Zafehouse: Diaries

It's a very simple game, but if you're looking more for story choices and less action than this is for you.

I'd say I'm actually right on the fence as to whether I'd recommend this game. It really can go either way, but I'm giving it a slight edge. I played Zafehouse: Diaries after playing Rebuild 1 & 2, so I have some feel for games like this--scout around, kill zombies, gather your strength and try to win the game. And apparently I've played quite a few hours of Z:D, 47.1, a lot more than I'd realized. Why? I really like the gameplay. You can modify items, travel around and scavenge and fortify locations around town. Managing the relationships and interactions between a maximum of 5 characters is really refreshing. This is definitely a strategy game, a game where it pays to think about what your next actions are, and plan ahead to some degree. But the problem is I keep losing this game. How fair is it? I've probably played around 20 games of Z:D over the years. Most of them didn't last too long, but a few lasted several hours. A few weeks back I played a game where I sent four of my five characters to their death, trying to take over a hospital. This was in "Easy" mode, where you start with a single character and have to work to recruit more; I'd hoped that with my last character still alive I might still be able to fortify the whole town, and tried to recruit more people in town. I think I managed to get one or two more characters, but in the end they all died as well. Afterwards in pondering that game, I realized that I should have used "Assault" on the hospital a few more times before breaking in to the place. I considered this particular failure for a while, and resolved to do better next time. In my most recent game I was doing well, and had gotten about as far along as I had in that earlier game, having secured maybe 1/4 of the town against zombies. I sent a character to scout a nearby factory, and their report was that there were maybe 2 zombies inside and 1 zombie outside the factory--relatively safe-sounding for my characters armed with modified helmets, jackets, and melee weapons. I sent 4/5 of my characters in and they killed the zombies with ease. The zombies vanquished, I set 2 characters to patrol the perimeter, one to clean corpses and the last to barricade or something. And when I ended the turn, 19 zombies came out of nowhere and stormed the location and killed all four of my characters there. No warning, no indication from my scout mission that anything like that would happen. That degree of randomness I find especially problematic in a game where you can't save. It left a sour enough taste in my mouth that I'm not sure I'll ever be returning. I really like a lot of the gameplay and the strategy involved, but losing in such a way is pretty frustrating. Considering all the rest of the game though, I still feel it's right to recommend it. But I pretty much feel right on the fence about this game now. 6.5/10.

As far as cheap indie games and as timewasters go, this one is decent. It's hard because it's made to be hard. I'd give it a try, especially since this game is cheaper than other good timewaster games.

A good, slow, board game like experience. It's enjoyable, but RNG can ruin you from the beginning in a frustrating and helpless way. If you've got this in your library it's worth a shot - but the sequel improves on this in a number of areas.

Don't listen to them and their lies! There is no "Safe" house

1/10

1. too simple, 2. some mechanics are just silly (you can't assign supplies / tools / weapons to a character), 3. the chemistry within group is laughable ("Courtney threw lamp at John and broke his leg", they are at each other throats because no one wanted to play chess, etc) 4. it isn't adaptable to screen size

Pretty decent game. I like it however it has a small learning curve but if you are looking for a chill zombie strategy game where you can take your time. This one is pretty fun.

me sorprendió mucho. no es bueno para quien no sabe inglés, pero muy rejugable a pesar de sus componentos simples

This game is a great experience if you like survival, management, and zombie themed games in general. There's more than enough content here to warrant the low cost or getting it in a bundle if any of those types of games interest you.