DEAD MAN´S DIARY Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

DEAD MAN´S DIARY Free Download GAMESPACK.NET What does Dead Man’s Diary have to do with buses? Well, it’s developers TML Studios first foray into survival territory when perhaps they’re best known for bus simulators such as Fernbus and a busload of other titles. That doesn’t mean anything, but that’s our intro dealt with. Set in a post-apocalyptic environment – a fictitious one – the visuals are very real. Graphics can be a subjective one. Some like pixel art; others like to be able to look up girls’ skirts by staring into puddles. Me? I’m easily pleased. Though the setting can be somewhat depressing, the nature elements are lover-ly. That ‘less is more’ factor is mirrored in Dead Man’s Diary gameplay: there’s a lot of wandering around aimlessly, with little to see or do. Primarily, you’ll look for scraps to build a camp, supported by an inventory the size of a thimble. Post-apocalyptic living ain’t that cool. Besides hunger and dehydration, there are issues with the temperature, battery life for your gear, a piano that chases you accompanied by a trail of cans (‘jump scares’), and radiation. TOP/BEST ADULT VIDEO GAMES IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)

DEAD MAN´S DIARY Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

You’ll find food and drink in abundance, but before you can collect them, you’ll have to scan it for radiation. Oh – you don’t have a Geiger meter? Good luck finding one. That’s your first hour of gameplay. When you do find the Geiger meter, eight in ten supplies are contaminated, meaning you can’t do anything with them. On top of that, you have to find components that are incredibly limited. There aren’t any maps, no radars, hotspots – anything for that matter. When starting Dead Man’s Diary, the game said to press the A button. I mean, I didn’t have to follow these instructions, but I played with a controller, and it was… so-so. Despite being impressed by the opening forest scene and getting lost a couple of times, it wasn’t long until the 90s invisible walls appeared. The protagonist barking, “Dude! Where am I?” didn’t help. Dead Man’s Diary gameplay is initially in the dark, and boy is it dark. Ideally, you want to have the torch in your hand. However… you need to switch to the Geiger meter frequently. On a controller, there’s no binding to switch appropriately. Likewise, with the mouse and keyboard you have to press the mouse wheel then A or D to select. The torch? Press F. The Geiger meter? Nothing. This setup was atrocious. I looked at the settings a couple of times and eventually gave up and stopped searching for food.

Survive! Food, Water, Sleep – the protagonist has realistic needs.

Unfortunately, the game will keep chipping away at your health, so you HAVE to find supplies to stay alive. Wandering around in the dark, desperately looking for one piece of fabric had me running out of batteries. Playing in the dark was practically impossible, so I did the next best thing: I turned up the brightness on my monitor for a milky experience. Up until this point, I was not enjoying the game at all. Sure, it looked the part, but gameplay consisted of searching for items for a character I could care less about. When I eventually found my gear, I set up camp, saved the game then headed out. Yay – daytime! The visuals once again softened the mood but walking deeper into the woods, I’m told I have to leave some inventory behind to proceed. I do this, then find out I have to do the same thing again and set up camp, having disposed of the gear. At least I unlocked the photo mode, but the settings were all in German, and as lovely as it would be to dust off my non-existent skills… Nah. I think we’ve hit the wall on this one. The largest design flaw in Dead Man’s Diary’s survival is that it dissuades players from being resourceful. There are so many issues here I don’t even know which point to start off with, so I’m going to pick a familiar mechanic to talk about: the inventory. Foxhole

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I think the concepts like inventory management have existed for so long in video games that many people, including developers, don’t realize how adjusting this simple system can have drastic consequences. Dead Man’s Diary copies the inventory system from The Last of Us where you can carry three of each different type of item, regardless of what else you are holding. So for example, if you come across four pieces of cloth, you can only pick up three. It doesn’t matter if the rest of your inventory is empty or packed with other items, it only cares about how many cloth you have. Now, I’m not a fan of TLoU’s inventory system, but it works for the type of game it is. However, the reason why the same system doesn’t work for Dead Man’s Diary is quite simple, this game forces you to manage your hunger, thirst, and radiation. In TLoU, your resources were weapons and health packs that can help you in a pinch, but not necessities. You don’t mind not being able to pick up that piece of cloth because you already have the max amount of bandages, shivs, and cloth you can already carry. This system utterly fails in a survival game where you need to manage your bodily needs. Especially considering the amount of food/water the game forces you to take every few minutes, it makes little sense why the player can’t make room to carry a few more bottles of water instead of three bales of hay.

All equipment can be upgraded at a workbench

Inventory management is a brilliantly simple mechanic that constantly tests a player’s resourcefulness. It makes them consider their surroundings, future plans, and priorities. These are all quintessential elements of an engaging survival game. Unfortunately, this game doesn’t allow you to manage your inventory at all. Dead Man’s Diary uses this survival mechanic only as a simple gameplay loop, and the needs are quite arbitrary. Each chapter essentially boils down to a single day, and your objective is to gather supplies to build a shelter. The amount of food and water you need completely depends on how quickly you can build it. So if you can speed run it, you don’t need any food or water for the day, but if you take time to explore, you are going to need huge amounts. You might have noticed something there. That’s right, the game actively punishes exploration. Since you can’t stockpile resources, the most optimal way to “survive” is to find the pieces to finish the chapter and go to sleep ASAP. There aren’t any optional specialty tools you can find in the environment that changes your game either. To make this all worse, you can’t even take down your old camp to help make a new one. You use a bedroll once, it’s done. Somehow the post-apocalyptic survivor is more wasteful than a modern-day millionaire. Forza Horizon 5

DEAD MAN´S DIARY Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

If you are lucky enough to get past those two hurdles and find a decent supply of food, Dead Man’s Diary can be a lot of fun. The best advice I can give to players in this game is to look everywhere. If you find a note that sends you one direction, follow it. If you come across a locked box, open it. If you don’t need an item but come across it, pick it up. The last thing you want to do is be caught without something you need. Because as soon as that happens, death is usually right around the corner. Now the nice thing about dying in Dead Man’s Diary is that you don’t have to start over from the beginning. Instead, you start over a few moments before your death with a small grace period. For example, if you die from thirst, you won’t be thirsty when you respawn, but the issue of looking for water is still a must. So time is of the essence if you don’t want to repeat your death. Not to mention any items you might have found leading up to your death, will be gone. While finding things can be a little unbearable at times, one of the elements that are really enjoyable is the graphics. The imagery is so life-like, it really pulls the player into the game. Each area is filled with so many things to look at and search through, it is easy to become hyper-focused and lose track of everything. This is great for a game that builds heavily on jump scares and loud noises to catch you off guard.

The large game world and the comprehensive story ensure 50 hours of gaming fun

Along with the realistic graphics, it is pretty simple and easy to learn the ropes of the game. While there seems to be a lot to learn at the start, it’s all broken down and easy to learn. You will learn abilities like jumping, crouching, and belly crawling when the moment arises. While the inventory is pretty organized and easy to understand. The only downside in this area is the fact that the inventory quickly caps out. But on the other side, that only makes it even more realistic as a survival game. One of the things that steal the show is the plot. There is a lot of story to go through and it is told through diary entries. To some, this might be overkill, especially with the long periods of talking. But for players who love story, or background information, it is definitely well thought out and intriguing. However, it is safe to say that the story isn’t captivating enough to get players to push through the burnout they might experience while on the hunt. It all boils down to the Geiger meter and if you will be able to find it. The fact that the game hinges on this one simple thing could make or break a player’s experience, says a lot about the game. Overall, Dead Man’s Diary has amazing graphics, near endless exploration, and an interesting story but it could do with some tweaks to make it even better.

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Another frustrating thing about Dead Man’s Diary is that it can be unclear about what can be interacted with. This leads to another unfortunate sin in survival game design where your awareness of your surroundings is not properly rewarded. The most common example is needing to find certain resources like wood or rain protection. Rather than being able to use any lumber laying around, the game forces you to have to look for a specific 2×4 model. Same for rain protection where you need to find a specific tarp model and can’t use what’s in the environment. This includes tents that are already set up. This leads to awkward moments where the game still forces you to build a shelter in urban environments when there are a bunch of buildings and tents around. I say this with the understanding that sometimes we have to be able to accept “gamey-ness” in things and suspend disbelief. However, Dead Man’s Diary takes it to a whole new level of laziness. I understand they want to utilize all these assets and have all these survival objectives, but it’s also a developer’s job to find ways to make the game more immersive.

Speaking of immersion, there are invisible walls… everywhere. Sometimes the game hides it well within the environment, but there are so many that just doesn’t make any sense. This was actually the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. During my playthrough, there was an invisible wall that stopped me from being able to crawl through a hole. It was a little annoying, but that’s fine. But after an hour of trying to find the last item I needed for my tent, I discovered it was behind that exact hole I tried earlier. I just didn’t crawl underneath the “right” rubble from the “right” side. The problem here is the inconsistency. When you suddenly realize that invisible walls aren’t always a sign for you to explore elsewhere, the game gets incredibly frustrating. The core of the issue is that the game doesn’t commit to making a nameless player nor a compelling protagonist. The character constantly thinks for the player, makes decisions for the player, and has too much personality. This type of character is terrible for a player-insert because it makes it hard for players to immerse themselves. But the protagonist doesn’t have a name, a face, or relationships to really turn him into an actual character. He’s neither memorable nor likable. He sits in that awkward middle ground that’s impossible for the player to do either. Foretales Switch NSP

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