The Last Hour of Fairfield

Synopsis
 
Last Hour of Fairfield is a survival horror RPG. It's inspired by the likes of Resident Evil and Koudelka for the PS1. In it you choose one of five survivors to play as you venture through the Fairfield Medical Center in hopes to make it to the helicopter waiting for extraction. You have to race the clock however as you only have exactly one hour before a nuclear strike devastates the city. The clock ticks by continuously so you have to be sure to avoid enemies as much as possible, especially since supplies are scarce.
Each survivor will have a slightly unique story which interconnects with each other that will culminate in the final few minutes of the game. Will you be able to keep the survivors alive long enough to make it?
 
Gameplay
 
There are some light puzzle elements throughout as well as the default battle system( since I didn't have time to implement what I wanted in terms of a free battle system), although it is encouraged to avoid battles as much as necessary since you won't gain any XP and very little in the way of ammo and health pick ups.
Each survivor has their strengths and weaknesses and you'll be able to get through the game quicker depending on who you choose. Each one also has their own unique weapon and one ability( since again, I don't have enough time to add more) and you will need to choose when and if to use those abilities.
 
Story

The Survivors

Screenshots

Credits


Link to IGMC Page:

http://contest.rpgmakerweb.com/game/view/id/381#.U7R1HfldUvI

Download game here: Updated!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fmpcftrkv9g5p8/Fairfield.zip

Progress Report #1

Well, despite the headache and nausea, I've managed to add in the first major cut scene into the game for each survivor. This will, in turn, have some of them teaming up together, but not all. I've also added a few shiny bits in order for the player to see items they can interact with better, but there are still quite a few that you'll just have to poke around to see if anything pops up(sic).

Adding in a few more screen shots as well as each survivors info on the main post above, hopefully this will give more clarity as to their motives in case you might of been wondering.

Well, back to work I must go. Leave some feed back if you wish, ciao.

Anything similar to the old Resident Evil games sounds good to me. Your screenshots look pretty good -- I don't think I've seen a game using the Zombie Survival graphics yet.


Keep up the good work :)

@Dark Gaia: Yeah, I haven't seen this DLC pack being used either, although I might have seen some tilesets being used here and there, but not the whole thing.

Progress Report #2

Second Floor is halfway done, just have to connect all the room and implement puzzle elements into the areas. Added wandering enemies to avoid in the area, they're slow so avoiding them shouldn't be a problem. I've given some enemies a VERY low chance of dropping curative items if you do happen to get attacked or otherwise have no choice to avoid a battle. The enemies aren't too particularly difficult for the most part depending on which survivor you chose, however it will still be advised to avoid combat if at all possible due to very little in the way of healing yourself, besides the doctor, who can only heal herself so much and is why she is the weakest of the five.

I'm wondering if I should do a third floor before giving access to the roof and in turn final level of the game. I've been having a bit of a problem with implementing areas that look different enough to each other and I'm trying to make sure that everything is diverse enough being that this all takes place in an abandoned hospital.

I'll have to see how it goes, making sure that everything will be doable given the allotted time in game and with only a week left in the contest.

I've also updated the survivor stats on the first post with info on the special abilities of each of them, as I had said on the first post, they only get one each, so I wanted to try and get them something that would fit with their character. Well that's all for now, time to continue chugging along.

Progress Report #3

Added just a few more screen shots to the first post. I nearly finished the entire second floor, there were a bot more than the initial number of rooms that I had in mind so I added a few mini scenes here and there. Still have to implement one major scene over all, plus I'm thinking about adding one more area with a puzzle element that I have in mind. So far I can run through what I have so far within half an hour, but that's due to the fact that I know where everything is, so soon I'll need play-testers to help flesh out some things that I need so that I can make things as seamless as possible. Hopefully my first attempt at a game( and a survival horror at that!) will be satisfactory. Here's to hoping.

I like the idea of playing one of five characters (not an easy thing to account for, surely) and racing both the real clock and the game one. I'm not really a fan of puzzles personally so am curious to see if you're able to insert them naturally into the setting without breaking immersion.

One thing, though. Is the game close to being done? You should probably get playtesters soon so you can fix any issues ;D I'll be glad to playtest if you need people.

I'm trying to make sure that the puzzle elements fit well with the setting( no picture frame or button mess puzzles here). So far I've got some family and friends who also decided to play-test my game, but I'd definitely welcome your input as well. I'd say I'm about 65% done, maybe even 70%, with only one or two major floors to go before the climax. My only concern at the moment is balancing each survivor with enemy placement, making sure there is just enough, but not a whole lot of chances for the player to heal without making the game a cakewalk or too difficult. I'd like to make sure to at least have the game in a state of completion before sending it out for play-testing. So, hopefully within the next two to three days.

Wow, a bit close ;) I don't envy you the amount of hard work. If you've got family and friends to playtest, then you're golden!

there's at least 10+ games that have zombie survival lol...

nothing in the world is unique anymore

any idea now a days can be said to be inspired from something else.

tho it wont be unique can still aim to be better! : D

@Shayoko: Lol, yeah, I've noticed that right away. Guess we all just want to scare the judges. I admit that the premise isn't in any way unique, however, as you said everyone tries to make theirs better in some way. Mine is simply the choice of which character you wish to be.

As this will certainly be my first full game, I'm hoping this won't fall too hard into the 'first game trappings' as such.

i doubt you have to worry about that lol you would have to make a serious attempt to even touch the worst games ever made XD

i forget the name of it but the worst Rpg Maker game i ever played

was a scam,all the screenshots and info were lies.

you start of as a generic hero next to some shady looking guy

theres a HUGE area to walk around but no exit so its a huge timer waster

so you figure,if i talk to that guy ill advance the story right?

nope

your character says HEY your that guy that sold me those drugs!

reply-Do you wish to kill the king

Yes

No

if you pick Yes

hes says then you have to die

he easily kills you game ends

if you pick no

he says well that's unfortunate

he easily kills you game ends

Now THATS i bad game :D

Wow, that does sound terrible. Hopefully we won't see any of that in this contest. Right now, I'm simply churning out event after even. It's tedious work, especially when I have to event different strings depending on who you're playing as. So, there is that as well as making sure the timer doesn't get in the way too much, lol.

Looking great, loving the lighting effects, gives it a good moody feel.

Progress Report #4

Well, today was disastrous all around. The majority of my time was spent fixing various event bugs, which were enormous. I've got a huge appreciation for those that can event their entire games back in the days of 95 to 2003, before XP. Other than bug extermination I haven't done any maps or such, so I'll be extra vigilant to get the rest of the areas mapped out before I delve even further into eventing each of them.So, HOPEFULLY by tomorrow night I should have something a bit more beefy to showcase. Especially since it's getting ever closer to the deadline, 'shiver'.

Ganbaray!

^hang in there i japanese! : D

Progress Report #5

Finally finished with all my maps! Now all I need to do is event everything in and it'll be ready for play-testing. I don't have any pics to show since the maps would have otherwise major spoilers on them. So, hopefully by tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to gather up some testers and see how it goes from there.

Good to hear! Can't wait to try this out.

So, it appears that my Internet decided to give up the ghost. This essentially means that I have to find other avenues to upload my game entry( which is complete, by the by XD). So, if anyone wished to play test, let me know now, I'll PM the link to you once I get the game uploaded.

Alkorri: Don't worry, I already got ya.

Okay I've finished playing the game. Or at least, I am probably finished ;)


I couldn't find the key to the last door. I know, it's frustrating. I defeated the crazy priest and his daughter and even backtracked and combed nearly everywhere, but no matter what I couldn't find any extra key or the passcode to that last safe. I'm down to five minutes and finished searching and I don't think I will continue. I am likely missing something but frankly my supplies are running out and I'm not sure I want to see the end ;)

 

Other than that, really fun game. I had a few jumpscares and the music and sound effects were atmospheric.

 

I'm not a fan of timed games as I really prefer taking my time exploring. Since I didn't have the luxury, I abused the dash button a lot. Here are my comments/notes in no particular order.

 

Isn't it a bit extreme to nuke a whole city just because one military unit sent in to find out the problem got wiped out? I guess what they found scared the pants off the government. Also, those scientists must have been damn sure a nuclear strike would wipe out that plague and not, like, distribute the virus into the whole hemisphere ;)

 

I decided to play Franklin, the military guy. I love how you have a choice of characters, inviting multiple playthroughs with different beginnings. I also like how you hear mention of them during your playthroughs. So far, I only found Cara and I can't seem to find any more survivors.


One of the reasons I chose Franklin was because the Character Selection part mentioned survivors, but when he starts off on that floor it made it sound like he'd forgotten about the survivors and was going straight to the elevator. Just made me wonder what happened until I got to the later part of the game.

I have to mention again that I like the creepy ambience of the corridors. There was one time I left one dim corridor to enter another hall that was even darker, and I thought "F**k No", and went back ;)

The first time Franklin says the phrase 'What could have done this'? I couldn't tell what this object was because it was so dark. I couldn't even tell if it was a door or crates or not. It would be helpful if the dialogue mentioned what it was. Like: "What could have done this? Someone broke right through blah blah." Edit: After a few times of coming across this same line, I didn't attach that much importance to it anymore. It's just that I wondered the first time.

It was only after I played for five minutes, taking my time, that I finally noticed the timer in the far right ;D Perhaps the numbers could be a little brighter and not so faded out?

There was one part of the game where I just came across this object that looked like a generator. After I activated it, my character says, "That should do it." I thought that was a little vague. Without a journal or quest system, it would have helped to clue in people if he also mentioned something about the lights or emergency power coming back on, or something.

After bringing back emergency power, I went into this room that clearly had a working computer, but couldn't reach it because I couldn't see that a First Aid Kit was blocking the way. The way it's positioned made me assume that it was on the other cabinet and part of the furniture, so it stupidly  took me a while before I accidentally interacted with the kit to reach the computer.

After I solved the first pass code challenge, I enter a room where there's a Food box on the floor I can't access. Was that intentional?

The grill tile in the mess(?) room looks a bit cut off on the right. As if there was meant to be another tile there?

During the first half of the game, I was satisfied I had enough Bread but had to be careful of Supplies. Later when Cara joined me, I ran out of bread fast because she's such a weak character that one hit could bring her HP down to 4. Not only that, there's no Smelling Salts or equivalent item to wake her back up (as far as I know) so I'm forced to reload. Thank goodness for First Aid Kits, which magically heals both health AND Ammo (yay). Anyway, limiting these resources forced me to explore the rooms for supplies and if I could, Run Away from some enemies. Failing to escape can be costly however, so I tried to avoid encounters whenever I can. In other words, I think the amount of loot is sufficient, as long as you explore and dodge enemy encounters. (I support the decision to have no random encounters!)

I also like the minimalist HP system, and how you have to watch for infection. Through the whole playthrough I was only infected once however, and so all these antidotes piled up. I guess you had to leave antidotes around for players who have yet to find any.

If you don't mind, I spotted some errors. This is only for Franklin however.

That's it so far. I've not come across a single bug. Kudos and good work on your game :)

@ Alkori: Thank you for your thorough information.

And thanks you again for catching those spelling errors, without a spell checker on my PC and no internet, it a nightmare to catch them all. I'll send you an improved build soon if you'd like to try it out again with the improved stuff.