Ok, just my two cents... but the blurb copy for the game in my opinion would sound more "personal" if it were told from one of the characters points of view...
but its just my opinion...
-Teal
edited - I just was looking for the 'voice' of one of the characters. hope i don't sound too full of myself, haha, just thought it might make the story a little like a dairy entry instead of a market blurb for a game... anyway... so much for my two cents...
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Revised Copy -
A Top-Down, 2D, Zombie Action-Puzzler-Adventure Game
Welcome to the Near Future!
Where the Dead roam the land, largely in the absence of living interference and animals spontaneously transform into twisted, violent things. Where the earth decays, collapsing into a network of abysses while the wilderness changes into dark shapes around us.
How did it all start you ask?
You been living in a hole all this time? Hehe, well... it just seems strange you know? Someone NOT knowing...
...It all started nine years ago... no one knows what happened. Germ warfare? A chemical accident, or nuclear leak causing massive mutations? Or God consigning a selfish and self important people to our own lurid consequences? We're just dealing with what is left. There are pockets of humanity that still exist, but we were mostly ignorant of one another. Within our isolated havens people tried to live their lives as best they could -- for even in a world so broken and dark, daily life must go on.
In the hill country of the eastern United States, my husband Darrell and I were able to build a tenuous life inside a five-acre fenced farm out in the country. Over time, we became secure enough in our isolated haven, at least in our minds, that we felt safe enough to have our daughter; Lela. She was born five years after the zombie-like grays first appeared.
Elsewhere, unknown to us, there was another refugee that was on the run with her six-year-old son, after the collapse of the compound in which they had lived fell to the corrupting world. But...she didn't survive. When we found him, on the edge of the woods beyond the fence, we took her son in -- but we didn't realize at the time that that one small and seemingly innocent action would destroy our home and threaten our entire family.
Features
* Environmental puzzles make up most of the game play. Figure out how to use the tools, traps, and weapons in each level to clear all the Grays.
* Grays aren't your typical zombies -- they have a lore all their own, and theirs is a very different sort of apocalypse than Zed's.
* Follow the story of Darrell and Mary as they try to save their family from a new and unexpected threat with in-game storytelling and painted-style cut scenes.
* Over 100 hand-crafted levels. Two very experienced adventure level designers are designing the adventure from end to end.
* Included level editor! The same editor used to make the main adventure will let you make your own levels, cut scenes, or even entire adventures.
* Local 2-player co-op. Using two game pads, two players on the keyboard, or any combination of the above.
* Multiple endings! Depending on your actions, the story may end very poorly, happily, or somewhere in between.
What Makes The Grays Different?
If you want absolutely no spoilers, don't read this section. However, we're not spoiling anything that you don't learn very early in the game.
No one knows why this happened, but nine years ago the Earth changed in a small, but very significant way, worldwide there is, on average, about 150,000 deaths every day. Day after day, people being born, people dying, for millions of years it hasn't changed.
But on That Day nine years ago, something happened... And rather than staying dead, every one of those 150,000 bodies came back to a form of half-life within just a few minutes of dying. Their skin takes on a grayish, waxy sheen, and they have incredible speed and power -- at least at first, that is. These "New Grays" are far more powerful than we ever were as just living people, at least for a little while, though eventually they fade and become one of the many other kinds of Grays that are out there. Still hugely dangerous, but not quite so terrifying.
The Grays have no interest in our brains, and the bites or scratches from them won't turn you into one. They seem to be driven by one thing, and one thing alone: rage. When they detect you, they will pursue you with single-minded purpose, driven to smash you to a pulp for reasons unknown.
The worst problem is, anytime someone dies -- of any cause at all -- they will turn into a Gray. So living in large groups has become dangerous... because any sickness, disease, injury or suicide means we suddenly have a Gray in our midst. Nine years after That Day, Grays are still being created every time one of us dies. There seems to be no end in sight, leastways... until all of us are gone.
Grays are hard to kill -- using regular weapons like guns and swords and knives are largely useless against them. There's only three things that we've found that are known to harm grays at all.
Fire consumes them, which means that grenades and bombs still work whereas most other weapons do not.
Water burns them, meaning that something as simple as a glass jar of water or a bucket of water can stymie them.
And lastly, they seem to find iron poisonous for reasons that are not clear to most people. Thus iron fences are one of the few things that can hold them back indefinitely, and old iron tools -- not steel ones, as steel and other metals do not have the same effect -- prove to be potent weapons.
The problem is , as its always been, is finding enough ammunition. It's hard to get a lot of buckets of water when the Grays are bearing down on you -- and things like iron sickles tend to break after a few hits against the hard skin of the Grays. Iron tacks work well as a trap, but there again these get smashed to bits as the Grays step on them. Therefore anyone wishing to move across the countryside is constantly having to scour for new traps and weapons to use against the ubiquitous Grays.
But There's More Than Just The Grays!
There are a dozen different kinds of Grays that you must face in the world of Shattered Haven, it's true. However, there are also a variety of spirits, corrupted animals/insects/arthropods, and evil sentient plants. Not to mention other environmental hazards like tornadoes and earthquakes, forest fires and the mysterious deep chasms that have opened up in the earth all over the place. There are also rumors of both rare "Meso Creatures" and horrifying Elder Creatures.
It all makes sleeping a mighty thin proposition, unless someone is standing guard. Used to be we didn't think like this when we had the farm. That's all changed now. Moving through the countryside, fighting against... it seems... almost everything. Finding a place to lay down and get some sleep while Darrell watches over me, and then waking me in the night, so i can stand guard while he catches some sleep... watching the darkness and listening to the sounds... until the sun comes up and there is some small respite. Whatever has happened to the world doesn't much like the sunlight, and so it receeds just a bit when daylight comes. We keep moving... still searching for the kids... hoping their still alive... hoping we can find them... that we can find a safe place to start over again...
Seems like a pipe dream sometimes I think to myself... feeling the dark weight of the world pressing down. Other times I figure that if I give in, that all I'm doing is letting the kids go, and I can't do that... sometimes you just have to go on, even when you can't see a way...
Just draw breath and keep moving... sometimes Darrell holds my hand while we're walking and the darkness seems a little less heavy...
When Can I Get This?
We're currently still working on getting the game ready for beta, including doing lots of artwork for it. We expect to have the game ready for a public beta in late February 2013, and we're planning on a 1.0 release in March 2013.
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Features
Bug? Suggestion?
Found a bug or want to suggest a feature? Please visit the Idea Tracker.
Copyright 2009-2011 Arcen Games, LLC
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