Zafehouse: Diaries Demo

Zombie flicks have never been more popular than they are today, given the huge number of TV shows, movies and video games you can find out there. They all stride to provide the audience with something new and exciting, but the main idea is always the same and people usually get tired of bashing in zombie heads all day long, at least if the adventure does not involve something else as well.

Zafehouse: Diaries is a survival game in which you get to control a group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse and do everything in your power to help them get over a variety of tricky situations. The novelty is represented by the fact that you receive all the information about the events in the form of diary entries, although you can give orders and assign tasks to each member of the group as you see fit.

There are multiple modes to try out, beside the classic one in which you have to survive for as long as possible. For example, one mode challenges you to find spare parts for a vehicle and repair it in order to get out of town, which is obviously easier said than done. In the end, the gameplay is the same regardless of what mode you choose, but you at least feel like you’ve got a clear purpose if there’s an objective to work toward.

As interesting as it may sound, not a lot of work went into refining the experience and making the game enjoyable, because everything seems to be designed in order to discourage you from continuing. The group members always get into fights with each other and react poorly when confronted with a crisis, since you cannot actively control how they behave during a raid or a zombie attack. Thus, you end up with a lot of dead characters and a short-lived adventure, for which you are not always to blame.

Luck and dice rolls have a lot to do with how the game evolves, because there is always a chance for an encounter to go horribly wrong, even if the group is heavily armed and confronted by a handful of zombies. Saving the game often can get you out of these stupid situations, but the atmosphere is ruined anyway and it gets very difficult to enjoy the adventure when you know that preparation has almost nothing to do with how your survivors fare on a mission.

All things considered, Zafehouse: Diaries could have been much more than it is, since the original idea was quite clever and it held a lot of potential. However, horrible mechanics and luck-driven gameplay make it almost unbearable at times, unless you enjoy being tortured for no reason.