New Hosted Game! "Grey Eyes of Death"—A zombie outbreak survival adventure

Too many pronoun mistakes. Even just at the beginning with the best friend (they are supposed to be female in my playthrough), she gets referred to as male at like every second page where she appears.

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I liked…I love a survival game. Especially if it’s a zombie apocalypse. But… I didn’t really like the characters… some are good and others are… kind of boring. But the game itself is very good. I loved the writing and the way our parents are. And also how the game holds you and makes you want to follow through to the end. I loved and liked! very good. Thank you for this experience :heart::clap:t2::ok_hand:t3:

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Just encourage her to kill creatures at any chance you get.

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Famous last word.

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Over all I liked the game. A lot of hard choices which is great for this genre.Not being able to save Angel destroyed me. I don’t know why it happened but it hurt me. I saw a kid die in a car crash I was in once and now I just cant deal with that stuff anymore. This is nothing on the author or COG or anyone. Just a personal thing.

But yeah, good and lengthy. If you like zombie stuff, play this. I will say dont buy this for romance. It’s there, but only at the end and has little affect. Kaia is still cool though.

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Well it is possible to save the kid Angel. When spending time with her, just encourage her to do the killing whenever possible. This will teach her to defend herself.

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There is romance but it’s not very out there, but there’s subtle moments with MC BFF that you can call that considering the ending and etc etc falls in spoiler territory.

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I like the more realistic feeling of this game (compared to the ZE series), how the characters actually struggle with the lack of food and water resources. We don’t automatically get promoted to survivor experts, to whom everyone turns to for advice, rather than that the way we get treated here is more fitting for our characters age and background imo. Also we don’t get to redeem everyone just with the “power of niceness”, sometimes aholes stay aholes, but it can also happen that we make a misguided or outright selfish choice and some people are more forgiving (not necessarily trusting, but they decide not to leave us to die). I think this shows more that humans are complex.

What I didn’t like: Sometimes I found the two choices offered too restricting. None of them really fitted what I think I’d have actually done or said in my characters place (this is one of the few games where instead of roleplaying I’m playing something closer to a self insert MC). For example with the movie theather group MC had a talk with Larry where the options were agreeing with everything he said or disagreeing with everything, but I agreed with some part of it and disegreed with other part of it. Or when best friend and Callum fought over MC and other stuff and even got to the point of pointing guns at eachother, the only choices were to pick one side or other, but I didn’t want to pick a side, because both of them went too far (I ended up picking Callums side, because “protect to kid, the weaker person”).

About the romences: I would be interested in romencing the best friend and I think I’m past many scenes where romance could have been started. This kinda starts to feel like a TV show where we start to ship two characters because their interactions with eachother sometimes get very close to flirty, but they either stay just very close friends or if they get together it’s painfully prolongated till we get to the point where the characters we were rooting for to get together actually get to be a couple canonically.

I still haven’t finished my first playthrough so I might come back later when I have more to add.

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Um this is idk. All the characters seem far too similar and lack any composure, especially Kaia and while I suppose that’s to be expected given the situation her personality doesn’t change. Speaking of the “her” bit, the pronouns are a mess jumping between male and female, also the lack of choices really hurt the game in my opinion. I mean we could four solid pages of just descriptions and the MC standing there like a background extra on a film set. I also don’t know how old the MC and their friends are, the stats say 18 but in the story we get mistaken for 12 and that threw me for a solid loop. The interactions with other characters felt shallow too, its like everyone gets introduced to be killed. But otherwise its fairly well written I suppose, despite the criticism this is definitely not the worst game I have played this year and I don’t regret buying it.

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Okay, I’ve finished my first playthrough: For the most part I liked this game (I explained before what I like about this game, the writing was also engaging, I could hardly put down this game since I got it). But the issues remain which I also brought up before: Sometimes I found the choice options lacking (two or three options weren’t enough), those pronouns really need a fixing (most often it happens with the best friend, but it happens with the MC too sometimes and even Callum got feminine pronouns once or twice even though I assume he is always supposed to be a dude), and sometimes there were coding mistakes other than gender pronouns (like in a place where Kaia’s name should have appaered we get [best friend]).

Now I’m starting my second playthrough and I’m planning to take screenshots of the parts where coding errors happened (tho I missed the first one so I’ll just describe it: when best friend and MC go home after school she plays a joke on MC which includes biting them, I pick the option to push her off and after that Kaia says something along the lines that the old MC would found that joke funny, but instead of MCs name she says her own). I’m not signing up to do screenshots about misgendering because that would be too many.

The romance: While not the worst I’ve read in a HG game, I’d say it’s also not a strong part of this game. In my first playthrough I went for Kaia, so I’ll write my opinon about her romance route in more detail: that feeling of the early stage being prolongated (missing many oportunities where romance could have started) got excused by me, when I’ve read Kaia’s diary entry, and her talking to the MCs grave (my MC got bitten by the zombies, and I suppose Kaia killed her before she’d turn entirely zombie). But after they finally kissed and sleept together (more romantically) I was annoyed by how Kaia still only treated MC more as a best bud than as someone whom she loves and from whom she finally got positive recipricaton to her feelings, there was that special night and after that I feelt more like they are back to squere one until my MCs dying moments.

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So, this so much of a game like other available titles as it is a sit down and read. Very little you do will impact the story ((you are in fact railroaded)) so dont expect any side content, or optional stuff for character development.

The concept as a story opposed to a game, isnt too bad. Its your standard zombie apoc, with a lot of focus on the eyes.

But, all content creators gotta start somewhere.

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On the surface, this isn’t half bad. The premise is somewhat original and some parts of the story were well done. Though at the same time, the ‘romance’ was lacking, to put it mildly, with some inconsistencies with some of the text and a few typos. Not to mention the lack of options entirely. 2-3 options for a game like this aren’t great.

Overall: 3/5. Had some solid moments but lacking in some areas.

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Whew, this one was a ride. Somewhat minimalist compared to other games in terms of stats (all I can notice are relationship values), but it’s pretty good. The Best Friend could have done with a bit of toning down, then again Callum was a shit at various points and at times I kinda wished I could just tell both of them to shut the hell up. Especially since near the start choosing to support one meant the other would swing into hating you (I was forced to sleep on the floor in the cabin because I didn’t support the Friend one time, despite siding with her literally the entire game up to then). Story definitely improved once we managed to get together with Dayton and Angel. The prison segment was probably my favorite moment of the game, sweet interactions made the punch at the end brutal.

Really made me glad I keep manual backups of ‘saves’. In terms of drawbacks there’s the aforementioned coding issues (I remembered Eudora fondly despite never meeting anyone named Eudora and Larry seemingly disappeared from the Truck/Bus section to the Clinic, feels like there was a chance for him to die and I avoided it but the story didn’t get the memo), pacing or mood of some scenes was kind of off (I literally never agreed with him ever in the story yet Callum leaned in for a kiss?), and some of the parts really dragged on though like I said that might have been a character issue. Getting someone else to break up the constant arguing earlier than the Pier would have probably helped. Aside from the Best Friend’s characterization I also admit that Callum came off as a 13-year old instead of a near-peer like he apparently was. Romance came off as an afterthought even though the Best Friend was obviously on the verge of telling you multiple times, got frustrating.

Anyways first time through I got Ending 10, messing around with an older save got me Ending 1. Gonna try for all of them, interested to see in how different choices pan out.

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I remember this one! I played the demo version a while back, I was worried it was dead. Glad to see it got completed in the end.

And you really don’t want that in THIS setting.

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Right, so I’m going to sum up my thoughts on what I’ve played so far. Keep in mind I decided to start this while I was still playing and write it as I go.

All in all, I really liked this one. I found the story engaging and I found the characters to be interesting for the most part (except Ben, he’s a prick). I’m glad I got to play the full version in the end.

There’re probably three major criticisms that I have of the game, and I figure I’ll get those out of the way first so I can get to the good stuff. It’s all constructive, I promise.

The first bit is probably the most expected. There aren’t really enough choices. Quite a bit of the story is reading events as they play out. Said events are compelling in their own right, but if the choices are TOO sporadic, then there’s an issue. This is a game after all, too few choices make it feel like a novel. A good novel, mind. In particular, as I mentioned a ways back in the beta, I feel like there should have been more options to kill zombies early on. I remember that there’s not as much action in the beginning because we’re supposed to adapt over time. However, I feel there should be more than one personality option for our MC. After all, they’re our character. Heck, we have the option to shoot one during the beginning.

I will say however, that I liked the characters and story enough that the lack of choices didn’t bother me nearly as much as I’d expect, and that’s quite a feat given my preference for choice-heavy entries. Cudos.

Related to the above, the character interactions could be fleshed out a bit more. Usually there’s only two or three options for how to deal with each conversation. Some more dynamic interactions would have been better. More conversations, mor opinions one can have on the situation, etc. I think so many choices being agree/disagree, with a black and white relationship value. Some ways to disagree without upsetting people and explaining your own ideas on the matter. I think so many choices being hard agree/disagree made a lot of the characters seem coercive and uncompromising when they don’t really act like that otherwise. It can sour the impressions of otherwise likeable characters. I think this is the main reason Kaia is so divisive since you have the most interaction with her.

The last one is a smaller one. I feel like the romances could have started earlier in some cases. I get Callum and Angle, who you just met and need to get to know, but with Kaia, we’ve already been friends for quite some time. It seems like there were a few points in the story where the mc could have started developing feelings for her. The romance wouldn’t have to start right away mind, but it’d make the buildup more immersive. The main example is where Kaia suggests you have a crush on someone to your parents. I feel like that would have been a good opportunity to establish how you feel about her (you could also establish some prior connection with another RO maybe). Honestly though, it’s not too big a deal, I still loved the romances.

Now for the good stuff.

Like I said, the characters are pretty good all things considered. The parents were surprisingly compelling for their short amount of screentime, and their deaths actually hit pretty hard. I liked the mall survivors and while I had mixed feelings about how we interacted with them (getting bossed around, everyone being cagey, etc.) at first, upon rereading I think it works. While I’d still like a choice about whether I think we should leave, Kaia’s decision to actually makes more sense when I think about it. Larry and Shannon have endeared themselves to me, but I don’t think they ever talked to Kaia, and she’s not had good experiences with authority figures anyway, so it makes sense. Not gonna complain about the second group, given their situation.

Angel was great too.

I actually like the minimalist stats. I get the idea behind having states determine what your characters can do, but honestly, a lot of the time it just feels like cutting you off from options for arbitrary reasons. Here, you’re not too dependent on stats to determine what you’re capable of. I wish more games did that.

I do also like that you can save Angel and some of the others.[/spoiler] Too many zombie games give you no opportunities to save the majority of the cast. Here, we loose people, but we have a chance to save people too. [spoiler]I place it above ZE in that regard since the child death in that one was unavoidable.

Kaia herself seems pretty divisive, so I want to talk about her in more depth.

I like Kaia. I think she’s an endearing character all things considered. Fun loving, mischievous, delinquent but not really a bad person, all in all, I found her endearing. That sort of character isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but they tend to be some of my favorites. Delinquents can be tricky for me since I’m a huge square, but honestly you nailed it with Kaia.

I also got the impression that she really did care for the mc. Sometimes with childhood friends the authors forget to actually make them feel like friends. Here it really did feel like we’ve been close to this person forever and formed a close bond with her. I found the bit where she was relieved to go with you instead of to her home during the initial outbreak particularly sweet.

The main issue with Kaia seems to be the whole “with me or against me” thing, but honestly, I think that’s an issue with the mechanics rather than the writing. I don’t hold it against her.

All in all, I think she’s a really good RO.

It’s actually Callum that drives me nuts at times. Kaia suggesting that we abandon him was shitty, but so was, you know, pulling a gun on her. He also whined that I took Kaia with me to search the mall, pointing out she’s out of bullits but like… yeah no shit. That’s why I’m leaving YOU to guard the wounded man and the child!

He’s likeable enough in general though. There were a few times when I thought Kaia was needlessly mean to him, even if she had a point about his foolishness (seriously man, even if you’re right about the horde, who leaves a door open if you know there’s a horde after us?). He still grows on you though. He’s kinda the opposite of Kaia. Kaia’s dark side shows later, his brighter one does. Also, credit where it’s due, he does figure out we’re in a zombie movie before anyone else.

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You compare an apple to a fire truck here. The only similarity between this… ‘game’ is that they both have zombies.

ZE is a vibrant, amazing, well-crafted game SERIES with likeable characters, more impactful choices, easier to understand achievements (Let’s not try to write Middle English if we’re not so skilled at it, mmmmk? Using it for the Tarot references was just sad) and much more attractive characters.

Grey Eyes of Death seems a LOT like ‘Death at the Rectory’, not that this ‘game’ was quite as horrible as that one (sorry, but that one stunk) but I felt zero emotional toll with any of these characters. There was little-to-no character development, and I honestly felt like a lot of things in this ‘game’ felt forced.

All in all, just because it’s a game about zombies doesn’t mean it’s a good game, and certainly can NOT be compared to Zombie Exodus.

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I’m inclined to agree with the guy, he has a valid point

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Where? I mean to each their own but this particular comment is just mean for no reason.

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ZE is superior.

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  1. The validity of that statement is entirely subjective no matter what anyone says to “prove” otherwise. I have played both and think they’re both pretty good.
  2. It doesn’t matter. Getting offended that someone is comparing one game to another is stupid. Any actual criticisms they made were made better and more civilly by other players.
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