The Walking Dead rpg/Dead Rising 2

In case you're unaware, The Walking Dead is a brilliant comic about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, and how a group of people survive. The emphasis is on character development and interaction over the long term, something which is scarcely seen in zombie fiction. Go here for more. Dead Rising is a brilliant survival horror game by capcom featuring zombies and sandbox-style gameplay. Its great aesthetic achievement is the massive number of zombies which can be present at any time, and the very realistic design and interactivity of the mall it takes place in. Aside from simple survival, one of the main gameplay activities is bringing other survivors back to the safe area. Go here for more.

Since I played through Dead Rising, I've had a lot of ideas for what might be in a sequel or spinoff. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I'd like to take the engine that runs DR and its moment-to-moment gameplay (both of which are very effective generally), and make it about long-term survival and community-building. This reminded me immediately of The Walking Dead. It would be really cool to not just deal with an immediate escape from the zombie menace (which is what most zombie fiction and games are about), but explore what a group of survivors does to try and stabilize their new reality.

In DR, I like how each individual survivor has its own AI and capabilities. Some are helpful, attacking nearby zombies. Some are trouble, walking slowly or requiring assistance constantly. I was thinking I'd like to expand upon that when it hit me: Suikoden! Suikoden is a fairly traditional Japanese rpg which has a particular shtick: you can recruit up to 108 characters to aid you in your quest, and they all live in your castle. Where it gets interesting is that many of them have a functionality within the castle, such as running the library or opening a store. I envision a similar structure for survivors. At some point in the game you establish a new home. If you rescue a doctor, you would then have access to healing or at least first aid. If you rescue an electrician you could have lights outside the building for protection at night,etc.

The degree and depth of simulation to include, along with the level of individual character customization, is an interesting question. If you failed to rescue the electrician, or he was killed on an outing, perhaps you go to a bookstore or library and scavenge a book on electronics, and have a survivor with sufficient intelligence study it. Do the survivors get tired or sick? Is there a strict accounting of necessities like food and fuel? Will food go bad without a form of storage or preservation? The extent of home management and realism will have a strong effect on how play time is spent. In DR, aside from using food to recover health, these types of mundane concerns are just story elements, not things the player deals with directly. Most of the player's time is spent going from place to place and/or killing zombies and psychopaths. Heavy simulation elements would probably take up a lot of time for the player. Personally, I would definitely enjoy survivor customization quite a bit, but it's hard to say just how much simulation would stop being fun and start being drudgery.

When you need to go out in the world, you decide which survivors to bring with you, like a standard rpg. The beauty of the DR engine is that it's designed to handle many, many characters onscreen at once (reportedly up to 800 zombies simulataneously), so normal party limits wouldn't apply. Want to take 20 people out with you to clear the zombies out of Wal-Mart to get more food? No problem. I would probably make them individually uncontrollable, just like in DR, but perhaps group commands could be given, or maybe allow the player to shift which survivor he controls at a given moment. There are a lot of possibilities for interesting gameplay and strategy. Do you take 20 survivors to overwhelm the zombies, risking the death of some, or take fewer which can be handled more precisely and easily, but with a much tougher fight?

Whether or not to include a traditional story element is a decision DR kind of side-stepped. There is a story, but aside from the beginning, which sets up the situation, the rest can be completely ignored if you choose (in fact, it's relatively difficult to get all the story on the first playthrough). Both the main story and various sidequests do include special content such as boss battles, which can relieve the inevitable boredom of killing zombies. I think I would approach it similarly, in that there would be story elements that will be discovered as time goes on, but it's up to the player to pursue them. However, I would also throw some degree of randomness into the mix as well. Maybe you encounter an evil group of survivors, or someone who can control zombies, etc. I don't have any particular story in mind right now, obviously.

This is very half-baked, not to mention very wishful thinking, seeing as I'm not an employee of Capcom or any other game publisher or developer. I think it's a cool idea anyway. As always, input is welcome.