Zero's Review For Zahehouse: Diaries!

[Drist]

The video is cut because the game doesn't support 1920x1080, which is what I recorded in. The content isn't ideal but it will be fixed for my future series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xUIKlVXgoE

Zafehouse: Diaries is a zombie survival game that focuses on strategy and management of supplies and items to survive through hordes of dangerous zombies. It is on Steam for $9.99 and features plenty of re-playability as well as difficulty. This game is hard. REALLY hard. You will die many times.

So to begin, I decided to check the options and the custom character menu.



The Options:
Very poor selection of options for the game. Audio has no slider, only on/off. This makes it annoying to record videos. The game doesn't stretch to your resolution by default, you must enable it.

The strong point of the game is the custom character creation menu. You may add any picture you want including Jabba The Hutt and a toaster oven. Anything you can imagine can be involved which gives you the best flexability in most modern indie games today.



Audio:
The music is amazing. The piano gives a wonderful atmosphere and seriousness to the game. It brings you down into the trouble and darkness the town has fallen into.

The sound effects are very simple but nice to hear every once in a while. The zombie noise drones on and can be annoying over time, but it hasn't hurt my experience.



The Game:
The game brings a lot of information and stats to the items and management. You must choose certain items to perform certain tasks. If you don't have something then you may lose a person. The game revolves around your characters. Depending on your game difficulty (which might as well be Hardcore / Death / Unicorn Myth Survival), you will have 1-5 survivors. Survivors will be given random perks and stats / behaviors which will determine how they interact with one another. You will have drama and chaos sooner or later and you must figure out a way to fix it, or the team could fall apart and be eaten.

The system is solid and features plenty of items to gather, most of which have essential uses. The people have behaviors that make the game much harder by giving it more directions the issues can turn to. Zombies can be the least of your problems.

The maps are randomly generated to a degree for extra re-playability and will keep you interested. The zombies gather into hordes later on and survival further down the line will prove insane. There is no ending to the game's potential.



In total, I would rate the game out of 10:

9.2 for re-playability
8.0 for audio / sound effects
8.5 for item management
7.0 for character control (there is no way to choose what your characters will use or carry. This makes it hard to trust your characters to make the right choice.)
8.8 for gameplay and atmosphere


Total score: 8.5 / 10


I had fun and I shall do a series on it. If you wish to see the series then head over to the "UnitedFreelancers" channel!



Thanks!

-Zero

[Diggergig]

No, thank *you*

[dubesor]

Did you even watch your own video? Holy smoke, everything is cropped, half of the screen isn't even visible. And your menus aren't visible either, like when assigning people, filtering inventory etc.

[Drist]

Originally posted by Dubesor:

Did you even watch your own video? Holy smoke, everything is cropped, half of the screen isn't even visible. And your menus aren't visible either, like when assigning people, filtering inventory etc.

The options are very weak so I had two options, stretch it out or keep it small. I'll have to disable the option next time as it doesn't work very well.

[dubesor]

So you willingly put up videos like this? I thought might have quickly uploaded without checking. Okay! by the way looks like it's a general problem on your part, since it's not the only game on your channel that has unwatchable cropping and or resolution. Good luck with your channel!

[Blackbandit]

Couldn't stand the voice in the video.

But to comment on your review, I agree this is a good game but anyone that gets satisfaction from winning or playing a sandbox game with unlimited replay value should wait until this game gets more features and options added.

[Drist]

Originally posted by Dubesor:

So you willingly put up videos like this? I thought might have quickly uploaded without checking. Okay! by the way looks like it's a general problem on your part, since it's not the only game on your channel that has unwatchable cropping and or resolution. Good luck with your channel!

I found the problem, the game only supports 720 resolution. This is a problem with the game, not just me. I ended up using windowed mode and then sized it in editing to drop the black side bars. I just started using Movie Studio but don't assume it's my fault when the game has such bad video options.

[Dwetdawg]

so... is it worth 10 bucks?

[Drist]

Originally posted by DwetDog:

so... is it worth 10 bucks?

It's worth around $15-20 to me. Worth it, yes.

[Drist]

Started my series for Zafehouse: Diaries. Resolution has been fixed so if you're not sure about the game yet then you can see my video in the video section! It will have the giant number on the bottom.