March of the Living

I really, really wanted to like March of the Living. I really did. I absolutely adore FTL, and considering this game has 'inspired by FTL' and 'FTL meets Walking Dead' all over it, I was pretty eager to give it a try. Sweet holy god was I let down. The only thing in this game that's even remotely akin to FTL is the map screen, and even that is a cluttered mess compared to FTL's. So many of the events are buggy (or perhaps just outright stupid) I honestly thought the game was still in Early Access; I had to come back and check the page to see if it was in full release. One example: there's a random encounter where the game will steal something from you, and there's not a single thing you can do to stop nor avoid it, it's based entirely on the RNG. As if this wasn't bad enough, one of the items that can be stolen is the active weapon your character currently has equipped and is HOLDING IN THEIR HANDS, yet they "won't notice it's missing until the thief is long out of sight". I understand it's random chance since this game is a "roguelike" (no, it isn't, but that's an entirely other kettle of fish), but how exactly am I supposed to play the game when the very first event I get involves my revolver being stolen OUT OF MY OWN HANDS, and me apparently not noticing it until it's too late? FTL and actual roguelikes will always give you a choice, that's part of what made them playable. If you don't think you'll survive against a ship in FTL, you have the choice to jump away and survive; if you don't want to risk your crew fighting giant alien spiders, you can leave the colony to its fate. March of the Living gives you some choices, but a lot of its events are just a random coin toss you have absolutely zero control over. Did the RNG dictate you run into the thief? Then you'll lose something the second you get to that square. That's the game in a nutshell. That's not even getting into the basic gameplay. Your character will find random events on the roads and forests of the world, and go into the cities to scavenge and restock. There is absolutely no way to scavenge anywhere outside cities, so you're relying even more on pure luck to get by if you don't go to the special city icons on the map. Scavenging anything worthwhile will bring a horde of zombies to you nine times out of ten, which is semi-understandable...except for the fact the scavenging system is incredibly stupid. If you bring the attention of zombies onto you, the game does NOT tell you the results of your scavenging until AFTER all the zombies are killed. So if you spend 60 minutes (the maximum time, and always has a roughly 60% chance of bringing zombies) scavenging a hospital, and zombies show up, the game not only doesn't give you what you scavenged, it doesn't even TELL you if you successfully found anything or not. You can waste precious bullets killing off the 8 zombies your searching brought in, only to find that - WHOOPS! You didn't actually find anything. Likewise, if you try to flee from the zombies, you get absolutely nothing from scavenging. The stuff scavenged becomes a 'reward' for beating the zombies, and if you don't beat them, you don't get a damn thing. Speaking of fleeing, fleeing will bring on an entire host of issues that almost always makes fighting the zombies preferable, even in the worst, dumbest of circumstances. Fleeing will make you randomly lose something, which can be something fairly minor, such as a few bullets or rations, something fairly major, like an actual inventory item, including weapons, or it can be something absurd, like an ENTIRE PARTY MEMBER. I fled from three zombies on a forest road, to conserve my and my companion's ammo. The result of fleeing? My companion (Barry was his name) 'was no where to be seen'. He was just gone, with zero explanation; not dying to the zombies, not actually trying to steal my stuff, just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gone. The game is FULL of random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like that, not to mention things that are still buggy. My final death? My character literally just stood there being eaten to death by a single zombie. He refused to flee, he refused to shoot or reload his gun, he didn't swing his melee weapon, and he didn't do the 'push back' move you can use to shove away zombies that have grabbed you. He literally just stood there being eaten to death from 9 HP down to 0. Considering combat is unbelievably dull and simple (especially compared to how dynamic FTL, this game's 'inspiration' is with its combat), it's almost unbelievable that they would have problems with it. This is a long, rambling review (and I actually have even more to say, frankly), but I just can't get over how incredibly bad and almost unfinished this game is. It honestly seems like it's still in Early Access just because of how utterly nonsensical or outright buggy it is. For god's sake, the options for choices during random events have numbers, yet another thing they took from FTL, but the numbers on your keyboard don't even activate those choices, forcing you to do it via mouse. I don't understand how the game can compare itself to FTL so much while being so bad. It's a relatively simple concept, and compared to the depth and strategies involved in FTL, which AGAIN, this game claims to have been so inspired by, it's a bog simple time sink of a game...and they still manage to fill it with the most random, unfair ♥♥♥♥. Whether it's purposeful or accidental, the choices the developers made in making this game are incredibly stupid. This game could actually be good, and I sincerely hope it is someday, but it requires an absolute buttload of polish before it's there, let alone before it comes even remotely close to being as good as FTL. If actual choices and strategic, intense combat are what you're looking for, just go play FTL again. If you're super serious about playing a post-apocalyptic survival game, then go pick up Neo Scavenger. It's a million times better than this, in terms of combat, choices, story, survival aspects, and depth. Just don't play this game, not until the developers actually give a damn about making it worthwhile instead of just cashing in on claims of "FTL meets the Walking Dead!" which this absolutely is NOT.

What can be said about a game like this? Well, first off it's pretty much Faster Than Light without the ships, and that's not just a generalization it literally feels just like FTL but with walking. Events happen constantly which is pretty swell in my opinion. Graphics are what you get from the screenshots and videos, they're fine. Sounds are good, combat is great, and the story is pretty wonderful to boot. If you have the cash to pick up a copy please do, if you don't well wishlist this beast because it's the most fun I've had from an Indie game in quite some time.

I am torn on this game. On the one side I love zombie survival games with scavenging and trying to keep alive in a setting where all the odds are stacked against you. The world is nicely presented through the writing, allthough, in not too long you will start to see events play out that you've experienced before and it starts to feel a bit dry. I also love that there's contextual use for certain items and skillsets for the other survivors should you happen to have the appropriate ones with you. On the other hand, it's easy to grow tired of the unceasing slaps that the game doles out to you when the dice do not fall in your favour, and yes there seems to be quite a bit of dice rolling behind the scenes in this game. At one point I had two survivors who were both starting to feel the wear of travelling and needed to rest. When you're in a city you can search for a safe space to rest in, which sounded like a good idea at first. The catch is that when you search for a place like this you run the risk of running into zombies, but I thought little of it as I had only met zombies rarely while doing this. First attempt I ran into seven zombies. With two survivors and little ammo left I decided that it wasn't really worth the trouble and fled. The game decided that doing this was to be punished by losing my other survivor. Even though the zombies only appeared from one side of the screen. You can never flee an encounter without risking loosing one of your partymembers or loose gear. Aside from the events where the game asks you if you want to approach something, it is never an option to refrain from combat with the undead without some kind of repercussion, which I find forced and ridiculous. Searching for a second time led my main guy into a gaggle of five more zombies, which at that point I HAD to flee, which lost me my best weapon. Searching for a place to rest a third time ALSO led me into a group of undead, but at this point my main guy was so tired of trying to find a place to rest he simply died of fatigue on the spot. Aside from that I've had survivors instantaneously die from hunger right after travelling because the health meter takes a hit immediately if you allow the hunger meter to fill up, instead of gradually taking damage after it's filled, which would avoid those annoying events alltogether. Or the events where you roll the dice and either things go well or you get to nominate one of your party to either take a slight hit or get fatally wounded. An example of this is an event where you come across a point where a road has been blocked by a fallen tree and loads of cars. You get three choices in this event; Navigate between the cars, climb over the fallen tree or skip the whole issue alltogether and go through the woods. Having played a good few zombie games and seen a rather large number of zombie movies I figured moving in between the cars would be bad as there would most likely be undead still strapped in the car, and climbing over the tree sounded like an event where one of the survivors would fall off. So I headed into the forest to go around. No dice, it was full of undead. So I decided the tree was the least dangerous of the two remaining options. The survivors I sent up and over promptly fell off the tree and hurt himself. In a second game I came across the same situation and decided to go for the cars. And Lo and Behold, there was a zombie hidden among the cars who grabbed my survivor and bit him in the foot, incidentially the same guy who fell off the tree in the previous example, so maybe he was just a plain unlucky guy. I wouldn't mind these outcomes so much if there was a hint towards how successful either of these actions would be in the text, but no such luck. The game throws the dice behind the scenes and either saves you or dooms you in the process. Luckily, the survivors, aside from the few paragraphs you get about them when you initally meet them, turned out to be pretty faceless up and until where I've played so far. This meant that everyone in the party aside from the main character, served as risk sponges, item mules and a means for safety in numbers. I'd have loved for there to be little snippets about the characters in your party and how you get along with them, the partymembers weighing in when something happens, ANYTHING just to have some kind of impact when the random dice decide that someone needs to die. [b]In short, if you like the idea of a decently written, bit style zombie survival game where you travel from point to point like in FTL, with arguably somewhat shallow mechanics and random numbers deciding 'yes' or 'no' outcomes, you will probably like this game.[/b] I on the other hand found the game not quite my cup of tea for the reasons described above.

VERDICT: It is worth buying on sale for 50% off or more. REVIEW: So sad. I fall for the FTL-LIKE hype every time. EVERY TIME. And every time I am disappointed. As others have said, the only FTL-like part is the map really. What really kills this game though is the combat. It's so clunky and awkward to the point that it's impossible to manage with 3 or more people in your party. Unless you like to pause every 0.5 seconds, which I don't. There was potential here, as it brings in the random event aspect in a good way. Things are mostly well-written and interesting. Lots of different events, though there could always be more. Overall, if the combat had been more manageable, it'd be a recommend for me, despite the FTL-like nonsense.

Don't let the "inspired by FTL" fool you like it did me. While FTL was fun, challenging, and charming march of the living is dull boring and unbalanced. Fortunatley I am still under the two hour mark and can refund it. Don't buy for more than $2.99

Very clearly inspired by FTL and seasoned to taste with a dash of Oregon Trail, March of the Living is an excellent narrative roguelike that will kill as many hours as you do the undead. The premise of the game is that your chosen survivor is on a journey to get from A to B for their own particular reason. You'll have to overcome rotters (zombies), maintain your supplies, and deal with an abundance of random events as you plot your course across the vast regions that are between you and your goal. The game's mechanics are very simple, though, this does not mean that it is easy. A single rotter bite can infect you which, for the most part, is a death sentence. Combat is real-time with pause and you can quickly be overrun if you're not careful, especially once you have several survivors that you're simultaneously controlling. Scavenging is always a mix of excitement and sheer terror as you have the potential to find great items and large supply caches but always run the risk of attracting a dangerous horde of rotters. The random events that you become engaged in every couple of minutes are text-based with multiple choices for you to select, and as far as I have experienced, are very plentiful. I have yet to run into the same event and I was just eaten alive on my third playthrough. I highly recommend this game to those who enjoy narrative roguelikes as long as pixel graphics and basic mechanics do not turn you off from a game. As long as they do not, March of the Living is a great game that may be one that you keep revisiting for years to come.

March of the Living encapsulates everything I despise about this sub-genre; the illusion of choice masking a heavily RNG-reliant slot machine. In my last session, mere stops from the finish line, one of my party was bitten. I was in a random encounter, which described a box by the side of the road. I sent one character to investigate, only for the game to inform me there was a zombie hiding behind the box or some such bull and now that character is infected and will shortly die. I was given no option to leave the character behind, or mercy kill them, so I carried on. Reaching the final destination, I was asked to submit to a medical check. The doctor discovered the bite, and I was given a choice; attack and kill the doctor, or do not resist. I thought, okay, she's not coming back from this, better not attack a doctor in the middle of a camp especially since she'll turn soon. Murdering a doctor is bad, right? Surely that's the worst thing to do? To my utter dismay, the game informed me that the doctor then kicks my entire party out of town, and that we all die and I have lost the game. Go. F-ck. Yourself. Should I have stabbed the doctor to death or something? In summary, the game artbitrarily decided to infect one of my party near the end, and as a result my entire playthrough was scrubbed. I'd dust myself and carry on, but that was my breaking point. The game felt like a slot machine up until this point; you make a decision and it's just random chance whether the stranger you help is going to hug you or kill you. Likewise, if you shoot first, it's random chance whether they're secretely shelting a shotgun or a child. You are given no information to make an informed decision, it just feels like *pure* luck. Hunger & Exhaustion are two arbitrary meters that you literally watch fill up as your party moves, stopping every minute or so to hit the "eat" or "sleep" button and waiting for the bar to empty before you can carry on. They add no value to the game; food is provided at random in drops and you can rest anywhere, so there is no skill/challenge involved. Combat is pretty flat. Guns are overwhelmingly the way to go, able to kill most in one or two aimed shots. Melee is just a fast way to get your people killed, and besides, they need a dedicated melee weapon to fight up close. If they run out of shots, all they can do is wander around in circles. I found two melee weapons in total, but was swimming in guns. Oh, and don't bother trying to flee a fight. Even if you're out of ammo and outnumbered, fleeing is a stupid move. At best, you'll "lose" a weapon or two. At worst, a party member will just vanish permenantely like happened to me. Just gone. March of the Living is an almost unforgivably ugly game; for £10 I expect more effort in the UI/UX department than bland grey boxes and generic meters. I knew the moment the title appeared that the visuals were going to make me wince. I don't expect every game to be Hearthstone, but if you're going to bury a game in menus and text at least make them either pretty to look at, or average enough that you don't notice them. Just go buy Death Road to Canada; the devs there knew the importance of balancing RNG out with gameplay where the player has agency and is responsible for their own mistakes.. not an under-the-bonnet dice roll deciding one of your party just died suddenly. I wish I hadn't stuck at it and finished that run, because it pushed me over the 2 hour mark for a no-questions-asked-refund and now I'm stuck with a game I despise. I'm not petty enough to push for a refund over subjective enjoyment, the game isn't buggy or broken so I guess I just picked poorly this time.

По этой игре можно очень кратко. Как вы считаете, был бы FTL лучше, если бы на карте разные направления вообще бы зрительно не отличались друг от друга? Вместо типов космических объектов - вы бы выбирали между одинаковыми белыми квадратами. Вот March of the Living считает, что так интереснее (или разработчики просто не успели сделать нормальную карту). А я нет. Очень озадачена, никому не рекомендую.

Love FTL? See no further, this is the zombie apocalypse edition. Only complaint I have to this game, is that I wish you were able to at least have some kind of safe zone where you could respawn. The replay value of this should be huge, due to random made maps at each time. But when your mission from a to b takes forever, and there is not enough content to actually fill in the huge gap between a and b, and in the mean time you die 10 times and there is not only a to b but a to h. You have already seen all the content before you reach halfway to b. But I'm still glad I bought it. Hope there will be more content added later. *Update* After soon 5 hours I have to change my review to a negative one. The game is repetative and little revarding. The random maps should be something positive, but it is not. The game would be better off having a linear map and not pretending to be bigger than it is.

[h1]March of the Living[/h1] is an isometric 2d game similar in presentation to Death Road to Canada (although much slower in pace) and other such pixelated roguelikes. I'd had it sitting in my library for a while and decided to play it on a whim. It was decent. I wouldn't call it great, although I imagine it WOULD be great as a mobile title. No idea if that statement is actually true or not, but the game is well suited to that format. But...it was also well suited to this one. [h1]Story[/h1] The story is more or less the same ultimate goal of getting to the city of Wellston on the coast and on a ship getting ready to set sail with whatever survivors were able to get to the safe zone at the docks. The specifics of the story vary based on which character you play, but all in all, those little snippets of story are more like splashes of color than any sort of painting. Still, it helps to keep the game fresh. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] With the goal of getting to the coast in mind, you will travel through three node maps, which roguelike fans will be very familiar with. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1685995913737425767/FF7667BB4297C2D8DD375A1E6C999E997698974D/ Each node map is procedurally generated, but will be filled with actual nodes (stopping points). Most will be a variety of encounters, with specific encounters also sometimes having a few possibilities. They will be a fair mix of looting and combat and interacting with merchants, although you will also need to explore the nodes to meet and in some fashion, recruit, your potential five companions (there are more than five party members available, but you can only ever have yourself and five others at any one time). There will also be several city nodes per map, and these are where you will really stock up on supplies. You will also have the rare story node, and the end map node (which for the first two maps is always a safe zone with a merchant). The first map is what I would consider the stock up map. It's less dangerous overall, and I would advise literally visiting every single node available at least once (you may need a little backtracking, and you can always revisit merchant nodes and such), Combat is pausable real time, and can definitely get out of control at every setting depending on well you coordinate your parties efforts. The game has an auto attack option for your companions, but I found after their first target is dead, they often will shut off so to speak, and so you are better off manually controlling all your companions. It is possible to become infected, at which point you begin slowly dying, although this can be slowed down by simply staying on top of your health. It is also possible to find a potential cure if you dare risk taking it and dooming mankind in the process lol. Maybe. This game does have some moral choices from time to time, and those factor into the gameplay, although some could also be considered jokes. Yeah. So ultimately, the gameplay is centered around making decisions as to whether to loot and for how long, fight or flee, and so one. Everything is handled with RNG, although I found this to be a favorable system in the game. [h1]Graphics[/h1] Those are also on par with Death Road to Canada, although maybe a less on the insane side of pixelated goodness (i.e. everything is a little better defined). https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1685995913741325132/29BBC40646CCFED6CC4045346CB4DDCAFC8FBB22/ Nothing extraordinary, but it's effective for the game. [h1]Audio[/h1] Nothing really stands out in this department. Dialogue is written, the audio tracks are mostly background, and the actual in game sounds are all fine. Just nothing I recall as being particularly noteworthy, and I struggle to even remember what the game sounded like really. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1685995913741325662/45BB6F7B586A7C3CC0F02A4EBB188E2C250BE949/ [h1]Verdict[/h1] To me, this is an easy addition to any roguelike fan's library. No, it probably won't blow you away, but you will get a lot of variety with the handful of characters available to play as, and a decent cast of characters to fill out your party as you travel. That should be good for thirty or even forty hours depending on how much you love the game. Grab it on sale, but give it a go. I had fun with it. [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, Robilar's Reviews, it would be appreciated. Cheers. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/[/code]