Dead State is turn-based RPG that features a third-person perspective. It is not currently known if the game features fixed camera angles, but it will have open-world exploration. There are several goals in the game, including protecting the shelter from zombies, managing a party of survivors, and searching for more supplies and weapons.
Turn-Based Combat
Dead State features turn-based combat instead of real-time gameplay. Players will have full control over their character, while other survivors in the party work on an AI system. Other survivors can be given commands on their turn and depending on the character's morale, other party members may or may not listen to the main character's requests in battle.
Skills & Stats
Dead State does not have a traditional numbered leveling system and instead features several skills for the player to upgrade throughout their game.
- Survival - This lets players travel faster on the map, avoid random encounters, harvest wild sources of food, and see greater distances.
- Mechanical - This lets the player have greater success when picking locks, scrapping weapons, upgrading weapons, and upgrading the shelter.
- Melee - This increases the player's proficiency with melee weapons.
- Ranged - This increases the player's proficiency with ranged weapons.
- Medical - This allows the character to heal more efficiently.
- Science - This lets the player discover new ways to upgrade weapons, craft items, and upgrade the shelter.
- Negotiation - Negotiation is helping when engaging in dialogue with survivors, and it can help a character to keep from losing morale.
- Leadership - This skill helps the player increase morale in the shelter and helps them to better control AI in combat.
Dead State also has stats for the main character.
- Strength - This boosts melee weapon damage and allows the character to carry more.
- Agility - This determines how many Action Points a character gets and boosts their combat evasion.
- Perception - This boosts the player's chance to hit distant targets, and it helps to give them a combat initiative.
- Vigor - This boosts the overall health points for the player.
The Shelter
The shelter is a major focus of the game, being the key to survival in the apocalyptic world. A former high school, it has been converted into a shelter for the survivors.
The shelter is where allies stay and where the player can store supplies and weapons. It can be upgraded with all kinds of different functions to support moral, health of the survivors, and even fortified. If the player's shelter is breached by zombies, then it's game over.
Open-World Exploration
Players will be unable to survive on their own and will have to explore the open world for supplies. Characters travel using the area map to reach different destinations, traveling from one point to another. This takes time and also causes fatigue on the survivors, so while destinations far away may have the best items, they will affect your teams health and morale.
Scavenging
Survivors will need to scavenge for food daily, while also searching for new weapons to fight off zombies. These items are found by leaving the compound and searching nearby building and streets for supplies.
Weapons
Both melee and ranged weapons are included in the game. Ranged weapons are more powerful, but they will make noise that attracts more zombies.
Dialogue
The game will feature many instances of dialogue where a player can make a choice on how to answer. These choices can affect the morale and mood of survivors at the compound, and they can also give the player stat or skill boosts.
Survivors
Survivors can be found throughout the world and they may join the player if they have enough supplies, a fortified shelter, and high morale. Survivors can also leave the compound if they become unhappy with the situation at the shelter, such as morale becoming too low. The benefit of having more survivors is the ability to assign them tasks to help improve the shelter or find supplies.
- Morale - Survivors will have some type of morale system that affects how allies will perform in combat and how they will listen to the main character. Morale is based on the items in the shelter, food levels, and the overall mood of survivors.
- Panic - If a survivor has low mood or low morale, they can enter a panicked state. Certain allies will panic in different situations, such as combat or seeing a zombie, while other allies will never become panicked.
Not all encountered survivors will want to join your group; in fact, they may try to kill you and your allies.
Zombies
The zombies in Dead State are described as being "slow, shuffling, stupid zombies". They can be encountered almost anywhere in the world and they are more likely to attack when the player is creating light or sound to draw them to their location.
Zombies can bite allies, leading to infection and death. Though the main character can be attacked, they will only be infected and killed in the harder mode of the game.
