• Register

Rebirth

Rebirth is a survival horror sandbox game with a focus on procedural environments and dynamic AI. Influenced by games such as STALKER and Silent Hill, all set in a sandbox world ready for players to explore.

Day

Scavenge. Hunt. Explore.

Afternoon

Fend off a group of survivors who found your house. Reinforce the barricades, check to make sure you have enough batteries for your flashlight.

Night

Survive.

Rebirth is a game about survival. The world is in shambles, shattered to the core due to a mix of mysterious events. The air is barely breathable, society has crumbled and governments have toppled. What will you do when your way of life no longer exists and strange beings roam the earth?Do you have the will to survive?

Features

  • Procedurally generated world – There will be a large amount of buildings and places that are procedurally generated to keep gameplay fresh and interesting each time you play.
  • Living, breathing eco-system. AI with goals and advanced behaviours, such as actively searching for you when they lose sight of you, searching key locations for food, etc.
  • Emergent gameplay – Random events scattered throughout the world. Your house may be raided or attacked one day, or you may find a map leading you to a loot cache… or a trap!
  • Survival based gameplay – Scavenge during the day. Find food, weapons, medical supplies, ammo, and scavenge for shelter. Try to survive the night to see the light of the next day.
  • Procedural Horror, immersive atmosphere and dynamic scares!
  • Various enemy types, all with different behaviors and objectives. No “This Enemy is a bigger version of that guy who does more damage”. A core philosophy is to make each enemy have a role and be special in their own way.
  • Full body awareness.
  • Barricade existing buildings, set up defenses and generators using items you collect and the environment around you.
  • Meaningful death.
  • RPG elements – Your character can become more specialized as time passes and they get more experienced.
  • Mind-warping horror system. Your fear shapes the world around you…
  • Collect information and piece together the origins of the disaster.

Future planned features

  • Social game play dynamics: Your most dangerous enemy may be humanity itself. Will others help you, or hunt you?
  • Multiplayer – After most mechanics are complete.
  • Rebuild society and craft your own items and possibly buildings (later releases).
  • Completely procedurally generated environments
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
  • View media
Post article RSS Articles

Let's start things off with a visual shall we?

He's dead Jim

So we have been quiet for a long time. What gives? Well mainly I have been working on the game a lot, as you can probably see, we've had quite a bit of an overhaul visually. I've also done quite a bit of footwork creating some really cool tech that we're going to be showing off in the near future, tech that will power a lot of Rebirth's systems.

Take melee for example.

I'm tired of FPS melee systems where you swing a thing in front of you and it does X damage. Aren't you? I like some interaction when I swing my pixels around the screen, and I personally need some depth if I'm expected to whack things over the head with a bit of copper tubing or what have you. I also want it to feel pretty satisfying.

I expect most gamers would agree with this point of view.

So I set out to create a melee system that meets a few key criteria:

  • Has depth
  • Is fun
  • Is interactive beyond left click and aim center of screen at guy
  • Is satisfying
  • Rewards skill

How does Rebirth's melee system rise to the challenge? Let's tackle that one by one.

It has Depth, Interactivity, Rewards skill

In Rebirth, we currently only have one weapon implemented, the trusty rusty machete. When designing the system, I tried to keep future expansion in mind, but first let me explain how the machete works.

The machete currently has 4 different attacks (mainly constrained by animations, which is why we don't have more yet). Each attack is performed based on the direction on the keyboard you press in combination with the mouse button. LMouse + forward performs a stab move. LMouse + left performs a backhand swing.

Why do you care which way you swing? Aren't they all the same?

No. Weapons in Rebirth (as well as enemy melee attacks) are physically simulated. This means that you only hit an enemy if your weapon actually makes contact with them. Each enemy also has a multitude of hotboxes on each body part, each having a different damage multiplier. Headshots do more damage, whereas body blows or limb blows do less.

If a monster swings its claw at you, they only hit you if that claw touches you. If it swings two claws, if only one claw hits you, you take 1/2 the damage you would have taken.

It's physically simulated

If you swing hits more than one body part, you do damage for each part you hit. Thus a long swing hitting multiple body parts does more damage than just clipping an arm.

But there's more to it than that.

In addition to that, the damage done by a melee weapon is fairly low. If someone pokes you with a stick accidentally, it's annoying right? But if someone stabs you with said stick, it really hurts, yes? What's the difference between a poke and a stab?

Velocity.

So in Rebirth melee weapons do damage as a function of the swing's velocity. If you manage to hit an enemy at high velocity, you very well could chop their head off in one blow, or cut them in half entirely. In fact, I've had a ton of fun running at full speed to charge an enemy, jumping up and then landing a blow as I come down on an enemy's head, chopping it clean off. I can't wait to let you all play around with it!

You want to know what else is physically simulated? Blocking.

You can block hits at any time with your weapon, but the success depends on how you catch the blow. Blocking with make an enemy recoil back but their claws are still deadly weapons so you can still take damage even if you block, if you are not careful about it. The block button (currently right click) brings up your weapon in a blocking stance, but it does not guarantee a successful block, that only happens if YOU make it happen.

It's fun and Satisfying

So if you add all of the above together, you get a fairly fun system. Then we add the dismemberment on top of that and you have a REALLY fun system. There's nothing as satisfying as blocking a hit, sever a head clean off, dodge to the side and have an enemy hit another enemy as they swing at where you used to be, then with a backhanded blow, sever both torsos clean off with your blade.

What's Next?

I'll probably do another dev diary about the melee system this time. The mechanics are cool to talk about on paper, but I really feel like it would be better explained on video. I'm also going to start being more active posting news and media since I feel like our art assets are finally at the standard we'd like to hit for Rebirth.

There's a lot cooler stuff coming soon, keep your eyes peeled and please tell your friends and the media about us!

Dev Diary Procedural Generation 2.0. Also, GREENLIT!

Dev Diary Procedural Generation 2.0. Also, GREENLIT!

News 4 comments

A new look at the current Procedural Level generation for Rebirth, showing you our progress and a few runthrough examples of a procedurally generated...

Status Update

Status Update

News 2 comments

A long overdue status update, talking about things like procedural generation, multiplayer, and AI in Rebirth.

Long update - Procedural Terrain generation!

Long update - Procedural Terrain generation!

News 3 comments

Lack of updates means I've been keeping busy working on Rebirth, not that it's dead! Procedural building generation, procedural terrain, procedural everything...

Rebirth Dev Diary #1 - Procedural Building Generation

Rebirth Dev Diary #1 - Procedural Building Generation

News

This is a video devblog of Rebirth's procedural building generation.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 86)
stalkerforever
stalkerforever

Will this game be on Steam?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
henito
henito

but the most important thing that is very hard tosee in this site: what will be the requirements of your game?

Another questions: will have seasons? Is a 3ºor 1º person? will have medical surgeons, wather andfood needs... this type of importat survival things :)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Aralvar
Aralvar

Meaningful death: I like the idea but I'm not a fan of complete permadeath. Will you give players the option to select what their death penalty will be (basically a difficulty selector)? I prefer losing everything but equipped items on death, or everything but your primary and secondary weapons. I only know of one game that has this, The Dead Linger, but I'm wondering if you guys were thinking of including these options as well?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
henito
henito

I agre with the idea of dificult, but a permanent death have to be preserved on the game... In real life you have only one life and i like games that have this possibility like dont starve

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
madlorddex
madlorddex

This game looks like it might become one of the best survival horror games ever made when it's done. And congratulation on getting greenlit, even though it happened like a month ago...

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
mattheeobrien
mattheeobrien

I tried to make an account on your forums but you need to approve it. Can you do that sometime soon? I really like your game so far and want to give some (hopefully) helpful suggestions.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
mattheeobrien
mattheeobrien

I'm very excited about this game. I have a couple questions though: How many people are working on this game? How will you choose the group of people for the closed alpa or beta?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Rico21745 Creator
Rico21745

Only a few people working on this part time. There are 3 artists currently contributing art and myself as the sole programmer. Plus or minus a few people who contribute something from time to time.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
mattheeobrien
mattheeobrien

You guys should make your own website!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Rico21745 Creator
Rico21745

Already have one!

www.deadmanwalkingstudios.com

Reply Good karma+1 vote
Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account:

X