Dead State

Dead State splits its time between scavenging - where the player explores the environment for food, fuel, luxury items, medical supplies, and antibiotics - and base management back at the Shelter - assigning jobs, building upgrades, creating items, and interacting with fellow survivors. Standard action in Dead State is in real-time, switching into turn-based mode when combat initiates.

Character Creation consists of two stages. Initially, the player chooses their character's gender, 3D appearance, portrait (either from a pre-generated list, uploading an image, or using the custom portrait generator), and name. After this, the player has a choice of either selecting an archetype that fits a certain play style, or distributing character points manually.

Dead State is centered in the fictional town of Splendid, and the gameplay area covers a significant amount of the center of the state - this ranges from Abilene (north), San Angelo (west), and Austin (southeast). The game begins sometime in the modern day, in the spring, and lasts over a period of about four months.

Set at the beginning of the undead apocalypse, the player is involved in a plane crash over central Texas near the fictional town of Splendid, and are saved by a small group of survivors that have taken refuge at the local public school and made it their Shelter. As society is beginning to fall apart, the player must organize a handful of allies, work on fortifying the school into a livable long-term shelter, scouting for food and supplies, making uncertain alliances with others, and attempting to hold together a group as humanity teeters on the brink of extinction. And although the undead lurk as an ever present environmental threat, the biggest obstacle to the player are other humans with the same goal: survival at any cost.

Dead State began development in Summer 2009 as a collaboration between the newly formed DoubleBear Productions and Iron Tower Studio, with writer/designer Brian Mitsoda as the project lead. The game utilized The Age of Decadence's game engine, although it was later upgraded to Torque 3D. The game initially carried the working title of "ZRPG", but was updated with the formal title of Dead State when it was formally announced a year later.

Designer Brian Mitsoda stated that the game was intended to be very dynamic, with each playthrough forming a unique experience. Mitsoda's own experiences living in Miami, Florida during Hurricane Andrew were an influence on the game design, as he intended to "work it into a broader examination of how humans deal with a crisis beyond their control."