As the inevitable release of Project Zomboid's Build 42 looms somewhere overhead, the community has grown frustrated with the developer The Indie Stone's apparently slow production pipeline. It's easy to forget just how long Project Zomboid has been lumbering?? along, but is the snail's pace warranted?

Obviously, nothing could possibly justify some of the worst and most useless "critique" that's recently been directed in The Indie Stone's general direction. Things have gotten so dire at some points, in fact, that one of the lead developers even considered selling Project Zomboid off to the highest bidder, just to rid themselves of the burden of its developmen??t.

That's an immense amount of stress to be under, and it's hardly surprising to see the talk surrounding Zomboid's huge new build to get heated from both sides of the equation. I don't really have a horse in this race, for what it's worth: I just want The Indie Stone to be able to keep on keeping on in much the same way they've been doing all these years. Waiting for new versions can get frustrating, certainly, but it's a simple fact of the matter that major new build releases for Zomboid basically turn the whole experience inside out and ?reinvigorate it for years to come.

Here's what we know for a fact is included? in Build 42, just to illustrate my point:

• Animals and animal husbandry
• Herd movement of wild animals
• Massive rendering and performance improvements, including a new lighting system
• Post-apocalyptic blacksmithing, stoneworking, brewing features with new crafting stations
• Dozens of new items (clothing, weapons, containers, etc.)
• Farming systems and an assortment of crops to care for
• Fishing overhaul
• Comprehensive overworld improvements, both functional and otherwise
• Procedurally generated wilderness
• Discord integration
• Fluid system
• Weapon parts
• Cleaning system
• Newspapers, flyers, and other UI elements

All that, as per Project Zomboid's Wiki. This, keep in mind, is wholly uncomprehensive, and even if you only keep track of Destructoid's news coverage for Zomboid, you'll get the right idea of just how substantial B42 really is. Inevitably, it will change everything for everyone playing the game, and it will be a superior zombie survival experience when all is sa?id and done. The question, then, is whet?her it's worth the years-long wait.

The long production pipeline of Project Zomboid

It was back in 2012 that I was just unpacking a new gaming magazine - its demo disc, in particular - only to discover one of Project Zomboid's earliest builds on it. I'll be honest: it didn't look good. Heck, it didn't play good, either, for many of the same reasons some may feel Zomboid is still not a great game. Slow, janky, and highly unpolished, Project Zomboid has always had a massive early adoption hurdle that ??filters most players right of?f the bat.

Here's the thing, though: I was hooked when I realized just how deep the game's simulation goes. And that was well before any of the truly substantial content additions and updates drop in, keep in mind. Just the core and the crux of it: Zomboid at its most raw.

In 2024, Project Zomboid can become almost any kind of zombie survival game you want it to be. A Romero-style plod? A Resident Evil-type dread? A 28 Days Later terror? Oh, just tweak a thing or two and you're golden no matter what your zombie fantasy might be. Project Zomboid's gameplay systems are every bit as intricate as they are janky, and this leads to a hugely rewarding gameplay loop of... well, of pure survival. Even if you take zombies out of the equation, there's still a whole game's worth of content in Zomboid to parse through.

Why is this relevant? Because I feel that it illustrates the importance of the zig-zagging nature of The Indie Stone's Project Zomboid production pipeline. There are several games' worth of gameplay systems and loops present in Zomboid. Build 42 - whenever it ends up coming out - will build on top of this further still. If the developers working on this game hadn't started on multiple different barely related features over a year ago, Zomboid would've been a far poorer survival game.

As it currently stands, instead, we've got what is easily the most comprehensive zombie survival game, bar none. It's got its limitations, to be sure, and it's certainly an acquired taste in more ways than not, but there's something special here. I can't help but feel that, had The Indie Stone been more focused, Zomboid simply wouldn't be where it is today.

How long is too long?

On the flip side of the equation, Project Zomboid is certainly taking its sweet time crossing the finish line. Not even the finish line, at that: just one of the many checkpoints it needs to go through before the finish line is even on the horizon. We're that far off, as the project is in its 14th year of active development. The Indie Stone's current development setup necessitates years' worth o?f work before each major new Build comes out, and it's a given that some players simply aren't happy with that.

It's okay to be unhappy, of course, but The Indie Stone is a small team working on an impossibly huge project at their own schedule. As someone who's been playing Zomboid on-and-off for almost half of my life, I can vouch for the team's "slow and steady wins the race" strategy, simply because the quality of the product is there.

In the end, The Indie Stone could've turned Build 41 into the 1.0 release of Project Zomboid had they wanted to. The fact that they didn't, I think, illustrates a sense of straightforwardness. Outwardly, The Indie Stone states plainly that Project Zomboid isn't ostensibly finished. The team is adding more (and more, and more, and more) features into the mix that hadn't even been on the docket, say, during the Build 40 production process, and this is bound to continue. And you can tell that this is the case purely because Zomboid is unlikely to leave Early Access anytime soon.

Honestly, I don't think we'll see a full 1.0 release of Project Zomboid before 2030, if ever. It just seems so unlikely, considering the size and scope of the project. When each major new Build keeps adding a whole game's worth of gameplay on top of what's already there, though, does it even matter all that muc??h?

Zomboid trudges on, in much the same way as its tragic, lumbering monstrosities do. It's been here back when I was a kid, and I'd be willing to bet it'll still be trucking along when I hit my 40s. What's one more decade of active development, after all, whether you're Dwarf Fortress or Project Zomboid?

The post Project Zomboid and you, or how to accept the long wait between major buil?ds appeared first on Destructoid.

We're getting ever closer to Steam's big Summer Sale 2024. We're still a few wee??ks away, ??admittedly, but there are a couple more events until then to keep us in the mood, and one of them is ongoing for the next few days.

Yesterday, Steam kicked off its Endless Replayability Fest, a sales event that celebrates those games that just seem to go on forever. But, you know, in a good wa?y. Essentially, if it's something you can play over and over again without A) getting bored, or B) having the exact same experience as the first time, then it's probably here.

We've got discounts on a bunch of games, with a few being teased in the above trailer, such as Don't Starve, Dead Cells, Mortal Sin, and Risk of Rain 2. As always with these events, it goes on for a week, so this one will be ending Monday, May ??20 at ??10am PT.

Endless fun (wait...did I say that already?)

You can see everything that's in the Endless Replayability Fest by visiting the Steam page. I'm seeing a few titles already that have grabbed my attention, including Stellaris, which recently experienced a boon in popularity thanks to its Machine Age DLC.

There's also Balatro, LocalThunk's "poker roguelike" that hit the scene back in February, and has been enjoying a decent amount of success these past few months. It's currently at "Overwhelmingly Positive" on Steam, so it must be doing something right.

There are also a couple of newer games that have been listed, including Hades 2 and Manor Lords, but these aren't discounted. They've just been included as part of the event. Personally, I've got my eye on Dwarf Fortress, which is 20% off at the moment. Always fancied getting lost in th??is simulation, because I've got nothing else going on.

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One of the most popular and emblematic indie games of all time, Dwarf Fortress, took its time coming out on Steam. Its Steam release included a fancy new GUI, but no s?ingle-dwarf Adventure Mode, which was a shame. Thankfully, that's all changing r??ight now. Indeed, Adventure Mode is now out!

More specifically, Dwarf Fortress's long-anticipated Adventure Mode is now available on Steam in its beta form, allowing anyone intrigued by the prospect to give it a fair shake. Its appeal lies mainly in the fact that Adventure Mode doesn't saddle you with a whole civilization's worth of Dwarves to manage right off the bat. Instead, in Adventure Mode, it's just your custom-built avatar and either one of your previously colonized worlds or a newly generated one instead. It is, therefore, a more focused and far simpler experience than you'd get in a regular Fortress Mode game of Dwarf Fortress.

Access Dwarf Fortress: Adventure Mode via Steam now

Anyone interested in Dwarf Fortress's Adventure Mode can download its beta build by doing the followi????????????????????????????ng:

• Right-click Dwarf Fortress in your Steam Library
• Go to the 'Properties' menu
• Select the 'Betas' option and then select the 'beta - Public beta branch' option from the dropdown list

This will kickstart the updated download and get you into Adventure Mode in short order. Curiously??, it would appear that Adventure Mode comes with its own exclusive soundtrack made by Dabu and Simon Swerwer. The OST is already purchasable on Steam, and it's interesting to note that this suite of music "will not be in Fortress mode for now," as per the official ??blog.

The reason Adventure Mode is only in beta at this time is that the developer Bay 12 Games has a lot more to do before the mode is polished up enough for full release. As per the official announcement from the devs, t??hey still wish to do all of the follo?wing:

• Resolve all major crashes
• Improve the quest log and information UIs, among a variety of other interfaces
• Add butchering and crafting, ability use, composing, motion and attack indicators, building interactions, wrestle buttons, stealth vision arcs, and heaps more
• Improve certain aspects of the UI in general, such as the hatch and ramp prompts
• Complete Adventure Mode's full graphics and audio assets, as not all of them have made their way into the beta just yet

And this, as per the developer, is just scratching the surface of what else is coming to Adventure Mode and Dwarf Fortress proper. A long list, then, but that's just how it is with Dwarf Fortress!

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The game is the story

When people talk about the ideal "video game story," they're usually talking about something like Final Fantasy VI or Metal Gear Solid. A "good story" in a video game is usually a coherent narrative with characters and events, ideally one that's augmented or enhanced by gameplay. On occasion, folks will point to something like Dwarf Fortress, a game that uses the ??foundations of interactivity to generate elaborate narratives.

[caption id="attachment_358665" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Kitfox Games[/caption]

I think there's another, more interesting type of video game narrative, though. It's a kind that only exists in games and one that exists in every game. It's not always written deliberat?ely, and it often comes into view only after the game has be?en played.

The automatic story

Human beings are really good at projecting stories onto blank canvases. When we recount times in our lives, we're very bad at viewing them discreetly. They're always a sequence of even??ts that feed into one another, a little story whose only author is experience. Video games, very often, are an almost-blank canvas. Where life is a story we write, defined by our experiences, games are stories we come to, and stories we supplement with those experiences. They are experiences built by other humans, who have laid the groundwork for a new story.

I think that, by virtue of being an active experience, every game accidentally tells a story. I like to think of it as an "automatic story." It's not something anyone has written, and it's not something anyone is presenting, but it's something that springs up simply because of the way the human brain works. It's the detail we automatically fill in when we see broad brush strokes. It looks different for everyone, because everyone is both the author and the protagonist. I've talked through this theory with friends before, and they'll often scoff. Usually, the conversation circles around to Tetris. After all, everyone has played Tetris, but nobody can tell you the plot of Tetris. I think that's because the "plot" of a game like Tetris (or Pong, or Breakout, or whatever other arcade title you prefer) is entirely?? uniq??ue to the medium of games.

[caption id="attachment_358343" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via The Tetris Company[/caption]

Games do something very interesting without even trying: they invite you to co-author a story. Back in 1984, Alexey Pajitnov wrote the barest skeleton of a narrative without thinking. He put a bunch of bricks on a screen, he offered up the opportunity to move those bricks, and, without realizing, he wrote the first line every Tetris story. Every single Tetris player for the last thirty-odd years has come away from the game finishing Pajitnov's tale. The moving bricks, consciously or otherwise, become characters, or structures, or cargo. The ratcheti??ng tension and increased spee??d connect with everyone for one reason or another. For Pajitnov, things get faster to keep the game from getting boring, but for the player, it's impossible to avoid imagining a reason, some kind of narrative rationale. We are humans, connecting with the work of other humans, and without realizing, we have turned that experience into a story. One that's very difficult to tell, and one that can only really be felt.

Okay, but what about "real" stories?

Obviously, not all video games exist in such an abstract state. Sure, it's hard to describe the plot of Tetris, but you can explain exactly what happens in The Secret of Monkey Island. That game is obsessivel??y authored, its characters are ?named and defined. How do games like that fit into my theory of the automatic story?

Many of the best straightforward "narrative" games will allow for some level of emergent storytelling. They'll give a player the tools to tell their own additional story, one that might support the main plot, or one that might totally derail and contradict it - sure, Link is on a quest to save Hyrule, but I'm on a quest to see how many different ways there are to drop a rock on Link's head. These aren't "automatic stories," necessarily; they fill the sam?e space, they're similarly co-authored experiences, but they're baked into the game, not just your brain.

[caption id="attachment_358664" align="alignnone" width="640"] the  Image via Nintendo[/caption]

Even in narrative games that don't allow for much experimentation, though, I find that two stories are always present. There's the story being told by the game, and there's the story being told by the player. I think the poster child for this theory is The Last of Us - just about everyone can agree that The Last of Us has a plot. In fact, the game has been accused of being too plotty, to the point that a relatively faithful HBO Max series can act as a handy replacement. But when you play The Last of Us, you cannot disappear into the role of Joel Miller entirely. Video games cal??l on us, as players, to inhabit a character, but we cannot become that character.

In The Last of Us, Joel does some pretty reprehensible stuff. He hits a lot of people in the head with bricks, and the player, simply by virtue of playing, becomes complicit in that brick-hitting. The Last of Us is two stories her?e: there's the story of a man who hits people in the head with bricks, and there's the story of a player, who chooses to encourage those actions - whether they agree with Joel or not, the only way to roll credits is to keep going.

To continue playing (and, more specifically, to continue playing well) is a narrative choice that the player makes, consciously or unconsciously, as the co-author of the automatic story. Simply by having the experience, by consenting to it, and? by engaging with it, the player is saying something, encouraging a new story to blossom. That's not the same story as the one the game is telling; if you put the game down, both stories will stop at the same time, but they'll both mean something different. These two stories - the traditional and the automatic - complement each other. One is written, and one occurs spontaneously. Simply because a game has been crafted by a person, and it has been experienced by another person, it becomes its own story. It happens in the back of our head, with our assistance, knowingly or otherwise. It can't be written; it can only be experienced.

Because, ultimately, exp?erience is a talented a?uthor.

The post Game design is narrative design: Exploring video games’ ‘automatic stories’ appeared first on Destructoid.

It's always nice to see the little guys win

Dwarf Fortress has been a little engine that could in the games industry for decades, and after its full release in December, the title is finally seeing some well deserved success. It's only been out for a month, but Dwarf Fortress has managed to amass over 500,000 sales on Steam, which is a pretty big deal for a game with such humble beginnings. This number was developer Bay 12 Games' two month sales goal, meaning the team crushed it t?wice as quickly as they thought they would. What's more, the game has received the coveted "overwhelmingly p?ositive" reception on the platform with well over 15,000 reviews.

Dwarf Fortress' origins stretch all the way back to 2002, when it was conceived as freeware. Thanks to the tireless work of the game's two man development team -- brothers Tarn and Zach Adams -- and donations to keep the project afloat, Dwarf Fortress launched its first alpha edition in 2006. The game garnered a cult following over the years, is said to have influenced titles like Minecraft and RimWorld, and was even featured in a 2012 exhibit on the history of gaming at the famed Modern Museum of Art. Its completion and final release on December 6, 2022 marked a bi??g moment in gaming history for a lot of people.

[caption id="attachment_356932" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Bay 12 Games[/caption]

The game itself features a combination of construction and management simulation mechanics, as well as rogue-like elements. A game with such a rich history begets complexity in its gameplay, because while its a notoriously complicated game to learn, it's an incredibly rewarding experience -- even with the random encounters that can wipe out your carefully-planned settlement in the blink of an eye. The Steam reviews are full of hilarious tales that naturally emerged as players worked their way thro??ugh the game, and I think th??at's a real testament to some awesome game design.

[Featured Image via Bay 12 Games]

The post Dw??arf Fortress takes off on ?Steam with over 500K sales appeared first on Destructoid.

Simulate a new dwarven life in December

It's time to break earth and set up a new home. The impossibly deep simulator Dwarf Fortress has set a Steam and Itch launch date of December 6, 2022.

This infamous engine for incredible internet stories is often perceived as pretty dense. But as part of the Steam launch, Bay 12 Games is a?lso rolling out several major draws for newcomers to make dwarven life a bit easier to manage.

First off, the graphical tile set. Rather than ASCII characters moving around, Dwarf Fortress has pixel visuals you can pick up on a bit easier. Modders and community members have made these tools before, but Steam Dwarf Fortress arrives with a packed-in tile set.

Secondly, the new player experience has been updated to include tutorials. Via the Steam page, these tutorials will guide you th?rough the process of building?? your first fortress and keeping all the dwarves inside happy.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K7T5LXQPJI

Other than that, this is largely still Dwarf Fortress. It's still a massive, simulated world of possibilities and potential disaster. All???? it needs is a few intrepid dwarves.

Building the fortress

Dwarf Fortress has been the subject of many lengthy forum posts and storytimes. Much like EVE Online, it's a game that's endlessly fas??cinating to read about, but se??ems intimidating from the outside too.

With a Steam launch, updated graphics, and new player experience, this might be the time for me to give Dwarf Fortress an honest go of it. I've re?ad enough stories. I'm ready to establish my own beautiful fortress, then watch it fall apart to infighting and chaos.

Developers Tarn and Zach Adams? have been working on this game for ages, and seem set to keep doing so. And maybe this versio??n is just the right jumping-on point as they dive further into what this simulation can possibly do.

Dwarf Fortress hits Steam and Itch on December 6, 2022.

The post Dwarf Fortress gets a Steam release date f??or December appeared first on Destructoid.