Game #9 : Zone (1988)
Summary :
I. First decisions
II. First exploration
III. First combat
IV. Playing defence
V. Operation Pyrrhus
VI. Rest, Repair & Recon
VII. The formula
VIII. Loss of time
IX. The End
Do you CRAVE for the smell of burning rubber and gasoline ? Do you EMBRACE the law of the road ? Do you LISTEN to the music of the HOWLING METAL ?
Take YOUR place in YOUR gang. JOIN our ANARCHIST collective and together let's SURVIVE !
Also tell us what you prefer to WORK with ! Your BIKE ? Maybe something heavier, like a TANK ? Your WRENCH ? Your bare KNUCKLES ? Or maybe you are just BIG-MOUTHED ? Just tell us you are not one of those PSYCHIC WEIRDOS !
So I am going a bit out of brand with a 1988 weird French game that had been tempting me for a while. Part gang-management (food, fuel and morale), part RPG (character progression, equipment, dungeon crawling), part arcade, totally French Touch, totally weird - let's do it !
The documentation is lackluster (I think on purpose !), I am not even sure what's the final objective of the game is, but the game has some great dynamics for a collective AAR (strong uniqueness of characters, group split, a lot of open options, ...), so we will work as an anarchist commune, and take the decisions together ! Just sign-up !
We will start one article after my upcoming Islandia article, so in roughly one week - if I have enough players.
Some teasers :
"Terror hit like a truck"
"Chris is hit by a ray"
Resources found on Sitia : Food, fuel, stuff. Do we load in the tank ?
"French touch" doesn't mean weird things, right? RIGHT
Like, can we talk and there isn't Jean Reno trying to get us
Of course I'm in. I'm a sucker for postapoc. I'll also take the Talkin' role, because I'm very good at it and no bloodthirsty at all.
Meet "Meat". He do some fixin' and he do some hittin'.... same same.
Brule-Goudron, but everybody calls me BG. Just don't get between me and my BIKE, and everything will be alright.
I want to be a psychic weirdo.
Well, here are our gang members so far :
The only stats I can choose are the one of the MC - Scribe. The rest of the gang members are created (we start with 12) and they have their own stats, so I just allocated each of you to the gang member that fit the most, or rather, Porkbelly used an hexadecimal editor to replace the default name of the gang members by you.
A few other notes
- All stats are ranked from 0 to 5, but the maximum one can start with is 3.
- Argyra starts sickly (the arrows on the left), Dayyalu in not perfect health
- Brûle-Goudron (Helly) starts (by default) with his own bike ["moto"] which he will never ever give to anyone - once a vehicle is attributed, it is impossible to change. This gives him a great mobility for recon mission on the world map, but more on this when the game starts.
I'm a veteran of a thousand psychic wars, of course I'm not well!
It's cool we get our names in the game, well done Porkbelly!
Good. I found some goggles, gotta keep the ambience up. *coffs*
I SALUTE YOU, MY NEWFOUND COMPANIONS! At last my travels and travails are over, and hopefully I've found a new , comfortable home amongst you, men of grit and mettle. Long have I suffered after escaping from the swamps beyond the Southern Mountains, always one step ahead from the awful servants of the Dark God Schei! But now it's all behind me. Great things aw.... wait, is that "Meat" guy chomping on some dude's leg?
ah, la touche française.... sign me up, fam!
I'll take TRUCKIN'. Post-apocalyptic Paris could use a few garbage trucks, I'm sure.
Rock on, my dudes!
I'm a rider, cuz like, riding on down the highway is like my passion, man. But I got a lot of passions. I'm a man of many talents. If there's no ride, I also know my way around a wrench (hittin'), a wrench (talkin'), a wrench (fixin'), or, like, a psychedelic manifestation of a wrench in your MIND, man (psyin').
Sign me up, too!
I'm sure you can find some love for good ol' Karbon in your shrivelled little black hearts, can you? For good ol' Karbon and his two fists, which do all the talking, and the two feet, which do all the moving.
Stuff is distraction. You can live and kill just as well with just the hands your mom have left you with when she pushed you into this world.
The game limits the names to 8 characters so
Strange Fellow => S Fellow
KarbonKitty => Karbon K
I will update the player list shortly, but note that we start with only two motorcycles, and Strange Fellow just took the second one, so any other biker will actually start on foot. Less chance to be killed by the RNG in a scouting mission I guess.
Similarly, Gubisson is driving the only tank we start with. To be honest, these "tanks" are probably APCs or IFVs given it can carry men and stuff but the game calls them "char" (= "tank").
I. First decisions
Uh, hey, fellas... Gather 'round, I got somethin' to tell y'all. So, like, last night, I had this... uh... dream thingy. Yeah, and it was like a... sign or somethin', ya know?
So, in this dream, there was this... uh... priest guy, and I think we gotta, like, find him or somethin'. I dunno why exactly, but it felt important, ya know? Like, really important.
Welcome in Zone !
We don't have a lot of backstory to work with, one page only :
"Survival is the concern of every moment for the few human beings who did not perish during the Great Conflict. As at the dawn of humanity, they have grouped together into tribes of several dozen people. They struggle to appropriate the scarce stocks of preserved food that remain in the gutted stores. Some people try to rebuild a semblance of civilization, each microcosm choosing to prioritize one path or another. Aware of the stakes, they willingly help those who come to seek their assistance. But for most, the survivors of the Great Conflict have become aggressive, especially when it comes to looting the scarce remaining fuel depots, or recovering spare parts needed to maintain their two-wheeled vehicles, the steeds of these times of violence.
More seriously, radiation is omnipresent. Most living beings are sick and weakened. The most resistant species are undergoing significant mutations. Some are beginning to develop monstrous power. Ionizing radiation has altered the appearance of some humans, molding them in the image of their worst nightmares. A radioactive cloud continues to spread its deadly seed at the mercy of the winds.
A priest-doctor found a biological formula that could save humanity. But a powerful group of depraved individuals has taken the secret for themselves and killed the good man.
This is where your story begins.
So, priest-doctor search & too-late-to-rescue it is !
But first, let's check our gang :
- Valero, Barbara, Tanith and Rambo are "NPCs" and can be replaced by future players. The rest is you guys, except that I had only 7 letters and not 8 after all.
- The arrows on the left is the health level, going from two arrows up to two arrows down. Below two arrows down, you are dead.
- Strange Fellow and Brûle-Goudron (BG) have a motorcycle, Gubison has an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) that does both combat and mass transportation,
- You are all ordered by rank, by this I mean that if myself (Scribe) and Dayyalu leave the base, Argyra will be the one reporting on what happens in the base on radio and I think his stats will be used if needed. Similarly, if I send an expedition I am not part of, whoever is first in the list is going to be the leader.
We start in the region of Mordua. The rest of the map is a blank state. In each region, there could be other tribes, friendly or hostiles, old abandonned stuff, or nothing. Presumably, whoever killed that priest is someone around there. And no, we are not relocating to "Fapisia".
.
In the East, you can see in green the "radioactive cloud". It moves over time with the wind. I have no idea what it does, but it can't be good.
So this is our base camp, and all its VGA glory. From the top-left icon (map), we are somewhere in France, or in something that used to be France anyway.
The game has a lot of "HELP" menu, which I translated :
Not a lot of options right now :
- We don't know any place where we could send people to train,
- We have no group outside to call back,
We can check the inventory :
- We have food for 58 days for 12 people
- We have 1650 liters of fuel which means 68 days of moto or 22 days of IFV
- It takes 5 days to assemble a moto and 17 for an IFV (it depends on how good our fixers are) but we don't have the spare parts for any.
So... what's our opening moves for the coming days ?
For now, we have only 2 types of actions available :
- Send scouts, either on foot, on IFV or on motorcycle. Motorcycles move ("only") 5 times faster than foot, IFVs twice faster. Scouts move to a destination, report on what they find and then automatically return at base, avoiding contact if they meet hostiles (though sometimes the hostiles have the jump on them),
- Send a group, theorically either on foot, on IFV or on motorcycle. A group is at least 2 people and then as large as needed. They are twice slower than scouts. Once they reach a location, a group reports on radio and automatically engages hostiles, if any. If a team finds stuff AND has the IFV, then they can load the IFV and bring whatever they find to the base. It also means that if we lose the IFV before being able to build another one we are screwed and it is effectively game over (I think you can carry some ridiculously small amount of cargo on foot, but come on). There are probably more stuff a group can do if they find friendlies, but I have not tested the game much.
If I am in a group, I can move the group to a new location after reaching the destination. Else, a group can only be ordered to stay put or to return to base.
Notes :
- The base camp can be attacked. If I am at the base, then I will defend it myself in GLORIOUS arcade combat. If not, well, hopefully whoever we left in command has some skill in something else than "fixing" and "being a weirdo". Of course, groups or scouts outside can also be attacked. Sometimes, we receive forewarning of an incoming attack. Sometimes not.
- Staying at home allow wounded / sick gangmembers to heal back.
Here are the distances from the base camp (in days, back & forth for scouts). Keep in mind a motorcycle goes 5 times faster, so it takes 10 days for a group to reach Dragor on foot, 10 days for a scout to go there and return, and 2 days for a scout on moto to go there and return.
I will collect all proposals, and organize a vote if needed. For now, we don't have that many options.
So, I might have taken too many gas pedal bonks to the head, but I think this would probably be a unique opportunity to start exploring TOWARDS the current location of the radioactive cloud (since a strong wind points eastward, I am guessing the cloud will be moving further away from us).
I agree we probably shouldn't risk the IFV (and, conveniently, my own skin as local IFV specialist :P) until we're able to build a backup. The combo of Scout + motorcycle seems most efficient, and we have two motorcycles. so maybe send two of our bravest souls towards (closes eyes and points finger at map) Nork & Yage?
Update: after rechecking the screenshots above, there's conflicting info on the direction of the wind. Maybe our beloved Scribe can clear up the confusion.
Quote from Gubisson on 5 April 2023, 11h12So, I might have taken too many gas pedal bonks to the head, but I think this would probably be a unique opportunity to start exploring TOWARDS the current location of the radioactive cloud (since a strong wind points eastward, I am guessing the cloud will be moving further away from us).
I agree we probably shouldn't risk the IFV (and, conveniently, my own skin as local IFV specialist :P) until we're able to build a backup. The combo of Scout + motorcycle seems most efficient, and we have two motorcycles. so maybe send two of our bravest souls towards (closes eyes and points finger at map) Nork & Yage?
Update: after rechecking the screenshots above, there's conflicting info on the direction of the wind. Maybe our beloved Scribe can clear up the confusion.
Good catch. The wind changes every day (indicated as "Vent faible" [Weak wind] or "Vent fort" [Strong wind] + direction at the top of the screens), and the time for me to take all the screenshots the day changed twice.
In the future I will use a video (and then capture screenshots from it), for now assume we are the 4th of March, 2039, soft wind blowing East to West.
I like the "explore the areas next to the nuclear cloud if there is an opportunity" idea
I'll agree with that. If the bikers have cold feet then let's send some NPC scouts east on foot (jabs stick at Rambo and Barbara).
Is there any possible value in searching our current location for more supplies?
Quote from Porkbelly on 5 April 2023, 15h47I'll agree with that. If the bikers have cold feet then let's send some NPC scouts east on foot (jabs stick at Rambo and Barbara).
Is there any possible value in searching our current location for more supplies?
Good question. As far as I understand, areas are either explored or not-explored. One scout is enough to see everything there is to see. For sure you cannot explore the region where the base camp is.
It also means the total amount of resources available is limited.
I'd vote to be more conservative, scouting closer areas will give us easier-to-exploit resources. And I'd rather NOT get closer to the radioactive clouds of Cisalpine Gaul. Maybe we can get what kind of mutant Spaniards are around? My vote is to send two of our Biker Warriors to scout Hupas and Tartar, both require just 4 days.
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 5 April 2023, 15h57It also means the total amount of resources available is limited.
There's no chance of winning this, right?
I can’t answer the last question. For all I know the game is trivially easy, or buggy and impossible. No one documented finishing it. No one documented it, really, except a French abandonware site, which seem to have liked it.
Hupas and Tatar would take 4 days to someone on foot, but only one day back and forth for a biker. You have to divide by 5 for riders so even Tagh would take only 6 days (the time unit is the day).
Yeah, you don't get a bike just to _not_ use it, the way I see it! But I'd vote for scouting the closest areas first, too, since we can get some of them with minimal turn-around time. And we will need to scavenge some stuff with IFV to be able to build a second one, right? I guess nobody is happy about carrying the IFV worth of parts on their backs back to base just to avoid risking the one we already have?
Also, the sooner the scouts are back, the sooner we know where we can find someone to hit in the face. That sounds like useful information.