I like the general idea of the inventory system. But I think that when scavenging if there are a lot of one item to choose from that it should have a “take all” or “take 5” option for those particular items. And as I stated in my above comment some items that it says are possible to take have no option to pick up at all. Like the bottled water when scavenging. It also says to take a wood part in every part of the scavenging but doesn’t show it as an item to choose. And then insulin it has the option to take it but doesn’t show it in the list either.
Ialways play with a pet and dependent child. And I don’t particularly like randomized challenges, but that’s just the control freak in me.
I like the inventory system, but I do agree it gets a bit tedious to hit pick up food item 10 times in a row. Maybe have a collect all food option?
L&J - I liked what i’ve seen on them, never made them stay so I guess I haven’t see all of it.
Pet/Child. I do! Both, pretty much all the time.
Personally I wouldn’t choose to play with a random challenge, but it does seem like a good idea to increase replayability.
I always do the dependent child & dog
And I like the idea about random challenges optionally
I always play with a dog and a dependent child (he’s just so darn cute!).
I’ve never had an issue getting L&J to stay, and I’ve enjoyed their content, although I wouldn’t say I like them any better or worse than any other NPCs I’ve run into during the game.
As for the inventory system, I like the idea of it in concept, but I find the current version really tedious. I honestly just skipped it when I played through the update. I think I would like it better if it was streamlined. Maybe you could do something like the old Oregon Trail games, where you find 3 five pound lots of food in the kitchen and decide how many to take, instead of taking things individually. The current individual method also made things seem a bit silly sometimes because the minimum weight is 1 pound, and there were quite a few times when I was like “no way does one dose of insulin/a cell phone/whatever weigh one pound,” which was a bit immersion breaking.
I like the concept, but as previously mentioned picking up 10+ food 1 at a time is just a chore. And concerning L & J. I know J can survive but is it possible to save both?
Actually speaking of that scene I ran into a rather harsh immersion breaking. I was playing a ranged specialized police officer(back story in my head is that she was trying for a police sniper position, but hadn’t yet gotten that break). Anyways so of course I pick the bolt action rifle for her weapon. Now for some reason in that scene she thought it was a good idea to surprise attack by sneaking up behind rather than setting up behind the car she was behind and going for a long range shot. Really who uses a bolt action rifle in close quarters? Anyways that is probably because the narrative doesn’t care if you have a long range rifle or a shotgun. It just treats them both as a ‘standard’ long range weapon rather than giving a different scenario for the tactical differences between the two.
Speaking of which is there a way to successfully sneak on them? I went so far as custom making someone with 75 perception and 75 agility with max ranks in stealth and STILL got detected before I could attack.
I really like the inventory system but I wouldn’t mind if it got simplified a bit.
Am I the only person who goes at it alone? I personally would not want to deal with the hassle and stress of a child, nor do I trust pets to keep their chill when it’s stealth time. I do get that it’s an added challenge, but I can’t put a child in a zombie apocalypse by choice, even if it is just for a game.
As far as the inventory system goes a ‘take all’ or ‘take all of this type’ option, as mentioned previously, would be a great Improvement.
I actually do prefer doing it alone. I like to add the delusions, visual impairment, and deepsleeper for realism.
I tend to play it alone, at least thus far. Veg and glasses are my preferred realism additions…or various other things as the whim takes me.
Inventory system: Honestly, at this stage I have been pretty much ignoring it. I think if it were less complicated, it would be more interesting to me as a player. I do like figuring things out, but yes, I would love for either less options or more specific options when collecting what I should take. I will add, I find the level of complexity for character creation just fine, especially since I can be very non-specific, or very specific, if I so choose.
Actually, would that be a possibility? To add something like, “I just grab whatever I think would be good” and have a ‘standard’ kit from the available items, maybe tweaked (and I know this would be a lot of coding) for characters who are medical or military, say, and would have totally different ideas of ‘good’. Or even a choice beneath that one which reads something like, “I focus on food items”, or “I focus on my medical supplies” rather than itemizing. It also might fit the temperament of some styles of MC better to be less particular, too.
And then there could be the ‘I shove a bunch of random stuff into my pack’ option. I picture that like choosing a piano on the old Oregon Trail game. Mwaha.
I Looooove the inventory system but there’s so much too it. It’s hard to evaluate if CB radio thing you can bring is more useful than say, a fishing pole. I love how it requires more thought to scavenging than the first ZE did. I would actually like to know exactly how you set up the inventory system because I want to do something similar (although not nearly as complex)
2. I like their content a lot but I’ve been mainly just not letting them in at all because even when I get them to tell the truth and stay, they just steal my backpack the next day. Is it even worth it in the end to keep them?
3. I pretty much always do regardless of character, I think they add ALOT of depth to the game, especially the dependent.
4. I was literally thinking about this today! So basically you could select that option and get say hearing impaired? or vegan? I think that’d increase the replay value a lot, but the majority of people will probably stay away from it and just want to choose their own.
Oh thank God. I legit thought something was wrong with the way I was playinAs for the challenges I usually pick the pollen allergies, visual impairment and deep sleeper. I like to go for HEAVY immersion…if you know what I mean. 
Not everything truly weighed one pound, I noticed this with food. I believe food actually weighs .33 of a pound, so 3 is actually a pound. If you pay close attention to the weight while grabbing things you’ll notice this.
I love the child and dog option in this game I usually take hearing impaired as the third challenge.
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Despite having picked up the phone before moving on to search the house, the option “Answer the ringing phone.” is still left open. I think you should grey that option out after the player answered the call.
German Shepherd + Child + Anger issues is a really fun combination for me.
I pretty much hate the inventory system. My plan is to salvage part of it and scale down the rest. You’ll have primary and secondary weapons, and a standard set of gear you use on missions. While scavenging, you’ll have a certain amount of storage, and once filled, can drop items and decide which to keep.
I want to get back to the core of the game: narrative, character building, and relationships.
@Opisthenar I can randomize one, two or three challenges. My idea is to give higher rewards for each random challenge. So, Addiction to Alcohol gives 4 extra skill points if picked and 6 if received randomly. How does that sound?
@KelaSaar @killnsin I wrote in the update log that item weight had to be set to 1 for most items (I realize most people skip logs-- ha!). Decimal values broke the system, so I decided to post the demo as is.
@Usana I agree that I need to fix the sneak attack section. Thanks for pointing that out.
@chesternite you are not alone in going it alone. Lots of people on my Facebook page say they hate the nephew. For most players, they love the challenge or loathe it. That’s exactly what I hoped to achieve with these challenges.
@CC_RR I made the parts with L&J difficult and will tone them down soon.
@killnsin with the random challenges, I may add it as part of a Hard mode. More on that later (like next month).
@Keira I am fixing that soon.
@TheRusty that is a volatile combo. Like +1
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I really enjoyed the update. I found the inventory very interesting and enjoyed it. However, being an engineer with high strength and a backpack, taking electric and mechanical parts 1 piece at a time was incredibly tedious. Being able to take 3 or 5 of an item at a time would be wonderful.
I really liked the nephew in this update. It was good to see more of his personality showing. He seemed really clever. Except for that part with “rearranging the furniture” part. Btw, if L&J stay with the MC, the nephew actually says that the furniture was left unmoved immediately after Jillian tells you they had moved the dresser to block the door.
I’m ambivalent towards L&J personally. they seem like interesting characters. Though I admit to liking Billie’s personality the most out of the characters so far.
Starts doing erratic gestures like a pro. Yea soooooo great job so far annnnd i would love to see more
Dang @JimD You totally thought of the same thing as me as far as the primary and secondary weapons and different inventory system, I’ve been working on something using that… It’s all good though, ZE 2 will be waaay better than mine either way.
Errors found:
- Claustrophobia comes before allergy to pollen. The other challenges are listed alphabetically.
- When you reach the first floor, Looking outside, you see a brownish fluid—most likely zombie blood—splattered on the front steps and wall of the house. (capital L)
- Aside from Bonnie and Sean, you don’t know many other neighbors up your street. (Who is Bonnie? Why no mention of Vince?)
- Chapter2 line 3957: Invalid expression at char18, expected closing parenthesis, was: INEQUALITY [>=]
I didn’t feel like the inventory system was too tedious, but wouldn’t mind if it were scaled down.
I like L&J. I play with dependent and pet - not always, but I do.
I would definitely play with random challenges if they were available.