Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead (zombie survival and its free)

[guess]

http://en.cataclysmdda.com/

 

There is a kickstarter, since the community is trying to hire a developer. The coders just work on it part time. you are NOT required to pay a dime, but the videos are worth watching:

 

game is 100% free whether you pay or not. Will NEVER cost a dime.

 

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/568375735/cataclysm-dark-days-ahead-dedicated-developer

 

There are alot of 'lets play' videos on youtube also.

 

Free and open source (so you can change the code). Its created for fun by a group of people. If anyone knows C and wants to mod it please feel free to post mods. The core group of coders will work to role your mod into the main game.

 

This is one of the most in depth games I have played and its free. Good community of developers. Anyone is welcome to help with development.

 

This is a 'roguelike' game. That means the following:

-- randomly generated world every time you play

-- permadeath: you die you start over (you can copy your save game to back up if you want)

-- its hard. its not fair. you will die unexpectedly.

-- no graphics. Its all ASCII. the commands are a bit difficult to follow if you have not played a roguelike before

-- they launched a kickstarter to higher a coder (at a pretty cheap price) to add features including some graphics, but yoiu are not required to pay at all. It really is free.

 

even if you dont want to pay, its worth going to the kickstarter page to watch the videos. There are number of lets play youtube videos. the game is fairly difficult to learn. I am having trouble getitng past the first day in the new version. My old strategy doesn't work too well.

 

As stated: you dont have to donate.

 

Features:

-- very detailed crafting system. you can make anything from a hammer, to a bow, to guns, you can even build or rebuild cars to drive (and run over zombies)

-- no levels. just skills levels. Has positive and negative traits (similiar to fallout)

-- more than zombies. lots of sci-fi elements. blobs, flaming eye mobs, wovles, animals, giant bees

-- day/night cycle and seasons (tip, get night vision.towns are safer at night cause its harder for zombies to see you).

-- can cook, hunt animals for food. need to purify water to drink. need food/water to survive

-- lots of locations: towns have lots of types of buildings, military bases, science labs, FEMA shelts, ant hives,

plus some harder end game stuff

-- complex damage system: damage by body part

-- fatigue by body part: you wear a backpack to carry more stuff. you can't dodge as well.

 

Game is in constant development. It was started a few years ago and got modded. The original developer moved on and it got taken over by the modders. There is a good wiki, but its not 100% current (this is all volunteer labor).

 

Some tips to get started:

-- go to 'options' make the screen bigger. you can see alot more than is on the screen. you have to quick and come back. if you make it too big for your monitor just make it smaller. do what works for you

-- in skill points and trait points. raise to 24. you start with 6 game is hard enough. take it easy on yourself at first

-- NPCs are disabled by default since they are bugger. there are negative traits to get points back to use on other stuff related to npcs.get the red ones like that. most are at the bottom. wool allergy doesnt hurt much either, near sighted is good (you start with glasses and its easy to find more.

-- get archery as a starter skil. its hard to find a bow,but levle 1 archery and level 1 survival you can craft one. bows are good cause you can craft arrows. note starter bows are not as strong as before, but are buffer later

-- train archery by getting rocks and throwing at rabbits, then go and 'B'. to butcher to get to 1

-- bow supplies: smash two windows in town. each window crafts a string. you can find a heavy stick at smashed windows or in woods. can then craft a self bow. go back to your starter location and hit 's' to smash the benches. you can then craft arrows (under ammo). to craft press '&'

-- go to the wiki and look in commands

-- run away. your not strong at first. you get 1 life

-- you can die of thirst and hunger, but water first. do NOT drink water from rivers or toilets. fill up an item, then you have to boil it (press & for crafting, and go to drink. tells how to purify water).

 

read the forum. to learn, but you will get wasted alot before you even make it past the first day.