COATS

Name: Coats

Developer: Wikimon

Story: Lead a team of scientists researching a cure for a horrible disease, trapped in military quarantine due to an outbreak. This is basically a zombie apocalypse game, except that instead of the typical undead, these people literally lose their skin and their mind. It doesn't look directly based on John Matheson's sci-fi vampire tale I Am Legend, but there are some distinct parallels, and if Matheson's yarn is being used for the base, then the queues are being taken more from the recent Will Smith movie than from the book.

Writing: Well done and well thought out, with at least a basic level of research done. Aside from the typical typos and skipped words (skipped words being a common problem I personally have in my own writing), grammar is just fine. All characters are articulate and well spoken. Each character is fleshed out to make him or her unique. The only real problem here is that there is very little difference in the tone of sentences. Take the faces and names away from the characters, and the dialog always sounds like the same person talking. The writer should try experimenting with different accents and different sentence structuring. Remember that no two people speak exactly the same. Even try giving a couple of characters bad grammar. You'd expect Sergeant Kendal to be articulate, being an order giving supervisor, but would every character be so well spoken? The only one that seems really different from the others is Janice, a merchant (merchants, of course, being articulate people). She has a snappy used car salesman way of speaking. She's the only one who seems really different from the other characters. Even the main character is at issue here. He's presented as reserved and socially awkward, and the suggestion is that he isn't very good at interacting on a personal level. This illusion is destroyed the minute you begin socially interacting with the people you command. He doesn't seem to have a problem conversing with anyone, even the ladies he's interested in, and the only thing to remind you that he's socially awkward are the occasional observations by other characters that he's socially awkward (in other words, he doesn't seem socially awkward, and the only reason I know that he is, is because of exposition from other characters). People ask him advice, and whether his thinking is in line with theirs' or not, how he presents his answers are well thought out and sagely. No social awkwardness, here. All of that aside, the writing is done very well. Despite everyone generally talking the same, everyone is unique and you have a clear idea of who they all are. Some are more talkative than others. The plot is nicely constructed with the story following a consistent, linear flow. A clear, writing procedure has been followed in the fabrication of this story. This has been well planned out, and frankly, there seems to be a great deal more effort put into the story than even the better RPG Maker fare. Tension is maintained throughout and the writing keeps the unseen consequences of a wrong action on everyone's minds. One false move, and everyone in the base dies.

Gameplay: Coats is a small scale resource management game. You are in control of a small facility that is in lockdown, surrounded by skinless zombies, and occasionally, the option comes up to add a satellite facility which can be reached through safe pathways in underground tunnels. Your team consists of you, your staff, a few military personnel and their commanding sergeant, and the occasional uninfected citizen in distress you rescue during the course of the game. You don't get the choice to decide what people do. Assignments are just made automatically. You'll need to micromanage resources in addition to researching a cure for the skinless disease. Beware, you can't do everything in one day, and research is a slow, gradual process. Have Sergeant Kendal capture a patient to research in the containment lab. Remember that you can only learn so much from a single specimen. Eventually, you'll have to let it die and capture another in order for your research to progress. As you progress, more abilities are unlocked. Eventually, you'll be able to do autopsies on skinless cadavers and examine more and more research material. Your top priority in resource management is security. Each day, you can make ammo, or boost security, but not both. You can't boost security if you don't have sufficient ammo. Also, you can't boost security if your food supplies are too low. You can send a runner to gather food from one of three locations. Meanwhile, kill rats daily to reduce food consumption. Assist Kendal in killing skinless at each opportunity increase security. All of the gameplay features taken together make a complete, thorough, and well-rounded game, and this is only the first part.

Graphics: Coats' character designs are the basic VX Ace RTP using the custom character feature, using the least objectionable RTP resources. I can't identify all of the tilesets, but some appear to come from the Modern Times resource pack. I'm just guessing. These are accompanied by lovely anime/manga style artwork that helps to drive the story. The art style is consistent and there's no question of who's who from sprite to manga image. Graphically, Coats is very appealing. Nevertheless, it would benefit from custom facechips. Whoever drew the manga might consider also drawing the facesets. They would fit much better, and players would be able to see better renderings of all of the characters, even if not in the cutscenes. The skinless are probably custom. They don't look too difficult to make in any event.

Music: More atmospheric than memorable. It fits the game perfectly and helps tremendously to set the mood, which is distinctly more sci-fi than horror. I don't recognize any of the tracks, but again, they seem to be from a resource pack.

Conclusion: Even if this isn't your particular type of game, you'll probably enjoy it. The whole research and wait vibe may seem slow, but that's only because you start off with full stats. As the stats quickly reduce from the daily grind, you'll quickly start to feel the tension of this addictive game, and as new mechanics start to be introduced, you may start to agree with the pacing at first, but you'll soon become worried as you realize that every mechanic performs a vital function, and you have to choose which ones to do without just to make sure you can keep your crew alive. The resource management is expertly balanced, even if the not all of the little side games are entirely perfect. Though I might have tried to justify the rare 5 star rating, I'm not sure I would have been able to. In any case, the sameness of the characters hurts enough to bring the score to 4 stars, still a pretty good score in anyone's book. This game is definitely worth a player's time.