One Fate

Well, there’s not really a whole lot to say about this one. Partly because One Fate is just a short demo at this point, of course, but it also happens to be pretty indistinct on its own merits. Making a game about zombies feel distinct and unique is obviously very hard at this point (and the wisdom of trying is somewhat questionable by now), but it’s not impossible, as the monochrome, tense, turn-based Infection showed not too long ago. Here, you can only detect other series’ ideas, without ever cohering into anything significant on its own.

Storyline



There’s some dialogue in the game, but it is hardly much of a story. We begin with the protagonist, named Nicholas, being woken up by gunfire in the building he’s in, and realizing that this is only going to attract the zombies. He grabs his stuff, takes the gun off the dead body of original shooter, jumps from the several floors’ height onto a mattress on the asphalt near the dumpster (not even in the dumpster itself apparently) without injury, and encounters a couple of humans before the demo ends. Let’s just say that a lot of things are missing here. For instance, there’s no backstory at all given to how the zombie thing might’ve started, or how long ago was that. The game seems intent to follow The Walking Dead’s approach (Nicholas even calls the zombies biters once, and there’s a scene with a barricade made out of an abandoned tank and a few civilian cars that are burning for no reason, which is given no context or explanation. We also learn NOTHING about our main character at all, no backstory, and no real character traits. The other characters are the slightly-unhinged (yet still pretty forgettable) merchant Joseph, and a woman named Theresa, whose interactions can be pretty cringey:





The above happens if you give a good answer (“It just happened.”) when she asks why you were chasing her (which I wasn’t; you literally find her standing in one place, with no chase sequence or anything). Trying to demand stuff instead makes her run away and accuse you of being no better then the MDR group before doing. We have no idea what that acronym means, and nothing much foreshadows their presence. I suppose it does give context to a pretty horrible battle with a bandit later on, even if he just wordlessly attacks you, and you don’t learn anything from his body either. Still, I suppose their existence is pretty much the only kind of story hook the game has. No-one really seems to have any goals at all, (beyond surviving, duh): there’s no place they might want to get to, no cure or shelter they might truly put their hopes in, etc., etc.

Typos for the creator (there’s one in nearly every sentence):



Aesthetics (art, design and sound)



As you can see from the two screenshots above, the mapping indoors is passable, but not very appealing, with a little too much space and such. The macro design is worse, though: right after you escape your room, you must go down 3 or so corridors, which are all lined that all have broken locks, save for one at the very end and the one above that requires a key, which is just ridiculous. However, the outside mapping is often the worst:





Then, I must also address the font used in the text boxes, which is a little hard to read and doesn’t look good in general. The face portraits are RTP, so not much surprise there. On the audio side, the game uses plenty of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 4 music alongside RTP tracks. This works sometimes, but often it only reminds you of those better games. Sound design is largely forgettable. In spite of the game’s aspirations to the horror genre (it even starts with the whole “play in the dark and with headphones on” warning), the footstep sounds are missing, save for the one instance when you’re moving on the roof of the house, which is also accompanied by those good wind sounds featured in Immortal and Psychostasis. There’s a moment when you can potentially fight an (MDR?) bandit armed with a cleaver and a gun of some kind, and his kind makes some really pathetic “pew-pew” sound. On the bright side, though, the sound used for saving with USBs is pretty good.

Gameplay

Yes, besides using the Silent Hill music and borrowing the “broken lock” thing in excess to what it was actually like in those games, One Fate also does the Resident Evil-style saving, except that it replaces typing machines with computers, and rolls of tape with USBs, which makes very little sense. If an USB would apparently burn out after a single use in this world, I’m not sure who would buy them in normal circumstances. It would’ve been much cooler if the USBs were all kept on your body and their presence corresponded to the number of save slots instead: if you weren’t able to find more than 1 USB, for instance, you would be stuck in having to save at one slot, which could easily screw you over when combined with a much more robust non-linearity. Being regularly forced to make impactful choices, while only ever having a few save slots, and thus many instances where you would be forced to live with the consequences, could’ve made for a really engaging game.

As it is, though, I should mention another clear RE inspiration: the use of green herbs as healing items. There’s also a limited form of inventory management involved, as you’re given only 3 active slots for things that can be used on-map. The first, mapped to A, is always occupied by a melee weapon, the second, corresponding to S, by a gun. However, that gun is unusable if you don’t fill the third and final slot, mapped to D, with ammo. Thus, if you want to heal, you need to swap ammo for a herb, and then do it. You can also put “Basic Clothes” in that D slot, but that doesn’t seem to do anything: even the zombie attacks don’t seem to get any weaker. Besides, it makes no real sense that things you wear on your body would somehow conflict with what you presumably carry in your pockets and such. Perhaps, keeping a more traditional rmk “Equipment” tab to manage clothing/armor alongside the action inventory for weapons/items would be a better choice. There also doesn’t seem to be any way to access the differences between weapons: I’m not really sure if bandit’s Meat Cleaver was better or worse then the wrench, for instance.



As for the combat itself, it’s actually not too bad. The zombies tend to move jerkily back-and-forth, so being able to time your swings to that might allow you to defeat one unscathed (if it does get close enough to hurt, spamming that A button or shooting is still often the best choice, though). Dogs, like the one pictured above, seem to be especially prone to attack-spamming, although this is compensated for by their greater speed, at times allowing them to start attacking you from the side/back where you can’t retaliate. Still, the combat in general would’ve been better if the maps were better designed for each encounter. Fighting the bandit on a small, yet open, map is especially awkward, as you often seem to go in circles around each other, neither able to land an attack properly.

Some bugs:



Conclusion

In all, One Fate is not really worth your time in its current state, and it’ll require some very considerable changes before it can become truly interesting. I suppose checking out InfectionFiles’ games might be a good idea for now, both for anyone reading this, and the developer, should he wish to continue working on this.