Curious About Permadeath

[Gambit]

Game looks great, good job you guys. It looks like a much prettier version of Project Zomboid, but with more story and darker.

I'm curious as to what aspects will linger after you die? I haven't played Zomboid yet, but I've seen videos and screenshots. I understand that in Zomboid, you become a zombie when you die, and if you get back to your body, you can recover your items. I really like that idea.

I read on your website that Darkwood has permadeath too, and will have some form of persistence after you die. I'm curious as to what exactly that persistence is? I understand if this is an aspect of gameplay you're wanting to keep under wraps, but this may or may not be a buying decision for me. It will definitely affect how long I play the game, as I generally find permadeath games discouraging and frustrating. They seem rewarding for highly skilled players, but punishing to those like me with lackluster abilities.

Thanks!

[Gustaw]

Darkwood actually plays very different from Project Zomboid But that will be more obvious when we publish more gameplay footage in the future.

I understand that in Zomboid, you become a zombie when you die, and if you get back to your body, you can recover your items. I really like that idea.

I haven't played PZ in a while, but I think the feature you're describing is from ZombiU.

Darkwood will be challenging and sometimes even punishing, but in a way that could be avoided when you get more familiar with the mechanics, enemies and the world in general. So I'm afraid you will die a lot (especially at the beginning), but that is necessary to achieve the sense of accomplishment when you finally stop getting killed all the time and overcome things that you thought previously were too hard - similar to the feeling you get when playing for example playing Dark Souls.

But we also want to avoid the thing you mentioned: limiting our audience to only skilled players. We want to make the game challenging, but not impossible to enjoy for people that haven't played video games all their life.

Tension is sometimes through the roof when playing Darkwood because of permadeath, but it can also lead to frustration when you actually die, so we some things carry on to your next playthrough. This way, you don't have to repeat everything over and grind, but can instantly enjoy the game, even if you just lost your awesome loot and upgrades.

I don't want to get into details as what actually stays after you die, because it will probably change quite a few times in development, but it will do it's job

[UndeadGuru]

Darkwood actually plays very different from Project Zomboid But that will be more obvious when we publish more gameplay footage in the future.

I haven't played PZ in a while, but I think the feature you're describing is from ZombiU.

Darkwood will be challenging and sometimes even punishing, but in a way that could be avoided when you get more familiar with the mechanics, enemies and the world in general. So I'm afraid you will die a lot (especially at the beginning), but that is necessary to achieve the sense of accomplishment when you finally stop getting killed all the time and overcome things that you thought previously were too hard - similar to the feeling you get when playing for example playing Dark Souls.

But we also want to avoid the thing you mentioned: limiting our audience to only skilled players. We want to make the game challenging, but not impossible to enjoy for people that haven't played video games all their life.

Tension is sometimes through the roof when playing Darkwood because of permadeath, but it can also lead to frustration when you actually die, so we some things carry on to your next playthrough. This way, you don't have to repeat everything over and grind, but can instantly enjoy the game, even if you just lost your awesome loot and upgrades.

I've got also a question about what happens when the protagonist dies.. Does the appearance of the protagonist change after death?

[Gustaw]

Nope. He just dies.. And you start over

[UndeadGuru]

Nope. He just dies.. And you start over

Ok cool!

[Nickboom]

I love permadeath and I think it would be neat if that lets say you die by being burned to death that when your character is spawned in your new game he has a burn mark on him.

[arkhometha]

I also love permadeath. Games like Spelunky, Don't Starve, DoomRL and a lot more have it and I generally die by my own fault. I think it makes the "game over" part of the game more important. A cool concept for the OP to check out is the lineage one from Rogue Legacy. It strikes a balance between permadeath and "game progress".

[Jumbik]

I really hope that you will be able to achieve the sweet spot with the permadeath. Many games tries but fails in this. Make it too punishing and people will leave the game after second death. Make it too soft and people will get bored with a game mechanic that makes no sense.

I really hope you will be able to do it right.

For example the sweet spot for me is that a death in the game will force me to rage quit, then leave me to stare on the desktop for one minute and realise that I want to play MORE. After some time, the rage quits will fade away, but the tension from death will stay...