The skill points have some issues. If things go on like this, my protagonist will probably be maxed out by chapter 4 or 5. Iād suggest you to keep the amount of points as it is, but change the way we spend them. If we didnāt start the game with, say, science, then donāt make it so easy to get it later on. My character started the game with no science, killed a few zombies, and then brought level 3 science by the end of the game. I canāt see how he learned science by killing zombies.
Iād say that weād need to have some scientist to teach it to us, or at least read a book about science, then we should be able to start buying this skill. Also, since we didnāt start with it, it should be rather expensive to upgrade. Same goes for all other skills we didnāt start out with.
Also, what you do should have an impact on your skills. Say, you provide medical assistance to someone, then your medicine skill gets raised by 1%. Practice leads to perfection, right? Or, instead of raising the skill, raise the āuse skill X times to level upā stat. That way you 'd actually have to use the skill to level up. You canāt just buy lvl 20 ranged if you never even threw a paper ball in the trash can before. For example, you need to 10 points to raise crafting skill one more level. Asking a carpenter to teach you gives you 5, making a repair gives you 2, crafting something gives you 1, and so on. Intelligence could be a modifier (intelligence / 2 = points for reading a book, for example).
Also, instead of just starting the game with no combat skills, then just buying, say, ranged, and getting to know how to fire machine guns instantly doesnāt feel right. Guns are part of the ranged skill, but they also require the user to know about the gun so they can use it. Iād suggest having someone teach you how to use guns before you can actually do it (or spending a truck-load of points to figure it out yourself if you have enough intelligence). Also, since pistols arenāt the same as rifles and shotguns arenāt the same as machine guns, you wouldnāt have a cop teaching you how to fire a rocket launcher. You could add a skill tree for people who know ranged, with pistols, rifles, shotguns, and etc to be leveled up individually. Also, āscienceā is a bit vague. It could also open up a tree with āchemistryā, ābiologyā, and etc. Several skills could have trees added to them.
So, these are my suggestions:
-Keep the amount of points it is, but limit skill-learning potential.
-Let the players choose whatever skills they want to being with, but force them to learn other skills in-story before they can upgrade them.
-Make the protagonist use the skill before they can upgrade them.
-Add skill trees to existing skills.
Since this wouldnāt be so easy to code, Iāll understand if you donāt do it. But you gotta admit, it was a nice idea, wasnāt it? =P
