Deadbelt

The game

Some stats

16 × 16 km
of Western Pennsylvania
~20,000
procedurally generated buildings
~200,000
dead
~26,000
simulated animals (dogs, chickens)
5
tunnels
~740
miles of road
~5
miles of bridges
~30
handcrafted landmark buildings
1
airport
The whole map from above: wooded ridges in contour, the river winding through the valley, the towns along it, and every road.
The full map, as the game has it: every ridge, river, road and building.
From inside a dark room, through a window: figures standing still in a moonlit street.

The dead

  • If you are careless, expect massive hordes to aim for you and your base
  • Sound travels through walls and floors: your hammering draws them
  • Lure them away: make noise elsewhere, like an alarm clock ringing in a house down the street
  • In escalation mode, zombies feast on their rotting companions, and get stronger over time
Night in the woods: a survivor sits by a small fire, an open can on the ground, and a dog at the edge of the light, head low.

Dogs

  • Behaviour modelled on real dogs: hunger, fear, trust, and the pack
  • Loose packs from the start, hungry and wary of you; they know the dead by smell, and fear them
  • Shut-in dogs: a pet in a house, its owner turned in the next room. Let it out
  • Feed them and walk away, and a dog may stay; a whole pack can be won
  • A dog that trusts you fights by your side against the dead
  • Dogs sense the dead, defend your base, get hurt, and die
  • A dog keeps the loneliness down
  • A dog that lives at your place feeds off what you left it while you are away
  • They live their own lives: drink from creeks, hunt hens and rabbits, bark to rally the pack, and call the dead with it
  • Left alone, packs turn feral and dangerous over weeks; fire, a loud noise, or a steady stare holds them off
Dusk from a ridge above the valley: ridges fading into the distance, a figure on the rock looking out.

The valley

  • Inspired by the lore and area around Johnstown, PA
  • Modeled after real terrain
  • Streamed, fully persistent, chunk-based terrain without loading screens
A storm bank with rain beneath it coming over the ridge; a figure carries firewood toward a house with one lit window.

Weather and seasons

  • Realistic weather: fronts, wet spells, droughts, heat waves
  • Storms: blizzards, autumn downpours, summer thunderstorms
  • Snow: piles up, slows cars, the dead, and you
  • Shovel it: by hand, or with a plow blade mounted on a truck, and clear the roads yourself, or stay home
  • Tracks in the snow from the dead, from animals, and from you
  • Hunker down in your base to shelter against the weather (more below)
A window boarded with planks from inside, a candle on the sill; between the planks, the dead outside.

Your base

  • Temperature is modelled: heat sources spread warmth, broken windows let the wind and cold in, insulation holds it
  • Board up windows and doors from both sides
  • Build your own base, with the same pieces the houses are made of: walls, floors, roofs, fences
  • Fortify your base: wood walls first, then stone, then steel
  • Power it: hook up generators, solar panels and wind turbines
  • Catch rain in barrels and buckets, or secure a route to the nearest creek
  • Dig into the ground: make your own cellar or underground shelter
A house with one side caved in and dust rising; the dead in the street turn toward it.

Structure

  • Structural integrity: build carelessly, and your base comes down
  • Take out the wrong wall, and the noise, on top of the damage, will draw a horde aiming for your base
  • Without repairs, damage accumulates
From a porch at night: a house burning across the street, and a burning zombie walking toward the woodpile.

Fire

  • Fire spreads with the weather: in a dry summer, the woods around your base can burn
  • Fire jumps from roof to roof on the wind: a fire next door is your problem too
  • A base that burns down is lost for good
  • Be wary of the dead catching fire: for about an hour they roam around while slowly burning, setting things alight wherever they go
The valley at night from a ridge: the lights of the town, half of them gone dark.

A town running down

  • Utilities fail: power within days, then water, then gas
  • Food spoils: without power, fridges keep it for hours, freezers for a day
  • Search houses: some are packed up and empty, some looted, some still have the family inside, dead, with the pantry full
  • Gas stations run dry
  • Scavenge the town for food, tools and fuel while they last
At night in the street, a survivor fires a pistol; rings of sound spread into the dark where the dead turn.

Fighting

  • Shove a crowd back, strike while they stagger
  • Weapons wear out and break
  • Guns: every shot draws the dead to you, from farther away than you can see
  • Armor: leather and helmets stop bites, clothes tear where you are hit
By candlelight, a forearm resting on a table, a mark on it; a bandage roll and a bottle.

Your body

  • Infection: a bite turns you, a scratch might, and it spreads through your body; rest, food and water may help you fight off a small dose
  • Broken bones: either you have a fortified base with enough stockpiles, or you're as good as dead. A crutch and a splint help
  • Sickness: a cold from a room someone coughed in, dysentery from creek water you didn't boil
  • Body temperature: wet clothes and cold nights can kill you; dress for winter, and you stay warm well below freezing
  • Mood and loneliness weigh on you; a warm, safe base lifts your spirits
A basket of wild mushrooms; among the chanterelles and morels, one white mushroom.

Living off the land

  • Cooking: watch the pot, or it burns
  • Recipes: learn named dishes and fill your cookbook; a good meal fills you for longer, heals more, and lifts your mood
  • Forage by season, fish twenty species, set traps and snares
  • Farm by the real weather; build and secure a greenhouse, and grow food through the winter
  • Keep chickens well, and they lay eggs; cattle graze the pastures
  • Crafting: make tools, weapons and traps from what you find, or work out your own recipes
An open manual by an oil lamp, snow falling past the window.

Skills and books

  • 27 skills, from carpentry, masonry and mechanics to cooking, medicine and fishing
  • Skills level up as you use them
  • Your profession from before gives you a head start
  • Skill books: read the one for your level, and you learn faster
  • Crafting books teach you new recipes
In the rain, a survivor kneels by a wrecked car to take its battery; a pickup waits behind.

Cars

  • 14 vehicle families: sedans, hatchbacks, sports and muscle cars, pickups, SUVs, vans, minivans, police cars, ambulances, fire engines, a rescue truck, and a military utility truck
  • Parked where people left them, locked: find the key, or hotwire it
  • Every part wears: a car drives only as well as its parts
  • Build your apocalypse truck: mix and match the parts you find, then fortify it and add to it
  • Plow through snow and through crowds, and the car takes the damage
  • Fuel: pump it while there is power, then siphon it from tanks
One small house three ways: from above at an angle with its roof lifted off, as a plan from straight down, and through the eyes into a dark room.

Seeing it

  • True 3D, free camera, from street level to straight down
  • Indoors, the roof and the floors above you are cut away: third person works inside, on every floor
  • Rooms you haven't seen stay dark: anything could be in there
  • First-person view
  • Cellars, basements, an underground shelter, road tunnels, bridges
The front page of the Courier-Gazette: schools closed statewide.

Sound, music, lore

  • Adaptive score that follows the danger
  • Radio of 2005: CDs and cassettes by bands that never existed, played in your car
  • Newspapers from the days before it happened
  • Broadcasts still on the air, for now
The dog mod's files, and one of the dog's desires as written in its script.

Mods

  • A mod is a folder or a zip: data and Lua
  • Stock mods: every animal, the cars, and the tutorial, written the way you would write your own
  • Lua interface: replace any window
  • Saves store everything by name: add and remove mods safely