Dead State Mega Sticky - FAQ, Dev Answers, Game Manual, BMT Customer Support

[ZombieBisque]

I got a bit tired of seeing so many stickies, so this thread is to consolidate the information from several of them into one space.

Dead State Early Access FAQ:

How do I do things? Why doesn’t this thing work? I can’t figure this out!

Read the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com]. We tried to be as thorough as possible, but if your question isn’t answered there feel free to check out the forums. We’re trying to help out as many people as we can, but even if a member of the dev team can’t get to you right away our awesome community has been great at providing assistance to those who need it! Thanks everybody! There will be in-game tutorial elements in the final game, and we’re taking your feedback into consideration to make everything work as naturally as possible.

Why am I paying for a demo? Is this really Early Access?

Yes, this is an Early Access game! While we understand that Dead State: The First Seven Days is structured in a format similar to that of a traditional demo, we do plan to provide updates and patches to the build to both improve the stability of the game as well as add a few major features for you to playtest. We are listening to your feedback to help us evolve and improve the game as we develop it. Part of our intent in releasing Dead State to Early Access was to allow our Kickstarter backers and pre-order customers to see our progress and participate in the development process, and we decided to make that Early Access available to everybody who wanted to participate. By playing Dead State: The First Seven Days, you’re helping us test our core systems and features to make sure that the bugs you find now won’t make it into the final game. We appreciate your support, and thank you for your feedback and your patience while we finish the game!

Will this purchase get me the full game once it’s finished?

Yes! You could think of this as a pre-order of the full game, and as a bonus we’re letting everybody who supports us at this stage have access to our early build. We want to get your feedback so we can make the final game as great as possible!

Wasn’t this game supposed to be out December 2013?

You have no idea how dearly everybody on the dev team wishes that this game was already out. Nobody wants to see this game get finished and released more than we do. However, while our original estimate for development on the Kickstarter had us releasing December 2013, we ran into some challenges during development we couldn’t have anticipated. Rest assured that we’re working as hard as we can to get this game finished!

Didn’t you guys get a ton of money to make this game already?

We did have a successful Kickstarter campaign which was absolutely essential in getting us to where we are now, but the unfortunate reality is that RPGs take a lot of time and resources to make. Every dollar from the Kickstarter and from pre-orders has gone into the making of this game, and every dollar from Steam sales will continue to go into making this game.

Aren’t you just trying to make a quick buck off gamers?

Trying to get rich by making Indie games is like trying to get rich by getting a degree in Philosophy. We don’t do this for the money, we do it for the love of making games. We’ve already invested years of work in Dead State, and now that we’re nearing the end of the project our best hope is that the game will do well enough that we can keep making games. We’re not going to get rich off this game, but if we’re lucky we’ll do well enough to keep the rent paid and the electricity turned on.

How is Dead State any different from Age of Decadence?

Easy, they’re not the same games! It’s true that Dead State and Age of Decadence have a close relationship with each other - We share a lot of technology and even several key team members - but they are fundamentally different games. It’s a bit like comparing Chess and Checkers - both games are played on the same board, but nobody would say they’re the same game.

The Devs aren’t even going to listen to our feedback, are they?

We do care about your feedback! DoubleBear is a small team and we’ve been unfortunately swamped after releasing Dead State: The First Seven Days out into the wild, but trust us when we say that we have been reading and documenting your feedback, and it does matter to us. We have some incredible volunteers - who we can’t thank enough - who have been active in the forums to help you out with questions, and we’re also popping in to answer questions when we can. We’re grateful for your feedback and your patience!

Why are you censoring the Steam forums by deleting negative threads?

Censoring the community is the last thing we want to do! We will never lock or delete threads for being negative or critical of us. We want your feedback - that’s the whole reason we released Dead State: The First Seven Days on Steam! However, there are times when a thread devolves into name-calling, misinformation, or off-topic arguing and needs to be shut down in order to keep the forums on the topic that matters - Dead State. If you want to post about why Dead State is a terrible game, that’s fine - we want to know why you think that. But if you make a post questioning the purity of our relationships with vegetables or trolling the other members of the forums, we will shut you down so hard your head will spin. Remember that the forums belong to everybody, and we need to use them to make our game better. So please do discuss whatever you feel is worth discussing, but please try to keep it on topic about Dead State, and please respect your fellow forum members. We’re not telling you that you have to like the game, but we are telling you that you have to be polite.

How can you call this game X genre, when it’s obviously Y genre?

Dead State sits right in between a few closely related genres, so it’s easy to see how there can be some debate over exactly where it sits. To us, Dead State is first and foremost an RPG. We want to make a deep and immersive experience for you to play through, with a rich and vibrant world full of characters that feel alive for you to contend with. At the core of this game, even if you stripped out every aspect of combat, exploration, and management, we want to make a game where you have to make hard decisions. We want to make a game that forces you to think through tough choices and really puts you in the role of a person who woke up one day to discover that the world they knew when they went to sleep had gone away. We’re working hard to include a variety of features in the game: tactical turn-based combat that doesn’t hold your hand and reflects the grim reality of a fight for survival, the responsibility of taking care of a shelter full of clashing personalities, and the ever-present strain of finding a way to go to bed with a full belly and a safe place to sleep. If we put something in this game, it’s because we thought the game would feel more complete and more fun with it included, not because we’re trying to copy X source material or pander to Y audience. You can call Dead State whatever genre you want - we just want to make an awesome game for you to play.

When are you going to make an X language translation?

Right now, we’re just focusing on getting the English language version finished! Once we have that done we do plan on looking into where the greatest demand is for localized versions and figuring out if we have the resources for high-quality translations. With such a dialogue-heavy game it’s no small task, so we are thankful for your patience!

Will you be supporting Mac or Linux?

Not yet! We’re focusing on getting the PC version out before we look into supporting other platforms.

Will there be achievements? Why/Why not?

Yes! Many gamers find achievements to be a fun addition to their games, and it’s a way for the developers to have some fun and showcase some content they might not have been able to in the normal context of the game. However, if you don’t like achievements, it certainly won’t hurt our feelings if you decide to ignore them and just play the game.

Will there be an in-game tutorial?

Yes! Right now we don’t have any sort of how-to-play in there, but you can check out the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com] for all the info you need.

How do I save and load? I hit a bug and had to start over!

Hit F5 to save, and F9 to load. Once you have a save file, you can also click on ‘Load Quick Save’ on the main menu to reload your game. Right now you only have one save slot, but there will be more in the future. You can also make a copy of your quick save to back it up or send it to us if you find a bug you want to show us; you can find the save file in "My Documents > My Games > Dead State > quick.sav".

How do I fix the fence? I told people to do it and it never got done!

Once you’ve found the toolbox and parts from Llano Commercial and gotten back to the Shelter, you need to assign your allies to fix the broken fence at the Job Board located in the back of the cafeteria. The fence starts at zero hit points and can go all the way up to 100, but you only need to get it to 30 for it to be considered fixed. Each part you find can give the fence one hit point, and your allies assigned to fence repair will use one part per point of mechanical skill per hour while repairing the fence. Right now the time shown on the job board just tells you how long it will take to use up all of your parts to fix the fence as far as you can, not how long it will take to get it just to 30 HP, so you may want to be careful to save some parts to use for other jobs. You can find more information on the job board and how to put your allies to work in the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com]. We are looking into ways to make this process more intuitive in the future.

How do I trade items between characters?

When you’re outside of The Shelter, just hover over an ally and right-click on them until you see the backpack icon, then left-click to open up the group inventory screen. You’ll see two side-by-side inventory panels, just select the characters you want to trade items and move them from one inventory to the other. In the future, there will be a way to equip and trade with allies in the Shelter as well.

Why do I want to use any of these special attack moves? What’s the difference?

Right-click on an equipped weapon to check out it’s special moves. These all have different AP costs and special effects - Try them out and see what happens! You might reduce an enemy’s accuracy, send them into a panic, push them around the battlefield, or many other special effects. You can find more information in the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com]. We’re looking into ways to provide more information on special attacks in the final game.

Why can’t I leave the Shelter?

First, make sure you leave the building and stand on the blue tiles in front of the school. Once there, you can either click the globe icon on the HUD or press ‘M’ to bring up the area map. If that doesn’t work, the most likely problem is that you don’t have the main character in your party. You can assign people to your party at the job board in the cafeteria, so if you can’t leave check there first. You have to have the main character in your party to leave, but it also doesn’t hurt to give yourself some back-up! Check the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com] if you have any other troubles.

How do I advance time?

The easiest way to advance time is to go to bed. Your bed is located upstairs in the room Davis and the others have prepared for you. Going to bed will automatically end the day and show you your daily results screen, then start the next day. In the final game, you will be able to manually advance time from the job board, but for now the only way is to leave the shelter and go on a short stroll around the world map before coming back. Check the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com] if you have any other troubles.

How do I rotate the camera?

Use WASD to move the camera around, and use Q and E to rotate the camera. You can also use the middle mouse button to rotate the camera about freely. Check the game manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com] if you have any other troubles.

My game won't start! Is this a sign that the apocalypse is beginning in real life?

Well, first we recommend you board up the entry points to your home, just in case. Then, you should check these threads for assistance getting your game up and running:

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3713.0.html

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3794.0.html

[ZombieBisque]

Dead State Early Access Manual:

To tide you over a little longer while we prepare the demo release, we're giving you the game manual a little bit early. You can find it here:

Dead State Early Access Manual[www.deadstate.doublebearproductions.com]

Read up and get ready for Dead State!

[ZombieBisque]

Dev Answer Compilation: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2821.0.html

Monday Design Updates: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2265.0.html

[ZombieBisque]

BMT Customers Without Keys:

Originally posted by Brian:

IF you pre-ordered on BMT - tell me HERE in the comments, what your order number was and I will resend your data, which will now include a Steam key.

I will process these as quickly as I can.

Here's a direct link to the forum post in question so people who purchased from BMT can post their information and get a key: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3722.0.html