Regardless of it being made by 2 dudes in their basement or whatever the game is incomplete. Which is kind of sad because otherwise I would have loved it.

-You get an advanced recipes guilde but no one with the skill to use it. Or maybe anyone can use it and it just containts nothing.
-You get another crafting guide at the end of the game without any opportunity to use it
-There is a forest it seems you can never enter at the start of the game
-There are streets and passageways you cant enter closer to the end of the game
-Sometimes when you enter one building you exit another, Sometimes it says "you cant enter this building" but you do. Then exit another building.
-The improvised explosive you can make you cant use.
-There's only one door to lockpick and I'm not even sure you need lockpick for it.
-Never found a hammer to make nailbat because all drops are random it seems and its possible to go the entire game without getting certain items vital to crafting.
-Only 2 places you can light fires to cook, one is lost to you shortly after getting it.
-Item cap is 30 which is frustratingly low for ammo.
-Ranged weapons dont have knockback so if you cant kill the zombies in one hit they'll likely hit you.
-Non Knife/machette weapons cant be swung very fast so they're useless and invovle you hitting them once and them hitting you with the slough of potential negative side effects. Found a box of unlimited bats (not as helpful as one might think because of the previous).
-Never found a rifle for it being the one dude's special talent. There are skills you can equip that say "melee skill" and "pistol skills" which dont seem to do anything.
-There is no stamina bar so you cant tell how long you should wait before trying to sprint again (its kind of like a secret of evermore system where you can keep hitting it and getting baby sprints which aren't helpful).
There is no hunger/thirst bar so you just start taking damage and you're 10 steps in before you realize that's what's happening.
-Skills cost 50-100 out of 100 of your skill points so they're almost useless as you can only use them once or twice
-They both highlight the loot spots you can use 1-4 times and have unnoticable other loot spots you can use once for loot which are easy to miss
-Entire game takes a couple hours
-One event gives you a destination after a mysterious event and no real explanation as to why you're going there
-The "you didn't find anything" bar that pops up takes 10 times longer to fade than the one when you get an item which makes getting nothing 4 times in a row incredibly frustrating on multiple levels
-At one point in the game I lost a significant amount of my loot, which I thought was because of an event, but it was bizaire I didn't lose all of it, or lost all of it and get it all back. I just lost some of it.
-very choppy at times
-Every time you enter an area it seems to start daytime and immediately plummet into darkness
-You cant really free range on the world map and go where you want, you have to exit through a specific exit of a specific area which gives you a pipeline to one area (the next area) while at the same time labelling some areas as "you cant re enter here" and I'm not sure why they couldn't just give you free range movement on the map and just label the forbidden zones as "you may not enter" areas. It makes it frustratingly difficult to move long distances.
-its also plain frustrating it doesn't let you re enter the plot closed areas. Let me foolishly fight the horde by hucking grenades at them. Let me go back in that house. Dont just systematically close every area of your already short game.
-the flash light is really misaligned which is kind of useless, you can see what's ahead and beside you, parallel to your pathway but not what's directly ahead of you.

Just a lot of bugs that they probably could have seen with one playthrough and really should have fixed

Firstly, keeping in mind that this is only a $5 game and the reminder that appears every time you begin the game that only two people worked on it, I won't tear too much into it, but I want to give a few words of advice for the future in case they decide to patch it up or make a sequel.

1) Hunger-In the game, you get hungry (as any real survivor simulator) the meter goes from 0 (not hungry) to 100 (hungry). Solution: It makes more sense/logical to have it go the opposite direction from 100 (full) to 0 (hungry).

2) Debuffs/Icons/Text/Guide-Also, there are debuffs in the game with icons (there's a bleeding icon, a headaches/migraines icon, a scared icon, etc.) but I couldn't find a guide that clearly indicated what these icons meant, you had to figure it out for yourself. I bring this up because when you're trying to treat a debuff/ailment with food or medicine, it does show you the icon of what the food/medicine treats, but it doesn't tell you in text what it treats or what it means. Solution: Have a page or simply indicate in text what the buffs/debuffs are and what the foods/medicine treats.

3) Water-You can't drink tap water from the sink because the game tells you that the government advised against it because its toxic (even though you can still drink "dirty (bottled) water" which raises your toxicity levels like in Fallout 3. So your other options are a) find dirty bottled water with toxicity and drink that, b) find (fresh) bottled water and c) drink from a water cooler. When I tried to refill my water bottles from the water cooler, it said I needed empty water bottles despite having empty water bottles in my inventory after using/drinking the bottled water. Solution: Be able to use the empty water bottles that you finished drinking from, to refill water from the water cooler. Also, be able to drink and refill from the sink water, just like in Fallout 3. If toxicity levels go up, that's ok, that's what the medicine is for.

4) Dark/Night time-There's day, afternoon and night time. You can hit a button to tell you the time of day it is. Problem is when it's night time, it's almost too dark to see what's going on. I tried adjusting my computer's settings and even the color settings in the game and it was still a little too dark to see. Solution: Lighten the night/dark so people can see what's happening more clearly. You can still indicate to the player that it's night time without having the screen be so dark.

Note: The first two are very minor things in the game, but none of these make the game unplayable, even together. I beat the game in about 8 1/2 hours, taking my time, not even rushing it. To be honest, I thought it was going to be longer, but I was left entertained after all of it was over. And the music, for a game like this, is really good. To me, it was on the level of Resident Evil for Nintendo 64. Was it worth my $5? Overall, I say it was worth $5. No regrets.

Another day, another zombie game. This time, in glorious 2D sprites, courtesy of RPG Maker VX Ace and the creative efforts of a debutante two-man dev team. I’m pleased by what Animakemu Games have achieved with their first Steam project and I accepted to play and review this title, mainly because I haven’t played a JRPG-style featuring the undead apocalypse theme. All genres need to integrate zombies eventually, right? Now where are my undead-themed sports games?

Focusing on the task at hand, I can assure you that despite the generic theme, Story Of the Survivor still managed to surprise me at times. Not with the main plot, but with its crazy side missions and the few but friendly NPCs around. Seeing people who are more self-aware about the zombie impending doom, was a breath of fresh air. In most movies and games, you have oblivious characters who never heard or seen an undead reference in their life. Hard to believe indeed and the devil’s in the details. It’s always the small things in the indie titles I review, that can hide the most interesting facts. This game ain’t no State of Decay, but it doesn’t want to copy or emulate other zombie survival/crafting titles that came before it. Story Of the Survivor wishes to carve a name for itself and remain as original as it can.

The protagonist in this tale is an average Joe. A former cook called Thomas. As the undead began to walk the streets, he remained indoors, caring for his sick mother. Once the supplies ran out, he could wait no longer and began scavenging for food and medicine. The basic needs are nicely simulated in-game via counters for hunger, thirst and level of inebriation. But you’ll stick to good ol’ water, right? No need to drink yourself to death, when it’s already knocking on your door in search for brains. Ironically or not, you will have to use that brainpower if you are to survive.

Thomas might not be the bravest hero around or the sharpest tool in the shed, yet he must fight for his survival against all odds and seek out a new meaning to life when he's only surrounded by death. He even becomes sort of a leader for a ragtag group which will constantly accompany him. Remaining on the move seems like the smartest choice in this type of scenario. If you’ve seen enough TV series and films about zombies, you certainly realize by now that the biggest enemy to human survival is infighting encouraged by none other than our human nature. Even when money becomes useless, you can still count on the oldest form of greed to keep on bashing skulls. The insatiable hunger for power over others.

I already mentioned RPG Maker and the game looks as good as it’ll ever get on that graphics engine and assets provider. The one thing which really bothered me though, was the lack of Steam Overlay support. I don’t understand why games using this graphical medium, have to eschew the auxiliary system which Valve implements for its users. The Overlay is more than just an in-game frame rate counter and screenshot linking method. I use it predominantly for those two features though and I don’t regard kindly, the Steam games which don’t even allow me to share my screenshots of them, on my Steam profile.

It’s even more upsetting since the game looks nice, it has nothing to hide or fear. I played “dollar bin” games on Steam which allowed me to take Overlay screenshots, showcasing them in all their abysmal glory. Story Of the Survivor is anything but abysmal, yet it has disappointed me, perhaps more than the games I used to write negative reviews about.

I understand that the game engine and genre itself, leaves little room for sound diversity, but it was still a far too silent experience. Forcing me to play my own “creepy soundtrack” off YouTube, doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. Story Of the Survivor lacks all but the most basic sound effects. Not good at all, Animakemu Games.

At least the gameplay itself washes away some of the “shame” or more precisely, bitter taste that the audiovisual limitations left me with. I enjoyed the pacing, the action and intrigues. The combat sections felt a bit weird since the game insists upon a real time method instead of the tested and proven turn-based fighting which also makes use of the JRPG party system. Devs attempted to stray away from the classical formula but the results are underwhelming, to say the least.

The crafting system is the saving grace since it offers numerous possibilities and you couple that with the constant scavenging for new resources. You can assemble or take apart pretty much anything you can pick up in your inventory. The dev team clearly emphasized on this, but I feel like it’s still not used to its full potential. Plus the party of three (out of which you may switch to a “main” character at will) doesn’t really help as much in RTS mode, as they could have in TBS. Don’t try to fix or change what was never broken in the first place.

I couldn’t rate Story Of the Survivor any lower than this, since the game doesn’t deserve the “honor” of a negative review from me. It didn’t annoy me (despite denying me screenshots) and it’s far from a dysfunctional gaming experience. As a fan of survival games using post-apocalyptic settings, I still found enough redeeming points to this title. It won’t bore you with useless conversation between NPCs, the fetch quests don’t feel like a chore and the antagonists are abstract enough to avoid repetition. I’d say that the game is also priced accordingly, but perhaps the developers may add Trading Cards as well, in a future update. That would really convince all Steam collectors, that Story Of the Survivor is fully worth it.

+ Decently priced.
+ Steam Achievements.
+ Interesting story and setting.
+ Vast arsenal and crafting system.

- Next to no in-game sounds.
- No Steam Overlay support.
- Simplistic combat system.
- No Steam Trading Cards.

Rating 60/100

This review was submitted for Elite Giveaways, through the generous contribution of LyndaSmiles.

Over all it's not the worst game I've ever played and I do recommend it. There are some spelling and grammer errors, but I can let those slide because I honestly find them extreamly funny (Light the campfire and ♥♥♥♥) and I personally would prefer they focus on improving game play over improving the grammer and spelling.
The controls are a bit difficut and jerky and the lighting is definantly an issue, going out at night is pretty much impossible. Also, I gave a tool/weapon to a character to use and then they dissappeared and I had to completly restart to the beginning because I couldn't progress with out that tool and I'm not the best at saving on more than one save file, even though I know I should.
It would probably help if more hints were given, you're given tasks with little to no directive. You kind of have to go in blind and then wing the game a lot of the time, a mini map or some kind of hints would be a huge help.
Yes it has it's issues, but it is a 5 dollar game, and in the end it's worth what you pay.

I understand that this game was made by 2 people but that is no excuse. There are far better games made by a single person. First of all the writing , oh god the writing, its so bad and its not just its so bad it might be good kind of bad, its just plain bad. The combat is a joke and your guy cant run 5 seconds before needing to stop, it just makes the whole game tedious. All in all it had potential and i tried playing it for a couple of hours but ultimately i just didnt have fun with it which is a shame because i really wanted to like it.

Story of the Survivor is made by two people, Kamil Szczepanik and Bartosz Zajkowski with a passion for video games who wanted to partner together to create a passion project. The game draws its inspiration from The Walking Dead games and television shows. I know what you’re thinking, ‘another zombie game made by newbie video game developers’ but this one may in fact be well worth checking out especially if you’re not someone who is instantly put off by the RPGMaker engine.

The story begins relatively slowly as many RPGMaker games have a tendency of doing. However, what is immediately clear between the art assets both created and selected from those already made and the game’s soundtrack is that the developers have established the necessary tone and the aesthetic required to immerse players into their elaborate game world. As the story gains pace so too does the tremendous action. Although I have not reached what I am certain is going to be a mildly interesting conclusion it has been a very reasonably written one as far as RPGMaker games go and one that serves its inspirations well. The story does a solid job of conveying the feelings and emotions of a world in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.

I enjoyed the crafting aspect of the game which is available from very early on in the game. It is something that you will need to be constantly thoughtful of as some of the items that are available to be made from your crafting items can play important, if not vital, roles in progressing further into the game.

I know that there are perfectionists among us so if I was to pick out a negative it would be that the English isn’t the very best. However, in my time with the game I found it to be definitely passable. There weren’t any sections of the text that I felt as though I couldn’t understand what was being conveyed. There’s a few words here and there that I feel are incorrect. However, keep in mind how far traveled the language has become and the different ways in which people speak it and I’m not merely talking the difference between American and British English here. I find it interesting listening to someone from Europe speak English with someone from Southern Africa for example. At times it can seem as though they are speaking two very different languages yet all of the worlds are noticeably English. The dialects of the language are fascinating and so what the writers may have implied may be purely correct from one perspective and not from another. There’s only very few misspellings.

Would I recommend Story of the Survivor? As the devs themselves wrote in their Steam Description, if you’re a fan of The Walking Dead or other zombie-related media, then is the game for you!

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It´s a good game, but it definitely has some flaws.

- a good crafting system, but most probably you won't be using it too much: you can find most weapons and food just running around;
- basically no directions: you get yor mission and then you can wander for hours trying to find an exit;
- you can learn lickpicking skill only close to the end of the game, so most probably you'll miss whatever was in all those chests scattered around starting from the first city;
- drops are random;
- good melee weapon appears at the last building in the game (well, in my case);
- weapon skills seem useless;
- there is no stamina bar, though there is stamina;
- the lighting is a huge issue since you can see nothing at night;
- it's a shame you can't reenter the plot closed places;
- the basic game lasts a few hours;
- 'The Escape DLC' is, imho, a bit improved version of the basic game, but as frustrating, since at some points you just wander around searching for an exit.

Summing up: some issues should be fixed or reconsidered, but all in all I loved the game.

needs some work. but i love it..
not played far into the game but still the price and what i allready got out from it i love it.

there are some issues that really need to be fixd.

i mention one: at the girl house at beginning "gunshots"
a escpape route would be nice instead hiding in the barn "but i killed me all" but should be a path thats clear for the gamer.
if there are one..

but anyway good job for 2 ppl..

but i do hate one thing: when there are no more loot. better for noting to happend than the pop up.. will just be annoyin after a time.
and perhaps a choice to play in daytime =)

Spelling/Grammar/Writing in general was practically unreadable at times, a simple proofread would have gone a long way. There are glaring issues with the gameplay, getting stuck in objects, invisible walls, visible walls that you can actually walk through, and sections that rely on you not making a wrong turn/investigating anything else otherwise you'll just have to reload and go again. Not enjoyable.

Hmm, this is really sad tho. I really thought i could enjoy this game., coz its just what i enjoy playing during my casual times. I dont know if its ment to be extra hard with no proper explenations at most times. Its kinda buggy with the walls and blocking objects, i wanted to turn of the lights in "the shelter" tho it seems i just broke the glas and the candle is still lit, sometimes it has no candle and soemtimes it tunrs into a golden kinda electricity lamp... what is this guys? Well even tho with the bugs, weird fighting system and inventory, in my case the game comes to an end with a black screen after beeing in "Barkam City" or whatever it is called (after "Crossroads"), No matter what i do, starting from one of the first saves and even starting a new game, it just turns black after the i "ending" in that particular city... since i bought the bundle i am quite annoyed that this is happening, but i am will play SOTS: the Prisoner and see if this can give me at least a lil fun for the money i paid. Still i don not reccomend this game and i do not say this often.