Blast (from stuff that goes boom, like grenades)
  
• Fire (damage over time, causes character to enter “disabled” temporary state, can spread)
  
• Bite (one of the zombie specific attacks, WIP, will tie into infection and other effects)
  
• Tear Gas (WIP, hits stamina and causes exhaustion, ignores armor, more efficient in closed spaces)
  
• Toxic Gas (WIP, hits global HP directly, ignores armor, dissipates faster outdoors than indoors)
  

[h2]Stamina, Pain and Exhaustion[/h2]
Stamina is a particularly important trait because it affects maximum Action Points. You cannot directly “heal” your stamina, but you can deal with what is draining it, aka Pain and Exhaustion. As expected, if you neglect it, you will pass out when it reaches zero (the faint state is WIP).

Pain is generated by any damage taken, same as life loss & bleeding. Different types of weapons generate different amounts of pain, with blunt weapons being the most effective. Pain goes away with time but can also be removed/numbed using various substances (meds, booze, etc.). When in pain, a character will suffer a penalty to stamina and other attributes.

Melee will consume stamina for both defense (dodging) and attack (wielding). Both activities will increase exhaustion. Heavy weapons will tire weak characters faster so unless you’re a big Russian bear called Dmitry, leave that sledgehammer alone. You will recover from exhaustion in time unless you’re sprinting around or still in melee combat. It can also be compensated by drinking water, fizzy drinks, and other refreshments. When exhausted, a character will suffer a penalty to stamina and other attributes.

[h2]Items: Stacks vs Containers[/h2]
We mentioned medical kits and bandages behave differently in inventory. This goes for every other common item too. Basic items will come in stacks that can be divided as you wish and moved in piles. A good example would be a stack of bullets. Containers, like medical kits, bottles, gas canisters, etc. have a meter showing their “fill” condition and while not stackable, they can be merged into an item of the same type to save space. The above rules do not apply to weapons so no "merging" two bad guns to make a good one for you (we have other solutions to that, way more entertaining).



[h2]New Enemy Types[/h2]
The art team is working on new enemies since the basic civilian refugees don’t look able to put up much of a fight. So, they came up with some “muscle” types that are going to give you more of a challenge and look badass while doing so.



UNTIL NEXT TIME!

PS: Thank you for the continued support and if you have made it this far down the text, why not add Urban Strife to your wishlist? And get more people to do it, it really helps!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/710230/Urban_Strife/