from teh start


in my brief experience, this is the most cloniest of Minecraft clones out there, and it's not a bad thing. It lacks in variety in terms of building material and the like, but has great graphics for a voxel thing, and gravity unlike Minecraft.

Game gives you the ability to build almost anything in a limitless map that randomly generates terrain as you explore it, along with randomly generated towns, cities, lone houses, farms, warehouses, etc. All of it is destructable. You can build towers meters high into the sky, or dig down meters until reaching the bedrock "foundation". All the while, zombies spawn everywhere, sluggishly walking during the day, running at full speed at night.


This is easily the sort of game that can consume your life, much like Minecraft, and much like it nearly did to me before I was saved (and re-consumed) by ARK Survival Evolved. The problem for me is the amount of changes made over the course of Alpha development.


I started in around Alpha 10 or so, and left with Alpha 13. During that brief period, some seemingly minor changes were made that nonetheless hugely impacted gameplay. Prior to Alpha 11 or 12, the map was divided into biomes (desert, snow, plains, forest, swamp, city) that were separated by rivers. With Alpha 12, these rivers were removed, making each biome fade into the other somewhat naturally.


The pickaxe model was changed, then the old pickaxe model re-introduced as "Steel Pickaxe" as opposed to "Iron Pickaxe". Items were also given quality ratings, from gray to purple, purple being highest quality.


Graphics were updated, vastly improved, then changed again, given a different shade and tone without any visible improvement in graphics.


Melee combat was initially a viable method of dispatching zombies, as each hit caused a knockback on the zombie. Then they removed the knockback effect, making it so zombies would ignore your hits and just keep attacking you. This basically ended melee combat. They introduced the bow and arrow to compensate, but feathers are extremely hard to come by in vast numbers when a zombie can take 2-3 arrows to the head to go down.


Most of the changes aren't inherently good or bad, but the sheer amount of changes being made over the Alpha process becomes disorienting and disillusioning, to where even the game icon and main menu and Steam page picture completely changed.

Half the screenshots on the store page look nothing like the game I put 1000+ hours into. With Alpha 13, they completely disposed of the entire user interface and replaced it with something that was more text-based rather than picture-based, making certain actions more easy while making most others needlessly complicated. Even simple tasks like setting up a campfire and lighting it have been completely changed to a point where it's become an entirely different action now.

Character movement was completely changed. The character feels weightier, no longer sliding along smoothly, but moving in a stumbling way that is only exacerbated by the absurd amount of noise they make. Every single action the character takes evokes loud grunts, cries, yelps, groans, and pants from them. Most of these sounds are either identical to or sound very similar to the sounds the character makes when they're being attacked, so it seems like they're in pain just from running a few feet.

They also radically changed the way the graphics look, without actually improving them, so it looks less like the game I put 1000+ hours into and more like an entirely different game made on the same engine.


The zombies from Alpha 12 to Alpha 13 have seemingly all been completely removed, re-modeled, and re-mocapped. Previously, the zombies would move and act like you expect in media like The Walking Dead or Romero films; slugging around, mostly standing upright. Now in Alpha 13, every single one of them is wiggling and waving spastically, making it nearly impossible to kill them with headshots as it seems like every one of them has lost their spine and is desperately struggling to keep their bodies upright. As well, the melee system was changed AGAIN to a confused sort of mix between the two previous systems, in which sometimes your hits will knock a zombie down to the ground, giving you time to hit it while it's down, and sometimes it will just ignore your attack and keep hitting you.


I still rate this game highly due to the 1000+ hours I put into it and had lots of fun with, and most of the core gameplay mechanics are unchanged, making this still a great game for someone to get into.

Unfortunately for someone like me, the constant "death by a thousand cuts" changes means I've basically grown apart from this game. I've never experienced a game that has undergone this number of changes in such a short period of time that it's effectively become a completely different game.

from teh start in my brief experience, this is the most cloniest of Minecraft clones out there, and it's not a bad thing. It lacks in variety in terms of building material and the like, but has great graphics for a voxel thing, and gravity unlike Minecraft. Game gives you the ability to build almost anything in a limitless map that randomly generates terrain as you explore it, along with randomly generated towns, cities, lone houses, farms, warehouses, etc. All of it is destructable. You can build towers meters high into the sky, or dig down meters until reaching the bedrock "foundation". All the while, zombies spawn everywhere, sluggishly walking during the day, running at full speed at night. This is easily the sort of game that can consume your life, much like Minecraft, and much like it nearly did to me before I was saved (and re-consumed) by ARK Survival Evolved. The problem for me is the amount of changes made over the course of Alpha development. I started in around Alpha 10 or so, and left with Alpha 13. During that brief period, some seemingly minor changes were made that nonetheless hugely impacted gameplay. Prior to Alpha 11 or 12, the map was divided into biomes (desert, snow, plains, forest, swamp, city) that were separated by rivers. With Alpha 12, these rivers were removed, making each biome fade into the other somewhat naturally. The pickaxe model was changed, then the old pickaxe model re-introduced as "Steel Pickaxe" as opposed to "Iron Pickaxe". Items were also given quality ratings, from gray to purple, purple being highest quality. Graphics were updated, vastly improved, then changed again, given a different shade and tone without any visible improvement in graphics. Melee combat was initially a viable method of dispatching zombies, as each hit caused a knockback on the zombie. Then they removed the knockback effect, making it so zombies would ignore your hits and just keep attacking you. This basically ended melee combat. They introduced the bow and arrow to compensate, but feathers are extremely hard to come by in vast numbers when a zombie can take 2-3 arrows to the head to go down. Most of the changes aren't inherently good or bad, but the sheer amount of changes being made over the Alpha process becomes disorienting and disillusioning, to where even the game icon and main menu and Steam page picture completely changed. Half the screenshots on the store page look nothing like the game I put 1000+ hours into. With Alpha 13, they completely disposed of the entire user interface and replaced it with something that was more text-based rather than picture-based, making certain actions more easy while making most others needlessly complicated. Even simple tasks like setting up a campfire and lighting it have been completely changed to a point where it's become an entirely different action now. Character movement was completely changed. The character feels weightier, no longer sliding along smoothly, but moving in a stumbling way that is only exacerbated by the absurd amount of noise they make. Every single action the character takes evokes loud grunts, cries, yelps, groans, and pants from them. Most of these sounds are either identical to or sound very similar to the sounds the character makes when they're being attacked, so it seems like they're in pain just from running a few feet. They also radically changed the way the graphics look, without actually improving them, so it looks less like the game I put 1000+ hours into and more like an entirely different game made on the same engine. The zombies from Alpha 12 to Alpha 13 have seemingly all been completely removed, re-modeled, and re-mocapped. Previously, the zombies would move and act like you expect in media like The Walking Dead or Romero films; slugging around, mostly standing upright. Now in Alpha 13, every single one of them is wiggling and waving spastically, making it nearly impossible to kill them with headshots as it seems like every one of them has lost their spine and is desperately struggling to keep their bodies upright. As well, the melee system was changed AGAIN to a confused sort of mix between the two previous systems, in which sometimes your hits will knock a zombie down to the ground, giving you time to hit it while it's down, and sometimes it will just ignore your attack and keep hitting you. I still rate this game highly due to the 1000+ hours I put into it and had lots of fun with, and most of the core gameplay mechanics are unchanged, making this still a great game for someone to get into. Unfortunately for someone like me, the constant "death by a thousand cuts" changes means I've basically grown apart from this game. I've never experienced a game that has undergone this number of changes in such a short period of time that it's effectively become a completely different game.