I said that I wanted to go to the dog cafe with Darren. I don’t know if he’s responding to the “train your dog” comment (which I didn’t pick in this menu. I picked it in the previous one), but I’ve not been outright unfriendly to him or Laika. I also feel like Darren should ask us how we feel about the dog and whether we will report him for having her (it seems in character for him to do so—he did, after all, help aid Edgar who was seizing, so he might even feel apologetic when he realizes that PC might not share his excitement about the dog, and even if they did, it was a complete surprise). A similar thing happens with Jasmine: ambivalently expressing our desire to go to the water park causes her to react as though I told her water parks were stupid and only stupid people visit them.
I’m also surprised at how ambivalent she is about her “date” touching her roommate and how she doesn’t seem to understand why another girl might be terrified upon seeing a strange man in her bedroom and touching her (you should add in a “scream loud enough to wake the whole dorm and attempt to fight back” option for the first Jasmine roommate scene), or about her date going for the wrong bed. Unless that’s part of her character (it does a good job making her unlikable though).
I also noticed the lack of a non-flirty but enthusiastic response to your roommate’s invitation to hang out with them.
The sibling (Stanley’s) relationship should say “Sibling”. Also, why is 49 enough to make Rafael a friend but leave Darren as a classmate? Also the Headmaster and other teachers added in future should have unique designations in the relationship page (they certainly are not “classmates”). There also should be a line break between “Adam” and “information”.
I didn’t interact with Rafael at all and he’s still listed as a friend at 40 relationship. Also Jasmine has mahogany (deep golden brown) skin and is listed as Caucasian (she could be mixed but I’m surprised she’s not listed as mixed).
Will we see Edgar again?
Will we get to pick our race/ethnicity (similar to ZESH) in the future? I ask because all the other characters in the character sheet have their race/ethnicity listed.
Am I playing the updated draft? I see the new cover art and update log, but aren’t we supposed to be able to do a hangout with someone? Or did I misread @JimD’s post?
Edit: I should probably specify, my playthroughs end immediately after going through the ads.
It says “get to know the six characters” and that you have to play 6 times to get all scenes because this is roommates-only scenes. The hangouts haven’t been added yet.
Speaking of hangouts, I wonder if the younger sibling has a hangout planned as well—they call us asking to talk about their crush, after all.
Roommates are separated by gender (not sure if NB MC gets a choice of six roommates). Male MC gets Adam, Darren or Rafael; female MC gets Jasmine, Kiyone, or Lilith.
There are three male and three female roommates. You only get to choose from roommates of the same gender, unless you’re nonbinary, in which case you get to choose from all six roommates.
Yes, I played as NB specifically to get all six options, and I only got the male options. I wonder if it’s because I was previously playing a male MC?
Edit: Cleared my cache and cookies, and that seemed to fix the issue. Ran into another error, though, when choosing the Behind Ear location for my MC’s tattoo. It said “I choose another accessory.” Failed to screengrab it.
It’s not every choice that’s doing that. Some personality stat choices do move the opposed bars in the correct direction that GM mode says it is going. I suspect that choices may have to be checked manually…
On an unrelated note, it would be neat to be able to set your initial relationship with your roommate like you can for your sibling (for example: a choice between “You and [Roommate] became friends almost immediately after meeting, and sharing a room only strengthened the connection. It’s almost like in a movie” for +12 relationship, “While you wouldn’t call [Roommate] your friend you don’t dislike them either; you don’t make trouble for them and they don’t make trouble for you. It’s a pretty normal roommate relationship” for no relationship change, and “You and [Roommate] despised each other ever since the start of the school year, but you’re stuck together because ‘mere dislike’ doesn’t warrant a change in roommate assignment according to the Steadbury Academy rules. You’ve checked, several times” for -12 relationship). It would also be cool if our activity and our hobbies also gave small (+3) relationship bonuses (ex. JROTC kids get +3 with Jasmine, gardening hobby gets +3 with Lilith, etc.) with our peers.
A corollary to this. If we are roommates with someone we have common ground with (as described above), I think it would be neat if we had special text like “The fact that you and [Roommate] had [Activity] and/or [Hobby] in common only strengthened your bond” (friendly roommate relationship) or “If you didn’t live with [Roommate] you’d like to think you could have been friends, because you have [Activity] and/or [Hobby] in common” (middling relationship) or “You won’t let [Roommate’s] presence ruin [Activity]/ [Hobby] for you” (low relationship).
Sorry if I’ve been quiet/not answering questions/etc. I’ve been busy as well as recuperating from work done on my legs.
For the immediate future text, the answer is no. This may change after the zombie apocalypse gets into full swing; after all we will have some of the horses, livestock, etc. so having a pet isn’t that far off.
This I can guarantee is already written (barring some additions like challenges, etc.) We sort of wanted to include a ‘before the zombies arise’ and might be targets to raid later on.
Also someone made an observation about how many named characters there would be, and whether they would be important. First, we did want to keep the core cast/group fairly tight.
However, there will many npcs, some nameless while others have just the first name but no one I would call important. The ones that are named was mostly because it felt appropriate. This is a slight spoiler but as an example one of the Instrument Playing scenes has the player asked to provide musical accompaniment as an NPC uses them instead of a boombox. A situation like that felt like it needed first names.
I like this idea, though I don’t know whether we will implement it.
Also, I think it goes without saying that especially once the apocalypse happens, the player won’t have to stay in the same dorm room as their current roommate.
Right, the main reason I asked is because a dog is present in the cover art, and what with it being a very popular feature in Jim’s ZE series. Speaking of which, I don’t believe this has been explicitly addressed:
Is the story completely separate from the Zombie Exodus universe? I’m guessing not since I haven’t spotted any reference to the good ol’ Zeta virus. Just a fun topic I was wondering about.
Nonetheless, I do hope we can at least have a dog on the team. A fur baby like that fits perfectly with the Animal Handler trait. Maybe we need to tame a scared canine that wanders onto school grounds to recruit it!
That is a great idea. The school almost definitely couldn’t be a permanent haven, especially for a group of displaced youths. So they would have to raid the closest areas around them and would assuredly move on before picking most places clean.
Ooh, I’m still developing my guitarist geek, and a scene like that fits perfectly for him! Now that you’ve mentioned it, I was wondering if an instrument pendant would be possible to add? I’m getting art done and my MC has an old electric guitar necklace on at all times, and I noticed something like that was kinda missing in creation. I might change that to guitar earrings, though, and those would be cool to see as well.
Yes, it is separate from the ZE universe though when you run a zombie apocalypse game, there will be many similarities.
I don’t see anything against it; as you saw the one student with the pet actually fast and loose with the rules at the start. Later on won’t be a an idea.
Actually, the school will be the haven (not to mention the 4-H club for raising crops/livestock). However, there will still be a need for supplies. Not to many zombie games have botulism in some of the canned goods…
One aspect I liked with the Safe Haven was the description for the hobbies, and even npc individual responses. That is why we did also include small dialogue trees and varies if you are in a romance or not (and it was a suggestion from my GF).
I look forward to seeing it when done As for the pendant, that is up to JimD to decide.
My main MC thus far is a 4-H girl (although she tends to skew less equestrian and more [food] gardener/animal caretaker; I am unsure if cooking or animal handling should be her second hobby). Her story might be very very interesting (especially since 4-H isn’tonly agriculture–I’m guessing that the Steadbury 4-H program doesn’t offer shooting sports and/or archery is under Athletics? And STEM stuff is handled by geeks and scholars?). By the way, will there be factions and faction leaders for the clubs (even if there aren’t major characters with arcs, development, and RO potential associated with all the clubs, which would easily be 12+ characters including the 6 already introduced)?
I’m curious, how will the small details of accessories be handled later in the story? For example, if the protagonist is wearing the handkerchief or bandana, will it be stated they are wearing it in a particular way like a headscarf, or is it planned to leave the small details to the audience’s imagination with mentions of the accessory by the story, etc.
As for the pendant, that is up to JimD to decide.
I absolutely love Jim’s devolving, diseased creatures, but this does open a few doors!