First up, I just wanted to thank Whales and Head for this game. I spent the last couple of days with free time and limited Internet access and Cataclysm provided tons of fun during that.
Second, bugs (from the windows Windows versions, 1.3.2 and 1.3.3); I had been playing on my crappy laptop with Vista on it, and the game worked beautifully. Then when I brought the game over to my desktop (which is XP), I occasionally would have the game just suddenly terminate. It seems whenever I check the @ screen, the game crashes after a few turns. If I try to access another menu after that, it, well,
looks like this and crashes after a few seconds.
Looking back over the thread, it seems to be
similar to what was happening here, so I'm guessing the issue is somehow related to the fact I'm running XP on the desktop. If I recall correctly, the non-SDL version was working fairly well on this machine (with only rare crashes from the @ screen).
Also, the bug
Blaze mentioned about the config file. His fix seems to work until I have to run the .exe again, then it starts happening again. Basically I have to delete config every time.
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And more widely addressed, as regards difficulty; I'd love to see more points at character creation (and/or the ability to buy traits and at least a few stat-ups via XP). I loves me some options (especially if they're roleplaying fodder!), but the current number of points seems to be somewhere between 'lacking' and 'barely adequate'. I think a couple more points would do it (or just 'difficulty settings' for it); after all this is a very finicky thing and subject to taste. I also like all the minor, 1 point advantages and would like to see more of those rather than more super strong ones.
Also, I haven't read every post in the thread, but I haven't seen fast travel mentioned
at all. For those who don't know, if you use the map (m by default), scroll over to a place, and hit the Enter key you immediately teleport there. No random encounters, no time passes, nothing. I do love the fact that it keeps me from having to 'manually' trudge across the city every time I want to go somewhere, but as it stands it makes things somewhat absurdly easy.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to beg that it not be taken out as I find walking down the street over and over very boring. I would, however, love to see encounters occurring and time passing during it.
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Lastly, and I'm sure this has come up time and time again, but I can't
wait to have NPCs working properly. I've spoilered a few anecdotes here (mostly for length) where I had really interesting interactions with NPCs (which were cut tragically short by, well, you know.)
(details may be off as they all happened a while back).
- Pretty much the first game where I didn't die horribly. I had the absurd luck to get a silencer, a high-powered handgun, and a Guns 'n' Ammo to learn how to attach the silencer without ever firing a shot. It was the second night or so, and I'm woken up by a noise. Thinking it was just another zombie smacking the door, I'm surprised to get the "You hear Kerblam from the west!" I immediately flick on my flashlight and jog out the door to find a bunch of zombies hording the house next door. Silenced gun in hand I approach to get a shot in and see two @ signs inside - let's call them Katie and James. Katie is blasting away with a Mossberg and generally making sure every zombie in town shows up to the party. I think James got et. I don't remember.
Anyway, they cleared all the zombies outside the house and I had cleared a bunch from in front of the windows; there were still four or five waiting in line to the west, but Katie couldn't see 'em. She immediately tells me to drop my gun. Figuring, you know, maybe she's just afraid I'd shoot her, I comply. She walks out, blasts some more zombies and... starts taking all my crap. I take out my trusty crowbar, smack her, then existence ends and the game crashes.
- At some point, my character had a mutagen in his basement (should that really happen?) I don't remember if this happened before or after, but he lucked out and got Gills. I knew there was a river nearby so I figured I'd train up my swimming because what better way to make legit escapes?(related note; some stuff rusts) I stripped, dropped my guns in a different pile in case any perv-zombies showed up, and took a dip. Well a giant centipede shows up on the shore and, freaking out, I run to grab my crossbow. Then someone shouts "Get out of my line of fire!" Buck naked on shore, I notice two @ signs - both women, humorously enough - have showed up. I grab my weapon and oblige, realizing shortly thereafter that nudity means no Volume to pick up a crossbow bolt to reload with (whoops).
After throwing on pants, Jamie rifles the centipede to death. It immediately enters conversation, I ask for advice, blah blah. Then they start moving towards my gear and I quickly save and quit, knowing the game would blow up or they'd jack my precious loot.
- I had an amazing full mutant cyborg guy (built with much save-scumming; Head had released a new, incompatible version and I wanted to go out with an overpowered bang). I decided to storm the lab (I had at least a half dozen keycards from dead scientists scattered around town) and raided the place decked out in army pants, kevlar vest, and riot helmet, carrying a silenced TDI Vector (I love how it has near zero recoil with a .45 round; beautiful gun) and a backup silenced Ruger Redhawk (I loves me my revolvers). I also had the nanobots healing augmentation and the cranial flashlight, among others, so I was basically J.C. Denton.
The first NPC I encountered was named Alex. Alex's brain exploded before I saw him. Thanks for the laugh, Alex.
A little later I found my first cloning room. Staring around at all the arms, I was sufficiently creeped out. I started to head outside of the room and then I get a "HEY! Drop your weapon!" I immediately give a hell no and find myself face-to-face with James, a man wielding a USP .45 and wearing a trenchcoat, standing opposite me on the west end of the farm of cloning vats. Boss battle music playing in my head, I lunged forward and James... ran northwest into a wall. I approached James and he just stood there. I tried to chat (shift + c is chat right?) and the game crashed.
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Topic: Cataclysm: A Zombie-Survival Roguelike (Read 1307797 times)