He’s published his work on the Zafehouse forums so if you feel like playing the game in Russian, or translating it into a language more compatible with your brain, please check it out!

Link: Zafehouse (multilingual) [Zafehouse forums]

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The mod includes the following changes:

- Infection is now contagious, but there is a small chance to heal it.

- Weapons can be loaded automatically, and when giving a range weapon to someone, is it automatically loaded with one box.

- Barricades higher than heavy block survivors movement

- It is possible to weaken barricades to recover some supplies

- Survivors fighting alongside family members [survivors with the same surname] get an attack and defense bonus

- A survivor can only be cured once per hour.

If you’d like to help flap out, or just give his version a whirl, head over to the progress log on the forums, or check out the list of planned changes and ideas.

Zafehouse Infection V1.00 – Fan edition – Progress Log [Zafehouse forums]

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The source code for this version – minus the score upload module – is also available from here.

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For now, Firefox and Chrome love it, and that suits me just great. Go take a look!

Zafehouse [Official site]

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With the video out, everyone has a more grounded view of what will be in the game and its presentation.

There’s so much I’d like to do, but the video has really made the issue of feature creep hit home. It sneaks up on you so easily. You get into a pattern of putting a feature in, adding a new one to the list… but not making any actual progress. I think everyone would prefer if Zafehouse 2 was a complete, polished game, rather than a heap of disjointed, unfinished chunks that simply “showed potential”.

There’s also all the time in the world for expansions and patches. :)

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There’s one section in particular I got a lot out of, which I’ll replicate here:

The big thing is when you play the game is that its plot sneaks up on you. At least it snuck up on me. Which is very odd being that there is no plot. None. No scripted events, no expository notices during gameplay, no radio transmissions, nada. So how did a plot sneak in when I played? The game is so basic, so lacking in story direction that I made it myself. I couldn’t help it. These people I controlled all had names. Except for the three I start out with I saved all of them. They were all people who I began to fill in their lives.

My original 3 fighters all took control. They had the best guns, they always had the most ammo, and they always were the first on the front lines. They cleared houses and buildings valiantly, they saved the weak and bashed the undead. Then Robert got bit. He was hurt and fevered. Delirious from the attack George and Harry brought Robert back to the house. The house that in my mind’s eye was the house I now live in. Robert was laid down on the couch and Harry patched up the injured arm. Robert said he was fine and demanded to go back out to search for more survivors. So the three of them went out. They found so[me] water and so[me] ammunition, and then came back. Robert wasn’t looking any better. He was still sick, and getting worse. It was only a matter of time and they all knew it. It was a necessary betrayal but even so had anyone survived that horrible night, none would have forgiven themselves.

George and Harry confronted Robert at the front door of the house. They refused to let him pass.

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the real game behind Zafehouse only became apparent to me when other people started playing it.

So, once again, I’d like to thank, profusely, anyone and everyone who has played Zafehouse. You honestly are my motivation and inspiration.

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In fact, I think it went worse.

Head over to Sekrit to take a look at the now-unfolded story, especially for quotes such as:

I’m just going outside. I may be some ZOMBIES.

And:

Andrew: Church doesn’t matter because extra survivors are now just dead weight.
Sinny: Mercenary bastard.

Enjoy.

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But I’m hoping they will.

Still, I’ve decided there’s enough reason to tentatively begin design work on Zafehouse 2, so Deadshed can be all it can be. It’s likely I’ve spent more time talking about Deadshed than coding it, but I think the Zafehouse connection has been a mental roadblock until now.

I want to finish up on the 4e Class Creator – now called the 4e Power Toolkit because of all the functionality it provides – but after that I’ll move 95% onto Deadshed and 5% onto Zafehouse 2.

If you have suggestions for either title, visit the forums and post about it. About 80% of the changes made to Zafehouse after v1.5 have been player-motivated, so there’s a good chance your ideas will be heard and even incorporated.

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Here are the changes, straight from the changelog:

-Fixed score upload problem (not code-related) (Thanks Banjo)

-Executable has a new icon

-Separated weapons and survivors in the raid priority dialogue (Thanks Banjo). New raid chances are 70%, 15%, 10%, 5%

-Fixed a bug that prevented survivors from having a chance to be injured when found in buildings (Thanks kronos)

-Added new version check on Help screen

-Added support for custom names:
To use custom names, open or create a file called “names.txt” in the same directory as Zafehouse.exe. Then add names, one line at a time, to the file. Save it, and next time the game loads, it will randomly select a name from the file until it runs out of choices. At this point it will refer back to the internal list.

I’ve also released the source code. For security reasons, it doesn’t include any of the online components.

The front page of the main site has been updated with all the important stuff, so be sure to pay it a visit.

Zafehouse

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For a while, I thought 12 was the limit. Then, a couple of players smashed this number into oblivion, drowned the dozen of awesome in a torrent of fantastic, and showed me Zafehouse’s true potential.

Over at a forum called Sekrit, user FinalSin not only ran a diary game using Zafehouse, he went to the trouble of inserting the nicks of other forum goers into the random name generator via the source code. I won’t spoil it for you, but sufficed to say it’s an entertaining read.

On a similar plane of radical is the blog Poisoned Sponge, where the author used the events of a Zafehouse game to write a fictional journal. It’s a three-parter and definitely worth your eyeball time.

It’s a fantastic feeling knowing people are doing things with your game you never considered, transforming it from machine code into an experience. The event system in Deadshed was inspired by two things: a conversation with buddy David Kidd, and these guys.

So yes, the sequel is for you.

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Like most of the recent PC-freeware zombie games, it’s looking more at the zombie-survivalist angle rather than the well-explored Resident Evil-esque part. That is, it’s a game about gathering supplies (while avoiding being eaten by zombies) to spend on killing zombies. In other words, it’s about deciding what you want to spend your resources on.

I agree with the criticisms mentioned later in the article (hard to see where perks are going, limited places in buildings), and given the time and resources, I’d love to do a super-improved version.

Trembling Hand’s Dave Kidd also noticed that Zafehouse makes for an excellent diary game.

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A noble effort, but eventually real life took over and I stopped at three titles. Zafehouse was my favourite, and proved popular with readers. Yesterday I pumped out a new version, 1.5, which you can download from the site.

Zafehouse: A zombie survival horror simulator

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