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 Let’s tell the story about a guy named Phillip.  Phillip has a little problem, you see, in that he has no idea who he is, where he is, or what’s going on. He only knows his name because it’s on the medical bracelet he was wearing when he woke up in an abandoned cryogenics lab. I’ll tell you Phillip’s story as he attempts to find out what’s going on and piece together his life. Regardless of whether to not Phillip ever learns of his past, his destiny lies… to the north. NEO Scavenger is a post-apocalyptic survival RPG, set in the greatest hellhole on Earth: MICHIGAN. While Phillip was frozen, multiple apocalypses happened, society has collapsed (possibly several times) and is only starting to rebuilt itself. In order to survive and get Phillip’s full story, the player must guide him through the ruined and twisted remnants of lower Michigan, scavenging the necessities of life (and everything else I can carry) from the wreckage. Meeting people in whatever bastions of civilization still exist and overall undertaking a great quest. You can never see everything in one playthrough, so multiples are normally required, but I’ll use my ultimate technique of having played through a few hundred times to fill in the gaps as needed, in lieu of playing the game four or five times in a row. The game is rather notable for being difficult and having permadeath (your save file is deleted when you die). For the sake of a cohesive narrative experience, I'm cheating like a little bitch and backing up my saves. But for your entertainment, a running list of Phillip Kindred's many deaths can be found at the bottom of this post. One of the things I love about this game is that it has a very robust modding community and there’s a huge library of fascinating additions to the game on the official forums. I’m gonna be playing through the vanilla game, but I might highlight a few of the interesting ones later. I love this game, but there’s a few flaws I’m not afraid to bring up. This engine is pretty bad, and made worse for being built in Flash. Even the developer admits that it was a terrible idea and all of his later projects avoided it (including the mobile version of the game, I believe). It works, and the game is still fun, but the issues are there and I’ll go into further detail about them later. Part 0: Character Creation! [NEW GAME]  We start with a bit of character customization. It’s a concept you’ve probably seen a time or two. You get 15 points to allocate to various advantages, which cost between 1 and 6 points, and can pick up various disadvantages to gain additional points. Certain advantages and disadvantages conflict with each other, taking one means you can’t take the other, usually for obvious reasons. Besides the uses I mention for skills in their entries, most skills are also situationally useful in events throughout the game. Advantages Strong – 6 Points The most expensive advantage, and probably worth the cost. Strong, as the name implies, means you have better than average physical strength. Your melee attacks hit harder, you can carry more, and you can use your strength to move obstacles while scavenging that a lesser man might need a tool to help him move. It also grants a special move during combat, allowing you to create obstacles that might cause an opponent to trip or lose a turn entirely. It’s a workhorse that you can’t go wrong with if you have the points to spare. Strong conflicts with Feeble. Melee – 4 points Strong’s combat-oriented little brother, Melee makes you a superior fighter at close range. You hit harder, get hit less hard, and gain a special move during combat, allowing you to trip an opponent in melee range. It also gives you the knowledge to build your own improved spears. Ranged – 4 points Kinda like Melee, except you fight from way over there instead. You know everything about bows and guns, and can use them at their maximum effective ranges. Like Melee, Ranged also permits making improved spears (although the ranged fighter will prefer to throw them), but also grants the ability to make bows and arrows. Tough – 4 points Tough makes you tough. Seriously though, that’s the point. A tough character can handle pain better than the rest without ill effect, heals slightly faster, has a better immune system, and gains a new skill in combat, Headbutt, hitting the enemy with his superior thick skull and maybe knocking them down, hurting them, or making them lose a turn. Tough conflicts with fragile. Medic – 4 points Those other skills are good for fighting, but Medic lets you patch yourself back up better afterward. Medic lets you heal faster, self-diagnose when you’re ill, and identify any drugs you come across. It also gives you a better breakdown of the state of your health, rather than a single bar that you have to decide means you’re dying or not. Trapping – 4 points An incredibly valuable skill for staying alive in non-combat related situations. Trapping, as the name suggests, means you know how to trap animals and how to get the most possible use out of their corpses. You gain the knowledge to craft squirrel traps, and how to make fire with sticks. I try to fit this skill into nearly every game, the ability to not freeze to death is not to be underestimated. Botany – 4 points Like Trapping, Botany helps you survive, mostly in the form of being able to find food in the wilderness. If you have botany, you’re better at finding items in the wilderness, and can identify which berries and mushrooms are safe to eat and which are poisonous. Botanists also have the knowledge to make an incredibly healthy tea out of tree bark. Athletic – 3 points Makes you just a little bit better physically. Instead of the improved strength of Strong, Athletic lets you do more before becoming tired, run faster, take a little less damage, and be able to quickly put distance between yourself and the enemy in combat. It also permits you to run further when traveling on the world map, covering more distance in less time and getting away from fights you don’t want to be a part of. Athletic conflicts with Enervated. Lockpicking – 3 points You know how to make a usable lockpick out of some junk you found. Having lockpicks greatly improves your chance of finding loot while scavenging buildings, and is an easy way to get into locked buildings. Mechanic – 3 points You know how stuff fits together. Primarily, this skill is about building stuff, a mechanic intuitively knows how certain vehicles can be made. Sure, a sled made out of tree branches isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing at all. It also makes you better at safely traversing damaged buildings. Hiding – 2 points Another skill that does just what it sounds like. Hiding makes you stealthier in general, making your campsites more concealed, improving your ability to stay hidden while trying to travel undetected, and sometimes letting you slip away from combat. You can also hide while scavenging, attracting less attention, but being less likely to gain loot. Eagle Eye – 2 points Increases your visibility on the world map, letting you see one hex further than you otherwise could. Also makes you slightly better at spotting enemies in the dark or that you haven’t seen yet. Conflicts with Myopia. Metabolism (Slow) – 2 points A slow metabolism means you need less food and water to keep chugging along, but has the minor downside of making you heal a little slower. Slow Metabolism conflicts with Fast Metabolism. Hacking – 2 points You have incredible skill with computers. Unfortunately, you’re scavenging a post-apocalyptic wasteland. On the plus side, if you do find any working computers and can get them powered on, you might find something useful. Once you’ve hacked a computer, you can use it to hack smartphones and tablets, and occasionally find valuable information or useful apps. It also has uses in the game’s ending sequence. Tracking – 1 point You’re good at spotting tracks and identifying the things that made them while at the same time hiding your own. Moderately useful for tracking specific people or creatures on the map. Electrician – 1 points You can identify electronics and fix some broken ones. Electrician’s great claim to fame is in the endgame where you might successfully collect the pieces needed to make a do-it-yourself gauss gun. Disadvantages Feeble – 4 points You’re not strong. You’re the complete opposite. You deal less damage in melee and can carry less. Conflicts with Strong. Fragile – 4 points Makes you pretty pathetic. You take more damage, take greater penalties from injuries and diseases, can’t handle pain as well, and heal slower. Conflicts with Tough. Fast Metabolism – 2 points You need to eat a lot and drink even more. Food and water are precious commodities that you can’t help but go through like water, if you’ll pardon the pun. But you do heal a little faster. Enervated – 2 points Really out of shape. You’re slower, get tired faster, and just can’t do as much. Conflicts with Athletic. Myopia – 1 point Bad eyesight means you can’t see as far, reducing your vision on the worldmap by one hex and making you a little worse at spotting enemies. Conflicts with Eagle Eye. Insomniac -1 point No matter how tired you are, you have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, and you need more sleep to feel fully rested. There are a small handful of advantages not listed here that you can pick up during the course of the game. We’ll get to them when they become relevant. I’ll freely admit that I oftentimes prefer a nice casual playthrough where I cheat and take every advantage. It’s a fun, not too stressful but still moderately difficult way to approach the game, and means that you never have to worry about not being able to do something. But for this LP, I’ll play it honest. And now, on with the show. The Many Adventures of Phillip Kindred Part 1: I Just Want Some Pants! A Decent Pair of Pants! Part 2: Phillip’s Quest For Pants Part 3: And Then There's THIS rear end in a top hat Part 4: I Wanna Ride the Ferris Wheel
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Oct 20, 2018 10:00
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Part 1: I Just Want Some Pants! A Decent Pair of Pants! A decent build, not exceptionally great in combat, but not cannon-fodder, and not so combat-specialized that he’ll starve to death in the middle of the woods. Well, probably. Starving, freezing, and any number of other gruesome fates are just part of the reality that is Phillip’s life now. Let’s get started then. [Confirm]  My name’s Phillip Kindred. I think. It’s written on this hospital bracelet I had on my wrist when I woke up, I’m pretty sure they have to put your real name on those. It’s the law or something, right? Anyway, first thing I remember is waking up having just been dumped out of a tube full of liquid. The tube turned out to be a cryogenic tube, for freezing people, just one of a whole bunch in a whole cryogenic facility. An abandoned, one, no people, broken windows, a real mess, but all the cryo stuff was still operating.I figured all that out a bit later of course, because as soon as I stood up, I heard a terrible screaming noise and the sound of something big and heavy coming down the hallway toward me. Luckily though, I know a thing or two about a thing or two, and knew I had a few options This is the first of several point in the game where you get a bank of options based on your skills (or sometimes certain inventory items will give you an option). In this case, Phillip has six options. Athletic – Dive through the broken window Botany – Use knowledge of plants to identify a plant that’s growing in the room as something that can repels animals Electrician OR Mechanic – Shut the door and rig a lock Hacking – Hack the door controls to keep it locked The skills I brought are conveniently most of the ones you can use here, I’m missing Medic (emergency dump a cryo tank to create a distraction), Strong and Melee (each allows you to fight the monster coming down the hallway, though you’ll take some injuries doing it, having both allows you to administer a flawless beatdown, which impresses Phillip so much he takes the time to figure out how to get a recording from the security cameras that he can show people). The last option, always available regardless of your skills, is to heedlessly jump out the broken window, taking some injuries from cutting yourself on the glass.  The option you pick here doesn’t really matter. It’s better to kill the monster (a large and ferocious werewolf-like creature called a dogman) since that gets you the body, which is covered in meat you can cook and eat, and with the trapping skill, a furry pelt you can skin off and turn into a coat. Important to note: Phillip is naked save for a hospital gown, and this is Michigan in permanent November. A heavy fur coat is an incredible advantage that makes Trapping totally worth it… except I have no skills to kill the dogman.  I know a lot about plants, and I was able to identify one of the plants growing in the ruined room as being a castor bean plant. Castor beans are full of a toxic oil and most animals with a strong sense of smell will avoid it. So I crushed some up real quick, rubbed the oil over as much of my skin as I could and scattered more crushed beans near the door.Yeah, it was a really dumb idea that never should have worked, but it did! The man-like dog creature sniffed around, decided I wasn’t safe to eat, and wandered off to look for food somewhere else. I’d survived the encounter, but I knew something wasn’t right. My memory was nonexistent, but I was at least pretty sure of some basic facts, and I knew this ruined room that nature had thoroughly invaded meant the building I was in was abandoned, and had been for a long, long time. I had no idea. I wasn’t keen on following the dogman down the hallway immediately, and knew the nearby broken window would be an easy and accessible way out of the building (and back in, if I wanted), so I took a second to look around.  I found a miraculously still working computer console, and was able to pull up some records. I knew that I was in tank number 5, so I pulled up the details on that block of tanks.  Well, that was completely uninformative. Maybe not completely. It backed up the bracelet, so my name probably really is Phillip Kindred. There was no emergency contact or information on who was paying for my stay here, just a bank account number. But the other people around me had relatives in Detroit, Michigan. Probably not out of the question to assume that’s where I am. Also, I was committed (there’s a loaded term I’m not sure I like the sound of) in September of 2019. I have no idea what the date is now. How long have I been frozen that this went from a functional facility to a ruined wreck with plants growing throughout? Years…? Decades…? Centuries…? I had enough wandering around Gyges (Gyges Cryo Facility, there was a logo on the computer) and decided to take my leave. Hopefully if I need to come back, the dogman will have moved on somewhere else to find food.  [i]The parking lot outside was just as abandoned, but I did hear some gunshots in the distance. Wasn’t quite willing to go in search of whoever was doing the shooting, I wasn’t that desperate. I was really loving cold though. Fall in Michigan is a bitch, especially when you’re showing your rear end to the world in a hospital gown and nothing else. Well, not nothing else. I had the hospital bracelet, and a necklace. A little bronze charm on a leather cord. Probably not valuable, but touching it made me feel oddly safe and comfortable. I decided there was no point in ditching either of them for now. Taking off the necklace this early is actually a swift death sentence, for reasons I’ll show off later. I often wonder what proportion of new players’ first deaths is due to doing that.  Your first time through the game, or any time it thinks this is your first time, because saved Flash data doesn’t exactly last long, it gives you this. This is the whole tutorial. I appreciate brevity in tutorials, but there’s a lot not covered here.  The inventory is a rough interface, but it works well enough. Phillip, as I mentioned, has a hospital gown, a medical bracelet, and a necklace equipped. That leaves me with plenty of empty equipment slots. The game uses a combination of grid-based and weight-based inventories. I have no inventory grid, because I have nowhere to store items. Few are the games that stop to think about where you keep all the poo poo you pick up. The large grid on the left is the floor. Gyges’ parking lot is big, so there’s a ton of room for stuff here. All outdoor locations are the same, while indoor locations will have smaller areas for storing stuff. The pointy objects already on the ground are shards (most salvage is very general, the better for not needing to have a thousand kinds of the same piece of garbage). They’re in pretty rough shape, and there’s nothing I need them for right now. Besides, I have nowhere to put them. Now that I’ve left Gyges, I can turn right around and go back in, first by scavenging the tile, which sends Phillip back in to look for stuff.  When you choose to scavenge a hex, you’re presented with a list of available buildings or other possible salvage locations. Usually there aren’t very many, and none it all in open fields or the like.  When you scavenge, depending on the building you’re going into, you’ll have a choice to use one or more relevant skills or items. There are two skills that can aid in scavenging Gyges, neither of which I have. (Eagle Eye lets you find a multitool, while Medic gets you a first aid kit, which sometimes holds useful drugs or other items, and can be used as a small (4x4) container. As I had neither skill, all I managed to do was remind Phillip where the window was, allowing him to go back in at will without having to scavenge again.  I can simply use the window now like any other usable item.  Not much has changed, but now that the dogman is gone and Phillip’s calmed down, he can go down that hallway.  This didn’t turn up any useful items, but I did find a nice room, still intact, protected from the elements. The exam room is now available as a campsite in this tile. Like salvage sites, campsites infrequently appear, one or more places with four walls and a roof (or a thicket of trees in the woods) where you can sleep better and safer than out in the open. This room even has some amenities.  They’re broken, but they’re there. My particular skillset will allow me to fix both of these (Mechanic for the heat and Electrician for the lights) if I can find the relevant supplies. Examining them both will get me scraps of paper with the items I need to fix them Fix HVAC: Mechanic skill, screwdriver, small mechanical parts (I told you salvage was pretty generalized, all screws, bolts, wires and full on fall under this heading), and a tarp Fix Lights: Electrician skill, small mechanical parts, pliers, and a cutting tool (the shards in the parking lot would work find for this if I can’t get a multitool or some other knife) There’s a bug (or at least a probably unintended feature) that you can keep examining the broken vent and lights and Phillip will keep making GBS threads another piece of paper out to write the needed supplies down, spawning potentially an infinite number of paper scraps. It’s hardly gamebreaking, but it’s there.  For a brief comparison, this is the campsite for sleeping out in the parking lot. You can do it, but it sucks. Offers no shelter, gives no early warning of incoming critters, it’s a mess. Never sleep out in the open if you don’t have it (especially when you’re nearly naked, if it starts raining in the night you might never wake up).  This is the exam room. It has walls and a ceiling, can’t ask for more than that. It’s shelter stat is already great, and fixing the HVAC would allow it to keep Phillip as warm as a fire in the same location, with no need for fuel. Fixing the lights will improve night visibility, making it safer to fight here at night. NEXT TIME: Phillip’s Quest For Pants
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Oct 20, 2018 10:01
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I'm in! I've been interested in this game for a while, but I usually find this sort of crafting-based open-world-style game more interesting to read about than play.
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Oct 20, 2018 11:28
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Seems like a solid start, although hot dang, how deceptive a good, solid start can seem. Still, I enjoyed NEO Scavenger for a wee while, so I look forward to seeing more. Especially the stuff I was never really able to work out how to get to.
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Oct 20, 2018 11:32
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I've been on a kick playing this game earlier and was thinking it could do with being LP'd, so thanks for bringing it up! Regarding the 'exploit': if you can be bothered to make a bunch of paper recipes, there's always a forest adjacent to the cryo facility. You can use it to get some wood, use wood and twigs with trapping to make a fire, use the paper and wood to make some 'quality torches', light those, and have a much easier time scavenging for some clothing in the town right next to the cryo facility. It's heavy on the micro and not normally worth bothering with, but it is probably the fastest way to get some pants! 
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Oct 20, 2018 12:24
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Part 2: Phillip’s Quest For Pants It didn’t take very long after I left Gyges to discover that it wasn’t just one ruined building lost to the sands of time. Trailer parks, blocks of houses, entire cities had crumbled. There were people, to be certain, but even I know better than to go towards the shooting in a post-apocalyptic deathworld. So I did what anybody in my situation would do: I stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. I clearly wasn’t the first person to come scavenging through these ruins, and I certainly won’t be the last. There are those who like to compare NEO Scavenger to roguelikes, because of the high difficulty and permadeath. But there are a few things you can rely on. The map will always be the same from one game to the next, though what buildings are available so scavenge or camp in changes. That means when Phillip first leaves Gyges and steps out into the open world, the same choice is always available: take to the woods to the south (in black on the map because forest tiles block light and Phillip has poor eyesight) or west to the formerly inhabited area. Movement is pretty simple, you click on the adjacent hex you want Phillip to go to. You have a maximum number of moves per hour, depending on a few factors (I’m not running, in decent health, don’t have any shoes but haven’t injured my feet, so I get 4 moves per hour). Besides movement, your moves can be spent crafting items instead, most crafting consumes a fraction of a mover depending on the complexity of what you’re making. In this case, the choice was easy: I have the Trapping skill so I can make fire with a couple of sticks and some bark for kindling. It’s loving cold. So I ducked into the woods first to grab the bounty of nature.  The downside to going into the woods is that they’re harder to traverse, taking more movement points than just staying out in the open. Any turn involving the woods is likely to be your whole drat turn.  Like buildings, forests usually offer up a chance to scavenge. My Botany skill is useful here, slightly increasing my chance to find loot.  However, scavenging is a dangerous way to live, and opportunities to fail and get hurt are constant. This is just wasted time thankfully, there are other locations where you can get hurt much worse, or even be permanently disabled.  But the real prize here is the wood. Forest hexes are an infinite supply (just by clicking use on the forest item in their floor inventory) of bark, medium branches, and large branches, all of which are useful to Phillip. I grabbed some medium branches and bark for fire, but I’ll be back for more later. Especially since some poor fool left a perfectly good piece of aluminum foil just lying there! Then I went back to Gyges and made fire.  The crafting interface can be politely described as unintuitive. Or a mess. All your skills and the items in your inventory are presented on the left side (equipped items highlighted in yellow so you don’t accidentally use your pants to fuel a fire), and you drag them to the box on the upper right to craft. When you successfully create something, it appears in the box on the bottom right. Thankfully, there’s an easier way.  You can skip the clunky interface altogether by using the recipe list. Clicking on a recipe adds all the items required (if you have them) to the crafting grid. You start out with a fair number of recipes known, and can learn additional ones by finding scraps of paper throughout the world. When Phillip wrote down the items he needed to fix the HVAC and lights in the exam room, those were added to the recipe list. The downside to this option is that, is the number of recipes you know increases, the list gets bogged down and loads very slowly. Moderately annoying in the base game, brutal in modded games with tons of additional recipes. Also, because it adds items to craft automatically, you can’t pick and choose which ones you want to use, which is sometimes less than ideal. I prefer the unintuitive but more customizable option, but it’s good to have both available, especially for those starting to learn the game.  In this case, I combined my trapping skill, some bark, and two sticks to create a small campfire. Small campfires do the job, they give heat and light and can be used to set other things on fire, but they only burn for a couple hours.  Then I combined a stick and the small fire to make a larger fire that will burn much longer.  Fire is good as a lightsource, but I needed a way to take it with me on the go. TORCHES! I was able to use some bark and the paper scraps Phillip wrote his crafting recipes on to make a crude torch (burns for one hour) and a quality torch (burns for three). I can light one from the fire before leaving the facility again (by crafting together the torch and campfire) and have a light available when I scavenge a nearby hex.  NOW I AM PREPARED! AND STILL loving COLD! And so Phillip’s quest for pants began in earnest.  Your first visit to a town or city hex gets you Phillip’s sudden realization that the world is hosed. The implication here is that Phillip remembers what the world was like before he was frozen, it’s his own personal details and history he can’t remember. Which makes sense, total amnesia would probably mean he wouldn’t know how to repair machines and electronics or hack computers.  In a more specific sense, this time the city hex next to Gyges is apparently a trailer park, with three mobile homes available to scavenge. Mobile homes are generally pretty baseline as scavenge locations go, the loot isn’t spectacular but they’re not very dangerous.  Phillip’s torch increases his chance to find loot and decreases his chance of getting hurt, but also draws attention from any nearby creatures. Note the filled up safety bar, it is drat near impossible for Phillip to hurt himself scavenging in here. Scavenging a building takes one full move, so I only have time to do two of the three mobile homes before the hour ends, and had to go into the next hour to finish the third.  But what a haul! A sleeping bag (improves sleeping in any campsite, this one is loving huge and is best left wherever you set up your main base, or converted into a sack for carrying poo poo), a pot that I can boil water in, a cleaver (it’s not a great weapon, but I don’t have anything else yet), a first aid kit (it’s empty, so it’s only useful as a box to keep stuff in), a rifle scope on a strap that increases Phillip's vision range by 1, two empty bottles I can store water in after boiling it, a bunch of mechanical parts, two plastic shopping bags (these will be my primary means of carrying stuff until I can get a backpack or something) and two tarps. And a newspaper, which serves two purposes, I can tear it up into a whole bunch of paper scraps for torches, but first, I can read it to find out a bit of what happened to the world. This one is about a casino in New Mexico that was built over a nuclear waste dump filled in with soil from an Indian burial ground and had guests attacked by skinchangers. The important thing to remember about the crazy stories you read in papers in this game: they are very probably all true. I’ll maintain a list of them so we can get an idea of how civilization ended.  I went back to Gyges to offload all that stuff and grab and light another torch before heading out to the next closest hex. It was less rewarding, only netting me another cleaver, some more plastic bags, and another copy of the newspaper about the New Mexico werewolves. Still no pants, or any other clothes. But with the sun high up, there's enough daylight to get Phillip's full visibility (revealing two hexes away from wherever he stands, as opposed to the standard three with a scope, because Myopia), enough to reveal another city hex east of Gyges. On the way back, I tried to swing into a bit of forest to pick up some more branches.  Oh, well, gently caress. NEXT TIME: And then there’s THIS rear end in a top hat What Happened to the World After Phillip Was Frozen? Werewolf attacks in New Mexico Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Oct 21, 2018 |
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Oct 21, 2018 01:48
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I have this game, and I REALLY wanted to enjoy it. Every time I get a decent way into a game though, I ended up running into some weird character-breaking bug of some sort (at which point I got sick of it and stopped playing for a while.) I look forward to seeing the actual story - what I've pieced together between the wiki and my playthroughs is... not terribly cohesive.
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Oct 21, 2018 16:36
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Awesome! I have this game but have barely played it. Watched a few LPs but never really focused on them (I usually have some LP or stream going on a separate monitor at work). Really looking forward to this one.
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Oct 21, 2018 21:43
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I got really into this game for a while but quit playing because it felt like it got pretty samey and it's bit too easy to survive once you know the basics, I had no idea that there were mods though and I'll be interested to see those.
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Oct 22, 2018 03:16
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Part 3: And Then There’s THIS rear end in a top hat So there I was, minding my own business with a couple bags of loot and hoping ot pick up some usable branches on my way back to my little hidey-hole at Gyges when I got jumped by something out of my nightmares. Literally jumped, thing came from out of the air and kicked me to the ground. Things were looking pretty bad for ol’ Phillip right about then. There’s a face you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. Mind you, just about everywhere is essentially a dark alley in this hellworld Phillip woke up in. It’s probably best not to wonder how Phillip knows the thing that just jumped him is called an Enfield Horror. For those of you not up on weird-rear end American cryptids, the Enfield Horror is one of a few names for one or more creatures believed to have menaced the population of Enfield, Illinois in 1973. Cryptid Wiki posted:What Henry found, to his terror, was a creature that “had three legs on it, a short body, two little short arms, and two pink eyes as big as flashlights. It stood four-and-a-half-feet tall and was grayish-colored. It was trying to get into the house!” Henry was completely mortified by the sight of this horrible apparition, slammed the door, and rushed to grab his .22 pistol and a flashlight. Henry proceeded to fire on the creature four times, and according to him, “When I fired that first shot, I know I hit.” The beast hissed at him (most sources say that it sounded rather like a wildcat) and proceeded to bound away in long leaps across the yard, eventually becoming lost to McDaniel’s sight as it made its way towards the railroad and the cover of the trees. He asserted that he had seen the thing cover fifty feet in three leaps. Stunned by the encounter, Henry proceeded to call the police. The Horror in game is based pretty much entirely on this description. It’s a scary fucker and definitely not something you want to run into without having a decent weapon to fight it off with. It’s downright dangerous to get into melee with, since it can very easily knock you on your rear end (you’ll note it started this fight at melee range knocking Phillip on his rear end and leaving him stunned for a round). Being knocked prone is not a good position to fight from, your only choices are to try and pull your opponent down to the ground, crawl away to get some distance, roll to dodge an incoming attack, or take the hit and try to stand up. I made a couple risky decisions here that ended up working out. First, I stood up.  That worked out great, it missed trying to attack. Now Phillip is already at melee range, holding a stick (the burnt out remnants of the torch he had earlier). Sticks can be used as melee weapons; they suck, you can see I took a few swings to little effect and then it broke (items take durability damage from being used as weapons). So I took a chance to waste a turn swapping something else into play.  The combat system is… elaborate as gently caress, to put it lightly. Maybe not Dwarf Fortress levels of overthinking it, but drat close. Any weapon that cuts or pierces is as good as gold, causing an enemy to bleed out is always a valid strategy (the Horror has little resistance to any kind of attack, whereas Dogmen and armored humans are significantly harder to hit). Besides making them bleed, other ways to win fights include hitting hard enough with blunt or piercing weapons to damage internal organs, or beating them into unconsciousness with whatever you have. Once an opponent is unconscious, you can leave, or pick them over for loot, or keep attacking to finish them off.  There are of course thirty thousand other options in combat. You can advance or fall back to change the range between you and the enemy (range 0 being face to face, 1 being close enough to hit with smaller melee weapons, 2-3 allowing you to hit with longer weapons like spears, further than that being out of melee range). You can charge forward or retreat back to move faster, which leaves you more open to attack and more likely to trip depending on the terrain, charging will increase the power of a melee attack the next turn. When wielding a melee weapon, you can just try to hit the enemy, which has a decent hit rate, does some damage, and might leave you open, or make a melee surge, which swings multiple times, has a lower hit rate, leaves you open, and makes you skip your next turn. You can also try to parry or dodge an incoming attack, reducing the enemy’s hit chance and leaving them vulnerable if they miss. You can tackle them, which puts you on the ground, but also grounds the enemy if you hit. You can also try talking to resolve your differences… by which I mean you can wave your weapon and act in a threatening manner to make some enemies bail. You can actually talk to human enemies, actively hostile ones won’t respond, but some people don’t immediately want to kill you and talking can end the encounter. You can also demand that a human opponent surrender, which they might if they’re badly beaten and smart enough to want to live, allowing you to steal everything they own.  I’m doing moderately well against the Horror, having landed a few blows with my cleaver and even managed to knock it down. You can kick opponents while they’re down, dealing decent damage with a chance to damage internals.  I quite thoroughly smacked it down. Fighting should usually be avoided. It can’t always be, which is why the combat-related advantages are so good, but most fights just aren’t worth getting into. Humans at least carry useful items, the Horror doesn’t have anything.  Scavenging the city tile east of Gyges got me not just PANTS! A DECENT PAIR OF PANTS! But also a shirt, and a hoodie. When it rains, it pours. Also got a lighter, I can now bick my Flic to start fires and light torches. I still prefer to start fires the old fashioned way because lighters have limited uses (in this case I assume the durability meter refers to how much fuel it has).  And another newspaper article! A military base, Camp Grayling, installed a microwave-based Active Denial System to keep people out, despite it having… pretty much exactly the problems that real world microwave weapons have. Well, I’m sure that will never be useful information that I’ll need to know about.  In a nearby shack in some woods, I found a smartphone (with no battery), more pants and shirts, some lockpicks (which would be amazing since you can only make them if you have the Lockpicking advantage… but you not Lockpicking to use them, so they’re useless), and a squirrel trap (will allow me to trap and kill squirrels when scavenging in the woods).  My pile of loot back at Gyges is getting pretty decent (and full of useful garbage). I did eventually start sorting some of this, and keeping it indoors in the exam room instead of out in the parking lot. It doesn’t actually matter which space you keep your stuff in, but it’s convenient for organization.  After 8 hours have passed, evening falls. Evening has about the same lighting as day, and afterward dusk has about the same as morning, but the orange tone is mostly to warn you “night is falling, get back home or find a place to bunk down before it gets dark”. You have two hours of evening and three of dusk to either get back or find a place to spend the night. Once night falls, it’s full dark and you can only see one hex around you and get one move per hour.  This is where my insomnia disadvantage kicks in. Usually, when you’re tired, you click the sleep button and go to sleep. Insomniacs can’t fall asleep easily, and get less out of every hour of sleep they do get. So you spend the whole night mashing the sleep button and hoping to have decently filled up your rest bar by morning.  Briefly going over the status bars: Hunger - Starts at sated and goes down, as you get hungrier your movement and strength decrease. Increased, obviously, by eating, or by drinking tea and soda. Thirst – Also starts at sated. Similar penalties as hunger, but it goes down faster. You can rehydrate by drinking water, which should be boiled or chemically treated, untreated water from ponds or streams can result in turning this into an Oregon Trail roleplay, where you have no wagon and only one character and that character has dysentery. Rest – Starts at well-rested. If this bar drops to the bottom, you collapse where you’re standing, regardless of what you’re doing or who you’re fighting. This bar can be filled by sleeping, which is nice and easy if you were smarter than me and didn’t take Insomniac. It’s easier to sleep at night, or while the rest bar is low. You can be snuck up on while sleeping, which is why you generally want a campsite with a high camouflage meter, sleeping while the meter is low makes you sleep deeper and be less likely to wake up if someone sneaks into your site. You can drink soda for a short caffeine boost to the meter, but it will drop even lower when the crash hits. Carrying capacity – It’s kinda silly that they made this one a meter. Starts at unburdened. Carrying too much will reduce your moves/hour and tire you out faster. Your capacity decreases when you’re hungry, thirsty, tired, or injured. Temperature – The bar that will kill most new players. This bar tells you if you’re freezing to death. Comfortable is good, anything higher or lower is worse. Going 12 hours from the start of the game without finding more clothes or making a fire will almost certainly kill you, even faster if it starts raining. As you get colder you’ll start shivering and get hypothermia. It is possible, though unlikely, to swing too far in the other direction, if you wear a heavy fur coat while sitting at a fire and drinking soda. Outdoor Temperature – A rough idea of how loving cold it is, recall this is outdoor temperature in November in Michigan, my thermometer tells me that’s 40 F right now. This gets lower at night, or while raining. Health – A rough indicator of Phillip’s state of health. I’m hurting after fighting the Enfield Horror (and a few dogs), but not particularly damaged. This also tells you if you’ve lost a lot of blood. Having the Medic advantage gives you additional bars to get a better idea of your health.  Somehow, I managed to survive that first day, despite having to fight off wild dogs and being jumped by a literal monster. I had food, clothes (anything is better than freezing my actual rear end off in a hospital gown) and a place to sleep. But I also had time to kill, looking at the sky and wondering who and where I was. It was then that I saw it, the glow of artificial lights, a lot of them. The kind you get from big cities, but times a million. It was off in the east, and I considered it as a possible place to go. Where there are artificial lights, there are people, right? Cue this a dozen times or so. I thoroughly lament taking Insomnia so I could have Electrician, it is not loving worth it.  Eventually, morning did come, and I was rested enough to travel a bit.  I used some bits of rope and a few tree branches to make a rudimentary sled, a travois. It’s a portable inventory I can drag behind me. It’s annoying in combat, where you have to spend a turn dropping it before you can move freely. The travois is the least durable vehicle, and you can’t keep small objects in it because it’s just some branches lashed together, but it’s made of easily replaced materials, and fairly big. Once you have water, food and clothes taken care of, you can explore further afield safely in search of other luxuries. I went north this time, hitting a few scavenging sites on the way.  And fought some dogs. Got scratched up pretty good, but it’s only really bleeding wounds that you need to be concerned about. You can bandage them (with dirty rags if you like infections, or clean rags if you prefer not to have your skin sloughing off).  That was when I heard it. Engines running, lots of them, like generators powering something big. I could see some bits of ruined city further north in the same direction the sound was coming from, and decided to check it out. What Phillip saw was a ring of six city hexes in various states of disrepair. And in the center… ZOM ZOM’s, a place to eat. Well, Phillip has all the tasty skewered and grilled dog meat he can eat, but this is interesting. And crowded with people besides.  I took a few minutes to scavenge the tiles around Zom Zom’s first. Managed to get a crowbar, which is an incredibly useful tool that increases your chance to find loot while scavenging buildings, but also your chance of getting injured. Also works as a decent weapon. Also note the newspaper article. Truly short shorts brought about the end of human civilization.  I also found a box cart (the moving bits of a shopping cart with the basket removed and replaced with some big cardboard boxes). This is moderately useful as a vehicle, but deteriorates quickly and is almost impossible to find the parts to build another. I stuck it in a building campsite in case I need it later.  Also, a flashlight! On demand light source, no crafting or fire required. It even has batteries, it’s ridiculously uncommon to find a flashlight with all the batteries. On the downside, they’re dead, but all batteries in NEO Scavenger are rechargeable, it’s just a matter of finding a power tap. Or finding charged batteries, in which case I can move the stored power between batteries. It’s silly and nonsensical, but convenient. Besides finding batteries, the only way to obtain electricity is to find a power tap, and there aren’t any of those around here. That will require a much more populated area…  This is one of the only places in the game where powered vehicles (ATVs, in this case) appear. SPOILER: they’re not obtainable. Anyway, you get three options on first approach to Zom Zoms. You can ignore it and leave, go in blind, or, if you have binoculars or a rifle scope (I have both), you can try and get a closer look at what’s going on here. I mean, it’s just a restaurant operating in Mad Max world, what could possibly be dangerous?  Well, this is less than ideal, strictly speaking. I’m gonna go in anyway. Phillip’s not really a smart lad.  You get the choice between going in as a spectator or as stock (or saying “Huh?” which automatically gets you marked as stock with no explanation given). Spectator is safer, but costs you an item (various useful items, weapons, and such are valid payment) while stock is free, but… Well, free sounds good.  All of my weapons and other useful items were confiscated at the door, I’ll have to pick the up when I leave. That’s perfectly sensible.  Hey, food sounds good. Real food, with seasonings and sauce and stuff, not the dog meat kabobs (and a bit of Enfield Horror, lot of meat on that thing) Phillip has been living on since he woke up.  Phillip, you’ve had plenty of hot food. Getting meat and cooking it hasn’t been a concern, just the quality.  Interesting that they compare this “unknown meat” to veal. It’s usually compared to pork, if you know what I mean. I wonder where this “unknown meat:” is coming from.  Ooh, dinner and a show.  It was right about then that I realized there really isn’t any such thing as a free lunch. I got in without having to pay, but they were going to get their money’s worth out of me, if not now, then eventually…    Dinner and a show indeed. The spectators pay to get food and watch the stock get mauled by killer robots. I think we all know where the meat is coming from now. ZOM ZOM’S BARBECUE IS PEOPLE! At this point, you have three options. You can try and get to the exit and bail before your number comes up. Or you can try and rub off the stamp. Or just wait and see what happens. Oddly enough, against all expectations, waiting is the smart course of action.   I have no idea how he knows that Phillip is a recent defrostee.  I don’t know why he needed to pretend to be a middleman either. There’s a lot about this encounter that doesn’t make sense. You have four options here. You can tell The Stoat to go pound salt, or tell him what he wants to know, or give him the bracelet which has the information written on it along with Phillip’s name. Either of those options will get you some decent gear, usually a good backpack, a gun, and some other supplies. Or… ask him about the trade if you want in on something better.    This is actually our first lead on the end game. The Stoat is one of several people with an interest in what’s being stored at Camp Grayling. Going there and living to tell about it successfully completes the game. Needless to say, won’t be going there for a while. You cannot complete Stoat’s quest, there’s no way to get back to him after entering the Camp. Taking the deal, for all that it’s sketchy as hell and puts a lot of dangerous pressure on Phillip, is the best course of action.  At this point, Stoat has two pieces of equipment to help Phillip get into Camp Grayling. If you just tell him where Gyges is, you get the less useful item, giving him the bracelet gets you the more useful one. This is the only time the bracelet is needed (there’s another situation where it’s kind of useful, but not required), so it doesn’t hurt to give it to him.  I sometimes wonder if the developer meant to do more with The Stoat than he did. Nothing ever comes from telling him about Gyges, nothing there changes. And he reacts here to learning Phillip’s name, but again, nothing comes of it. The orange box will be a very useful item in the endgame. It will sit in a corner gathering dust until then.    The Stoat was kind enough to have my stuff brought to me so I don’t have to go back to the entrance.  Any time you leave Zom Zom’s, your stuff is given to you in a locker. If you leave anything in the locker and leave the tile, you lose it.  I got the orange box (with a label from Stanstead Automated, whoever or whatever that might be), and The Stoat’s flash drive. I have no intention of doing his quest (you can only complete one of the three versions of the endgame), so I left the flash drive sitting in the dirt. Sorry Stoat, next time do your own dirty work.  On leaving, I found another newspaper, indicating that policing in Michigan pretty much went to hell, and a private security firm was in talks to fill in the gaps. I’m sure that could never have gone badly, right? Whoever heard of private enterprises getting involved with policing in Detroit going badly? Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law.  I also ran into my first human opponent. Bad Muthas are… well, really, the name sums it up. They’re barely one step up from animals, they always aim to kill you, can’t be reasoned with, and eat people they kill. They’re generally armed with whatever they can scavenge up, in this case a rock, which is better than a broken bottle or an arrow. I beat his rear end into the ground and split his head with my cleaver. But I’m better than him, because I’m not going to eat him.  I know I said fighting is generally not worth it and should be avoided when possible, but being rewarded with two expensive multitools (and some pants, and a dumbphone) makes it kinda worthwhile. NEXT TIME: I wanna ride the ferris wheel! What Happened to the World: Werewolf attacks in New Mexico Cutbacks led to streetlights being removed in most of Detroit Police overstretched in Michigan, supplemented by private security
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Oct 22, 2018 04:42
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Minor request, is it possible you can make your screenshots a little bigger? I'm not sure if it's just me but I'm finding it difficult to read the text in them is all.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:03
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Zeniel posted:Minor request, is it possible you can make your screenshots a little bigger? I'm not sure if it's just me but I'm finding it difficult to read the text in them is all. I concur with this. I often read on my phone and they might as well not even have text lol. Otherwise great effort so far. I really want to enjoy this game, but actually playong it seems like it might be beyond me.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:26
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Sure, I was actually a little concerned about the size I had them at, but figured I'd wait and see if anybody had any issues. Two people who want them bigger back to back is more than enough reason. I've been cutting them down to half size, I'll try at full size, and if that's too big for some people I can start playing around in the middle ground. It'll have to be after the next update though, since all the shots up through then are already done. Although I kinda have my doubts that posting these at any size is going to help you read them on your phone Zushio. That just sounds painful. As for the game's difficulty, it's not really so bad... if you're like me and you absorb the wiki for every game you touch like a sponge. Even then, I've died like four times just getting this far. Full Disclosure: I am cheating like a motherfucker to keep this as one cohesive narrative and not the constantly restarting story of Phillip who died less than twenty-four hours after defrosting.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:38
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I've been waiting for a SSLP of this. I've seen some VLPs, but none of them ever seem to complete the game - they usually just die after varying amounts of time then never return. Really enjoying it so far and looking forward to seeing how it goes.
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Oct 22, 2018 13:25
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I'd love to hear the various ways that Phillip has met his demise so far.
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Oct 22, 2018 14:20
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I'm guessing the Stoat realized you were a defrostee via your bracelet.
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Oct 22, 2018 15:58
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Truthkeeper posted:Sure, I was actually a little concerned about the size I had them at, but figured I'd wait and see if anybody had any issues. Two people who want them bigger back to back is more than enough reason. I've been cutting them down to half size, I'll try at full size, and if that's too big for some people I can start playing around in the middle ground. It'll have to be after the next update though, since all the shots up through then are already done. I would recommend, if it isn't too much work, if you got screenshots full of text just cut everything away and resize it so it is only the text. Easier to read on the phone, yeah?
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Oct 22, 2018 16:02
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Heir03 posted:I'd love to hear the various ways that Phillip has met his demise so far. Went back and checked my notes, there's been three deaths so far, not the four that I threw out before. It was actually very annoying and led to me having to keep replaying from morning on the second day up to Zom Zom's because I kept dying before I saved again. 1) Lung crushed (or possibly pierced, the details didn't specify) by dog bite 2) Bled out after being stabbed by an arrow-wielding Bad Mutha 3) Skull bashed by a Bad Mutha with a rock For the sake of your continued entertainment, I'll keep a running tally in the OP when Phillip dies. Siegkrow posted:I would recommend, if it isn't too much work, if you got screenshots full of text just cut everything away and resize it so it is only the text. Easier to read on the phone, yeah? A little difficult, but I should be able to work something out, at least for the more text heavy bits.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:24
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I'm so glad someone's doing a SSLP of this game. I got reasonably far on my own but the permadeath was just too punishing. Whatever caused the end of the world seems to have brought all the regional folklore out of hiding. In addition to the Enfield Horror, the Michigan Dogman is also a thing. Camp Grayling is also a real place.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:30
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Part 4: I Wanna Ride the Ferris Wheel! Thanks to Mechanical Ape for the reminder that I forgot to mention that the Michigan Dogman is a real urban legend. Huge bipedal dog- or wolf-like creatures believed to roam northern lower Michigan, reported sightings come from throughout the 20th century.  My work at Zom Zom’s isn’t quite finished, but the rest can wait for now. Instead, I took off on a little jaunt to the northwest. Nice open area, not a lot of activity, a few city hexes to scavenge (turning up nothing of interest).  And stumbled across a long-deserted fairground. Allegan County is a real part of Michigan, which to my recollection is pretty rural (though I’ve only driven through a couple times), it’s not surprising to see a small county fair here. Well, nothing bad ever happened to anybody at the fair, right? This has to be perfectly safe.  The giant rooster statue is maybe a little unsettling. (Not pictured, Phillip is also wary of the rooster)  Well, clearly. Gotta wonder what happened so abruptly that the people all ran off and left their stuff behind. No bodies, for that matter there haven’t been any bodies anywhere except for the recently dead, you’d expect this level of devastation to have a body count, although I suppose it’s been a long time. I have the option to put by Trapper skill to good use to examine the area.  Lovely!  Besides my trapping skill, I can examine the main exhibition hall, or the tents outside, or bail entirely. I went for the tents first.  Tent-covered stalls subject to years of exposure to the elements. Untouched by looters. That is strange. You can tear down the least rotted tents to obtain some tarps and string. And take the Ronald McDonald head if that’s your kind of thing. I’m not here to judge.  You sick freak.  The main hall is the center of all the action here. There’s a box full of tools, where I obtained, all in perfect condition, a crowbar, monkey wrench, cleaver, and multitool. This is the only guaranteed place to find a crowbar, and makes it well worth coming here as early as you’re able. The multitool also helps, although if you took Eagle Eye you can get one when you first scavenge Gyges. Next up, we have the remnants of a booth labeled “Genuine Indian Artifacts”.  Yeah, sure, standard poo poo you find any time Indians and capitalism coincide. Add a casino and some cheap gas and smokes and you have a microcosm of the average Michigander’s exposure to natives.  I’d call this the good poo poo, but really… no. I can take the copper beads, which are worth a little cash and easy to carry (you can keep three objects around your neck, I’ve got the bronze talisman, a pair of binoculars, and a rifle scope right now, I ended up switching one out for the beads), but the real prize…  The dev deviated a little bit from the usual spellings, mostly to drop double vowels (the place is the Ziibiwing Center, while the people are the Anishinaabe, a sort of collective term for the native populations of the Great Lakes area, most referring to their similar language roots). Like so many other things, this is a real place in modern day Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, although it’s not a giant unified Indian city in our timeline. Still, this puts another potential travel location on Phillip’s map, a but of a trek northeast from Zom Zom’s but not much worse than the trip to Allegan was.  With the booth thoroughly looted, there’s a pile of blankets nearby, potentially covering up something valuable… or I can walker deeper into the rather dark and creepy building. I could also use the lighter as a light source, wasting valuable fuel. Instead, I’ll go for the blankets.    Well gently caress me, run! The Melonhead is another fun old Michigan horror tale, about small humanoid creatures that roam the woods around western Michigan, believed to be children with hydrocephalus who were kept in an asylum in the area, tortured, and later unceremoniously dumped in the woods when the asylum closed down. The official story is that there was never an asylum in Allegan county at all, but… well, all urban legends are true in NEO Scavenger. The Melonheads will start coming at you if you either uncover the one under the blankets or go deeper into the building. Depending on your skillset, you can very easily die here. You can use a lighter to light the blanket pile on fire to try and scare them off… and die when the whole building catches. If I had Strong, I could force my way past the ones between me and the exit and bail. Eagle Eye would let me spot a chain I could climb up to the rafters. I have neither of those, and am forced to rely on Mechanic (Athletic would also let me run out, but that’s less fun). My decent working knowledge of mechanical stuff was enough to give me an edge. I know a thing or two about vents, and I know that in a big building with only one door, you need some ventilation, usually near the top. So I climbed up, hoping to find an air duct and action movie myself to safety. Instead of an air duct, there’s a chain that opens a hole in the roof. Good enough.  This is where Athletic can kick in again to let you safely jump. Without it, you can still jump off the roof, but get hurt in the process, usually breaking a leg. With Athletic, you turn that into some bruises from the landing.  And that gives Phillip more than enough headway to be able to leave without being chased. The Melonheads will continue milling about the fairgrounds for a few days, but they do eventually settle down if you need to come back for something.  Meanwhile, to the victor go the spoils. I’m not taking the clown head.  I was able to tie some bits of string to the crowbar to make a rudimentary strap so I can sling it over my shoulder. You can also do this with some bows and some guns, allowing you to carry a single large unwieldy object on your back instead of taking up a hand or a lot of space in a vehicle. I now have two crowbars, one in pristine condition, the other just about spent. I’ll hold onto the lovely one for now and use it until it breaks.  Scavenging a nearby city hex scored me the best bag in the game, a canvas backpack. This is in good enough shape to last me a long drat time, which is good because they are annoyingly hard to come by. Also a daily pill container (the kind marked Sunday-Saturday so you can lay out which pills to take on which days). It has a bunch of pills in it, but as a non-medic I can’t identify them so they have no real value (unidentified pills sell to vendors for a few bucks apiece, the vendor then identifies them and resells at full price).  Also, a newspaper story that follows up on a story we saw last time. The Detroit Skycorps private policing agency was indeed allowed to start up. Competent and quick to respond police in Detroit? That’s how you know this is a work of fiction.  Locked sheds are nice when you can find the, an almost certain chance of loot that’s usually pretty decent. You need a crowbar or Lockpicking to get into them.  They’re frequently trapped, which is why Trapping comes into play. Mechanic usually isn’t worth using while salvaging (increases safety but drastically decreases chance of finding loot) but the base loot chance on a locked shed is so high that you can use it without losing much.  I found binoculars and Tylenol. Not great, but better than a sharp stick in the eye.  Found another newspaper as well, indicating the beginning of the Detroit MegaCity project, building a wall around Detroit (and probably some of the nearer suburbs). Keep in mind we’re talking about an area where they can’t even make roads last a year without needing to be worked on, any kind of substantial wall is laughable.  Back at Gyges, I was able to use my recently acquired multitool to fix the heat.  And the lights. Having working heat and lights is basically as good as having a permanent fire, except you can’t cook or ignite things.  I also took an opportunity to start sorting some stuff, putting most of my more useful and valuable items in the exam room. I also set up a rudimentary security system (some cans and string) to wake me in the unlikely even that I’m asleep and somebody comes prowling. It was about this point that I realized that, although I found a decent water source nearby (a patch of marshy woods a few hexes east of Gyges), I never actually bothered to collect any. Swamp and river water is dangerous to drink by itself, but can be boiled to make it safe, or used to boil other things.  A group of dogs decided to show up and try to show me who’s the boss. Fighting groups is just like fighting single enemies, you can switch between them with the left or right arrows that appear under them, and each enemy has it’s own range from you. It’s generally very dangerous to fight groups and you will end up getting hit a lot if you try.  Dogs are worth a lot of meat. The large chunks, when cooked, are very filling and are worth a surprising amount of money, but meat deteriorates quickly. You can cure it with ashes from the fire and Trapping, which will give it a few days shelf life. On the downside, eating cured meat makes you thirsty. The smaller chunks are the same, but less. The hides are useless in their own right, but can be boiled to use as bandages. Boiling a strip of dog hide literally turns it into a clean cloth.  You can boil water 3 units at a time to clean it, or use up one unit of water to turn three dirty rags or strips of hide into clean rags. You can fit two units of water in a soda, water, or whiskey bottle, so a unit is approximately 10 oz or so. Besides cloth to use as bandages, water and whiskey are other useful items to have for medical purposes. Using water to wash a wound significantly reduces the chances of infection, and whiskey to disinfect is even more effective. Thankfully, we are not at full on Metal Gear Solid 3 levels of needing to dig bullets out of your skin with a knife.  And so evening fell on the second day. It was about that time that I started preparing for my next great excursion. A little trip north, to old Mt. Pleasant, where the Anishinabe have apparently set up shop. NEXT TIME: Ghost-Face What happened to the world? Werewolf attacks in New Mexico Cutbacks led to streetlights being removed in most of Detroit Police overstretched in Michigan, supplemented by private security Detroit built walls to cut itself off from the outside world Truthkeeper fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Oct 23, 2018 |
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Oct 23, 2018 00:48
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...so I was googling for that gif from one of the "scary movie" showing "here is Detroit and here is Detroit AFTER the attack" and I found out that Detroit looks like loving Fallout 3. Wtf?
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Oct 23, 2018 03:27
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What kind of objects can you use to boil water? I'm guessing you can't use plastic bottles?
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Oct 23, 2018 03:29
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Ahhh found it..not a gif, but a video'll have to do. https://youtu.be/932vpuCmfJM
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Oct 23, 2018 03:32
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Siegkrow posted:...so I was googling for that gif from one of the "scary movie" showing "here is Detroit and here is Detroit AFTER the attack" and I found out that Detroit looks like loving Fallout 3. Welcome to Detroit! I don't care what jokes fiction makes about it, the reality is usually worse. Heir03 posted:What kind of objects can you use to boil water? I'm guessing you can't use plastic bottles? This is a nice lead-in to what I consider the most interesting part of this game's crafting system. Rather than just saying "You can use this item as a part of this recipe", the game instead has tags that are assigned to items, and recipes look for those tags. In this case, it looks for "Fireproof, Waterproof Container", which can be a glass bottle (which can only be used once and will shatter afterward), a soup can, a pot, a medical kit (not a first aid kit but a specific kind of expensive medical kit that uses nanomachines) or a silver urn (this is an odd item that appears in one particular place later in the game). The pot can boil 1, 2, or 3 units of water at a time, the other items can only do 1. It's a nice touch that items like the urn or medical kit, which would probably not be usable in other games, work because they have those tags specified. I figure this is part of why the modding scene is so strong, new content can just slide in pretty seamlessly.
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Oct 23, 2018 05:05
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Part 6: Ghost-Face McStabberson I am moderately well-stocked on food (more than I’m going to need for a couple days, but also it’s probably not going to last longer than that, I'm not actually very good at preserving food), water, and have all my valuables that I don’t need to keep packed on the travois. This is just a quick couple of days up north, where hopefully there will be some people. The kind that don't eat other people. On the way north, I found another newspaper about a derelict ship that drifted near South Carolina, and the Coast Guard sent to deal with it contracted loving smallpox. The end of the world just keeps getting worse and worse.  I also found a more compact sleeping bag. This is the kind that’s super tight around your body, and it takes up as much storage space as a shirt. It’s worth a lot of money at $80, but is useful enough that I wouldn’t sell it unless I had extras or desperately needed a quick infusion of cash. You might be curious that I’m talking about selling like there’s still stores in this world. Or maybe you’ve played Fallout and your confusion is that there are still stores where dollars are valid currency and not bottlecaps or something. Well, society is slowly on the rebound, and what bastions of civilization still exist (not I said civilization, I think we can agree that word doesn’t apply to Zom Zom’s) still use money.  An idea of how far I’ve traveled, having left at dawn. You can see Zom Zom’s only a few blocks north of Gyges, at the bottom left, my destination (the ATN Enclave I learned about at Allegan) is just barely offscreen on the top right.  Up here, in fact. You can never actually step on the visible ATN tile, their enclave takes a circle of six tiles around it, stepping on any of them is considered entering.  Well that’s not creepy at all.  Creepy woods where I’m being watched. Using every resource to find out what’s going on… is unhelpful. From using binoculars (or rifle scopes, they’re essentially the same for looking at stuff:  Fromm using Botany or Trapping:  Ultimately, this is really unhelpful and it comes down to a choice to advance or retreat.  Well said Phillip!  Even creepier! Still, I have the option to talk to this… person? Yeah, let’s go with person. They haven’t shown hostility yet, unlike drat near everybody else.  Surrounded by creepy motherfuckers. We’re going to play a game. It’s called “comply with everything they say because IDONWANNADIE!”  Yes sir Mr. Scary Armed Man.  Well this is going better than it could have, at least.  Talking about me in another language is just rude though. Along with keeping me blindfolded.  Did we really need an entire screen for this? There was plenty of room for this line on the last screen. FYI, I’ve had no options to do anything since letting them blindfold me, it’s just been a series of mashing the continue button. If this place wasn’t so vitally important, both of gameplay and story reasons, this would be really annoying.  Oh good, we’re here. I suppose they wouldn’t have bothered taking the blindfold off if they were just going to kill me, right?  Yo. Nice to know someone around here knows how to talk to people like a loving human being. Bunch of ignorant savages, oughta tear all this down and build a loving mall. Yeah, you in the back with the facepaint and spear, you loving heard me!To be fair, if there was a mall in this game, it would probably be full of zombies.  The game is about to throw a lot of native language at us. It’s not really necessary to know what the hell she’s talking about, but I’ve heard of some of the terms she uses, and Wikipedia fills in the rest well, so I might as well interject so we can pretend my presence here is worth something. Michelle is identifying herself as one of the Ajijaak Doodemm, the Crane Clan. The doodems (clans, and also where we get the word totem from) of the various Anishinaabe tribes are a sort of combination patrilineal descent familial system, series of totems, and labor division. The Aijijaak is one of several clans in the Baswenaazhi group, whose primary tasks are communication with outsiders.  This is the first choice offered since getting caught by the ghost-faces. I can either confirm Phillip’s name, or lie. Lying, obviously, is a terrible idea and will result in a swift death.  They wouldn’t kill Phillip. They would just march him back out of their territory, tear the necklace they think he stole from a grave off him, and then be horrified when... things happen.  The joke is that Anishinaabe (or Anishinaabeg for the plural) means “the people” (various English translations, but they’re all based around some version of “the people”.  Well I knew how to properly pronounce it. Because I used to live up north and saw commercials for their casinos all the loving time. Speaking of casinos, care to guess what business is run on the real world Isabella Reservation where this enclave claims to be located? My point is that there are shitloads of Indian casinos in Michigan. At this point, I get the chance to start pestering Michelle with questions. You have to be a little careful, because a certain line of questioning makes the game think you’re done talking to her, so it’s best to get everything else out of the way first. Asking about Ghost-Face:   Lovely. Glad she knows Phillip. How does she know Phillip?     The developer had some… odd ideas about the advancement of technology by 2019 if he thought cryogenics was going to become viable. This game came out in 2014, there’s really no excuse. He would have been better off pushing it forward another decade at least. Michelle’s question leads to another Tell the truth/Lie choice. It’s rude to lie, especially to people who are telling you the only things you know about your past, especially when surrounded by armed guards.   About the picture:       In short, Phillip used to curate a super in-depth urban legend wiki. I’m wondering if that was his hobby or if he found a way to make money off of it. Could have been on Patreon or something, I guess. Now for the big question. How long ago was this picture taken?  … And I missed screenshotting the climactic revelation: The guy in the picture with him is Michelle’s father, it was taken before she was born. Phillip has been frozen for fifty years. … Honestly, that doesn’t seem like enough time for everything to have gone to poo poo this badly. Maybe. Is there somebody around who binge-watched a shitload of Life After People who could weigh in? Okay, obvious next question, now that the important old questions are taken care of for now. The hell is this about a spirit?   Well, that’s inconvenient. Phillip pissed off some kind of spirit and ran to his indian friends for help because… well, they deal with spirits and poo poo, it’s kinda the same thing!  Okay, forgot that she did eventually explain that one. About the talisman:    The medicine man of the bear clan. About finding a way to stop the spirit that’s after Phillip:   Way to go Phil. You went around asking questions and ended up waking up an ancient nightmare of the universe that specifically wants you dead.   It is not out there. Unfortunately, this is another storyline that feels incomplete. While more of Phillip’s past can be found, there’s no way to learn more about the NEO. And that ends our conversation with Michelle, who we will never see again. Everybody say goodbye to the chief of Clan Exposition!  Our story needs finished, we go back to the main area of the enclave, where Phillip is now allowed to come and go as he pleases. Now our gameplay needs our fulfilled, because this place is a goldmine to the player.   Once per day, you can visit Joe the medicine man. Joe has many ancient medical secrets, and you can choose to either have him treat all your wounds or treat you for illness (I still had a bunch of scratches healing up, so I got him to give me the once-over with his disinfecting herbs and stuff). You can also go see Joe if you contract certain… more obscure conditions from situations such as eating at Zom Zom’s too often. What I mean, because I don’t know if I’m going to get to show it off, is that if you eat too much human flesh, you turn into a Wendigo. Another creature from the local mythology, either a human-like monster or a human possessed by an evil spirit that craves human flesh. ”Wikipedia” posted:The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody [....] Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption Joe will only cure you of Wendigoism once, if you get it again, they get the idea that maybe you’re not serious about swearing off cannibalism and kill you on the spot.   Also once per day, you can visit the awesome daily feast. This is a great way to get some nutrition if you’ve been having trouble finding food, and would make it worthwhile to make a home near the enclave. And really, for all that I complained about the rough treatment on the way here, it is awesome that they share their food so freely. But there’s one more thing, the absolute best reason to keep coming back here.  The shopping.  I LOVE CAPITALISM! Stores work pretty much just like regular ground inventory, except that you need to have enough money to buy something to pick it up. Purchases are made immediately on picking up an item, sales when you drop something. And you can trade any item with a $ value and get full price (modified by the item’s condition). The only thing with value you can’t sell is human meat, which the game will keep track of even if you can’t tell the difference. Trying to sell human meat will get you banned from the enclave. This is why I bought all my valuables. I can convert them into infinitely easier to carry cash (which exists only as a number on my status bar, no need to have it take up inventory space) and buy useful items.  I had a little more than I thought I did, and managed to get over $350 for my scavenged crap.  Then I turned right around and spent $250 on a coat, and some hide armor, and a shoulder bag (it’s not a purse, it’s an authentic deerskin shoulder bag) and a club, and a sling, and some pelts to make gloves out of (I already had plenty of pelts back at Gyges but I didn’t feel like waiting until I got back to make them). I considered a bow, but bows are big and bulky, and without Ranged I have no way to make my own arrows. A sling is less effective, but I can find rocks and pebbles to throw with it drat near everywhere. Guns are of course the most effective ranged weapon, but in turn the hardest to keep yourself set with ammunition for. There’s one way to effectively farm bullets and shotgun shells but it’s dangerous and not really worth it for any reason except to be a badass over here.  For all of the above reasons, I usually like having a campsite, preferably in a city hex, within a couple hours’ travel of the enclave. Unfortunately, there’s nothing close this time. I might comb through the surrounding woods and try to find a cabin or something, or just set up a little further away. But that will wait until the next time I’m up this way. Right now, I have business back near Gyges. NEXT TIME: Return to Zom Zom’s What happened to the world? Werewolf attacks in New Mexico Cutbacks led to streetlights being removed in most of Detroit Police overstretched in Michigan, supplemented by private security Detroit built walls to cut itself off from the outside world Smallpox outbreak, started with Coast Guardsmen in South Carolina and spread from there
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Oct 23, 2018 09:45
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Wait...You can rotate items in your inventory? I've got an embarrassing number of hours in this and never knew that. 
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Oct 23, 2018 11:44
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I wanted to like NEO Scavenger, but it just felt pointlessly fiddly in a lot of places, and considering the number of parameters to juggle(temperature, water, food, everything you carry coming apart at the seams ridiculously quickly, etc.) it just felt like a chore that was more determined by your luck on scavenging rolls than on your decisions.  Curious to see what I missed out on in this LP.
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Oct 23, 2018 15:09
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Just popping in to say that I have never played this game, but am thoroughly enjoying the LP so far. Keep it up!
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Oct 23, 2018 15:16
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Anticheese posted:Wait...You can rotate items in your inventory? I've got an embarrassing number of hours in this and never knew that. I'm facepalming over being able to wear more than one thing around the neck, myself. I always thought those binos with straps were useless because reasons.
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Oct 23, 2018 15:22
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I never met the Anishinaabe. In all my games I just headed straight east (standard videogame logic: always keep going right) and never explored north past Zom Zom's. Never discovered the fairgrounds either. There's a lot of important content I missed, it seems. Have these things always been in the game, or were they added in updates?
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Oct 23, 2018 17:09
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I think the reason the "mystery meat" at Zom Zom's is described as "kind of like veal" is because the usual point of comparison is pork. You already dealt with a dogman and some three legged thing with red eyes, who's to say what kind of weird critters are roaming about out here and what they taste like? But you describe the mystery meat as being like pork and most people will figure out exactly where the meat came from.
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Oct 23, 2018 19:40
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Anticheese posted:Wait...You can rotate items in your inventory? I've got an embarrassing number of hours in this and never knew that. I can't fault you, It took me a distressing number of hours played before I figured it out completely by accident. When you've picked up an item, you can use A and D to rotate them counterclockwise and clockwise. PurpleXVI posted:I wanted to like NEO Scavenger, but it just felt pointlessly fiddly in a lot of places, and considering the number of parameters to juggle(temperature, water, food, everything you carry coming apart at the seams ridiculously quickly, etc.) it just felt like a chore that was more determined by your luck on scavenging rolls than on your decisions. This game is absolutely not to everybody's tastes. You have to be the kind of lunatic who likes tracking all those fiddly bits, and who can memorize an entire wiki, or the results of a shitload of trial and error if you don't like spoiling yourself with wikis. It helps if you have a strong grounding in Roguelikes, years of playing Nethack had me well set to deal with every flavor of bullshit this game could throw at me. Epsilon Moonshade posted:I'm facepalming over being able to wear more than one thing around the neck, myself. I always thought those binos with straps were useless because reasons. The game makes absolutely no effort to ever tell you this, so the only way you'd figure out is trial and error (or autoequipping stuff and noticing that it shoves multiple items in your neck slot). Three neck items (or possibly a necklace and two scopes or binoculars, I haven't tested this much), two shirts, a hoodie or coat, a piece of armor or a vest, pants, shoes, gloves. A weapon with a strap on one shoulder, a shoulder bag on the other, a backpack or plastic bag on your bag. The difficult part sometimes, especially in modded games with a lot of new items, is figuring out what takes up which slot. Also, you can use binoculars by keeping them in your hand if for some reason wearing them isn't an option. It's just not something people usually want to devote a hand to. Mechanical Ape posted:I never met the Anishinaabe. In all my games I just headed straight east (standard videogame logic: always keep going right) and never explored north past Zom Zom's. Never discovered the fairgrounds either. There's a lot of important content I missed, it seems. Have these things always been in the game, or were they added in updates? This is perfectly understandable, if you never stray very far from Gyges, the only place the game will ever tell you to go is to investigate the mysterious glow in the east, and will mark it on your map. Technically, I skipped one step in revealing locations, there's one location you're meant to find south of Gyges that can mark Allegan on your map, and Allegan marks the ATN Enclave. Getting the endgame quest, from The Stoat or from another character who will appear later, marks Grayling. There's a handful of other locations the game never tells you about that you're meant to find yourself. I want to try and include everything possible in this LP. MechaCrash posted:I think the reason the "mystery meat" at Zom Zom's is described as "kind of like veal" is because the usual point of comparison is pork. You already dealt with a dogman and some three legged thing with red eyes, who's to say what kind of weird critters are roaming about out here and what they taste like? But you describe the mystery meat as being like pork and most people will figure out exactly where the meat came from. Very reasonable. Technically, you get the long "it tastes like veal" description the first time you eat human flesh wherever you get it. But unless you're desperate, or a creepy fucker, odds are good that first taste is going to be at Zom Zom's. At least they didn't say it tastes like chicken.
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Oct 24, 2018 02:13
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MechaCrash posted:I think the reason the "mystery meat" at Zom Zom's is described as "kind of like veal" is because the usual point of comparison is pork. You already dealt with a dogman and some three legged thing with red eyes, who's to say what kind of weird critters are roaming about out here and what they taste like? But you describe the mystery meat as being like pork and most people will figure out exactly where the meat came from. Except veal is calf meat, as in a baby cow. Or am I misunderstanding how you phrased that? I think I probably am. Either way describing human meat as being like veal seems odd to me, I doubt the flesh of adult humans is similar to calfs kept to make veal. Is it referencing some particular survivors account or urban legend that claimed human flesh was kinda like veal? NeverAfter fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Oct 24, 2018 |
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Oct 24, 2018 02:13
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Wait...so the whole storyline about being haunted by a ghost gets dropped? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean about the NEO stuff? Also, what happens if you do take off or lose your talisman?
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Oct 24, 2018 03:08
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The story from Michelle is all you ever learn about the spirit that was hunting Phillip. Should you take off the talisman, it's resolved, one way or another... If you end a turn not wearing the talisman, at the beginning of the next turn you'll immediately be attacked by the spirit, called the Merga Wraith, which is very difficult, but not completely impossible to defeat. It's generally suggested, though not required, to have certain special abilities that Phillip doesn't have yet to pull it off. The question of what the Wraith is is never really explained. Once it's dead, you can safely leave the talisman off, even destroy it or give it away.
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Oct 24, 2018 03:21
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Well that's...underwhelming. 
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Oct 24, 2018 04:21
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I can't remember if it was ever outright stated, but following the development blog while this was being worked on I got the impression that they were really struggling with the methods they were using to develop it and their limitations. I think they planned to flesh the game out a lot more, but it eventually got so burdensome they decided to just wrap it up as neatly as possible and move on to the next project.
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Oct 24, 2018 06:43
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Truthkeeper posted:The game makes absolutely no effort to ever tell you this, so the only way you'd figure out is trial and error (or autoequipping stuff and noticing that it shoves multiple items in your neck slot). Three neck items (or possibly a necklace and two scopes or binoculars, I haven't tested this much), two shirts, a hoodie or coat, a piece of armor or a vest, pants, shoes, gloves. A weapon with a strap on one shoulder, a shoulder bag on the other, a backpack or plastic bag on your bag. The difficult part sometimes, especially in modded games with a lot of new items, is figuring out what takes up which slot. Speaking of modded games, as an experienced player, are there any you'd recommend (either for first-time or experienced players?) Truthkeeper posted:The story from Michelle is all you ever learn about the spirit that was hunting Phillip. REASONS.
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Oct 24, 2018 23:06
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Epsilon Moonshade posted:Speaking of modded games, as an experienced player, are there any you'd recommend (either for first-time or experienced players?) Of course. I'd split the modding scene into roughly two categories, Stuff and Things. I know, it's so on the nose specific that you realize immediately what I'm talking about! Stuff mods are all about adding stuff. New items, new recipes, new scavenging locations, new ways to use existing items. A few to note: Mighty Minimod of Doom (often abbreviated to MmoD, sometimes with more or fewer M's in there) - overhauls crafting a little (splitting mechanical parts into nails, bolts, and wires). It adds important features that are critical to gameplay, like lice, and needing to bathe to get rid of them! Also adds a ton of new clothes, tools, and weapons. Even fits into the next section, adding new locations such as a ramshackle town in the far north called Hope's End, a refugee camp west of Allegan, and several new areas in Detroit. Also includes two older mods, Fields of the Dead (bodies decay into skeletons and you get bones from carving up a corpse, bones can be used for a few different purposes) and Sage's Pages (makes various documents and books available as loot, mostly useless, but occasionally worth money). Extended NeoScav - adds new advantages and disadvantage, such as a Tailoring skill to repair clothes and bags, or a Smoker disadvantagethat makes you need to find cigarettes to keep the nicotine monkey off your back. Also improves less useful skills like Tracking, Electrician and Hacking. Is one of the few mods to try and touch combat, adding new moves such as attacking with a held torch to stun an enemy, taunting, throwing objects to create a distraction, and an entire system of grappling. Also adds a shitload of new scavenge locations, new campsites, including the concept that an abandoned mostly intact residence should have some appliances in it. Also contains a shitload of new items, probably more than Mod of Doom. Also a thousand little changes. This mod is one of my favorites. Overhaul - Adds two new skills (Packrat increases the amount you can carry, Knitwit makes bags degrade slower and lets you repair them), improves a handful of others a handful of new items, adds lockers to stores to increase their inventory size, thus letting you sell more items that otherwise wouldn't fit and you'd have to wait for their stock to refresh, and a few other QoL features. Whereas Things mods add new things to do, or improve on existing ones. New places to go and people to see and quests to fulfill. Like the new areas added by Mod of Doom. Actually, I only know of a couple others (I do not claim to know even a fraction of all the mods made for this game) Depths of Gyges - Rather than the incredibly brief "Scavenge Gyges, get stuff, find exam room, live there" version of Gyges in the Vanilla game, DoG stretches it out into an extended exploration, requiring multiple trips, tools to get into areas rendered inaccessible, and even allows you to find the lair of the dogman Phillip escaped at the beginning. Nothing special, just fleshes out an interesting area. Officer's Mod - Adds rare scavengable police stations to some city hexes. Police stations can be explored in some depth, allowing you to find useful supplies and sift through paperwork. It looks like the developer of this mod intended to do a lot more than he ended up with. I should note that it's generally a bad idea to try to force these mods to play nice with each other, a few of them conflict really hard. I think there's some efforts in the modding forums to make a few of them fit cohesively, not sure how well that's working out.
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Oct 24, 2018 23:56
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Not an update (although I might have one later tonight), but since I've been save-scumming my deaths, I never bothered grabbing a shot of the game over screen until now. And this is a pretty good one, so I figured it's a good time to show it. Normally when you die in combat, the second section will have the log of that combat, or at leas the last bit of it so you can see what injury ultimately killed you. Even when you die of illness or protracted injuries. As far as I know, this is one of only a couple situations where the cause of death is just one line. As for what the Beast of Hades Glade is? We'll get to that when I write up this update. The right section is both more interesting, more informative, and confuses a lot of people. That's a list of every condition your character had at the time of death, every marker that could potentially interact with something. You'll note all my skills are in there, several of my pieces of equipment, places I've visited and people I've talked to. It even notes that I've eaten human flesh once and so could potentially turn into a Wendigo later. Mostly the player doesn't need to know this stuff, but since you're dead and not supposed to be coming back, it works as a final AAR before you start a new game, similar to Nethack giving you a list of your fully identified inventory and stats when you die there.
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Oct 25, 2018 22:42
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