Interest check: Survivalist game

I’m currently working on a survivalist game, basically The Forest meets The Long Dark. (if you haven’t heard of those games, it’s basically a plane crash story set in Canada’s forests) I was originally planning on making it a regular survival game, with no supernatural elements or fantasy stuff, but I know those things are quite popular among HG or COG. I’m just wondering if you guys would be interested in that type of game.

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Heh… I bought The Forest thinking that there’d be some sort of interaction with the mutants beyond killing them / being killed by them because of the way they were described in the store page… that was kinda disappointing. I mean, I know it’s early access, but it’s clear that that’s something that isn’t ever planned. They’re basically just intelligent zombies. Still, this could be pretty interesting if it does end up that the “monsters” are more complex than that.

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I’ve played The Forest as well, but I tried it on veganmode first, since I wanted to explore the area rather than deal with the cannibals. That’s the direction I wanted to go with for this game. I just feared that if they was only surviving in the forest in this game, not many people would be interested. Have you heard of The Revenant? Besides the main story, it’s about man’s relationship with the natural world. That was kind of my direction.

I absolutely love survival games and stories. I loved Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe as a child, for all that as an adult I can recognise there’s so many problems there.

I watch ‘survival’ reality tv shows, like Survivor and Shipwrecked, The Island and this new one Eden, and was so disappointed it was more about personal politics than it was about actually surviving. I watched Marooned with Ed Stafford, but only the first episode.

I enjoyed The Sims Castaway games, and Lost in Blue, and Return to Mysterious Island, and a number of less story centric survival games, although nothing too fancy.

I’m not a fan of horror though, or combat.

I’d see supernatural elements as something of a crutch for this sort of game. Only include them if that’s the sort of story you’re interested in telling. I’m not a huge fan of zombies, or monsters chasing after you.

Post-Apocalyptic does interest me, and surviving after that, but… just getting lost and needing to keep sane, return to the world, that works for me too.

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@FairyGodfeather wrote everything I’d write so I’ll let her speak for me too. Except the Simms. I don’t care for that game series. I’m glad we have our similarities and differences.

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@Eiwynn

There’s a few Sims Castaway games. The mobile version disabled same-sex relationships from what I remember and wasn’t quite as fun as the PC one. :frowning:

But The Sims Castaway Stories is different from all of the normal Sims game. Instead of just building a house and making people for the house, you make one character that you control throughout the game. That character is shipwrecked and you need to gather resources in order to survive. You build a shelter, you find food, and then slowly you start to explore the island. There’s a story! There’s other ship-wreck survivors, and locals, and romance!

And you can have a pet orangutan.

It was an impulse buy for me one year, on my birthday, and I was absolutely surprised by how good it was and how much I enjoyed it. Of course it’s been years since I’ve played it now, but it surprised me how different it was from the other Sims games.

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I see. I never had played that one. It does seem light years ahead of the others. A pet orangutan sounds like fun.

Thank you for enlightening me :heart:

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I thought Swiss Family Robinson was a story about killing tons of animals for no particular reason. At least that’s what I remember about it.

This discussion about The Sims has got to be the most bizarre I’ve ever seen though. The whole point of The Sims is that it’s a life simulation. Those spinoffs are just crappy versions of other genres made to cash in on the popularity of the main franchise aren’t they?

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Definitely interested. Only write the fantasy stuff if you want it there, not for a hypothetical audience.

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Thank you all for your feedback. I was worried that there wouldn’t be anyone interested in this type of game.

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Of course XoR is a survival game too, just of a different kind, eh? :wink:

As far as this one is concerned I agree with the above keep the fantasy elements out if you are confident in your ability to write a game that doesn’t need them. While many of the more successful games around here do have fantasy or supernatural elements they’re not always necessary to make a good game.

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[quote=“FairyGodfeather, post:4, topic:20074, full:true”]
I absolutely love survival games and stories. I loved Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe as a child, for all that as an adult I can recognise there’s so many problems there.

I watch ‘survival’ reality tv shows, like Survivor and Shipwrecked, The Island and this new one Eden, and was so disappointed it was more about personal politics than it was about actually surviving. I watched Marooned with Ed Stafford, but only the first episode.[/quote]

I too loved reading Robinson Crusoe as a kid! Survival reality tv shows generally ends up being all about 'island politics, partly because the purpose of the show is to ‘win the game’ (and 'entertain the viewes) rather than ‘surviving’ mostly - and it’s not like the participants can’t ‘cheat’ too… But then again, if these tv shows were about people who truly had to try and survive… Plenty of problems there, if you get my meaning…

Either way, thanks! This talk about deserted island survival reminded me of a certain game I played a few years back, althrough that one would probably remind you of those reality tv shows that was just mentioned more than anything else; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBMff9LIClg

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