12 January 2012

Play Diary: Rogue Survivor - Carlton Lee

In this play-diary I'll do something different to the ongoing Oblivion-series and play a little roguelike called Rogue Survivor, which can be found for free here. Roguelikes are games usually based on procedural generation of worlds, the programmers choice of mechanical depth over graphics, and usually a high degree of difficulty. A famous example would be NetHack. Anyways, Rogue Survivor takes place after zombies have started to overrun your city and you play a random survivor (or zombie, if you want to), just trying to survive for as long as possible.

As the game is under development and there is no 'win' state yet, it usually boils down to how long can you survive. Killing zombies is not the goal, you level up with each passing day regardless of how you spent it. You need to eat and you need to sleep and that is what usually gets you killed. These play-diaries are going to be stand-alone stories of survivors I played until they expired, written down from their perspective as I was playing. Almost none of the events are scripted, as this is a random world and I of course write a bit more into them than actually happened in-game but the general story is what happened, as it happened. Enjoy!



Day 0:
Woke up to find the house assaulted by zombies, strangers also here, ransacking the place! I grabbed some food from the fridge and my flashlight. One of the strangers beat a Z to death in my kitchen. I went into the basement and killed two rabid rats with my bare hands, blocking the stairs with some crap I found in the corner. I stashed the food in a corner of the basement and went back outside. Went to the general store down the street to get supplies and found a horde of zombies there. Evading them I got back some ammo (but no weapon!) and a medkit, which I used to patch myself up after returning to my basement. Then I ate some food. The next trip went to the grocery store. I met a group of cops on the way there and a guy with a hunting rifle was sleeping at the store. I grabbed as much canned food as I could carry and brought it back here. A third trip outside brought in more cans, some fresh groceries I will have to eat sooner rather than later and also the information that the gun store next door is still barricaded. Good. I'll sleep for now as I am really tired. Hope the Z don't find me down here... It's 19h and I've been up since midnight, by the way. Rough day. Tomorrow I'll see what I can get weapons-wise.



Day 1:
Got up early at sunrise to leave my basement-hideout. I ran down to the weapons store, finding it already busted open. There was still some stuff to loot there. I have a pistol and a bunch of ammo for that now, as well as a hunting rifle and some ammo for it. And some shot-shells but no shotgun. Upon returning home I pushed a broken down car to block off the hole in the living-room. Hopefully that will slow the Z down a little. I forced myself to stay up until 21:00 so I'll get a normal sleeping-cycle again. Tomorrow I'll try to get to the police station to see what the hell is going on there. Maybe there will be some sort of resistance there or at least some equipment to hoard. Good night, apocalyptic world!

Day 2:
What a day... I walked all the way down to the precinct. There were small fights between survivors and zombies everywhere on the way but I went straight to the station. Down there I found some cops holding out in the darkness of the basement. They said sure, I could have any equipment they didn't need so I grabbed a shotgun, a flashlight and a padded riot-jacket. I went into the basement where they have the holding cells. Thinking to myself that it would be horrible to leave all these people who were probably just drunk two days ago when it all started trapped during this apocalypse and then this guy talks to me that he works for CHAR and whatnot... He told me that it was them with their weird mind-enhancing experiments on people who started all of this in a facility in north of the city centre. I let the prisoners go and all of a sudden the guy starts retching out  his own guts and turns into a tentacled monstrosity! A cop who was present and I unloaded our shotguns into that thing until it didn't move anymore. I wandered out amidst the grateful prisoners and the indifferent cops and found myself under attack by some crazed biker-dude when I came up into the lobby. I shot him. It was self-defense. It was about 21:00 when I returned here but something had attacked my barricades while I was gone so I moved my bed next to the barricade and moved some more junk in the way between the stairs and myself. I'll have to find a more secure shelter soon. Maybe I'll go check out the subway tunnels tomorrow. It's now midnight and I'll finally sleep.

Day 3:
Spent all day here in the basement pondering the end of the world. I thought about suicide for a while but that would be pointless, wouldn't it? Might go out with a bang, might hope that rescue will come some time. If the whole mess started in this city, it's likely that here it is also worst. That means as long as I'm still alive, there'll be others and by extension there will be more people the further away one gets from this place. I assume that the army will come and get the place back in order. Until then I must hold out. Something broke the first part of my already battered barricade but then apparently lost interest. I'll sleep here behind my barricade of junk for one more night and then set out to find myself a more secure home. I won't go out during the night. I'm not that foolish.

Day 4:
I went to the eastern business district today, seeking for a better shelter and I think I've found it. There is a maintenance-room a bit down the line in one of the subway-tunnels that is ideal. I stashed the shotgun and the shells for it there. Fought some Z on the way there and also on the way home. Tomorrow I'll bring the hunting rifle and bullets. And then maybe some of my canned food (which I think might be the most prized possession I have - I'm afraid people might murder me over it). The day after tomorrow I should be all set up in the subway station. I already blocked off the entrance with a car. I don't think it'll be too easy for the Z to get in there now! Anyway, it's getting dark - another tour would be too risky. I'll sleep, gun-in-hand though. It seems like the undead activity is increasing...

Day 5:
Shit! These fucking nutters! On my way here to the subway tunnel I found some food on the street. It was still good so I decided to leave some ammo behind in order to pick it up. As soon as I enter the subway station, after subduing two Z, this nutcase come running at me with a fucking shovel. He hit me and I ran for it into the tunnel. He didn't dare to follow me into the dark. I stashed my stuff here and went back. I'd have to get past him again and, running, did so. I went back to my house to gather more stuff, including some cans of food. When I came back he had a friend with him and both tried to cut me off before I could disappear into the dark. It was a close call and my head still hurts from that shovel-hit. I'll need to spend the night here and hope that they'll be gone tomorrow when I go and get the majority of my foodstuffs. Fucking nutcases, there's no sense trying to talk to them...

Day 6:
I left my hideout early in the morning. The two nutters living in the station have, after I fired a warning shot at them, decided that I was too scary to go after and are now running around like mad at the station. Well they are mad. Whatever. I left to go home and get my stuff. Z were everywhere but then I found a crate apparently dropped out of a helicopter by the army: Army rations! Finally the government is doing SOMETHING about this whole mess. I grabbed the five rations that were left and went on towards my house but found it crawling with Z. I decided to leave as going into the basement would leave me trapped behind a horde of unknown size. I returned here to the subway-hideout and stashed the army rations. Seeing as the day was still young I went back outside to see if the Z had left my house by now. Coming there it seemed empty so I went into the basement to grab the rest of my canned food. I had emptied the pistol on the way there so I left it as it was only dead weight - I'll get another one at some point. I have also encountered zombies in army-uniforms and found an army-combat knife. Even the forces seem a bit overwhelmed by this whole situation. When I left my house a huge gang of biker-types came at me down the street. I ran for it, it was at least eight of them, wielding knives, shovels and baseball-clubs. I turned a corner and was right face-to-face with a Z. I dodged around it and left it and the bikers to fight each other so I could make my escape. Made it to my subway-hideout unharmed, with enough canned food for over a week. My head still hurts from that shovel-hit though and I sure as hell miss my bed... It's midnight and I'll try to catch some sleep now. Tomorrow we'll see if there are some medical supplies in the area.

Day 7:
Went around the district this morning to find a group of soldiers using the subway stations entrance as a camp. Nice blokes, all five of them, said they were around for basic pacification, meaning shooting any Z on sight, protecting us civilians. Beyond that apparently the entire city has been quarantined by a military perimeter so for now no one can get out. I heard a chopper dropping supplies a block down the street and found a great deal of food and medical supplies. Took some painkillers and finally disinfected the wound on my head. After cleaning it out and bandaging it, it feels so much better. I brought the stuff back here and went out again to explore the area a little. One of the char-offices was busted open so I took the risk to peek inside. No survivors in there but quite some hardware and equipment! I found a hand grenade... I'll go back there tomorrow, as sundown forced me to go on back home to my subway-hideout. It's  midnight again so I'll sleep now.

Day 8:
Carlton Lees Body was found in the CHAR office in Elton Street by clean-up teams of the Z-Day-Task Force appointed by the government. His body showed sings of violent trauma not inflicted by the Z but probably by bikers, as there were three found dead in the direct vicinity of his body, killed by gunshot wounds inflicted with a shotgun of the type Lee was carrying at the time. His body was looted but a small diary was found. In the hideout described by the diary, military rations and canned food for about two weeks were found together with an arsenal of two handguns, a rifle and a shotgun and some medical equipment.



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