Good to hear Jim! Excited for part 3. In regards to your questions:

1. I think group survival sounds more appealing if we can get attached to the characters in our group. A good mixture of both is also nice.

2. I personally like more action and character interaction sequences.

3. The pace should be set over time, with major events (finding medicine, defense against a horde, low food, ect.) the main focus.

4. I personally think that you need more character development for them. I hope bringing Devlin wasn't a mistake... He seems like a smug s.o.b.

5. Every scene was enjoyable.

@GamingPanda - thank you for the feedback!

1. Group survival is most appealing to me - however, throwing in some suspense by having people get separated/captured/etc. could be a good move.

2. Some character building and tactical things - like fortifying your safehouse, assigning patrols, that sort of thing.

3. Over time, but slowing it down to real time in important scenes is important.

4. I want to know more about them - I feel like I don't really get who they are yet. I like to care about my companions in games.

5. My favorite scene was getting past the officers to get into the city.

I'd also recommend that you tighten up some punctuation here and there, but other than that and the points I listed above, I think it'll be great.

I haven't seen part 2 yet where is it

@kadael Thanks for answering. I am still editing and will fix the typos and grammar.

@ghostface22 If you go to the game at zombieexodus.com, you get to choose part 1 or part 2 after the intro.

1. It should be a choice, and people should be able to get killed easily (other than yourself, obviously)

2. More action sequences, but claustraphobic and tense moments when you are hunting/being hunted. Time chases out of buildings, for example, with zombies coming after you, or a group member being attacked...

3. I don't know what you mean by that... lol. Make main events in the game, like horde fighting, but maybe seeing the aftermath of the battle/being there early may have good effects...

4. Emmy (your sister) should have more character development. I've got Devlin as a smug, narcissistic but generally good person (Del-Boy comes to mind), and heather as a feminist "tomboy" who is a pragmatist, and really a Mary Sue, but because she is displaying all her worst qualities, it makes her a great character. Emmy... I don't know. I THINK she is the NPCs off of escort missions (I'm going to folllow you, get in your way, be in awe when you kill zombies even with me purposely annoying you and not die when being told to charge to your death), but I am not sure. I want her to have more personality, but she reminds me of a tertiary character (one that is involved for a few scenes like the geek in the first scene), with no real value.

5. The comical value of imagining when Candace and Mindy were hitting that zombie... I wanted an option to be "join in hitting the zombie with a third broom.

@devex3
You sure are expecting a lot... Lol...like a lot a lot..

Thats a lot to fit in. :-|

@devex3 I will make Part 3 and 4 more dangerous, since the zombie exodus will start. I can not program both solo and group survival, but will have to pick one, although I am allowing players to be selfish, even anti-social in their behavior. For example, you find food but don't share it, or see someone attacked by a zombie and don't help.

I like your other ideas and you are absolutely right about the character development.

Wow I cant wait till its finished. I tried posting a Looooong comment in this thread today at lunch using my phone. (You know how I like to blab on) But it didn't post for some reason. But it was basically agreeing with everything that was said ahead of me.

Sorry :(

Second part 4.5 stars

@JimD
You going to reprogram some of the parts? That's going be one Hell of a hassle .. I suggest you just build up Emma's towards part 3 and 4.. :P unless you already thought of that.. ^.^ anyways I like your idea finding food but not sharing etc.. but knowing me.. I play as though I was really in the CoG.. not just do what I would do if I could do that in real life...key word there is "could".. I play it as though it is real life and do what I know I would do.. :) like in real life if there was a zombie apocalypse.. and someone was dieing.. I would run and help.. its not that "Oh its a game so its okay if I help don't help the guy.".. lolol :P how do you play it JimD?

@Blade thanks -- I tried posting here from my iPhone a few times and it glitched out.

@ghostface22 -- thanks for the rating :)

@MouaThug -- I am not going to change Part 1 or 2 before writing 3 and 4. I am going to do like you said -- build up Emma more going forward. I play CoG games like I am really living them, but as someone who has done roleplaying for years as a dungeon master and storyteller, I like to give options for people to play evil and antisocial characters if they so choose. Plus, I do enjoy replaying games as a "bad guy" to see how different it is.

I just mean that there should be times in which you can go as a group, or go solo commando, instead of sending specific people instead. As long as it doesn't turn into a kind of zombie game where the apocalypse isn't an afterthought.

Yep, the thing's I have planned are group or solo. There will be different opportunities to separate and get back to basic survival.

1.Group does sound more appealing to me. Besides, who could really survive a zombie apocalypse alone? LoL!!

2.Their should be more focus on character interaction. Maybe a flash back scene on life before the zombies. (I'm no professional author so it's just an idea)

3. Real time is cool and it works for this story. I'd say stick with it.

4. The only character that I feel like I don't really have a sense of is Emma. She seems like she doesn't have a mind of her own and doesn't have much to say about major decisions. But everyone else is good.

5.I don't have one set favorite scene right now. The best so far are the sort of unpredictable ones like the zombie action scenes and finding devlyn. The worst scenes I think are the mushy signs of affection from Emma. But none are really in the "bad" category. You do a good job of keeping the storyline interesting. It's just as good as the choice of games. Keep up the good work!!

@ice500 thanks for the thoughtful comments. I will definitely be working on Emma's character more.

I disagree with ice500 about Emma. She is your character's sister and it's predetermined so far that they have a good relationship. They are bound to be affectionate with each other. Even the television show supernatural, a show about two brothers killing demons, had mushy brotherly scenes.

@Victoriya thanks for the comment.

I don't think the "mushiness" will change because that is a character trait (modeled after my sister) but I will be making her more of a central character. I can see the argument people have made that she is not as developed as Heather or Devlin yet.

Also, in part 3, you will have chances to strengthen or weaken the relationship with Emma, so she may not be so affectionate if specific choices are made.

1. Group survival sounds more interesting. Makes usually selfish people try and think of others. ;-)

2.Mix between Action and Character building and make the action sequences a bit like a puzzle like the wrong choice and you die.

3. Not really sure I like real-time but progression is also fun.

4.Emma-Not really sure about her character. Heather-seems like a tomboy with a soft heart(Potential love interest for guys maybe?). Devlin seems like a jerk and I don't like him very much (Potential love interest for girls maybe?).

5. I dislike any scene with Devlin.

I just can't find any redeeming qualities in him.

A couple of things to say :

Firstly, I disagree with victorya about a statement; we know it to be a long distance relationship between brother/sister, but why? Is it something benign, or more complex? That would be an easy expansion point on their relationship possibility, imo.

Also, I can't believe you don't like Devlin! He needs to be more comic relief, but he's got great antihero potential, I think (hope). To be honest, I like devlin more than any other character so far...

@cool74 thanks for the feedback

@devex3 Devlin will be making appearances going forward and both he and Emma's characters will become more complex. Thanks for your comments.

I really love stories with zombies so I enjoyed every bits of this game. I'm excited to leave some feedbacks! Lemme start off with thanking you for making such an enjoyable game!

1. Group survival. But group consisting more people than necessary (to the point where there are random people with you whose characters are not developed) appeals even less than solo survival does.


2. I can't really imagine what kind of puzzle/ problem solving can be engaged in a zombie game, can you explain this a bit? I think character development is the top priority. I would also like to see a process of building a secure shelter or gathering resources for everyone. I don't know if its just me, but in these text based games action is just means of checking if I got hurt or not; a thorough description is not necessary.


3. I prefer real time. I feel that I'm going against majority of people for this one, but I wanna see many little events that happen while trying to survive with people that I don't know well enough. seeing little conversations and conflicts and everything would provide much better character development also.


4. I thought you only showed the characteristics partially on purpose so that you can develop it further at later chapters? It was actually more interesting that way because I wasn't sure of who to trust except for Emma.
I dunno how much of these were intended, but here's my impressions of the 3 characters:

-Emma: nice hearted and smart sibling. The one I can surely trust. actually I don't mind some romance between emma and the main character because realistically having to survive with random people is quite overwhelming and although it's wrong, being completely comfortable only around your family is definitely understandable.

-Heather: sure she's Emma's friend, and while I felt she wouldn't betray me, to me she's a sassy little girl who may flip and go against the crowd even if it would cost everyone trouble. I think she's supposed to be pretty but a bit brainless and immature? I mean wearing shorts when going outside to roads full of zombies? It didn't make sense to me at all.. if you want to make her character attractive I think you need to be a bit less extreme about her personality.

-Devlin: I couldn't really trust him even though he looked pretty harmless. I see that he is left alone and he needed to stick with my crowd, but the 'Come on bro' attitude really bothered me. He looked like the type to take what I provide him for granted and have grudges against me when I don't give him one little thing he wants. He shows no sign of understanding when I tell him I need to leave without him. Does he not know having one more person during the time of survival is really burdensome? Is he too selfish to understand that? Although most of the time I tried to take him with me until the end because I felt sorry for him, he is not the person I would like to be around with.


5. I had no favorite scene(not because I didn't like the game) but my least favorite was when I find a little girl singing on part 1. No matter what I do I never get to save her... what's that supposed to be? A random girl disappearing?



And I have few additional comments:

-I want to see stats of how much of consumable resources are left. Resources are key part of any survival and I want to see them playing a role instead of just reading descriptions that I found some food which doesn't feel too life threatening. I don't think they are necessary until part 2 though.

-Too little dead endings! I was really surprised to see such few dead endings despite the fact that this game involves zombies. Especially part 1! no matter what I do I would always make it through hordes of zombies!! After a while it even felt boring to read the action scenes, assuming I made it through safely. I want more dead endings, but since there is no option of going back in choice of games and it will be irritating to start over after going so far, it would be good to include an option to go back to previous choices or just start the game over after saying that I have died.


I was very happy to provide the feedback! Sorry if its too long and tidious to read lol
thank you again for making such a nice game :) can't wait for the next part!

@pumpkin Thanks for such thorough feedback and the compliments.

My plan is to have resource management, such as number of days of food, number of days of water, an offense rating, and a defense rating, as well as several others.

I have always planned the game as 8 parts, so only one-quarter of the game is finished. In the first 2 parts, I did not have many dead endings, because I consider it early in the game. I want people to get into the story before it ends due to a wrong choice. Starting with part 3, I am increasing the number of dead ends.

Love the game! I think the writing's good, as well as the characters, as welllll as the choice of weaponry and skills.

Really looking forward to the third part!!

@badwineandlemoncake thanks for the comments. Part 3 will be finished in about 10 days.

The entire part or just part of it?

probably with the entire part with some minor spell checking and stuff like that, at least that what he did with the two other parts.

All of Part 3, as tested as possible. I usually write it all, test it, put it up, then do more thorough editing.

Firstly, I like the choice to be "good" or "bad". Stuff like back-stabbing others to stay alive?

1. I prefer solo myself, as I'm not sure how you can model group choices without the main character being the leader/guy casting final vote. I don't know if you mean making an addition stat page or what not? I think something like the decision of One person can jeopardise the group, but it's also the group can sacrifice one person?

2. I think there should be more action and character building. Not too focused on too many characters though. Puzzle problems are okay I guess, but that can kinda be built into the action (like the bit in part 1 about pushing the tree onto the zombie in the forest?)

3. Time intervals as per flow of the story really, so N/A

4. The characters are okay, and so far the people I like are (funny enough) the police guarding the doors, the man who get killed by his girlfriend/mistress zombie in the protagonist's building, and the ghost-like little girl. I enjoyed playing thru as the basketball player, and I want to see a reason for that ghost-like little girl!

5. Favourite scene is probably just the funny gags while playing as the basketball player. Least is when whichever way you choose after leaving the girls' house, you end up in a car pile up and gets surprised by the weird guy.

I read through your story, overall I must say very well done. As a reader I want to be drawn in and be apart of the story. I think you have done very well in this regard with only a few bumps in the road for me. These were very few and only minor, these you may wish to consider.

In the apartment with the man that hung himself and the blank check, when you leave the room the transition threw me. You go from leaving his apartment to unlocking your door and entering the hallway.

Once you reach the elevator I had the impression the power was still on by the flickering lights going into the apartment with the hanging zombie. Personally I would have liked to see the elevator in service only to lead to your death.

You build the tension nicely, until I realized there seems to be no limit on the bullets. Lessen the fear factor.

Once you know were your sister is the choice of cars or going subway was a little bit off. I picked the 150, found a candy bar and a pack of smokes. Picked the second truck, found a candy bar and a pack of smokes. Then forced to go down in the subway. Would have liked to check the other cars first.

Like I said small bumps that take me out of the story for a moment. But all in all very well done.

Part 1
Meeting Jason
-
Wouldn't somebody that play a lot of video games / scientist be slightly less awestruck at Jason's computer and all that?


Mindy and Candice
-
Btw, helping Mindy and Candice in the first place probably deserve a slight humanity rise - you are helping fellow survivors after all.


=====
Part 2
Charisma
-
I just realized that perhaps Charisma could kick in earlier - as in soothing tension between Emma, Heather and Devlin, or at least reduce the relationship loss if you do something they don't like.

Packing
-
Personally, I'd prefer having Heather grins instead of "smile and nod" if you agree with her when packing - seems more suitable for a energetic person.

Leaving Devlin
-
I don't like Devlin much, but perhaps if you have a high humanity when Tom refuse to let Devlin on the boat, the description changes sightly instead of "You feel so calm"? Someone with high humanity probably will worry about every single person : D
=====
Character Choices
I still want to play as Clerks >_>

Thanks for all of the comments. I will definitely take all of the suggestions into account and will check out the errors and issues reported. I appreciate the feedback.

Looks like part 3 is going to be big.

Part 3 will be up tomorrow night around 9pm EST.

Yay~
I died just before we made it to the boat, but I loved it. I would really wish you could carry more items, and less guns. For those of you who have played Left 4 Dead, melee is always the best options because you don't have to worry about ammo. I personally would like more melee weapons.

But that's just me...
(I'll answer the questions now...)
1. Definitely group survival. I love when you loose someone for some stupid reason...
2. More adventure and character building. Other people with different personalities in an apocalypse setting isn't focused on as much as the action, so how they get along after a period of time really effects people and how they feel.
3. Progress over time. Day-to-day is very boring, and if the time is shown over a certain period, you can see the progressive change in the characters each time.
4. I really enjoy how the characters have progressed so far. I would like to learn more about Emma and Devlin though. I think it would be interesting if you meet back up with him and he becomes a love interest or something (or some weird dude who's trying to rape every girl he sees so that they can repopulate the Earth again once this is over. You know, some sort of apocalyptic psycho like that would be nice too).
5. I liked the part where you meet Devlin and when you can get the samurai sword. That was an excellent choice~

Overall, excellent game. I would like to see an over time social degeneration though.

@IyashiiOtaku thank you for the comments. Looking over the feedback, I have a feeling you'll enjoy Part 3.

~Yay.
Looking forward to it even more now~

I couldn't put this game down. It has a great plot and your writing style images it easy to understand. I liked how you could go back to the game at part 2 and go back to where you left off fairly easy. Getting to know the characters a bit more would be wonderful; as others have said. I'm really curious as to how you plan to loop Delvin back into the story. I'm not quite sure what to think of Heather yet. She seems a tad uptight, but that can be understandable considering the conditions. Anyways, I should probably answer these questions.

1. Group survival sounds like a great idea, I'm hoping to see some crazy people in part 3+4, as that would add an interesting twist
2. As I mentioned before, character developement would be great, maybe a tad of romance, but not the focus of the story maybe a bit more logic and puzzle solving
3. Three to five events per week?
4. I already mentioned how I felt about a few of the characters
5. I'm not going to lie. I laughed pretty hard when Delvin made that comment about Heather's shorts :3

@Mango - thanks for the feedback. Part 3 is almost ready (I just keep adding to it), so I think things are going in the direction you suggest. Devlin's re-intro is going to be a bit of a shock and there will be a bit of romance too.

I appreciate your comments!

Do you have a specific release set?

I was hoping for yesterday but found errors while testing. My new release date is this Friday the 29th.

Is the new part out today?

Also a suggestion: can we have an inventory?

Yes, the new one will be out today. I am working on an inventory system but it won't be released today.

first all great game, not much an fan of the zombie genre usually. But this game is the exception.

1. like the groupsurival theme
2. the character delevopement would be an great, esp when your action effects your character and of those around you
3. dont really konw
4.i dont get an real feel of the charcters yet esp concerning emma and heather
5. really like the scence with the child and the song in the park, very eerie

@ice Thanks for the comments. The next chapter is going up and many of your comments are in play now.

Part 3, chapter 1 is now available at:
http://zombieexodus.com/zombieexodus/index.html

This is a draft, and I have done a good amount of testing but am still editing. Please let me know if you find mistakes, like it, hate it, etc.

For those who want to skip to Part 3, I added an option to go directly to it.

Thanks!

@JimD buddy! Go read the comment I posted on my discussion about Bushido Code.. there is the intro for Bushido Code! Tell me what think! :P

Good work Jim

Love it dude love it.. part 3 is the best man. Haha I was going to make love to Heather... :P