Our Interview With Geoff Keene of Sandswept Studios on The Dead Linger << Gaming Irresponsibly

We had another opportunity to talk with Geoff Keene, of Sandswept Studios and DETOUR fame, about his latest project. Sandswept’s next game looks to be an epic zombie survival game that will go by “The Dead Linger”. Geoff took some time to answer a few questions about this upcoming game and let us know a little more about what we can expect.

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Thanks for taking time out to answer some more questions.

Of course! We love talking about our games!

First off, how have you been since the release of Detour? How has feedback been?

As a team, we’ve all been doing well. We’re more than eager to keep on going. As for DETOUR, it’s played out mostly how we expected — highly hit and miss, depending on the audience. Some people find it great and loads of fun, some people don’t.

After the release of Detour, where did you get the inspiration for The Dead Linger?

The Dead Linger was actually inspired long, long before DETOUR. I began writing the idea and design for it when I was 15 or so, about 6 years ago. The game is mostly inspired by Max Brooks “The Zombie Survival Guide”, and all zombie survival games I’ve played since have failed to live up to true zombie survival in so many ways. Only now has the timing and technology caught up to where we want to be to make it a reality. We also found that we should spend more time working on the game ideas we’ve really want to play, instead of short-changing ourselves by trying to fit a market, the way we did with DETOUR.

What can you tell us about the game so far?

The Dead Linger is, simply put, the long awaited first person zombie survival horror that so many players are looking for, but have yet to see created to the full potential that the zombie survival genre offers. The very essence of the game is “What if you were in a realistic, terrifying zombie apocalypse?” The overly saturated zombie genre has been a rotting corpse in the game industry for far too long. We’re bringing the true essence of zombie survival back in at full swing, re-envisioning it the way it should be. The Dead Linger is a true game of apocalyptic survival in a horrifying, desolate, zombie-infested world.

How will the multiplayer features work in The Dead Linger? How many players do you expect to have playing together at the same time?

We’ve built the game from the ground up for multiplayer support, not limited to any specific number. We want you to grab your friends and survive. We’re assuming anywhere from about 1 to 8 people would be the ideal gameplay experience, but it will support many more, including optional player vs. player amongst the zombie hordes.

Is it going to be set up so you can become more proficient in certain things, allowing your skills to help the rest of the survivors?

Yes! We’re planning on doing a fairly fluid skill leveling system — i.e. you do a specific task, you will become better at it. Along with that, we have some ideas for what we’re calling “survivor attributes”. These are planned to let players unlock and choose 3 or so, to further differentiate and respect their playstyle from others. Someone could, for example, have an attribute that makes them a better marksmen, or better with melee weapons, or run more silently.

You mentioned that the world is infinite, what kind of locales will you travel through? Any plans on weather effects?

Yes, the world will be infinite. We may allow the player/host to enforce some limits to keep players within a ‘reasonable’ range, particularly for player vs. player servers, or whatever they might imagine. And that’s the beauty of TDL. We plan to leave most things fully customizable so players can set up servers and play whatever game-within-the-game they can come up with.

The setting is a psuedo-America, so to speak. Nothing will be real world scenes, and everything will be randomly and procedural generated, from the streets to the very room layout of a house. The early builds are planned to feature some basic suburban environments (i.e. neighborhood), some hills, forestry and park space mixed amongst that. After that, the range is quite broad. Rural farmland, densely packed cities (yes, with tall, fully explorable buildings), and a few more that we’re keeping under wraps until we’ve moved a bit further along. Something we’re trying to keep away from is the constant ‘brown’ color you find in modern games. We’re going for a vibrant, colorful, real world. That means houses that are seemingly untouched, as well as a blood-stained sidewalk, or a looted store. We want everyone to experience the world — post zombies outbreak. (Not post brown-tinted nuclear war)

There will definitely be weather. Weather will not only add a certain mood and atmosphere, coming and going, it will also add distinct gameplay advantages and disadvantages. Fog rolling in, for example, can be both a blessing and a curse. You can’t see very far, but neither can the undead. Another example would be rain and thunderstorms, muffling sound and, if you’re lucky, perhaps even allow a gunshot to go unnoticed. We’ll be attempting to add all the various weather types we can think of, as they play such a crucial role in true, real world survival.

How about vehicles, any plans on cars, planes, boats and trains?

We have plans for cars, boats, possibly aircraft, and possibly trains. We have every one of these designed out fairly well in how they would operate and work, but whether or not we implement will be up in the air (hah!) until we have a bit more finished.

I see that there is user created content from your forums, what can we expect to see from that in game?

If someone submits an item (once the submission system goes live on thedeadlinger.com), we will check to ensure it fits all of our item rules, and if it’s awesome, we’ll put it in and give it some gameplay purpose. The list of submittable content will be rather broad, from props to items to vehicles to ‘journals’. Anyone interested in that should definitely keep an eye on the Sandswept.net forums, particularly around the Survivor Creations board.

Which users contribute the most so far?

I couldn’t say right now, but we love seeing the fan-fiction ‘diaries’ and the like. Very cool stuff!

What kind of game will The Dead Linger be? Top down, third person, first person?

First person, all the way. We have no plans to ever break out of first person; not when you’re dying, not when you’re driving, not when you’re grappled. You are the survivor.

That said, we’re open to adding a third person option if the demand is high enough. A lot of gamers seem to really like 3rd person view in horror games, but for me personally, it breaks the atmosphere a lot. Along those same lines, characters will generally remain silent protagonists.

Something I always thought would be cool is risk of infection in a survival game, any plan on that? If so, can you spread the infection?

We have a great system planned for infection. It has always irked me that survivors of zombie films seem to run about with infected blood all over their faces. Zombie just splattered blood on you when you hit it with an axe? You better wash that off. Seriously. We’ll explain the system more in detail on our blog when it is added to a future build.

I know The Dead Linger is still in it’s infant stages, with an alpha on the way. When will you expect for that to launch?

We’re trying to have something recognizable as a playable game around the beginning of next year, and hopefully then we can show it off and let everyone else get their hands on it too. Unfortunately, this will come down to “when it’s ready” and not a moment sooner. Luckily, players will get to play all the way through alpha, beta, and final release! We await this moment in giddy anticipation, and I’m sure many others do as well.

Are you planning on this being solely a Windows, Mac and Linux game, or are you planning on expanding into consoles?

We’re going to focus on the PC platforms for the time being. If the demand is high enough, we will absolutely look at bringing it to other systems.

What do you think the best zombie game has been up to this point?

That’s a tough one, and I had to think about it for awhile. I’d say my favorite has been Left 4 Dead 2, but it’s never given me the scary, survival experience I’ve wanted. Whil it’s certainly a fun action shooter, I’ve been rather disappointed in the zombie genre as a whole. All of the current zombie games simply motivate me further to get The Dead Linger out there for everyone to play.

Have you been playing any games recently? If so, which ones?

Oh boy. Well, I play pretty much everything I can get my hands on, but I suppose the latest one has been Skyrim. That’s a fun adventure, for sure.

Well, I’ll let you get back to creating undead! Any departing words for the readers?

The zombie genre has died. We’re bringing it back from the dead.

Bioware recently confirmed multiplayer for the upcoming Mass Effect 3 which has subsequently created strong ripples within the fandom.

Like many devoted fans when multiplayer was just a rumour floating around I was admittedly worried. It’s not a secret that Bioware have been accused of aiming Mass Effect 3 towards a more mainstream fanbase. On numerous occasions fans have complained about Bioware not focusing on the fans they have and trying to appeal to a broader audience.

As a major fan of the series I was concerned that Bioware were putting more effort into making Mass Effect 3 sate every gamer’s taste instead of focusing on character development and the story. However unlike some fans I waited for Hudson to address these issues before going off on a tangent.

Casey Hudson the Executive Producer of Bioware had this to say in the Bioware Pulse video regarding the multiplayer feature. “One of the biggest concerns that we’ve heard is that by taking on multiplayer maybe we’re taking away from what could be applied to the single player story. But by adding multiplayer we actually have the opportunity to make use of an additional team that we have been growing over the years, specifically around the expertise doing multiplayer programming, design and art. So you get a single player experience that is as polished, it’s got all of these amazing enrollments. But at the same time we’ve been able to add through the addition of Bioware Montreal this new capability to do multiplayer for the first time.”

This news however is not enough for some Bioware fans. Some still persist to say that multiplayer will ruin Mass Effect 3 for them, some have even went as far to say that they will not buy the game.

Now, I can understand being skeptical when multiplayer for Mass Effect 3 was nothing but a rumour, but surely Hudson’s explanation was enough to reassure any fan? It certainly reassured me. In fact I would even go as far to say that I am looking forward to experiencing multiplayer after hearing the facts.

But of course reassuring words are never enough for some so-called fans who like to pick on every itty bitty thing. I would honestly bet money that most of the “fans” complaining were the ones who got themselves all worked up about the female Shepard. But that is another argument that I never want to get into again.

So here are some facts for the fans who must be sticking their fingers in their ears whenever Hudson explains everything to them. I can not for the life of me come up with another reason for most of the argumentative fans complaining so much.

1. Multiplayer is optional

That’s right boys and girls, just like the Femshep adorning the Collector’s edition. You do not have to play it, I understand that you find this particular fact hard to decipher but the most I can do is just drill the information into you. Multiplayer is there if you want to play it and if you don’t then that is your choice.

2. Mass Effect has teams working on different areas

No, they are not abandoning the story we love so dearly. Every little feature is being giving fair treatment so nothing is going to suffer at all. You cannot suddenly jump to the conclusion that because Bioware are adding multiplayer that they will spend all of their time on that.

3. Multiplayer relates to the canon of your Shepard.

It sticks with the storyline and by playing multiplayer you actually have a much better chance of getting a “perfect ending”. So don’t see this as a needless feature. Multiplayer will actually make your playthrough all the more stronger. However if you choose not to play multiplayer you can still achieve a perfect ending. The feature is just one of the numerous ways of doing so.

4. You can choose your race and your class

I don’t know about anyone else but I have been itching to play as a turian, and it looks like my dream is going to come true. You can play as a
human, krogan, salarian, asari or turian and get to choose from whatever class you want. It’s all about gaining control and securing war assets with the character you play.

5. Multiplayer is co-op and 4 player

So you are not going to be stuck in a lobby full of 12 year olds wondering why the hell you are still playing the game. I doubt that I am the only one looking forward to getting my mates to play online with me, where what we do actually matters to my Shepard’s cannon.

All in all there is nothing to worry about, or better yet complain about. Bioware work hard to please their fans, if I were in their shoes I wouldn’t have done half of the things they have done for the fandom.

While they are working hours on end to give us the beauty of Mass Effect 3 there are people complaining everywhere. Please, get over it or better yet embrace it. Chances are at some point you will take a liking to the feature and if not then just remember, it is optional.

Multiplayer announcement video