Dead State Interview

Dead State is an upcoming independent RPG that has been turning heads both because it’s set in the underutilized zombie survival genre and because of the man responsible for its design, Brian Mitsoda of Troika Games and Obsidian Entertainment fame. The project has been known as ZRPG for quite some time, with its official title having only recently been unveiled.  To get the information streaming a little quicker and to satiate our own desire for further details about this unique title, we chatted with the man himself:

GB: It’s been well over a year now since you left mainstream developing to go indie. How’s the indie life been treating you?

Brian: Good. It was definitely a difficult mindset to get used to at first after coming from a mainstream development process, but the necessary adjustments have been made and the only real difference between our operation and a big dev studio is that it’s much harder for us to walk over to our coworker’s office to ask a question, being that most of the team is spread out all over the world.

There’s always going to be challenges and tradeoffs for this kind of development, but I think the team has done a great job and the internet seems to agree, which was odd because the internet is usually a writhing ball of hate, doubt, and meh, so we were really happy to see so many people excited about Dead State. Most importantly, people seemed to get what we were going for and that we weren’t just releasing Zombie Game #531,622 – that was the most satisfying part, actually.

GB: So… why zombies? Even though you’re taking a different approach by focusing on the survival angle, are you concerned that the zombie theme has been overused during the past couple of years?

Brian: I must admit, I’m pretty tired of zombies in games myself. And mostly that’s because zombies divorced from their fiction are bland. They’re fun to kill in games, sure, but just throwing zombies in to try and capture the horror of zombie movies is like throwing broccoli on a table and calling it a farmer’s market.

I’m not terribly happy about the state of the zombie game. People should be rightfully getting burned out on them because of the constant addition of them to every game (two more actually added them while I was writing this). At its core, our game is not about the zombies. It’s about a world in crisis, it’s about survival, it’s about the ugly truth of human behavior – all the things the zombie genre is usually about, when you look past the zombies. There have been some good zombie-themed games in the last few years – Plants Vs. Zombies, Dead Rising – but I don’t think there have been many games that have used zombies in the way that the best zombie movies use them.

GB: Zombie survival is an entirely different beast in comparison to straight-up zombie horror. It’s had some strong titles in different media. What particularly inspired you to take this direction?

Brian: The simple answer – I wanted to make the zombie game I always wanted to play. We could have done an apocalypse brought about by economic collapse, but the zombies made the game easier to explain and more fun from a gameplay perspective (make noise, it attracts zombies, who will attack any humans, regardless of what team they’re on). The social breakdown really just provides an excellent setting for an RPG because of its lack of structure and the difficult decisions you have to make. In so many games, the law and structure of society – even fantasy society – forces a very rigid narrative on you. I guess it doesn’t need to, necessarily, but the fact that we could get away from random quest-givers, merchants, or social hierarchies allows us to rethink a lot of RPG standard mechanics and story structures. It was very liberating.

I’ve been through a natural disaster before, so there’s a bit of that influence too, but in the way of wondering what would happen if no one came to restore power, and order, and food delivery and so on. Since I think everyone who has seen a zombie movie has probably wondered, “what would I do?” even fleetingly, the idea of giving players the chance to play out such a scenario seemed like a great experience to build a game around.

GB: An atmosphere of stress and survival can be set up in many ways. How important is it to you to add actual gameplay mechanics to immerse the players rather than just writing and visuals?

Brian: The stress and survival aspects were what we designed the game around – if we couldn’t get that right, we wouldn’t have committed to the project. We started conceiving the game around the hunt for resources such as food, and then thought about the shelter management, then worked on morale and NPC moods and the different ways it could affect AI, such as panic. We looked at what games did wrong with their food systems and adjusted it so that the food, the morale, fuel, are all similar to a kind of currency – I don’t think it will take players a long time to grasp how it works. Once we were sure the mechanics wouldn’t be frustrating or potentially game-breaking 90% of the time, we began fleshing out the secondary systems and started thinking about characters and game events. The story only reinforces the situation, and provides some characters that react to the player’s success at keeping them alive. If we’re successful, the player’s stress will come from their story and combat decisions – we need food, we need to go scavenging, but if someone dies on the run, morale will drop and it’s already low, that kind of thing.

Brian: Character creation shouldn’t be too different than what people are used to – you can choose your character’s gender, skin color, hair, some cosmetic details, then assign their starting stats and skills. We have four stats which are mostly related to combat ability and eight skills that can affect a wide variety of actions. We really focused on making the skills have such an impact on the game world that leveling them up would have an instant impact on ability, rather than have a bunch of redundant or mostly useless except for special occasion skills.

Unlike a lot of other RPGs, you don’t gain XP from killing things – you get skill points from completing objectives, which means that the player can go about things in any way that completes the task, rather than have to kill everything that moves. These objectives are both reoccurring and also reactive to events that have been set off by the player’s actions. In a lot of cases, avoiding combat or using the zombies against opponents is a better strategy than going in guns blazing. Reaching certain key milestones (like recruiting a certain number of strangers to your shelter) or making critical decisions in your role as a leader can unlock choices of new perks for your character. We definitely want to encourage players to play the way they want rather than grind for success.

GB: What are some of the non-combat skills we’ll have access to? How often will each of these be used throughout the game?

Brian: Every skill in the game has multiple functions, except for Melee and Ranged, which are the 100% combat skills. The Medical skill is used to restore HP and cure temporary statuses, but it also has applications in speeding up recovery of HP and long-term statuses (such as sprained arms) for doctor types who are willing to spend a day or two treating the wounded. The Science skill allows the player to create everything from enhanced armor to explosives. The Mechanical skill is useful for lock-picking and weapon and shelter upgrades. Survival allows players to travel more quickly on the area map, as well as identify wild food sources and avoid or ambush enemies in random encounters. Leadership and Negotiation open up different dialogue options, as well as confer bonuses to either ally combat ability(leadership) or overall morale loss (negotiation).

GB: There are some very compelling mechanics in this game, such as the morale system. Tell us a bit about how this works and some of the benefits and consequences tied to it.

Brian: So, remember when I was saying that we wanted to get certain skills right before we worked on other systems? Morale was definitely a key skill to nail the feel of the zombie genre. It represents the nagging hopelessness that the group feels as the situation begins to look bleaker with every passing day. Overall Morale drops daily, the amount being based on the overall moods of the group. But, if people get fed, if their mood improves, if there are luxury items (like toilet paper) stocked in the shelter, and the player makes decisions that the majority agree with most of the time, the Morale will be positive. If the Morale has been positive most of the time, the player has a bank of good will that can mitigate short term morale hits like allies being killed or infected. If Morale starts to become negative long-term, it can lead to things like allies leaving or confronting the player.

There are a lot of systems tied to Morale – minor and major player decisions, ally mental health, upgrades, scavenging priorities – it’s really the key mechanic in the game. It’s definitely a gauge for how the player is doing as a leader. You don’t have to make popular decisions or be a hero, you just have to be good at making people feel like they’re better off under your leadership than being on their own.

GB: Is panic tied to morale? What can you tell us about how panic ties into the game? Is it something we’ll be dealing with a lot?

Brian: Panic isn’t directly tied to Morale, but if an ally’s mood has been negative – like let’s say they’ve become depressed – they might be more prone to panic. Panic really is a factor of two things – the NPC’s damage threshold (amount of damage they take before they fear for their lives) and how terrified of zombies they are. Some allies will never worry about wounds, some will never worry about zombies, and a few (including the player) will never panic at all. There are some statuses and some special circumstances – like an NPC losing a close friend – that might make someone more likely to panic. Overall, if the player manages their combat team effectively, they shouldn’t have to deal with panic very often. If an ally is in a situation that is causing them distress, they’ll warn the player. Panic’s also not a guarantee, even if circumstances are right – there’s always a chance that NPC won’t break.

GB: How much of the game will we actually spend fighting/escaping from zombies, as opposed to interacting with other survivors?

Brian: There are two main parts of the game – shelter management and scavenging. The shelter management bits involve talking to NPCs (who may bring problems to you), making decisions about what upgrades or item creation should be a priority for the shelter, and taking stock of what you have to plan for what you’ll need and where you should try to go to find it the next time you leave. There’s a whole lot to do out of combat, and lots of people to talk to if you recruit everybody you find.

The combat portions occur when you either encounter a group of humans or zombies while scavenging. There’s definitely ways of avoiding combat, but there’s no escaping it. You may have circumstances where you can talk your way out of combat or threaten potential enemies, but once you get outside your shelter, anything could happen. Our combat system is modeled after turn-based tactical strategy games as much as RPGs, so even if there is a bit of combat, it’s more about strategy than attack vs. defense values.

Brian: Zombies are always statistically the same. The only time they might be more resilient or deadly is if they were wearing armor when they died or if they attack while on fire.

GB: What have you done to make our battles with zombies interesting and different each time we encounter them? Given the fact that there isn’t a wide range of enemy types, are you at all concerned that combat will become tedious or monotonous by the end of the game?

Brian: Not at all. While zombie behavior is consistent (close in, bite human), the zombies could be anywhere and will always keep the player on their toes. Human behavior is harder to predict – they might be defending a location, scavenging (like you), looking for other survivors, ambushing the weak, killing for fun – you never know. We’ve developed different AI traits so that every AI may behave differently, even within the same group. Some groups have their own specialties and tactics, which can make them more dangerous. And, of course, we have our Noise mechanic that always keeps things tense – firing weapons, bashing doors, throwing explosives, these are all things that will attract attention from zombies or other humans, so you never know where and when someone or something’s going to show up and make an easy get in/get out plan into a really bad situation.

GB: Take us through a typical combat situation. What tactical options are at our disposal during each turn? Will the battlefield itself be important in terms of cover and environmental hazards (a propane tank becomes a potential bomb, striking a window or setting off an alarm attracts more enemies, etc.)?

Brian: So, you start out on the area map and let’s say you enter a small map with a few houses on it. You have three allies with you. You’re just stumbled upon the place and you have no idea what you’ll find inside. You order your allies to stay close and walk (in real time) to the back of the first house, looking in the windows as you go to see if there are any people inside. You want to go in the back door (since it’s more secluded) but it’s locked. You could bash it, but you realize you have the skill to pick it, so you do. You don’t think there’s anyone inside, so you order two of your allies to stand watch outside and one of them to come with you. You walk into the kitchen and search through the cupboards and drawers, finding some canned food and a few parts you can use back at the shelter. You check the living room next, but there’s nothing really of use. You go upstairs and start searching the master bedroom. Here you find a gun and ammo in the bedside table. Suddenly, a zombie shambles into the room from the hallway – you should have checked out the other rooms. Your ally is closest and gets grappled. Time-based combat begins. You walk over and critically hit the zombie with a wrench, it goes down. Combat ends.

You sweep the rest of the house, not finding much. On to the next house. This backdoor is locked too. You can’t pick it, so you bash it – the noise meter goes up every time it’s bashed. Finally, the door breaks. Unfortunately, there’s a survivor there waiting with a shotgun. Already having decided they don’t want to talk, combat begins as they fire at you. You’re not hit, but your friend behind you is. It’s a pretty nasty wound, so they’re going to need medical assistance as soon as possible. Another ally has higher initiative than you. They begin retuning fire. Then another ally goes and does the same. The noise meter is getting higher from the bashing and shooting. The enemy flees upstairs. It’s your turn – you could go upstairs after the guy or you could order everyone to rally at the map’s exit. You choose to go in, because if this guy has survived for so long, maybe he has food, ammo, and other items and you’re still pissed about being shot at. Your ally has a medic kit and begins stitching themselves up on their turn. It’s the zombies turn – you hear a moan, and then another. Your noise has attracted zombies from the yard next door. Now they’re a threat… if there are a lot of them in the area, there might be a bunch still coming, or these are the last two in the area – you don’t know. What do you do next?

GB: Dead State is an open world game with shelters and scavenging as core gameplay concepts. Does this mean this is comparable to rogue-likes or is there also a drive from an overspanning plot, or personal plots from the NPCs?

Brian: More scripted than rogue-likes – definitely not a completely random game or a simulator. The plot is completely dependent on who you have. One ally might know of locations that others won’t. One might be able to reason with another group. Some might be open to killing non-hostile groups to take their stuff while others will think less of you for even suggesting it. You’ve got other leaders who might be great for advice or a threat to your leadership. Allies may not get along well with everyone, while some might have entirely different types of personalities if certain other allies are around. A lot of the game’s story depends on who you meet and what you do with them. There’s a bit of randomness in there and we hope that players will be able to play the game multiple times and always get a different experience out of it.

GB: If Dead State does pretty well, what’s next for DoubleBear? Is your plan to make Dead State into a series of RPGs, or do you have other game ideas that you’d like to pursue?

Brian: If Dead State does well – and we really hope it does – we’ll probably do at least one more game or expansion for it. Hard to say right now. We love working in the setting, but like anything, too much can lead to burn out. It’s definitely been a priority to use the engine/tools to make another RPG or two to reduce the time between projects. We’ve got several dream projects we’d love to do after (the) Dead State (series) but until we have the time to devote time to them, we’re going to work on making Dead State good enough that people are looking forward to more projects from us.