hmm, I just thought it was mentioned before but the only delusions I’ve seen are of the guy with the trench coat who is recurring. I’ve played the yp so many times now I think I miss certain descriptions as usually just skim lol so get a picture based mainly on the personality. I loved heather too, but don’t think any of my MCs for this games would like her 
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Heh, I guess I do this too. I usually get a little liberal with the physical descriptions so I can imagine characters as people I know 
I don’t tend to imagine their personalities, though, only their appearance. Of course, only if I like them. I apparently imagine characters I don’t care much about as blurry figures ‘-’
Multiple characters saw Cassie, so I’d say she’s real in-universe. Either that, or mass-hysteria XD
The delusions challenge is mostly a guy in a trenchcoat following you around, IIRC.
My protagonist stayed with Heather in ZE because she asked him to stay with her, to support her in a difficult moment. I hoped she’d drop her attitude when they were in a firm relationship, but it didn’t quite happen. Bummer.
I thought that Madison was somewhat preppy, so I didn’t link her to Heather. I played the game so many times that I tend to just skim through descriptions now (so many adjectives 
), so maybe I missed something about her?
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hmm, don’t think I got that as when I did that played as a psychopath so didn’t lie ever as just didn’t care what others thought lol but sounds weird, surely someone’d tell her? :Sb
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This would be a fun situation in a non-zombie world. In the zombie world its dangerous. Just saying beware what is asked for.
@JimD I found a few typos 
I guess you meant “sea”? I’m not a native speaker, but “see” struck me as odd 
Same; maybe it was meant to be “falls”? 
When you decide to (mercy) kill zombie Tommy and see the dead dog. I guess it’s just “back”?
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I thought bantering was common between siblings, and I took the school scene as Madison being happy to finally see a friendly adult/someone she knows.
And about the school-aged Heather, well, my protagonist needs people to create dangerous situations so he can save the day, otherwise he wouldn’t even have a reason to survive in the first place XD
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@JimD
I found this bug in chapter 3, when my house was robbed.
$(cigarettes} cigarettes
I didn’t have an addiction to nicotine.
Change the code to ${cigarettes}
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When I go to Sean’s house with only the nephew (making the dog stay at home) the story doesn’t register it and it’s like I took both of them. But when I come back then it says that Max is home 
And something I have been wondering; if by day 2 I run out of food and I get cans from Greg’s and Sean’s houses (I had 30 portions of food then), why does it say in day 3 that I had to throw food away because it got spoiled (leaving me with only 14)? Wasn’t it non perishable food? The items I bought in Thelma’s don’t add up to the inventory, either 
And two questions; what do I have to do to repair the house damage back to 0? Or it’s going to be forever 1 (at least)? And If I happen to have a defense of 5 by the end of day 1 (secured the perimeter or with metal in the doors/windows), how come a zombie can do so much damage?
When you save Jaime; maybe "somethin’ " or just “something”?
Hah, sorry if I’m so annoying noticing these small things
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I think there are some locations you can scavenge where you pick up cigarettes by default. You don’t have to have the nicotine addiction challenge to have picked some up is what I’m getting at. Why the cigarattes are stored with your standard base supplies is another separate matter to me. 
If I was managing a base, I would separate the luxury items from the non-luxury items. Soap, shampoo, coffee cigarettes, booze? All of that would go in a separate room or pile.
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Man, as a smoker, they’re staying on me.
Especially if I’ve gotta ration the damned things.
@JimD First comment ever and it is basically a useless one. Just wanted to note that the replay value of this game is off the charts. I’ve played it multiple times and I still haven’t exhausted all the choices. So this is just my little thumbs up on an impressive piece of work so far. ZE was great, but this one is impressive.
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What she said. I’m still marvelling at the fact that there are characters I haven’t even met yet.
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I just noticed that when we go to try and save Jaime and we bring our Nephew (if you have one) and Jillian along, he’s grinning and winking at my MC, who is holding Jillian’s waist to help her climb the bookshelves (being the ever-so helpful gentleman that he is). And when I finally realized that, I immediately thought this:
“Why are you winking at me, young man? She has a boyfriend, you know 
”.
…But it was followed by a laugh, because I’m wondering what kind of expression my Male MC is making that tipped his Nephew about how ‘aware’ he is toward the woman really close to him at that moment. 
I hope that little guy has some more reactions like that to other survivors that the MC has potential to be interested in.
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That makes him a good choice to kill off early then.
Honestly, it’s important to show named characters dying in the early stages of the outbreak because that’s when most death occurs. Having a name and prior interactions attached to a character’s deathbed means that you’ve stopped treating deaths as a background activity to be skimmed over like a description of a battered house. Even if players don’t remember who Tommy was, I’d see that as further reason that he should be killed off.
That said, there should be at least one or two more unpreventable deaths. Deaths of likeable characters with smaller roles are particularly good to build the atmosphere. The player shouldn’t be able to influence everyone else’s life/death status because that’s life both inside and outside of an apocalypse. It’s awful and it’s cruel but it’s heavy and it’ll get people thinking.
Maybe give everyone the opportunity to try and save him but have his death hardcoded in. A few wistful, “what if we overlooked our differences and actually gave this a shot before I got bitten” romantic lines before he dies/reanimates would be nice.
That said, I feel as though there is very little representation of gay women (or even just women who like women) so far. Out of the current ROs, we know that Jill likes men and that Julianne could’ve had history with either sex. We’ve got: Tony, Alfonso, Greg and Tommy who are all confirmed to like men. Sure most of these guys are dead, zombified or otherwise non-romanceable - but representation is representation.
I love angst lords too! I’d expect him to go all Ron from TWD on you if you so much as said a rough word to his dad I bet Reilly’s in their gang when players meet him later. I can’t wait for my bank robber to reunite with her pre-apocalyptic partner in crime. If I remember correctly, Reilly can be recruited! Sounds like good drama if my plot senses are even vaguely correct.
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I’m assuming you mean beyond the prologues for each profession? There’s already a lot of named NPCs that die within the prologues of many professions. Carter’s death still gets to me, man. You can try to save him, but you ultimately fail. Jonah is a similar case. Either you accidentally get him killed, or he sacrifices himself so that you can run away. My heart still aches a li’l. I do agree with you, though. I just try to be optimistic in my hopes to save some people. It’s mostly for my MC’s sake, honestly. I think he’d crack a li’l if people he kept trying to save kept dying. 
Exactly! I would love the dynamic of having an NPC hate us for having killed their father but spared them. If they actively try to kill our MCs 'cause of that, then I welcome the challenge to try and get them to see it from my MC’s perspective.
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Oh, right. Forgot to clarify on that!
Yeah. Prologue deaths are important in their own regard but they’re only witnessed by a fraction of the players. I typically choose to play as a bank robber (as if my constant mentions of Reilly and kevlar vests aren’t enough) and even though this one guy turned in the middle of the robbery - I didn’t really feel much for him or the woman who rushed over to help. He was just an unnamed character tearing apart another unnamed character.
I’d argue that putting your characters through this is half the fun of playing zombie games.
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It’s weird. I love that kind of feature - in RPGs. In interactive fiction, it just makes me feel so much. I guess it’s a difference moreso in how I approach playing them. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it. It just makes me turn into a sad mess. 
I mean, I’ve been emotionally preparing myself ever since Jim responded to my question asking if he was going to break my heart back in November with:
@Lithophene I think it’s safe to assume you’ll see the Makarovs again. It will likely be a tense meeting.
Good points. I’ll fix these errors.
I track them in separate inventories on the stat screen but otherwise, I group everything for simplicity.
@Lycoris thanks for pointing out those typos. You are not annoying. In fact, these are errors I am happy someone reports.
Some writers suggest dropping the apostrophe but when I do, people point it out. So I am adding them back in.
@Panda_T thanks for posting and for your kind words.
@Okami-Nora I really try to make him interesting, fun, and not annoying.
@Owlet [quote=“Owlet, post:4507, topic:2000”]
Honestly, it’s important to show named characters dying in the early stages of the outbreak
[/quote]
that’s why I originally killed him off.
I agree.
I do have gay women in game but orientation has not been discussed yet or they haven’t been met. It’s just an issue of time to write them in so far. for example, Billie.
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Oh, I’ve totally been expecting a chance to meet them again. I’m just mostly curious about whether or not either of them will be recruitable. I mean, I know most people wouldn’t consider recruiting someone who stole from them, but… Reasons.
I mostly just giggled 'cause I imagined the Makarov’s just grabbing some cans of food and then spotting the cartons of cigarettes just stacked up neatly beside them and going “Well, why not?” and nabbing them. 
My argument against this would be the fact that he’s only really memorable to teen (and student) players, and while I would agree that students probably do need to have a few more unpreventable deaths, the teen has already lost pretty much all of their friends by this point (and their parents), so it does seem as though it’s unfairly targetting them. And if the player doesn’t remember him, his death would lack any of the meaning you are trying to attribute to it.
Once again, most prologues do have the player responsible for either being able to save (or not) one or more other characters, in their prologue. The teen doesn’t have this luxury, as the only survivors (the twins) will survive (at least for now) no matter what.
I would argue that dead representation is possibly even worse than non-representation. It happens far too much, and seeing gay people as mere expendable side-characters is not nice.
Honestly, though, I would prefer this over what we currently have, although I would still prefer him to survive, in at least some playthroughs (say, teens only, given the current lack of teen romances?).
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