Stay Alive: Apocalypse Reviews

This game is a difficult one to review. It has a lot of good ideas, but they are often poorly executed. I'd like to make a list of positives and negatives, starting with the positives. [b]Positives:[/b] [list] [*] The way the game handles furniture and other movable objects. You can pick most things up, as long as you are strong enough to carry them. This includes most furniture in the game. If you feel that your front door is a tad weak, you can put a drawer in front of it. If you want to build a fortress out of a regular house, you can. You can stack furniture on top of each other, and you can put them anywhere you want. Cover all windows with furniture and zombies will have a harder time getting inside. This includes the interior of vehicles. When you open the trunk of your car, you are not met by an inventory screen - instead, you have to physically put your items down into the trunk, and you can put as much as can fit in there. You're not locked down to a grid of inventory spaces. This gets really fun when you find a truck. Want to build a home in the back of your 18-wheeler? Grab a bed and put it back there. Grab a table and a few chairs, and you have a tiny home to take with you wherever you go. You can also place boxes and chests in there, to store all your precious items. You can place pots to grow vegetables and buckets to store water. [*] The vehicle system. In addition to what I mentioned above, you can also upgrade and paint your vehicle. You can put on better protection, making your vehicle harder to destroy. You can also switch out each wheel individually for higher-quality ones. You can change the engine and the battery for higher-quality ones. You also have to make sure you have enough fuel to last wherever you're going. Use a garden hose to "steal" fuel from other vehicles, or stop at a petrol station. [*] Upgrading doors and other household items. Feel like your door is too weak, but moving furniture in front of it is too much manual labor? Upgrade your door to last longer. I have not used this system too much, as I prefer the mobile home of an 18-wheeler. [/list] [b]Negatives:[/b] [list] [*] It's not a very good-looking game. It is not a game where you'll want to stop and take a screenshot. There are a lot of popups, both zombies and vehicles pop up way too close to you. [*] It's not a very smooth game. Moving about the world and interacting with it feels [i]very[/i] clunky. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what it is, though. Crouching, for example, doesn't seem to have any animation, but you're rather abruptly teleported a few inches down. The hand-to-hand combat animation is awful, it looks like your hands are made of plastic bags, flopping around in front of you for about half a second. Jumping doesn't feel like you're actually jumping, but rather like you're being launched into the air quickly and then lowered slowly back down. [*] The English translation can be bad at times. Often, you can figure out what the game is trying to say, but sometimes I have no idea what I'm reading. I know it's a game made in Turkey, but finding someone with fluent in both Turkish and English can't be that hard. Even I, a non-native English speaker, could probably do a better job. [*] The bugs. The bugs are everywhere. I have never actually died in this game, every time I have to start a new game it is because of some bug. Right now, I'm being kept from enjoying the game because of a bug where my jumping height is turned to 11 - I can easily jump on top of 1-story buildings, sometimes even 2-story buildings. This has really ruined any fun I had in this game. Yesterday, I was using the sniper rifle, and somehow the game dropped the weapon from my inventory while I was aiming down the scope - and I was stuck. I couldn't go back from scope aiming, meaning I had to play with only a small circle of view with the rest of the screen black. Placed items can also disappear, and once all of my storage chests vanished - with ALL my items inside them. I never found them again. I know, it's early access - but I won't review a game based on what it may or may not be like when it is finished - but rather how the game is right now. [/list] As the game is right now, there's no way I can recommend it to others with a good conscience. I know this game is being developed by just one, or a very few number of, developer(s) - and I know it's probably a passion project - but I want to be fair to everyone - developer or potential buyers. I will of course update the review if any of my points have turned false.

Stay Alive: Apocalypse is unfortunately abandoned by the dev, as the last update was almost two years ago (Feb 19, 2020). I bought this game forever ago because I just love zombie survival games like this, especially with how freeform it is. The issues come along when you see the complicated interfaces, practically no tutorial and mechanics that are not explained in the least. Like, I still don't even know how to repair clothing items. It apparently has something to do with a sewing machine, some scissors and a tailors kit? HOWEVER, that is also where the game shines because there is a LOT to do in this game. It is glitchy and buggy and honestly *really* unstable but I would still recommend this game to hell and back to people who really enjoy realistic zombies survival simulations. There are so many deep mechanics in this game, like the dirtiness of your clothes leading to higher chances of getting infected by the zombies. You can actually wash your clothes in a washer if you manage to connect it to a generator and add some water and detergent into it. You then have to phyiscally place your clothing into the washer and turn it on, then wait for the clothes to get done before you can pull them all back out. There is a deep and involved cooking system, as well as crafting and base building, which you can do *literally anywhere*. If you want to make a super-armored tank-bus that is *also* your mobile base, you can 100% do that. You can recruit other AI survivors that will help you fight and scavenge, but they also will have their own personality quirks and issues. They may not trust you and you will have to earn that trust for them to *truly* watch your back. You can go set up a colony deep in the forest with your survivors and start civilization anew, or you can plop down in one of the apartment buildings and wall off the stairwell. It's stupid complicated with the UI and it's VERY hard to understand, but once you put in the work to understand it, the game is incredibly rewarding. There is just *so much here* in this game that it's almost okay to me that it's abandoned. It's a shame because I truly want to know what we *could* have had if the dev kept working on it, imagine a fully formed version of this game, but that isn't the reality we live in. For now, I'm totally okay with this glitchy, ugly mess and I seriously suggest you try it out. It will be a little difficult in understanding what you need to do at first, but things will slowly come together and make for a truly unique experience where you have to *survive*. If you do end up getting the game and have questions about what to do and how to do stuff, feel free to ask in my comments (I promise I'll answer when I can XD) or friend me and I'll help you as best I can.

I had given this game a try when I first bought it. It seemed to have real potential and mechanisms in game that I had not seen before in other games of this type, but it seems the developer has given up on this game. I currently cannot recommend it. If I see that the developer is back, I will change to a positive review, but this really looks abandoned now.

Got this game on sale for ten bucks & I honestly feel like I was ripped off. This has been my worst purchase from Steam so far & I've bought dozens of games over the years. The game really has a lot of great ideas & systems in place. Even without great graphics, this could be a solid title, but the implementation is atrocious. I wanted to like this game, I really did. I gave it more than a fair chance. It has a lot of potential, if it weren't for the ridiculous amount of bugs & glitches & freezes that are CONSTANT. I have a high tolerance for bugs, but Jesus Christ... This is basically unplayable & I've put up with some pretty raggedy programming in games before. I think this one is about the worst I've seen. Graphical bugs, zombies walking through walls & doors. If you accidentally hit "CAPS" instead of "TAB", your avatar apparently loses the ability to move it's head & all other keyboard functions, except WASD are gone... Sometimes that randomly happens too, & you are forced to quit the game & load your last save, which is a nearly 5 minute process with a decent gaming rig & an SSD + 16 gig RAM. Sometimes menus get stuck open, sometimes they won't open. Sometimes items disappear, sometimes zombies appear out of nowhere & directly on top of you. Sometimes the game just goes black... And all that can happen within an hour of gameplay... Not 2 hours, not 4 hours, 1 hour & you've had 3-4, 5 minute reloads.... I've tried different settings, I've tried reinstalling, no. Just no... This game needs a lot of TLC to make it even remotely acceptable & that's coming from someone who bought it knowing it was buggy & was fully expecting some issues.

The last time I played this game was January 28th, 2018. Almost 4 years before writing this review. I can say for a fact that this game will never get updated and will never even become playable. Since the last time I have played there have been 2 updates released. The hilarious part about that is they are labelled as "regular updates" but there is nothing regular about them; they're small patches that fix next to nothing. The art style feels like a 4 year-old did all of it, the game is buggy as hell, nothing actually works, the tutorial is awful and so many other glaring issues. Literally just look at any screenshot of this game and you will see the horror that is the visuals. Just don't buy this game, it's not worth your time or money.

Turned an 18 wheeler semi-truck into a mobile base complete with a bedroom, dining room and green house with my potato plants all nicely lit up with lamps filled with 9-volt batteries. If you like very in depth games with a lot of content already in, then check this game out! Its a bit buggy but with updates rolling out every 1-2 months this game is worth the money.

Update: Nothing has been fixed. Infact, Its got worse. Im really bummed, i love this game, but its completely unplayable, things randomly disapear or get destroyed without reason. Reloading the game can remove a series of items, some of which may have taken you time to get, like gas or what ever. Ugh. Stay Alive: Apocalypse It absolutely pains me to leave a bad review for such a great game, however, I will not reccomend this game in its current state, at least until many bugs have been addressed. If these bugs are addressed i will happily give it an 8/10 and highly reccomend this game. You wake up in a random building or outside to a randomly generated open world where many people have been turned into zombies but others are resistant to the infection and you must survive, eat, sleep, take a crap... and deal with other rando peeps who may steal your stuff or try to enslave you. My first playthrough started rather rough. I woke up in my apartment to the sound of zombies in the stairwell, well crap. How do i get out? Fortunately i am on the second floor, so I run around my apartment looking for stuff i will need like a backpack some food and medical supplies. I go out my front door and sure enough zombies want to eat me on the stair well, so i turn around in a rush and run back into my apartment but they are breaking through the door so i grab random baskets and boxes and start throwing them out the window so i can jump down from the second story without killing my self. I rush in doing so and zombies break through but i manage to get away... just barely. But i jump down into another swarm of zombies and start haulling ass to where ever and throw boxes and what ever i can find to dismay the perps and slow them down... As i explore I find a grociery store, there are no zombies inside so i figure i might find a weapon and other things i may need so i grab a shopping cart and start throwing everthing i can inside, i find a shovel some food and medicine and gas cans, batteries plus a pair of car keys and a generator i found yadda yadda. My cart is stacked with stuff so i get out of there, its starting to get dark and need to find somewhere to rest, but all of the houses i run up to are locked and zombies are coming after me now. Oh whats that? a van in perfect condition? Lets see if it runs!!! Good thing i grabed those car keys!!! Throw my shopping cart in the back of the van with all my crap and start running over some zombies! Its getting very dark now and i dont have any form of light except the car headlights and need to rest, so i look at my map and find a fire department thinking it was not locked. I drive on over and the place is perfect for a home, it has a gate and a perimeter wall that zombies cant get over. Perfect! Now its getting darker so i do a brief inspection to make sure its safe and i find beds a couple of axes and some water buckets! Oh hell yeah! I rest for the evening, but when i wake up the water and gas has been shutoff. Fortunately in the kitchen of the fire depot there is some water and some food but only limited amounts. So i grab my shopping cart and start putting buckets outside for catching rain water and put some food in the fridge, but the power is off so it doesnt really do me any good, but wait i got a generator! Oh heck yeah! I set out on my second day with my awsome jet black van and start driving, i find a hospital, grab my trustee dusty shopping cart and start on my spree, find a bunch of cool stuff like planters and propane tanks. So i disemabark the hospital heading back to my fire depot and i hit a zombie, my van does a backflip 30 ft into the air and crashed into a building then gets stuck in the road... Well fuck... cant get the van out of the road and i got all this cool crap in there... Great... So i go find another vehicle to use but i dont have any car keys and zombies are closing in, i had put my axes on my van so run back to grab it but now its -10000 condition and wont work... same with my shovel... So now i am defensless, vanless, and some items i grabed have dissapeard from the van like my propane tanks... So now i am feeling pretty screwed... I run back to the fire depot to grab another axe but everthing has also disapeared... my furniture, the axes, the buckets, the generator, my fridge and food.... EVERYTHING IS GONE... Well fucking shit fuck...... At this point i am just pissed and rage quit... I start a new game figuring it may just be something stupid or whatever... Similar shit keeps happening and its just not even worth playing anymore... I am LIVID because it really is the most mechanically detailed zombie game i have played and it has some awesome game mechanics, however, if these issues are not fixed i wouldnt recommend this game. I have contacted the makers with a list of game breaking bugs (not including random things that are just annoying or funny.) but they never got back to me, not even a thank you or apology. I dont want to get a refund because i want to see this game developed further but i also feel a little bit screwed here. Game mechanics 10/10 Graphics 5/10 Fun 8/10 blah blah But with these bugs i cant even give the game a 1/10 you will do all of these things for hours to survive and get screwed and die because of glitches and everthing you worked for just dissapears.... So unfortuantely i have to give this game a 0/10, i have never given such a low rating on a game but this is special. Hope this review helped, and i will change it if these issues are addressed.

So i was looking for a game with a positive review ratio because usually thats a good indicator of whether or not this game is doo doo or nah and i love this genre. I bought this game after reading some of the reviews only to find myself playing a clunky, exceedingly slow( i mean sloooooow) paced game. I almost felt like most of these reviews were not very honest (fabricated) something ive never thought of about any game on steam. The reviews are NOT a good indicator whether or not this game is good or not in its current state 1/24/19. Look for some gameplay footage somewhere and ull see what i mean.

I watched a 2 year old video of 30 minutes of gameplay of this game. To say it looked rough would be an understatement. But, the video was 2 years old. So I thought it must have improved since then. It hasn't. The game is a sloppy mess. The attack animations don't play correctly most of the time. The translation is bad. Also, the developer put out another game, "Streamer Daily", while claiming he is the only one making this game. Why are you making another game when you have this one that is barely working and people have paid for? This has scam written all over it.

Honestly really great game. Beside the glitchy visuals, the game is inching closer and closer to the perfect singleplayer zombie survival game. The in-depth customisation of everything really helps build immersion and literally every playthrough you have will be different. Plus, the dev is very active and very interactive with the playerbase, you can check the discussion board and see how he responds to tonnes of people's suggestions. I went from being a "Rick" like leader from the walking dead, to a solo survivor travelling the city in a old ambulance filled with supplies and weapons. Honestly, with a few small tweaks (Translations, Visuals, Zombie AI behaviour) this game will be perfect. It is just a matter of time.