State of Decay 2: The Forsaken

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With more and more enemy enclaves appearing Kraken takes the lead and begins sending out execution squads to eliminate all of them, especially when informant Guy arrives seeking asylum with a warning that all these groups are banding together under a new coalition. Daniel manages to locate some of these and Kraken takes Guy to confront and kill them, leaving the last one alive: it's Chavez!?

He spills the beans on the coalition HQ at a nearby factory then somehow dodges Kraken's execution shot and escapes (bugged out as she fired the completely wrong way). Kraken and Guy race to the factory and kill what they think is the coalition leadership, returning to Fort Marshall in victory. Elsewhere the true leader, Ray Santos, meets with Chavez and IzzBee - saying Kraken's group have killed more humans in the past few days than the zombies. Chavez indicates Beebo Bee has already modified the Haven protocol at the base, all that is needed is for IzzBee to send the kill order against these Forsaken.

Unwilling to be part of another mass murder/accident IzzBee refuses, but Dr. Hoffman has no qualms about testing CLEO's capabilities and sends the order herself. Everyone at Fort Marshall is suddenly wracked with excrutiating pain as their brains begin to boil and one by one their heads all explode. They aren't so much different from the zombies after all, and CLEO is happy to continue to meet her mandate of "protect the most humans". Community killed from legacy screen - only Beebo Bee survives!

Heads go pop!

Insight: It was fun to revisit Trumbull again after Heartland, I just wish IzzBee's Red Talon drop quest wasn't so repetitive. Also at a guess, there's a good chance Quincy, Helena, Keesha and Isaac are dead too from the Jurassic Junction incident as those are all optional characters to play/encounter. On the flip side Captain Logan has a better chance of showing up again than those four as he is a mandatory character from Heartland.

State of Decay 2: Leaderfall

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

No longer happy with the cramped Red Talon fairground fort, Hailey moves the team to Fort Marshall - a massive military space on the East end of town where they immediately reinstall the Haven protocol. They continue to help IzzBee crack some requisition code on CLEO which slowly brings her and Chavez back together again - revealing that a past decision of IzzBee's led to the destruction of their old base of Jurassic Junction (now covered in oil) where "lots of their friends died".

Eventually IzzBee does crack the code (repeatedly) and gets the months old Red Talon requisition drops to deploy adding to the groups arsenal. Somehow all this hardware does not save Poldo who is ripped in half by a surprise juggernaut ambush while travelling through the swamp. Hailey replaces him with druggie Timoteo, his best bud Daniel and Shan (who also gets juggernauted soon after) but is forced to turn away other plebs who come seeking refuge.

En garde!

Those rejects eventually form a group to attack the base and for some [CLEO controlled / Dr. Hoffman is happy] reason Hailey decides to try fight them with a cutlass, slaying the first two but getting killed by the last guy who smashes her face in with a shovel. Anselmo and Buck track the survivor back to his base and murder him and his remaining buddies while Zeb takes charge, hoping to establish a trade summit with their allies much like squidman Dan did back for Hamlet Squad.

Hearing one of their allies wants to attack the summit leads Zed and Timoteo on a trippy rampage that eliminates that enclave. At the Summit this is revealed to be a trick, and the ones that provided the false information attack instead - killing two other enclave allies at the "no weapons" meeting. Zeb survives using scavenged gear but is demoted as leader for this failure.

Insight: Fully exploring structures creates temporary safe zones where zombies can't spawn. To best leverage this, always go for quickly explored things first if you can, like the tiny sheds beside a house. You can also scout a bunch of areas first before looting to increase the safe zone radius. These temporary zones last around a day.

State of Decay 2: Odd Friends of Haven

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Hearing that Trumbull Valley is open again, Zeb, Hailey and Kraken from Hamlet Squad arrive to the radio welcome of Ray Santos, "the valley's protector", but find rumors of it being safe are false as it is home to plague hearts just like everywhere else. Luckily, since Kraken assisted an odd stranger named "Clutch pinya" (multiplayer for 15 minutes) she was gifted some godlike (definitely hacked) weaponry from him: a trio of automatic weapons with 999 bullets all in one clip!

Mmm, that looks legit...

Hailey and Zeb use these weapons and within the first day eliminate all the plague hearts around (standard difficulty only) and start doing jobs for bounty salesman Cash Beaumont and a group of scientists up in the mountains working on some computer gizmo called CLEO. This group includes Dr. Hoffman, IzzBee the hacker and reformed thug Mickey Wilkerson who comes along for some scavenging missions and find the grave of someone named Malik while doing so.

Taking the leadership position, Hailey decides to go recruit loner Al, gardener Poldo, sexter Raney, soldier Rhino, electician Buck, and lawman Anselmo to move from their checkpoint base to a Red Talon fort at the fairgrounds where ex-Red Talon Chavez and his buddy Beebo Bee assist in getting things running again and after over a week of helping the scientists they eventually them to visit the base to install CLEO's Haven defense protocol.

The zombies launch a siege during Haven's installation but are outmatched by the guns the team has. More so when the Haven finally activates as it boils the head of any zombie within safe zone distance to make their heads explode! Zombie sieges are now a thing of the past.

Insight: Haven is fueled by spare parts. LOTS if you don't have power and water. Only 25 per day if you do.

State of Decay 2: The Gauntlet

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Despite how sneaky Quincy is (he's so sneaky that he lets all other companions sneak) it is new recruit Isaac, who joined to get away from his husband, who has the best solution to harvesting bloaters: he can produce scentblock, which effectively makes the users undetectable to zombies. With this, Helena and Keesha go on a harvesting spree while Quincy gains a new partner in Chavez, a Red-Talon merc abandoned in the region to help hacker IzzBee take control of the AI called CLEO to provide support drops for the team.

The girls harvesting results in 31 plague busters, while Quincy manages to make some extra ammo and masterwork rifles in preparation for the assault on Marshall back at base. Malik and Logan clear a pub near the outer most plague wall of Marshall for easy access to the gear then Captain Logan sends the civilian away to handle the siege personally.

Winners use high ground.

Using Malik's small car as a combat platform, Logan destroys the first wall but is thrown from the roof by a plague juggernaut! Luckily he has spare busters to take down the horde and the big guy (2 to down a jugg) before resupplying an working on the next three walls - all of which have great firing positions from on top of containers! It really comes down to using every single plague buster and bullet though, with some wiley-pete grenades at the end to defeat the gauntlet of plague walls - and destroying the last one seems to kill all the zombies in the area!

As expected, there is something in the middle of all of it - a CLEO drop pod which seems to be the source of the plague!? Dr. Hoffman gets to work in finding answers but none are revealed as this results in a map victory!

Insight: By now you know zombies are vertically challenged so always look for high perches to fight from. Pressing jump THEN forward lets you climb higher stuff than if you press forward AND jump.

State of Decay 2: Network Expedition

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Quincy and Helena arrive in Trumbull Valley in search of Ray Santos, an old friend of their boss. The first person they find is Malik though, and for the little task of clearing out his old base he is happy to provide information and so they do this, taking his small yet spacious car to Jurassic Junction - the biggest base ever! Quincy uses his stealth skills to farm up some plague samples and supplies afterwards before he and Helena head off to the coordinates Malik provides - finding Ray and his mechanic gang to be having easily solved radio problems.

Sometimes cars just fly off on their own. Best fix if you are at base is to quit and load.

One of Ray's associates, Keesha, also reveals they are having "rent" problems with Mickey - a scum bandit thug in the area who is easily scared off. Keesha decides to join their proactive group thanks to this and helps establish outposts in town while at the same time avoiding plague hearts as for a change, that doesn't seem to be the main goal here... instead that is spelled out when Keesha and Malik meet Captain Logan, the last soldier in the valley, and his ally Dr. Hoffman. They explain the military had come in and were wiped out trying destroy a new type of growth: a plague wall!

He demonstrates the resilience of one such plague wall at a downed aircraft. Only with Dr. Hoffman's newly invented "plague buster" grenades crafted from plague bloaters can the hard outer shell be exposed (temporarily) to damage the bulbous growth within. Like plague hearts, the walls also summon zombies to defend it but with the supply of "plague busters" the Captain brings, they aren't a problem (lethal to them too) as the plane wall is destroyed.

Logan then explains the town of Marshall is surounded by plague walls, and believe that whatever lies in the center is the key to undoing the blood plague. After collecting equipment to let them produce their own plague busters, the Network Expedition crew is tasked with the onerous task of harvesting plague bloaters.

Insight: Heartland has no customizable difficulty setting. All zeds have blood plague and you have a limited pool of fixed survivors, however all these survivors are pretty strong and the combat difficulty itself is below dread since you can ram your car into many enemies AND there are many cars available.

State of Decay 2: Lethal Zone

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Pretty good start!

Having lost contact with Sanctuary II, Team Humanity sends Umoren, Nestor and David to find out what happened but the trio get lost and crash into a Lethal Zone where it seems the only vehicle is the one they came in. Using caution and well placed outposts, they manage to recruit lichenologist Ursula who can craft medicines at will -since she's a lich- and move into a bridge fortress.

While foraging, David and Nestor run into too many zombies and Nestor saves David from a feral as they run back to base. Unfortunately Nestor is infected by the blood plague and with no cure available David shoots him in the head. Wandering hordes hear this and attack - killing David in the process before Umoren can take them all down. Umoren then goes to resupply with Cash Beaumont but also gets infected en route, so he brings his supplies as close as he can to base before heading off to a hill top graveyard to die.

Ursula reaches these supplies with new recruits Ana Maria and Keene, and the pair decide to move base back to the safer starter house. Ana Maria is infected en route and also ends up being put down by Ursula. With enough fuel and tool kits to repair the starter car now, Keene tries to make his way there but is jumped by a blood feral (all zombie types have the infection now) and while he wins the fight, he makes it back to the house only in time to turn and for Ursula to shoot him in the head.

Somehow, Ursula can maintain her solo survival (cost wise) indefinitely - so she figures why fight the plague hearts when she can just head far into the wilderness where there will surely be less zombies? COMMUNITY ABANDONED (map fail).

Insight: "Legacy characters" you bring into the new game always come with whatever is in their inventory so if you like planning ahead gear up like mad before finishing a legacy quest so that they can start with a leg up.

State of Decay 2: Sanctuary II

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

The war against the plague hearts is going well with five destroyed now and no losses to Sanctuary II. Meanwhile ex-con Delara continues doing personal quests of collecting Donte's drug stashes. This bites the community terribly as a horde with two plague juggernauts follow her back into the base and smash Parniyan into paste before being killed off with loud gunfire. This only draws more and more hordes and specials into the base!

Erica, Beau and Little Joe are torn in half by juggernauts while Leland is crushed underfoot. Delara and Donte succumb to the swarm of plague zombies and both turn. Catherine gets her throat torn out by a feral and Krissy decides to flee to the nearby "Happy Campers" who aren't much better off as they are under attack by a plague juggernaut and three ferals themselves! She manages to recruit Alex from them before getting her face eaten by one of the ferals.

At least no zombification for her.

Somehow, Alex makes it to the police station and clears the left over zombies (the rest moved on or despawned) and recruits Dr. Jessica, body builder Dmitri, and city girl Bree as backup. It doesn't change their fate though, as they need to enter plague territory to loot more supplies. Alex and Dmitri are pounced on by ferals while Dr. Jessica gets caught by screamer hordes on top of her car. Eventually she tries make a run for it but is swarmed by the living dead.

Bree manages to get resupplied by Cash Beaumont then assaults the nearest plague heart in a dirty and cramped mens toilet at a local pub. While hiding in a stall provides excellent cover to destroy the heart, getting there she was scratched too many times and gains blood plague. Pinned in that tiny room she can do nothing as the timer runs out and the infection kills her right there at a rusty urinal. COMMUNITY LOST (map fail).

Insight: Much like the last game, all the "action" takes place near your active character. If you get far enough away from something, that something becomes dormant / inactive and in the case of most random zombies: despawn.

State of Decay 2: Nightmare Zone

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Little Joe, Krissy, and Parniyan of Team Humanity abandon their destroyed vehicle and cautiously decide to go looting before heading to their target house base. The first thing they spot is a feral, and a plague horde with a plague screamer and plague bloater. Indeed, in Nightmare mode everything but ferals have the blood plague. They befriend the nearby enclaves "the Long Rangers" (who are useful as cover against the zed armies) and "wrench turners", mechanics who help repair vehicles. Leland and Erica of the latter group are recruited thanks to their useful skills as cars are very precious now.

Krissy manages to kill the first plague heart but it doesn't stop the plague in the area as the hearts are more numerous and closer to each other now so Leland recommends moving base to the local police station which seems to be very well fortified. Parniyan, voted leader of this group "Sanctuary II", agrees especially when the Long Rangers are wiped out by zeds and quickly befriends the nearby enclave of "Happy Campers" as well as recruits hopeless Beau, Catherine, ex-con Delara and her dealer-boyfriend Donte.

It's safest to attack plague hearts from outside AND on a vehicle!

To supplement their arms, Parniyan also starts doing bounty missions for traveling trader Cash Beaumont - someone that all the previous leaders had simply ignored (which is a mistake, as the progress of his missions carry over regardless of community). Over the radio they also hear members of the Network trying to save displaced locals flee from the captivity they found at the hands of Red-Talon, who apparently are looking for humans immune to the plague. It seems like dark days indeed, but Parniyan is sure of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Insight: Toilets are awesome for morale. Clean toilets more so. Also if you come across a locked door you DON'T want to bash, press the crouch key again to let it go.

State of Decay 2: Team Fortress

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

As the sole survivor, Goose becomes the defacto leader of Team Fortress and recruits Doctor Drew, hard nose Mia, Len, and ex-con Bryson in the continuing battle against the plague hearts. Alas Bryson is killed by a feral after destroying his target and Len falls to the same southern fast food heart that Maddie did. They are replaced by Aaron, Adriana, Sera and old Mary who learn from past mistakes and successfully clear all remaining hearts from the map!

It's safer to attack plague hearts from outside if possible.

During this time, Goose also befriends a representative of "The Network", a large commune of cooperative individuals on the radio as well as an odd group that sells "mystery meat". While this meat isn't so mysterious to her, at least they are sociable enough unlike the numerous zombies all over the place and she lets them stay - taking two of them and Doctor Drew as backup when the inevitable bandit invasion arrives.

While the two cannibals are killed against the bandit scouts, Goose works out the bandit base location then makes good use of noise makers and stereos to let zombie hordes do most of the work. She and Drew then chase the remaining three survivors to the rooftop where it comes down to good shotgunning and taking cover to win the day. With that her legacy is secured (map victory)! She only can hope that the other away team (now going into the Nightmare zone) finds less losses than she did to achieve it.

Insight: One feral seems to consistently spawn when attack plague hearts on this difficulty and above so look out! Also if you are in a non exploded but upside down or on the side car - keep driving and turning, somehow the vehicle will right itself.

State of Decay 2: The Dread Zone

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Des, Goose and cowgirl Maddie head to the dread zone and setup camp at a Firewatch tower. Since this is a higher difficulty than previous wins, the boons from the previous leaders cannot be used to help them forcing them to start from scratch. It is instantly obvious how much less stuff there is in each location, and how conversely there are far more zombies, plague hearts and a high infection rate. A plague juggernaut is even sighted right on day one but thankfully the girls can easily avoid it as they find fuel and tools to repair the initial vehicle they arrived in.

This car doesn't last long as when Des helps neighbor Casey to confront some thieves, Casey is killed, the car exploded and Des brought near death before a horde of plague zombies actually save her from the enemy shooters. The other two manage to hike and find a replacement vehicle (two actually, after a horde accident destroys the first). Des then takes on the first plague heart with molotovs as per usual and while she succeeds in destroying it, she also burns to death in the process.

Due to this loss Maddie recruits locals Yolanda and Taylor before moving base to a fortified truck stop. She also tries recruit Sharon who is hunting a southern plague heart at a fast food place. Unfortunately it is Sharon and Maddie on the menu as they are ambushed by hordes of hungry zombies. The other girls attack a different plague heart and while Yolanda's sword skills are awesome she still perishes to the hands of a feral. Goose finishes off that heart and takes a badly wounded Taylor back to the truck stop. Alas, Taylor now has the plague and without any remedy (rare to find samples on this mode) - Goose decides to euthanize her instead.

Bullets can also be the cure.

Insight: At this difficulty you should try avoid hitting things with your car, as not only are they great transportation devices but if you stand on the roof most zombies can't get to you. This is your safe spot for attacking plague hearts visible from the street, a lesson I learned during this play through.

State of Decay 2: Hamlet Squad

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Despite all their talk, Rev maintains her leadership and finds more ammo thanks to the assistance of Red-Talon over the radio. David and Little Joe join her army and warn about an opposing army entering the area and much like the bandits that Val dealt with - Rev takes Joe to get information from their scouts (violently) then attacks the stupid leaders who unlike the bandits, have no backup and are meeting in a shed? Rev softens them up by luring a speedy feral into them before executing the trio to secure her legacy (map victory).

"Tell me what I want to know and I'll shoot!"

A trading team named "Hamlet Squad" composed of squidman Dan of "Team Humanity" and "Stragglers" Lory and Beth are then sent to Meageher Valley where the starting house is AGAIN almost a carbon copy of the other starting houses. Lazy much? Dan is elected leader while Team Sanctuary again provides utilities Team Humanity delivers a HUGE stockpile of weapons, ammo and grenades (benefit of winning as warlord) to them. This, along with the fact that pretty much every neighboring enclave is some form  of military group, makes the plague hearts in the region a piece of cake.

Squidman Dan wastes no time in recruiting soldiers Zeb, Rocio, Hailey and Kraken and establishes a trade summit among all the remaining soldiers. Some idiot thieves try to crash the party and get themselves killed easily. The zombie horde that comes to checkout the gunfire afterwards takes longer to clear out but are not a problem for a room full of armed and trained soldiers (on this difficulty). Once Zeb and Dan kill the final juggernaut in melee, the summit is a success and Dan secures his legacy (map victory). These successes have let the survivors expand the territory greatly, but now find their borders next to zones where the blood plague is more intense.

Insight: Trader leaders seem to be rare, and that's possibly because their legacy quests are super easy. Also without fail, every single game one survivor is going to have a prepper aunt whose quests eventually provide a jeep and a .22 silenced rifle.

State of Decay 2: Team Humanity

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With a surplus of fuel, Val sends out heart destroying teams armed with molotovs which does the job nicely while she plays peacekeeper between the enclaves of Rashida and Peyton. These two eventually join the Stragglers too as they end up saving each other more and more often. Soldier Umoren and squidman Dan also join, arriving with the warning that a large group of bandits is arriving into Drucker County. Umoren and Val deal with their many scouts and then find their base of operations, using long range sniping to take down all of them. With them gone Val is certain her legacy is secure (map victory) and they never had to move base once!

You'll need at least nine molotovs minimum per heart.

Downey isn't happy there though, so she takes the soldier Umoren and bad girl Rev from Team Sanctuary to Cascade Hills to settle into a house that looks a lot like the last base she was in. At least this one has higher walls. While Team Sanctuary continues to provide utilities to that region, the trio also get daily gifts from Val's Stragglers (benefit of winning as sheriff, you can have two benefits active). Surprisingly, it is Rev who earns the leadership of this group: team Humanity, as her goals align with that of Downey and Umoren. First job: build an army.  

Helping people around the hills they manage to recruit Nancy, Nestor, Lance, and stray cat Brandon. Alas, Nancy is exploded to death when she uses molotovs on a plague heart within an LPG warehouse, and Lance is killed in a firefight against people abducting doctors. Doctor Monique takes his place as the team moves into a huge container fortress that easily houses them all, even when soldier sisters Krissy and Parniyan arrive. Other than the heart in the LPG warehouse, the rest are pretty straightforward to clear with this team - even when low morale (out of meds) has them grumbling and considering exiling their leader Rev.

Insight: It took me a long time to work out that outposts have lockers that you can deposit and withdraw items to and from your main base. This makes looting easier as you don't always need to go back, unless you want to deposit rucksacks.

State of Decay 2: The Stragglers

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Splitting into pairs, all the plague hearts turn out to be easy to destroy without any particular tactics (easy mode), and team Sanctuary gains new recruits cowgirl Maddie and Des. With that done team Sanctuary moves base a few times over the next few days while Dr. Hurt tries to work out how to plug in electricity. Eventually this is sorted out when they move into the local fire station which has its own power supply. Soon enough, other people come to request entry into the team and while Dr. Hurt accepts bad girl Rev and good girl Goose - he is forced to turn away others.

This group of unwanteds eventually returns in a pitiful attack which gets them all killed, but the gunfight does draw in a lot of zombies including freak types of bloaters (poison gas), screamers (summon more zeds) and a juggernaut (fat tank). The base holds easily and with that, Dr. Hurt knows his legacy is secure (map victory)! It isn't long before Val and Downey want to run their own place though, so they and Downey's bro Jamaar head on to Drucker Country where they establish a base in a nice house, with utilities supplied by Team Sanctuary (benefit of winning as builder).

Dr. Hurt advises a buckshot diet to this juggernaut.

 

Val and Jamaar go assist new neighbors Rachel and Beth against thieves, "the Furies", and this time Val tries to make peace. The Furies seemingly accept handing over the goods, but immediately go hostile once Val picks them up. The ensuing fire fight draws zombies in and some of the Furies escape while Jamaar is turned into a blood zombie. Val shoots him in the face and takes the two new girls back to base to break the bad news to Downey. Not only did Val kill her brother, by default she is voted leader of this group: "the Stragglers". To reinforce her position, Val also quickly recruits Lory and ex-cop Katz before planning out how to clear the many plague hearts in this area.

Insight: Apparently, to learn electronics you need to read computer books, which is completely different from electrics - for which you need utility books. For me that was very obscure. Also if you recruit one person from an enclave, the rest of the enclave disbands so choose wisely whom you pick, or if its more beneficial to have a friendly enclave around (especially on harder difficulties).

State of Decay 2: Team Sanctuary

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

At some undisclosed location, Red-Talon soldiers desperately try to hold their position against hordes of zombies while their tech works on the relay to the AI code named CLEO to provide support against the growing undead illness. It does not go well for them.

Shouldn't have used all those wall repair kits earlier on...

At Providence Ridge, an odd group of survivors makes their way to a nearby Firewatch tower to serve as their base. Military girl Val, Dr. Hurt, Downey and her brother Jamaar decide to stop here as Jamaar has been infected by the new blood plague which is being spread by infected zombies recently. At least they are easy to spot, having blood red skin and glowing red eyes instead of the glowing yellow eyes the "regular" zombies do.

Luckily Dr. Hurt knows how to produce a cure if he can get his hands on some plague samples from the infected zeds, so Downey goes to work and finds another group of survivors that want to destroy the nearby plague heart which causes this infection. Joined by handyman William, old Dorothy and female soldier Parker they locate and destroy the horrible looking construct with melee weapons even as it calls waves of zombies to defend it. Fortunately the infection rate here is very minimal (easy mode) and everyone survives.

The next day there is already unrest at the camp as to who should lead. Downey's idea of taking control by force is outvoted immediately while Val blows her chance at becoming "sheriff" when she tries assist another pair of survivors against some thieves. Harsh words and gunfire are exchanged, after which Val takes survivor Douglas back to camp. By default, Dr. Hurt becomes leader as his plan is simply to build a big, self reliant base. His first mandate though: destroy all the remaining plague hearts in the area, because the best defense is a good offense. Thus team Sanctuary is born!

Insight: In Daybreak horde mode, your tech needs to survive seven waves of baddies which was clearly intended for multiplayer. Solo wise best I've done is reach the half way point of round 5. You can buy a lot of time if you fight outside the barricade, especially in the earlier rounds. It pays to learn the dodge counter (C forward through an attacking zed then E its back) as that helps in the main game too.

It's been a long time since I played State of Decay, but its nice to see that my tips for that game still mostly work for this one too! Settings wise I'll be starting from the easiest of easy modes and working my way up slowly using custom difficulty sliders through this story.

Diary of Zombies

Much like Dead Island, my brothers and I are playing Dying Light on coop and are having a blast, though that does mean story updates may be slower to arrive. Hope you enjoy the tale - spoilers ahead! Also, this will be the base for any future zombie related game stories! :)

Book 1 - Dying Light
Chapter 01 - First Bite
Chapter 02 - Firey Workout
Chapter 03 - Getting the Drop
Chapter 04 - Nightmare Scenario
Chapter 05 - Slip and Slide
Chapter 06 - That's not Rais
Chapter 07 - Team Arrow
Chapter 08 - Junk Collectors
Chapter 09 - Temp Survivors
Chapter 10 - Fighting Back
Chapter 11 - Darwin Award
Chapter 12 - Prison Outbreak
Chapter 13 - Gladiator
Chapter 14 - Oh Baby 
Chapter 15 - Wizard Magic
Chapter 16 - Sad Face
Chapter 17 - Aldemir
Chapter 18 - Plan B
Chapter 19 - Solo Finale
Chapter 20 - Raishole
Chapter 21 - The Way Out
Chapter 22 - The Same but Different
Chapter 23 - Pump it Up
Chapter 24 - Racer X
Chapter 25 - All your Base
Chapter 26 - Powerless
Chapter 27 - Dirty Water
Chapter 28 - Heroes of the North
Chapter 29 - Power Up
Chapter 30 - Up Close and Personal
Chapter 31 - Getting High
Chapter 32 - Treasure Hunt
Chapter 33 - Desperate Measures
Chapter 34 - The Mother

Book 2 - How to Survive 2
Chapter 35 - Camp Plateau
Chapter 36 - Monster Fauna
Chapter 37 - Pylon-10
Chapter 38 - Festivals of the Dead
Chapter 39 - Base Expansion
Chapter 40 - It's Boring Now
Chapter 41 - Difficulty Up
Chapter 42 - What a Crap Game

Book 3 - State of Decay 2
Chapter 43 - Team Sanctuary
Chapter 44 - The Stragglers
Chapter 45 - Team Humanity
Chapter 46 - Hamlet Squad
Chapter 47 - The Dread Zone
Chapter 48 - Team Fortress
Chapter 49 - Nightmare Zone
Chapter 50 - Sanctuary II
Chapter 51 - Lethal Zone
Chapter 52 - Network Expedition
Chapter 53 - The Gauntlet
Chapter 54 - Odd Friends of Haven
Chapter 55 - Leaderfall
Chapter 56 - The Forsaken

This story has concluded! Thanks for reading!

State of Decay: Tips to reach Level 10 Breakdown

As a small break from my recent Farcry posts, I've finally reached level 10 in the Breakdown DLC of State of Decay and thought that I should share some tips for anyone else trying to do the same...

Know Your Valley
Regardless of what level you are on you will always be stuck in the same map only with less and less resources and more and more zombies. Make a mental note of where to get building materials and fuel as those will be your PRIME concern later on. In my case no matter where I start, I always head straight for the base with a tree house. Even at level 10, if you put two outposts in the houses just on the other side of the road your team can deal with all inbound hordes.

Unlock Those Heroes
Heroes have a "hero" trait that make them tougher than every other character. Even if you can't bring them due to space restrictions or they die, there is a chance that they will respawn with one of the enclaves in the later rounds. The only ones you shouldn't be actively trying to unlock are the ones that require you to die. Also, unlocking "the father" is a bit of a pain - and is best done on level 1 since you need every single type of building at max.

Train in Wits
Again a job to do in the early levels. To train, simply search search search. The higher this skill is, the less chance you'll make a big sound which will attract all the zombies around (the odds of which go up as you go further in the levels). You -really- want to avoid doing this by around level 5. Also, for this same reason you will love the "dead man" hero as he comes pretrained with max wits and the "ninja" specialty, enabling him to move faster in stealth, always be able to open doors silently, and will never make noise while searching.

Influence and Cars
In the first few rounds (probably up to level 3) you will have an abundance of influence and vehicles to go around. Use them! Unlocking and keeping Ray with you is a big help with his special ability to spawn a car near you. Finding vehicles later on within reachable distance is near impossible, and they become fragile pieces of paper so the farther you get, the more careful you have to be with hitting zombies (ie. don't). With influence, always have a partner in the first few levels to assist in training up but around level 4 you'll need to start flying solo. The reason for this is two fold: a) you'll need a lot of influence to repair the RV and b) your assistant can get themselves killed if they decide to go home (tired or enclave mission start or RV found). To this end I've also been getting by with only constructing the basic medical tent in my base and nothing else.

Packing Your Stash
Somewhat carrying on from the last point, all your stuff goes with you to the new level BUT your influence will drop back to zero! Make sure that whoever is going takes a big backpack and loads up on bullets before you leave, then puts the bullets back in when you get to the next stage. Bullets have the best influence trade ratio of 1:1 where other items will lose influence when traded in. Also there is an item limit which will really be annoying later as you won't be able to put in weapons for influence. To that end, when you loot be sure to pick up stackable stuff like meds, snacks, clocks etc as you can fit more in there.

Strength in Numbers
When going scavenging far from base (far could be a mere two blocks in the later levels due to the amount of wandering hordes, individual zombies and specials) it is always best to bring allies. In the earlier levels you can simply spend influence to get a follower but later on, when you are trying to save all the influence for the RV, you'll need to time your runs when others so happen to join you. In other words during enclave missions, or training missions, or best of all - survivors joining missions, make a detour to search a few spots for things you may need. 

Runners and Dump Trucks
Zombies respawn at an ever increasing rate, so especially in sites that are far away it is a valid plan to load up all the bagged goods and dump said items on the street, then make a few rounds of picking them up with a vehicle. It's a lot safer for a curb side pickup instead of having to go into a house again (zombies love spawning on your vehicle). Also, when using runners you have two options in the later levels: a) shadow them and escort them all the way or b) get the hell out of dodge. The second option only works because of how the zombies populate. They spawn in a radius around where -you- are (memory saving for the game). Thus if a runner is in your vicinity and you are not helping him out then he will be in trouble. If you are on the other side of town then he'll pretty much have a free run.

Silence is a Virtue
Stealth and silenced firearms become more and more important as you go up in levels, though ironically the firearms are really only useful for the unarmored specials. I say this because the amount of zombies wearing body armor (bullet immunity) later on is quite high. It will pay to figure out the best "bush concealed" paths earlier in your run before you really need them. Remember that "z" will instantly kill a zombie from stealth BUT it will make noise! Sometimes it's better to just ninja your way past everything.

Know when to Flee, and when Not To
This is more common sense than anything. If you spot something you can't handle, go the other way and come back later (when it despawned or moved on). If you make a loud noise while scavenging, drop everything - jump out a window (or nearest door) and get to your car or nearest shrub, ready to dodge roll your way out of trouble if needed. If you have 3 other survivors with you and an enclosed room however, it maybe a better idea to stand and fight where the zombie swarm can only come at you a few at a time. This generally goes out the window around level 8 or 9 as the zombies are just too numerous and too strong for defense in a non-barricaded house. Guess I should mention barricades attract "active" zombies and can serve as a good way to thin out an attacking force instead of them all coming in at once.

Down Time
Time continues while you are not playing. While in the lower levels having a high morale will prevent bad things happening to you, later on (for me level 7) regardless of morale if you left someone missing you'll come back to find them dead. Treat your team oriented missions as high importance before logging off. Never mind the enclave stuff so much. Also, after sometime you will get the "rumors of an RV" mission which saves you having to drive around randomly to look for it. Just gather up as much material and fuel as you can (ammo and food are easier to find) until you get the exact location of the thing.

Fate is Against You
Each level not only do the zombies become more numerous but they also get stronger, faster, deadlier and have more specials, infestations and hordes. You on the other hand will get tired faster, have a harder time breaking their holds (ferals become almost certain death), and will slowly notice your radar become unreliable as it slowly no longer tracks hordes nor displays the little dots for zombies making it easier for them to get the jump on you, especially in the dark. Unless you are really good then you'd best time your game time to coincide with day time.

State of Decay

I got State of Decay as an early Christmas present and I must admit I've been playing it for weeks now. For those who don't know what it is, it's a zombie apocalypse survival game where in you form a ragtag band of survivors and try to eke out a continued existence while foraging for supplies and defending your base from the seemingly infinite undead. For the most part it is a very good game, and certainly has the best car to zombie physics/mechanics I've seen. Combat is simple and smooth (unless you get grabbed in which case it becomes button mashing) and there's even a low-level base building component that cater to those who are strategists.

You can and will need to swap between any survivor in your group as your people get hurt, sick, or more often - just tired and perform worse. Other able bodied survivors will go off and do their own thing as well, which usually results in you having to save them from stupidity and depression. There is a plot too supposedly, but for me I think it broke because no more storyline missions are appearing so that kinda blows. My biggest gripe however is that it is too easy. You will never lose people if you are patient, careful, never travel alone, and have a vehicle nearby.

 Probably still wouldn't want to do this though.

All that is fixed (for me) in the Breakdown DLC. The storyline goes out the window and it becomes a case of how long can you survive while "unlocking" achievements complete with larger spawns as you progress via RV from stage to stage. Yeah, the stages are still on the same map and you are never really pressured in advancing - until you run out of foragable supplies I suppose. Still on Stage 1 at the moment, preparing as much gear as I can. Just for kicks, I'll set a goal to reach stage 10 now - but I want to get all the unlocks on the way so we'll see how that goes. State of Decay: I give it eight out of ten zombie body parts. Definitely a good game, especially with the Breakdown DLC.

December Difficulties

Hello all. Due to my father having a stroke recently the updates to this blog will be fluctuating somewhat,  as real life always takes precedence over my virtual one(s). This will probably mean December will see less activity than usual but I thought I'd still put up a list of the things that I'd like to try get done game or blog wise. Some items have carried over from the last list and as usual if it's on there hen there's a good chance I'll blog about it, though I doubt I'll get through all of it this month.

My to do list for December (no particular order):

• Reach Mastery Rank 7 in Warframe (currently rank 5). (dropped)
• Finish that second quest in the Neverwinter Online Foundry.
• Write the first part of my guild's history. Zero progress on that so far.
• Put up mapping aides for Wizardry Online. (done)
• Review State of Decay. (done)
• Review indie game Papers, Please. (done)
• Continue adventures in the Darklands. (on-going)
• Put up another Today I Smiled post (done).