Overall most helpful review

Posted on: February 13, 2013

OrcaJoe

Games: 86 Reviews: 1

Fresh, but frustrating

It's genuinely refreshing to see an indie zombie game that goes beyond just shooting up hordes of undead. With its ruthless difficulty and random events, Zafehouse honestly has more in common with roguelikes than with typical zombie games. The game's primary selling point--complex social interactions between randomly-generated survivors--does make for a compelling challenge, and promises a fresh experience with each new play session. Unfortunately, overall, the challenge tends to be more frustrating than fair. The information you're given about your survivors and their behavior is vague at best, and encounters with zombies are always something of a gamble--survivors are extremely fragile, even in well-armed groups. This is made more aggravating by the fact that losing a single survivor (especially if he or she had some useful skills) tends to all but guarantee defeat in the long run. Granted, this fits with the game's serious, desperate tone, and it's par for the course for roguelike fans, but it's likely to annoy plenty of players. There are also some issues with the clunky interface and some troublesome bugs, but with the devs working hard on regular patches, these may dwindle in the long run.

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Posted on: March 23, 2013

GKAlaric

Verified owner

Games: 119 Reviews: 1

A game of luck.

This game isn’t quite as good as people say it is—it has its points, you focus more on your survivors than just killing zombies. But that’s only one part. Your survivors are simply out to harm anyone in the group that they dislike. Yes, it can be realistic, but the game fails to take into consideration a person’s ability to suck up their own feelings and beliefs when faced with terrible events. The whole town is covered in zombies; they want to get out alive. Not every person would simply, as the game puts, ‘throws a mirror at Person B’ even when they aren’t working together. The game simply has it that the survivors will do anything to harm each other. You can only do one rumor a day, and even then, not all the rumors assist in making the group like each other. You also can’t stay in one place for long; you have to keep moving to keep them fed. But every single choice has a dice roll effect to it. The game itself doesn’t take into consideration people’s abilities as much as it should, especially a game that claims to be more about the survivors than the zombies. This game is incredibly luck based, leaving many people to sit here, frustrated, at their survivors breaking each other’s legs or arms or failing to take the world into consideration, as many people would, indeed, attempt to.

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Posted on: February 13, 2013

DarkRexx

Verified owner

Games: 83 Reviews: 1

ACTUAL survival game done well!

If you're sick and tired of zombies being an over-used gimmick, and that's the only reason you didn't get this game, then please reconsider. The focus on this game is not on the undead, but on on the survival situation that is created in a hostile environment, and even more so, the interactions between your survivors. There are many things you will need to do in order to ensure your survivors make it through the night. On top of that, tasks also have specific ways they can be executed. Do you build barricades quickly but noisily, or slowly and quietly? Build normal, safe traps, or experimental traps that could do huge damage but backfire? Random survivors and city maps are generated each time you start, and you're not guaranteed to get every kind of building. Your town might not have a school, or a police station. You can also make custom survivors and locations with your own pictures, and even custom occupations. Though, there are downsides. The game is stingy with information, the good stuff is all in the manual, spoiler free of course. The UI can be clunky at times. Turns pass one hour at a time and down times can be just you clicking the watch over and over. And there's only a save and quit feature, no quicksave function I could find. All in all, a very solid and hard-as-nails survival game with intriguing interaction between randomized characters and lots of replayability.

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Posted on: February 12, 2013

CautionaryFable

Games: 531 Reviews: 5

GET TO THE CHOPPA!

My full review didn't fit so I posted it on the forums but I'll sum up my feelings for the game. Zafehouse: Diaries is a unique game that requires quite a bit of an attention to detail. Not all of the game's details are exact, often being a bit unpredictable but it doesn't take away from the experience. It does feel quite a bit like managing a group of survivors from a desk somewhere while waiting for a helicopter to show up and being able to add yourself and your friends/family to the party of characters in the game adds to that feeling a bit. I fully recommend getting this game. At this point in time, it's a one-of-a-kind experience.

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Posted on: July 4, 2013

Reggy_Sr

Verified owner

Games: 149 Reviews: 2

Very frustrating

It could be good, but in the end it's just frustrating. Played for many hours over several days, never lasted more then 3 hours. The AI seems very random and doesn't usually do what you would think from the tip and often causes more negative results. I enjoy a challenge, but one that you can win if you use the correct strategy, this seem dependent on luck. Investigate and fine 1 zombie, breach the next turn and find 22 outside, and inside you're swarmed and they are breaking down the door. Very very happy I got this on sale for $2.50! So sad this could be a really good game.

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