Ludum Dare #43compo

Z-Trail

by oxrock

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.65

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.19

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.10

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.88

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.21

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.04

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.29

Hi, my name is Oxrock and thank you for visiting the Z-Trail game page. Z-Trail is a turn based strategy game reminiscent of Oregon Trail but the setting is during a zombie apocalypse. Your party must hazard over 4 thousand miles to Jeuno Alaska, where there's whispers of a safe zone.

Gameplay:

Assign your party members tasks to undertake at night. Events will happen occasionally while you're traveling during the day. Do everything you can to keep your party alive long enough to reach your destination!

Tips:

* You only get one action per night, so make sure none of your party members are idle!
* You sacrifice some health if you take actions while exhausted
* Every turn while over the hunger threshold will cost health
* Sacrificing a night's sleep for guard duty is WORTH IT!
* The vehicle gets slower as it's damaged.
* Actions usually have a corresponding skill. Use the right party member for the task.

Tools Used:

* Unity
* Gimp
* bfxr
* http://www.fakemusicgenerator.com/
* Audacity

Screenshots:

Tags: #turn-based, #turn-based strategy, #zombies

Genres: strategy

Tools: Audacity, Bfxr, GIMP, Unity

Comments39

Simone2 Dec 2018, 22:04

Lovely :)

Quite ambitious for a jam, but very enjoyable!

oxrockauthor2 Dec 2018, 23:35

@simone I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! Thank you.

Yirggzmb3 Dec 2018, 03:56

This is pretty cool! Definitely a lot to take on for the short compo, but what I played felt well put together. Definitely a challenging game, as befitting the inspiration.

Sargonius3 Dec 2018, 06:39

Just perfect. I'm making a similar game in my spare time (resource management, post-apoc, survivors etc). And your game has more gameplay and fun than all my prototypes :D

btw, you can move character actions from drop-down menu to buttons with icons, it'll be easier to select.

iMer3 Dec 2018, 06:48

Didn't quite get the starvation mechanics (all of my people died of starvation with 6/10 hunger), quite good otherwise though

Seems very easy at the start but will punish you quickly

Sarwin3 Dec 2018, 09:10

Its a good game.

jk50003 Dec 2018, 09:34

A very well made little game. I think it is perhaps better not have "idle" as an option, if it is never a good idea to use.

oxrockauthor3 Dec 2018, 13:11

@imer It's not explained in game, but you take damage every turn your character is at 5+ hunger. You also take damage if you perform actions while at 0 stamina.

oxrockauthor3 Dec 2018, 13:51

@jk5000 I agree 100%. I was going to change it at the very end to default to rest and remove idle but I simply ran out of time and energy to do so.

TheGameDev3 Dec 2018, 14:28

Nice game, but not the best music or sound effect choices.

ninja002833 Dec 2018, 14:37

Really fun game and it captured the feeling of dying alone in a zombie apocalypse quite well.

BGameDev3 Dec 2018, 14:37

Managing resources, unexpexted events. Mechanics and dependencies are not so obvious but game is good.

Amanda Priest3 Dec 2018, 14:37

Cool idea I like it. Was a little confused when my people were dying before they were fully starving but overall it was nice. Haha and I love the sound fx.

f4kethis3 Dec 2018, 14:43

Really fun, sends me back to the computer lab in elementary school playing Oregon Trail. Quite challenging in a way that sometimes felt unfair (but like, in a zombie apocalypse appropriate kind of way). I was stuck in a loop of scavenging because I had no supplies, but getting raided on the same night, for several days straight. It felt like the looters were just farming me lol.

Thomas Lacroix3 Dec 2018, 14:44

Nice! I like the audio and animation :) I really like the idea, but the mechanics are pretty obscure ^^ I agree with @sargonius, buttons with icons would be 1000 times more convenient than a dropdown.

oxrockauthor3 Dec 2018, 14:52

@f4kethis you're REALLY gambling if you don't assign someone to guard duty at night. It's the zombie apocalypse after all, gotta always be prepared :)

econgamer3 Dec 2018, 15:27

It is a fun game and Choices are always hard to make. Resources management game is a good choice for the theme "Sacrifices must be made" .mamamamammamaammaamamamamamma

Kintama453 Dec 2018, 15:29

Great Game, reminds me of games like Oregon Trail which I personally really enjoy. Music and Sound can be improved, Graphics I feel are alright for this type of game but overall, great work!

Andrea3 Dec 2018, 16:38

Impressive work, awesome game!
I wish the data on the bottom left would be more visible, but that's pretty much all I have to say about the game.
Oh, wait, I also wish there was a sound for the engine trying to start with no fuel or while broke so we could know why it isn't driving anymore :p
Love the sounds by the way :D

oxrockauthor3 Dec 2018, 17:12

@andrea If the vehicle is broken, smoke spews from the hood. I very much like the idea of some sort of sputtering sound to indicate you're out of fuel though. I'll probably keep developing this game and release it on mobile, if so I will most definitely include something like that. As for the vehicle's inventory, that problem will only be exacerbated by going to mobile. I think eventually I'll introduce a compartment on the vehicle that you can click that will then open up a much larger display.

Thank you for playing my game, I'm so glad that you liked it! :)

Erendelous3 Dec 2018, 18:04

You know, It's really cool strategy and management game:)

kippllo3 Dec 2018, 18:12

Nice Game! I really liked the RPG elements!

Pro:
- Creative characters! (Nice humor on some!)
- Unified Art Style.
- Lots of cool events and story happenings.

Cons:
- Play throughs start to drag on after a while. (I almost wish the bus moved faster lol)
- No Audio? (At least there wasn't for me on the Web version on my Mac)

Tosunami3 Dec 2018, 18:53

It's amazing that you made it yourself within 48 hours! A little hard but can be a classic with some polishing.

oxrockauthor3 Dec 2018, 18:58

@kippllo no idea why you're not getting audio, it's the first I've heard of someone having that problem.

@tosunami thanks! :)

mrnyarlathotep3 Dec 2018, 19:09

I managed to overheal my van turn 1, which turned out to be pretty useful as it moved faster than maxspeed.

All in all really good compo entry, this is more like the game that Organ Trail should have been.

jharler3 Dec 2018, 19:55

I really liked the motor and brake sound effects. Nice work. This was a surprisingly charming game. All my party members died, but I had fun in the process!

Gosera3 Dec 2018, 20:55

I quite enjoyed this more then i did with Organ Trail, so awesome comp entry!

BananaMellow3 Dec 2018, 21:00

Really fun to play!! Good job devs!! Love the the strategy and the random events =D

Pawel W.3 Dec 2018, 22:58

Reminds me a bit March of the Living (https://store.steampowered.com/app/458000/March_of_the_Living/). Nice job guys!

IamStephano3 Dec 2018, 23:40

What an amazing game, especially with the time constraints you had. Had a slight problem where it took me a while to get fuel again, maybe I just had to some lazy passengers? :P

Slightly confused with how some stats went up and some went down. I thought everyone had eaten, except 10/10 hunger means that they are hungry where I thought it was the other way around.

xesenix4 Dec 2018, 00:34

Rest should probably be the default selection what is the purpose of having idle? Eating probably should be additional checkout option if not going outside camp. Some description for character stats would be nice.
Pretty nice gameplay consistent graphic design and nice music great work.

shieldgenerator74 Dec 2018, 07:40

whoa the amount of detail in the simulation is astounding!

thmokedfish4 Dec 2018, 11:41

The random events are great. Nice game but it can be more reasonable if characters' HP can be set randomly with minimum value like more than 3 or 4 because after a few rounds of reroll I found their HP vary in a too large range.

fasterthanlime4 Dec 2018, 12:30

Ahhhhh I just wanted to survive!! Very well done, I really got hooked super quickly and ended up in micromanagement hell for longer than I'd like to admit!

shp4 Dec 2018, 19:32

Well done with such a complex game, the music was nice even if not exactly fitting for a zombie apocalypse

Jungle4 Dec 2018, 20:37

I love this kind of game. I've tried several times to travel all 4k miles but I failed. A good thing to do in this game is to keep repairing the veichle, even at full HP, doing this you can "overcharge" and achieve great speeds. I've spent amost 1 hour in this game, it is really funny to play. Congratulations.

drtizzle4 Dec 2018, 22:31

Very cool game! Played it twice but I couldn't get past 3/4th of the way. The music is strangely addicting, and so is the game. The game really keeps you on your toes and makes you think about your choices. Also the art and SFX are really cool!

Very complete game, well done!