I realize this is in the kickstarter thread as well, but since its purchasable now, albeit in an Alpha form, I was curious if anyone had tried the game, and have any recommnedations regarding it?
While The Dead Linger has just hit Steam, its not playable at all due to its new engine, and I need a new zombie survival fix and this seems pretty cool from what I’ve seen so far.
I grabbed it a while ago. It’s a lot of fun but still pretty early. It feels much further along than The Dead Linger, which is nice. Crafting works well and the physics system in the world works…well, it works. I’ve brought down a few buildings both by choice and by accident, including one I was hiding in at night. That got pretty dicey but fortunately I wasn’t far from another house I could hide in. The zombies don’t have the best AI yet, which is a bit of a problem. Right now every Zed on the map knows exactly where you are at night and will run right at you, meaning that if you aren’t holed up somewhere safe you’re pretty much dead. During the day you can move around with no problem, since light slows them down.
The frame rate seems to get worse as I play. Not sure if it’s a memory leak or what but it can get annoying after a while.
Other than that the game is loads of fun. It actually kept me from finishing Saints Row 4 for a while. It was just so easy to fire up 7 Days, kill a few zeds and craft a mine or two.
That sucks about The Dead Linger. I was looking forward to downloading that off steam when I got a chance. Hopefully they get it sorted out soon.
Thanks for the information. I guess I’ll try to hold off a bit then :-)
As for The Dead Linger - They just switched to a new engine, Unity I think, and its giving them massive problems with people being unable to play compared to the previous version. Give it a week or so and I’m sure they’ll have most of those issues ironed out.
I grabbed this. I like this so far.
I just tested this and it works completely offline, unlike many of the other zombie survival crafting games.
I have not gotten a chance to play since like Alpha 1.1 . How are the changes?
There definitely were memory leaks back then. I found a server which cycled the game every two hours and it was running past day 1200. Back then there were also a lot of issues with cheats - seemed to attract the crowd that like to bring on invincible mods with God powers then fly around zapping people on public servers.
Okay, I’ve spent a few hours with this and I think I like this survival/scavenging Early Access game more than the other ones in the current crop. Rust is a bit too harsh and dependent on ganging up with others for me to have any fun. DayZ feels a bit too sterile and empty just yet. Dead Linger is just a hot mess right now.
7 Days to Die seems solid so far. During the day, zombies are slow and easy pickings, but they become a credible threat at night, so you really do need to make the most of your daytime scavenging and fortifying. Since everything is destructible, you can’t just bunker up and expect to make it without setting up some defenses and being prepared. Scavenging and crafting is easy because there’s a lot of garbage everywhere and you can make everything within your inventory screen rather than being gated by crafting stations. Zombie AI is decent enough to chase you if you attract attention, like shooting a gun, or lighting a bunch of torches at night.
Unfortunately, I think the art design of the game is frankly awful. Beyond the mishmash of Minecraft blocky terrain and low poly 3D objects, it’s pretty obvious that many of the assets come from the Unity user-submitted library. (The devs even got in a bit of trouble for using an asset that was uploaded to the Unity library by a third party who apparently stole it from Killing Floor.) The one positive aspect of the looks is that the primitive graphics allow the game to generate a large amount of zombies onscreen with very little performance impact. The devs say they’re working on replacing the blocky terrain with a smoother style, but I’m not confident they’ll ever get a unified look for the game.
I’m loving it, about 8 hours play time so far.
Night is like Minecraft but with supercharged levels of creepiness and danger. The horde v. tower defense aspect works well, especially with the structural damage and physics considerations. Surveying the damage to your hiding place the morning after is cool - lord help us if the enemies get some more structural targeting AI… The need for food/water/health works well, though so far stamina seems mainly like a run-restriction mechanism.
The art isn’t fantastic but the game runs well and feels really solid and stable given it’s early state. And the planned additions are quite ambitious, I can’t wait to see what happens with this one.
Yeah, that mirrors my feelings as well. Honestly, I’m pretty good with this as it is, but the projected changes to the terrain will really make me happy.
I was really suprised at how much I liked what I played. Out of the the three, I expected to like DayZ more since Dean (presumably) has a bigger budget, a well established community, and lessons learned from the popular mod, but this little goofball project won my time.
I want to find some folks to play with. The server browser just blows :(
This game does what I always wished Minecraft would do, give me a reason to build defenses around a home. I love that zombies siege your hideout at night, tearing the down walls and finding any weak spots you missed. I wish they would tweak the AI a bit, though. The last time I messed with the game, the zombies still magically knew where you were at all times. That makes it easy to dig a tunnel outside the walls of your compound and hide in there safe and sound while the zeds tear up trees directly over your head. Really fun game anyway, but they have a lot of work left to do.
Remember the game is nowhere near finished, so they’ll be sure to tweak things.
Long interview with the game’s producer: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2014/01/13/creators-7-days-die-explain-make-friendlier-zombie-apocalypse/
He was very responsive with his answers.
The article references the title being part of the story. Do they even need a SP experience beyond Sandbox for this game?
Not really, but their larger (Kickstarter) vision includes quests, NPCs, and RPG type XP in the default Arizona map.
Comments make this game looks more minecraft than the others (Rust, DayZ) and somewhat even more “traps oriented” than rust. Also buildings have decay, so in a old server you will see lots of abandoned fortifications. Resources are plenty. Zombies are very hardcore at the night. Seems to have a lot of good ideas. It may be much more interesting than DayZ or Rust, but time will tell.
So far I like it a lot more than DayZ, but haven’t played Rust. This game is pretty freaking hard on default levels.
So far, it’s a lot more interesting to me than Rust, DayZ, or Dead Linger. The crafting and building construction is a lot more like Minecraft than the other games. What’s nice is that they sim some basic physics, so you can’t just construct a wooden pole with a 50ft beam sticking out with no other supports. It will collapse.
Weapons and ammo are plentiful, so there’s no reason to gank people for their supplies. The zombie threat really does discourage being a jerk. You can’t troll too hard when zombies are constantly showing up to ruin your stuff.
Very nice interview - thanks! I also find this clearly the better of Nether, Rust and Dayz(Which I don’t have) since I can play this without having to worry about russian clans and griefers. I also love crafting, and I find it looks quite fine already.
http://7daystodie.com/alpha-6-is-out/
Alpha 6 has been released. Tons of changes, but the major ones are:
Lots of new recipes and craft items.
I just played about an hour of Alpha 6. I’d say the biggest change is the breaking up of ammo drops. No more clips or clusters of shotgun shells, you pick up and load individual rounds. So now the game is really survival horror, with far less ammo in the world. I was also able to walk around at night without getting swarmed by Zeds which is a welcome change. I expect to be attacked but you really couldn’t move around when they knew exactly where you were all the time.
Also, the snow biome and the map changes look pretty neat. There’s a new town in the desert and some new buildings scattered around. I got blown up by a landmine approaching what appeared to be a military outpost so I decided to call it a night. Should be fun to check out tomorrow, though.
I really like where this game is going. Personally I’ll take it over Day Z or Rust any day.