Discover your journey

The map will show you information about your journey, the weather and general environment. This is the main screen of the game where you will make strategic choices about your day-to- day actions. Do you plough forward even though you’re wounded and tired, or do you stop and rest? Do you rush into the next tile or do you have a scout around to choose your path more wisely?

The tiles represent different terrain types that each yield different resources. You’ll need to find enough food not to starve, which is most commonly found in forest tiles, but you’ll also need weapons to defend yourself which are most commonly found in urban tiles - but the latter hold little to no food… 

Meet people, for better or for worse

Each zone you enter on the tile represent a day of travelling. On your way you will have encounters with bands of aggressive humans and mutants alike, as well as story situations where your choices will determine both the outcome of the situation and what your fellow party members will think of how you handled the situation. If you act brashly in a story situation and your party contains a follower with a cautious disposition they will start losing trust in you as a leader and lose morale to boot. Followers with low loyalty become unpredictable, and you risk losing them altogether.

The story-based encounters are not fixed in their order but are based on a system that reacts to the current state of the party and game-world and, in some cases, choices made therein will impact future encounters. This ensures that no two play-throughs are the same.

If you successfully complete the encounters for the day you progress on your journey. To complete the first episode of the game you need to complete the requisite number of zones successfully.

Turn-based combat

In some cases you will be attacked and you have the choice to run away or face your opponents. At other times a story-based encounter turns sour ending in a combat situation. Either way combat is turn-based with the battle represented on a linear array of panels upon which you control your characters. The basic actions are simple, but your weapons, skills and equipment will give you more strategically interesting choices to make. Combat is simple at first and increases in complexity while remaining fast yet challenging.

Mutation

You will cross paths with mutants along your journey. Wounds from mutants have chance of triggering a mutation in one of your characters. You may also gain mutations from story-based encounters. The more mutations you have the more likely it is that others you meet will notice them. The more you mutate the more likely it will be that people you meet will be suspicious of that abnormally large bulge at the back of your head, and start wondering on which side you’re on. Not that some humans you meet need an excuse to be hostile; that shiny rifle you’ve been waving about is more than appealing enough…

See more about how the game plays below: