Undying

by Aethyna Dec 24, 2023 | 1 Votes | 91 Played | 0 Reviews

10 rate

Genres:

Action , RPG

Graphics:

Labels:

Survival , Zombies , Storytelling , Post Apocalyptic , Exploration

Platforms:

Publishers:

Vanimals Undying is a story-driven survival game where you’ll need to help a mother, Anling, and her young son, Cody, survive a zombie apocalypse while finding a way to get them to safety, wherever that may be. Will they be able to make it? Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Undying is a story-driven survival game where you’re tasked with the survival of a mother and her young boy. Not only will you need to ensure that they are well-fed and watered, especially in a world where resources are getting increasingly limited, but you’ll also need to keep them safe from harm and help them navigate this brave new world, which was overrun by zombies, that they found themselves in, all in the hopes of being able to finally evacuate to a safe location with the rest of the survivors. Will they be able to make it?

Plotline

It has been four months since the zombie virus outbreak first hit. To house all the survivors who suddenly found themselves driven out of their homes in fear, the military has converted subway stations into refugee camps. They plan to extract all the people in these camps until they have rescued all living persons from infected areas.

In this game, you play as the mother named Anling, who found herself and her son, Cody, amongst a big group of evacuees destined to be transported to a supposedly safe location. However, while the extraction is ongoing, the ceiling of the tunnel their group was traveling in collapsed, bringing with it an entire hoard of zombies. While protecting Cody, you were bitten by a zombie. They barely made it out alive!

With nowhere else to go, you’ve decided that it’s safest to go back home for now before figuring out what to do next. Will they be able to survive the zombie apocalypse? Well, their fates are now in your hands.

Of course, the game also generously scatters plenty of notes, journal entries, and memos left behind by people that you can read to learn more about the world, the people in it, and even how certain unique zombies, like the ‘teddy bear zombie’, came to be.

Gameplay

Before you start, you’ll first need to choose a game difficulty. There are three available – Tranquil, Adventure, and Fierce. Naturally, if you want a more relaxing experience, Tranquil is definitely the way to go. However, if you find the game to be too easy for an experienced survivalist like you, then Fierce might just be able to keep you on your toes. Regardless, once you’re done choosing, you can then dive into the game proper.

In this game, you’ll need to help the mom-son duo get the items they need to survive, or at least, have the raw materials that they can then turn into useable items. Most of the time, scavenging is as simple as just pressing the action button when you’re close to an interactive spot, but sometimes, you may need a specific tool – the crowbar - to open certain containers or in some cases, passwords. You can also chop down trees and destroy barriers with your weapon of choice to get some materials in return.

Food and water can be scavenged, along with crucial crafting materials like wood, cloth, and items you need to make medicines, from the environment. You can also farm certain crops, like tomatoes and potatoes, and then cook them in the kitchen. Farming requires water, though, and unless it’s raining, water can be in quite a limited supply in this game. The water you gather from places like a well, the fountain, or even from the rain catcher you’ve fixed up is considered ‘dirty water’, however. You’ll need to filter and boil them first at the stove to get drinkable water – water that won’t poison your characters.

Of course, you could trade for the stuff you need as well here, provided that you can find someone to sell you the items you need and have something to trade.

There’s also an interesting element to all the scavenging you’ll be doing that fits well with the theme of a mother trying desperately to teach everything she can to her young innocent boy before the zombie virus takes her. As the mother, you can turn every action you take in this game into a teachable moment by asking Cody to observe.

By observing the same action being done frequently enough, Cody will gain enough experience points for that action and subsequently learn a new skill that allows him to perform that specific action, ranging from scavenging or prying open a locked briefcase or, in some cases, particularly more challenging skills, like crafting and repairing, to master, he will be able to assist you in the task, netting him even more experience points than simply just being an observer.

To keep things real, you’ll need to ensure that both Anling and Cody are well-watered and fed. As you’ll be playing as Anling, you will only know the exact thirst and hunger level of the mom. For Cody, he will let you know if he’s hungry or thirsty instead. Sticking to its in-game realism, most of the food in this game can degrade over time, except maybe the more highly processed ones, as well, and you’ll need to rely on your fridge to keep things fresh and edible. This can be harder to do once the electricity gets cut, and you’ll need to be frugal with your fuel use on the generator.

Items, like tools, in this game also have durability and will break and become unusable once their durability has completely depleted. You can repair them at the recycling bench, along with upgrading and dismantling any items.

Travelling is also realistic here in a way – you’ll need to have enough fuel, and the travel itself will cost you time. Sometimes, you may even encounter a random event that will propel you and Cody into a dungeon-ed location where you’ll need to safely make your way to the exit, much like Fallout. Time still passes while you’re resolving this event, and you may find yourself with much less time left in the day to do what you originally wanted to do.

Note that getting back to bed before midnight is crucial here since sleeping can help restore a small amount of health and will alleviate certain conditions, colds specifically if the house is well heated. Although you’ll first start scavenging in nearby locations which doesn’t require much fuel (none, really), you’ll eventually need to use more fuel to travel to farther areas.

Interestingly as well, you can’t just travel to a new location just because you heard it mentioned by an NPC or in a note somewhere, although the location will be marked on your map as a question mark. Instead, you actually need to have precise location information before you can head to the new place.

As most zombie apocalypse survivors will need to do, both Anling and Cody will have inevitable hostile encounters with the undead in Undying. This is where the game’s combat system comes in. Anling is the melee character here, and she will typically be the one “tanking” the enemy, while Cody stays a ways away, accurately pelting the zombie or hostile human with pellets from his trusty slingshot… that is provided that he doesn’t freeze up in fear.

In addition to other hostile survivors, there are different zombie types that can pose quite a challenge to defeat, such as the “teddy bear zombie” which has an abnormally large health pool and the ability to explode when really dead, emitting a plume of harmful gas, damaging anybody nearby. There are also zombies suited in a firefighter outfit, and others that have their own unique abilities.

There’s also a stealth mode that Anling and Cody can go into to sneak about, bypassing enemies that they’d otherwise have to defeat. However, there’s a major downside here – you can’t perform any other action while in stealth, which includes scavenging or trying to sneak in a surprise attack on an enemy. I’ve also noticed that enemies are often able to detect you fairly quickly if you’re close enough to them, regardless of whether you’re quietly sneaking or not.

As the mom has been bitten by a zombie, she will gradually experience worsening symptoms from that bite, that is until you can find a way to stem the progression of the disease. You’ll be forced to choose one out of three symptoms and will have to bear with it for the duration indicated, usually between 2 to 3 days. Some symptoms aren’t as deliberating as there may be ways you can go around them, while others might just cause the premature end of your otherwise successful run. Some of the symptoms come with a slight advantage, though, such as increased movement speed, in return for taking on a handicap.

Undying is really an indie gem of an adventure-and-story-driven survival game not only because of the theme of a mother trying her hardest to protect her boy and yet prepare him for the brave new world that he now has to live in. The game itself offers plenty in terms of content as well, ranging from the massive map you can explore to the many items you can craft at the many different tiers of workbenches you have repaired at your home.

As a bonus, I really like the wordplay used in the title of the game. It signifies the undying love a mother has for her child and the fact that the world is overrun by the undead. Frankly, it just tickles me pink in the right way. There are also plenty of funky collectible headwear that you can equip on both the mom and Cody. You can unlock new ones by playing the game.

Graphics/ Sound

Undying features a cartoonish graphical style that has a comic book-like look, thanks to the bold outlines around every 3D asset. In terms of sound, the game has a chill yet rather melancholic soundtrack playing in the background while you’re out and about scavenging for valuable loot. The sound effects can be super helpful here too, allowing you to often hear a zombie first before actually seeing it on-screen. Though, you could have easily seen it via the minimap. There’s also some excellent voice acting for the characters, including both Anling and Cody, in the introduction.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, Undying is a real indie gem of a survival game, offering a heart-wrenching story of a resourceful mother - who was bitten by a zombie, by the way - trying her hardest to protect her boy while making sure she’s doing everything she can to prepare him to live in a world that’s overrun by the undead. There is plenty to do here as well, from discovering new locations and exploring the map to gathering scavenged items and turning them into more useful and valuable items and tools. If you love survival games and a good story, Undying is one game you don’t want to miss!

New Game Added: Undying

by Aethyna Dec 24, 2023

Undying is a story-driven survival game where you’ll need to help a mother, Anling, and her young son, Cody, survive a zombie apocalypse while finding a way to get them to safety, wherever that may be. Will they be able to make it?