Let's Play ZAFEHOUSE: DIARIES - IWAKU EDITION

[Hecatoncheires]

Zafehouse: Diaries is a very simple but amusing horror/strategy game in which you take control of five survivors and try to make it through the undead apocalypse without getting your group murdered. The relationships between characters are a major focus of gameplay; you've got to keep an eye on how well everyone's getting along, or else the survivors are as liable to be killed by each other as they are to be killed by zombies.

The fun twist is that you can add custom content to the game, notably custom survivors. With this in mind, I've gone and grabbed five staff members, jammed them into the game and am about to embark on a playthrough to see how long they survive.

Each post will cover a day in-game; I'll grab screenshots and add in some notes to help you guys follow along as the story progresses. Will our five heroes manage to survive the zombie onslaught? Or will one of them murder everybody because no-one wanted to play chess with them?

FIND OUT... ON 'ZAFEHOUSE: DIARIES - IWAKU EDITION'.

DAY ONE​

6am​

So here we have the start of the game: it's 6 in the morning (gotta be up and running early during the apocalypse), and five strangers have found themselves holed up in 12 Hummingbird Road.

A police officer named Vay; a University-educated, middle-class who's rather good at handling zombies. He says he's not a racist, but apparently he doesn't like the look of Ocha. Ocha's a surgeon, apparently from a wealthy background but not very educated (one wonders how she came to be a surgeon; maybe she's one of those back-alley street docs). Apparently she's not a fan of young people. Ossochanter is a 27 year-old carpenter, making her extremely useful for building barricades, modifiying equipment and constructing traps. She's a bit of a socialist by the sounds of it, though; not a fan of the wealthy.

Cerulean's a mechanic, making him useful for building things also, and like Vay he's not liking the look of Ocha (despite protests about not being a racist). Finally we have Rory, a 38 year-old firefighter (always useful to have; he's a strong dude who can handle the undead). He's uncomfortable around women, though.

In this mode, time is not on the survivor's side; we've got to find where the helicopter is going, get the radio and the helicopter's frequency all within just a few days. So we're going to need to get a shift on. Venturing ouside is a dangerous prospect, though, because at the moment we have fuck-all supplies and just a handgun for protection.

Best we rectify this, then. Let's get this house searched. Vay, Cerulean, Rory and Ossochanter are going to search the house, whilst Ocha keeps an eye out for any zombies outside.

7am​

Sweet, we've got some details about the helicopter's arrival time, more food and we've found useful gear, too. Let's keep searching.

9am​

ZOMBIE ATTACK.

Ocha's apparently not all that great at spotting slow, shuffling and groaning monsters approaching the house, because one of them managed to get through the door and attack the group. Despite some bickering as to the plan Vay managed to deal with the threat, though: it pays to have a police officer in the group.

Let's keep searching this place.

10am​

"Rory tried to play a game of chess but no-one else was interested. He is annoyed at Vay, Ocha, Cerulean and Ossochanter."

Poor Rory. Everyone's too busy looting to engage in some chess, which means he's in a mood with the others now. Managing relations between the five survivors is vital to keeping the group alive; when folks are angry with one another they don't work well together, and at times are liable to fight amongst themselves. Which you really don't want: there's enough things in this game trying to kill you without the survivors turning on each other.

We'll try and get everybody playing together a little more nicely in a moment. For now, let's take stock of our equipment.

The group now has a little bit more to work with: the baseball bat they found will come in handy in a fight, the flashlight is dead handy for searching buildings more efficiently and the binoculars are great for helping to spot zombies. We've got a few other tools that can be used as weapons as well, like the fire axe, and more medical supplies.

Time's a-wasting, however, so we should get on with our search for information regarding the helicopter's arrival. According to a note the group found at the start, the store at 2 Hill Court may be worth checking out. So we're gonna head there now.

Let's get tooled up.

Supplies are still pretty shit, but we don't have time to rectify that. Hopefully something sweet will be located at the store when we breach it. Charging in blind is a risky move; in an ideal world we'd scout it out first then plan accordingly, but sadly we're on a time limit. Stores generally aren't too jam-packed with the undead, though, so it's a risk worth taking.

Five survivors should be able to handle it. Hopefully.

Let's find out.

11am-2pm​

The store's all the way on the other side of town, so it takes a while for the group to get there.

2pm​

Our gamble's paid off; there's basically no zombies here and no crowds lurking outside. Our breakin may draw attention, though, so we'll need to be careful.

3pm​

The group finally manages to gain entry to the store and finish off the rest of the zombies inside; Cerulean, Rory and Vay did most of the dirty work, but we're now really running low on ammo. Maybe the store has some.

Once again we're search this place for any useful equipment or information, leaving one person (not Ocha) on watch. But first, let's get our relations within the group sorted out.

A good way to keep everybody friendly is to spread 'Rumours' about characters, stories about what they did before the outbreak. Ocha seems to have a fair bit of ire directed at her by Cerulean, Ossochanter and Vay, who are all middle-class. Let's use that common element to our advantage.

Ocha was a writer, apparently. Let's see how it plays out as we search the place.

4pm​

Hoo boy, did that pay off. Everyone's getting along a lot better now.

Not only did we find more equipment, food and medical supplies, but Vay's also stumbled across the radio needed to contact the helicopter. All we need now is the right frequency and the location, and we'll be in business.

5pm​

After more searching, we've got some more ammo and also a shotgun. No shells for it, sadly, but it's a start.

Another intrusion by the undead, though. Fortunately Cerulean's a better spotter, it seems, and managed to notice the lone zombie shuffling into the store: Ocha decapitated the thing with a fire axe.

We've found the useful items in this store now; there's more rooms to search, but we'd be much better spending time searching the nearby buildings for anything useful. With this in mind, we're going to go for the classic horror movie trope that tends to result in everyone getting killed.

We're going to split up and look for clues.

Rory's off to a factory on 9 Hill Court, armed with a fire axe and a flashlight. Ossochanter we're sending to a store on 5 Goodman Drive with a baseball bat and a crowbar. Vay, being the resident badass cop, gets the firearm and the most dangerous location; we're sending him to the big diner at 6 Mill Court, armed with a flashlight and the handgun. Cerulean can break into the warehouse at 6 Hill Court (we're giving him a fire-axe, because we're basically out of useful gear), and Ocha can take the house at 7 Pino Lane armed with a cricket bat.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!

6pm​

That... could definitely have gone worse.

Cerulean got himself a concussion breaking into the warehouse, which isn't ideal but we can have Ocha patch him up later. Ossochanter, meanwhile, is a zombie killing machine, taking out five zombies as she breaks into the house. Ocha managed to make it into the house without a hitch; she can start looking around, but the others are still trying to break in.

Fingers crossed that our luck holds.

7pm​

Well shit.

Whilst Ocha's busy searching and the rest of the group managed to get inside their respective buildings injury-free, Cerulean's not been so lucky: though he's managed to clear the warehouse of zombies he's taken a hell of a beating doing so. Any more injuries and we'll lose him.

Everyone can get to work searching these buildings for clues. Hopefully Cerulean doesn't get attacked again.

8pm

No clues or radio frequency, but some useful gear at least. Rory's quite adept at improvised zombie slaying it seems, because the group that broke into the factory he's searching got circular-saw-murdered.

We'll search for another hour, then link everybody up again. Clues are generally found within the first two hours of searching, so if they don't find anything there's not anything to find.

9pm

MORE SWEET LOOT. But no more information about the helicopter. Damn.

Time to link up. The group can snag whatever useful gear they can drag with them and head to the factory Rory's at. We'll hole up there for the night, get ourselves patched up, rested, and maybe upgrade some of the weapons and equipment we've found.

Ozzie's bringing food supplies, some medical supplies and a kick-ass machete. Cerulean, meanwhile, has been beaten half to death and can only drag a couple of flashlights with him. Ocha's bringing more food, handgun ammo, a circular saw and a flashlight. And finally Vay's returning with a stockpile of weapons, lugging a shotgun, a handgun, ammunition for both and a flashlight.

10pm

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN. Cerulean's infected; the beating he took at the hands of those zombies was apparently even worse than thought. The group has three options.

Kill him, which will remove a drain on resources and the threat of Cerulean turning but have a serious psychological effect on the group.

Let him live, which will drain our resources and run the risk of a turned Cerulean attacking the others.

Or let Rory play doctor; he reckons that, using the machete Ozzie brought back, he can save Cerulean by amputating his left arm.

It's a shitty situation however we choose to go about it, but option three seems like the best approach. At best it saves Cerulean's life, and at the worst we at least tried to save him.

It seems our makeshift surgery worked; Cerulean's going to live, but he'll be something a liability at points.

Fortunately we've all made it back the factory. Vay is irritated with Ozzie for her shower-pinching tendancies, but that can't be helped. There's only one shower in this place, after all. In the meantime we'll have Ocha patch up the injured and armless Cerulean, and the others can rest up or keep watch for zombies. Rory can also get rid of the corpses lying about; they'll stink the place out if left alone, and they may have supplies on them.

11pm

Vay gets to work tricking out a machete, whilst Ocha tends to Cerulean as best she can. The group doesn't have a lot of medical supplies, though, so the amputated arm is going to have to go untreated. Hopefully he can survive until the helicopter arrives.

AND THAT, FOLKS, IS DAY ONE. STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT THRILLING INSTALLMENT OF ZAFEHOUSE: DARIES - IWAKU EDITION.

 

[Kooriryu]

HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH WHY YOU GOTTA DO THIS TO ME, GRUMP. WHY.

 

[Vay]

Should head to the hospital for Ceru's arm. ANd dammit Ozzie if you hadn't locked the door we could have shared the shower. >=(

 

[Ms.Wrong]

e ___ e wait so who died?? It was rory wasnt it?

 

[Hecatoncheires]

No-one's dead (yet). Cerulean just had to have his arm amputated to stop him from getting infected.

Next part shall be posted soon-ish, by the by.

 

[Ms.Wrong]

Someone die in the next one then!

 

[Hecatoncheires]

HOLY SHIT, IT'S PART TWO.

PREVIOUSLY ON 'ZAFEHOUSE: DIARIES - IWAKU EDITION'...



"Five strangers have banded together amidst an outbreak of the living dead, trying to survive long enough for rescue to arrive. They need to survive the undead and gather together the information needed to reach the helicopter coming to rescue any survivors on time.

A radio has been located; all the group needs now is the right frequency and they will be able to contact the helicopter. They've also managed to find out that the helicopter will arrive during the day. Currently all five survivors are searching the north-east corner of the town for any clues.

But the dangers of the apocalypse have not left them unscathed. A brutal attack by the undead left Cerulean, a mechanic, clinging to life and infected; he was only narrowly saved by the quick thinking of a firefighter named Rory, who cut off the infected limb with a machete.

All five remain standing, though one badly wounded. Will they survive Day Two of the outbreak? And can they find more information that will lead to their rescue?"​

DAY TWO​

12am​

Vay and Rory, the two badass public service types of the group, are busy swapping zombie massacre techniques whilst Ocha showers. Ozzie is keeping an eye out for the undead, and Cerulean is resting after having his left arm amputated.

Let's take a look at the state of the survivors at the start of day two.

CHARACTERS

As you can see by all those green lines, everyone's getting on extremely well, given the circumstances. Despite some biases and opinions, the group functions well together. This is very useful; group cohesion means that actions can be completed faster and more efficiently.

Unfortunately, Cerulean is really, really fucked up. The pain meds and treated cuts are helping him get patched up, but the group is out of medical supplies so his amputated arm still remains untreated. We're going to need to hope that we find some more medical supplies as we venture out once more.

Because most of the group is actually in decent shape and well-rested, there's no point in sitting around twiddling thumbs; we have but a few days before the helicopter arrives, and we need to figure out where it's landing and grab the right frequency.

With this in mind, let's send Rory and Ocha to check out the house at 2 Pino Lane, just down the road from the factory we're hiding out in. They can pack a pistol, an axe and two flashlights; that should leave them prepared for any encounter.

1am​

There's apparently some weapons inside this house Rory and Ocha are investigating. Most awesome, especially given there's only a few zombies inside. Gaining entrance is proving tricky, though. The pair will need another hour before they can get inside. Back at the factory, Vay's doing a good job getting the corpses cleaned up. When you get rid of bodies you often find ammunition on them as well, which is rather handy in a pinch. Ozzie's watching for zombies, and Cerulean's still out for the count. He's earned a rest, after all; poor bastard's been through hell.

2am​

More zombie slaying in the house at 2 Pino Lane. The noise of Rory and Ocha's break-in is drawing the mob, however; they're going to have to be quick.

3am​

Zombies lurking at the door or not, there's apparently always time for a game of chess. At the factory, Cerulean and Vay get to work modifying and upgrading equipment.

4am​

CONSIDERABLE SUCCESS. We now have the date and a vague time for when the evacuation will take place. Rory and Ocha are naturally pretty chuffed with themselves for this excellent find. They've also located another handgun.

Equipment modification is going well; Vay's rigged up an extra barrel for his shotgun, making it even more deadly at close range, and Cerulean's still got it despite only having one arm; the flashlight he's modified will be even better at searching.

Rory and Ocha won't find much else in this house, and we still need a location and a frequency for the helicopter. So they best keep searching whilst they're on a roll. There's some valuable food supplies in the house, though, so they can wait an hour whilst we send Vay across to collect them.

5am​

MOP MODDING, FUCK YEAH.

Seriously, I don't know what the fuck Cerulean's doing either. We'll chalk it up to blood loss.

Vay's made it to the house, so he can haul back food supplies to the factory. Rory and Ocha, meanwhile, can keep searching. Let's have a look at that big house on 7 St. Ann Road.

6am​

We now have a... sparkling mop, apparently. That's great. Thanks, Cerulean. Gonna be totally useful.

Vay's made it back to the factory, so we'll have him whip up some meals to keep everybody's strength up. Hunger is lethal in this game; if your group is starving they'll be less efficient, more grouchy and more prone to fucking things up. Over at the next house Rory and Ocha are checking, the pair have managed to get up onto the roof and are navigating their way inside. They've cause a bit of a raucous, though. Hopefully this won't draw more zombies.

7am​

Food is prepared and Cerulean's almost done with the flashlight. We'll have him upgrade weapons for close combat, next. That machete is awesome, but it's possible to make it even deadlier with a few choice modifications.

Back at the house, Rory and Ocha have managed to get inside. Four zombies are there to greet them, which they make short work of using the last of their ammunition. Hopefully they'll find more lying around. Let's find out.

8am​

Ozzie and Cerulean are starting to bicker a little. It might be best if they all got moving again, before a proper argument breaks out. Vay's cooking comes to an end now that all the supplies have been exhausted.

Over at the other house, Rory and Ocha have no luck finding any more information, and what's more they don't really find anything useful either. That police station across the street, however, is looking mighty attractive. Such a building may well contain evac information, and what's more it'll be full of useful supplies. It'll also be full of zombies, though, so we'll need to play this carefully. We'll send Rory across on a scouting run to check the place out; he won't attack any zombies or try to break in, but will get a count of how many zombies there are and what we might find inside. Ocha, meanwhile, can search the bodies for more ammunition.

There are other houses to check out and daylight's wasting; we'll send Vay to the house at 9 Hill Court, loaded up with his double-barrelled shotgun and a baseball bat. Perhaps he can garner more information on the evacuation.

9am​

26 zombies inside the police station. Goddamn, but that's a fair few. We might need to give this location a miss for now; we're not prepared to take on that many rotters, but we still have four more days to get in and check it out.

Vay's still en-route to the house; it's several blocks away, after all, and you've got to be careful when moving through a zombie-infested town.

10am​

What's more dangerous than a machete?

A machete covered in spikes, bitches.

Vay's finally reached his destination but is having difficulty gaining entrance. He's dropped one of the zombies inside with that chunky-ass shotgun of his and there's only a few more kicking about in the house, but the sound of his big-barrelled monstrosity of a weapon is drawing a crowd of the undead. Not good. He'll need to get inside quick.

Not much else for Rory and Ocha to do that this house, but that nearby warehouse could have something of worth. We'll send them off to raid it, armed with a handgun, a switchblade, a crowbar and a pair of flashlights. Crowbars can be dead handy for breaking and entering, so it's always good to send one along.

The factory has served us well as an overnight stop-off point, but now it's almost the middle of the day; we need to have all available bodies out looking for evac information, even if one of those bodies is missing an arm. The north-west is full of houses that haven't been searched so let's send Ozzie and Cerulean over there, armed with all the supplies they can carry. That spiked machete will come in handy if they run into trouble.

11am​

Like I said, crowbars are dead handy when raiding a place.

Rory and Ocha have almost gained entrance to the warehouse, and what's more they've managed to do so without drawing a crowd. The same cannot be said for Vay; he's got rotters bursting in through windows, but with the shotgun he's carrying they're not going to be a problem. Ozzie and Cerulean are still travelling to the building they're hoping to search, so we'll give them another hour or two.

In the meantime, it's looting o'clock.

12pm​

Even in the zombie apocalypse you can still find traces of human enterprise: Rory and Ocha have encountered a woman hauling about a shopping trolley, offering to trade tools for armaments. It's an intruiging offer, particularly given that the two aren't exactly carrying that many tools, so we'll take her up on it.

In exchange for some of the tools they had on them and some from the warehouse, Mrs Shopping Cart gave us two automatic rifles, a bolt-action rifle, and four shotguns amongst others. Our group is now, to use the proper term, tooled up to fuck.

The extra weapons come in handy as Rory and Ocha breach the warehouse, allowing them to make short work of the undead inside. Vay, meanwhile, doesn't have much success searching the house he's in. Time to move on.

1pm​

Looks like Vay managed to get out of the previous house just in time before the undead came crashing in. Unfortunately the next house on his list has a large mob gathering outside; he best get in, check the place out and get the hell out, lest he get swarmed.

Rory and Ocha don't find any information, but at least they now have some ammunition for their shiny new automatics. We'll have Rory go check out the house at 5 Hummingbird Road; a perfect opportunity to break in those shiny new guns. Ocha, meanwhile, can clean up bodies and see if she can't find more ammunition.

Ozzie and Cerulean have almost got inside their targeted house, and their luck is holding; only a few zombies inside the place, and none on the streets outside. Even with his missing arm Cerulean shouldn't have any issues.

In theory, of course.

2pm​

Ozzie and Cerulean are in, and the undead have been dealt with. Time for them to get searching. Rory's still working on gaining entrance to the other house, not helped by the shambling corpses he's having to deal with. Vay, meanwhile, is in a full-blown shootout as the mob comes pouring in. Luckily that shotgun is fucking deadly, though he's managed to eat through all his ammunition for it. His backup is a hammer, which isn't ideal.

If Vay can hold out for another hour or two we can send Cerulean and Ozzie over as backup. Until then, though, he's on his own.

3pm​

Man, Vay really loves that shotgun. Turns out it's just as good at beating zombies to death as it is at shooting them. He's taken a few injuries during the fighting, though. Hopefully Ocha can patch him up later. Luckily it's just bruising; odds are he's not going to have been infected. For now, he can check the place out and see what there is to see.

Cerulean and Ozzie haven't found anything useful at the house, just food. Time for them to go help Vay out. Rory, meanwhile, is kicking ass and taking names at the house he's breaching. Turns out that new rifle of his is pretty deadly.

4pm​

That's Vay linked up with some of the others. Now he's packing more shells for that cannon of his. No useful information in the house, though, so we need to keep the search up. Ocha's finally got all the corpses removed from the warehouse, but sadly they didn't have anything useful. Very impolite, corpses; you come bursting into our safehouse and you didn't even have the courtesy to leave a gift or two.

Rory's dealt with the undead in the place he's raiding, so we'll put him to work searching the place. Vay can get himself patched up a bit, since Cerulean and Ozzie hauled some medical supplies over with them.

This is a good opportunity for those three to take a breather; they've been hard at work scouring the town all day, after all. Ocha needs to sit on those guns and make sure they don't get pinched by other survivors, so for now we'll have her search the warehouse for anything cool until some of the others can come and pick a few weapons up.

5pm​

Still nothing, information-wise. Seems the north-west part of town might be a wash-out, but there's still one house remaining; we might get lucky.

Vay's injuries have been bandaged and we've loaded him up on painkillers; he'll be able to function fine for another few hours, but after that he'll need to pop more pills or start suffering the effects of having the crap beaten out of you by the walking dead. He and Cerulean can relax for a little bit. There's a church nearby, however, that may contain useful supplies or the needed information. We'll send Ozzie on a scouting mission: because it's a large building there's almost certainly a lot of zombies inside (as was the case with the police station), so she'll just try and gauge the risk and then get back to the house.

Meanwhile, no point in Ocha sitting around twiddling her thumbs. It turns out she's not bad at tinkering with equipment, so we'll have her modify some of our weapons to make it better for sniping. Finally, we'll have Rory go check out the final house in the north-west.

Perhaps he'll strike pay-dirt. Or perhaps he'll get mauled to death by the undead. You never know with these things.

It's about to start getting dark in the town, so the survivors are going to need to be extra careful. Flashlights are a must, as is keeping a wary eye out for the undead.

6pm​

Another break-in for Cerulean and Vay to handle. With the shot-cannon fully loaded it's nothing they can't handle, though; Vay blasts the undead to shit in moments. Over at the warehouse Ocha's getting to work tricking out one of the many shotguns we now have, and Rory's almost into the final house of this part of town.

Ozzie's scouting mission tells us that we've got one zombie outside the church and another 14 inside. That makes it a slightly more appealing target in comparison to the police station, but not by much; three survivors could probably handle it, but they'll need to be tooled up good and proper. With this in mind, we'll send Cerulean across to the warehouse to grab some guns. Despite having only one arm, he's still the most awake and can carry a decent amount of gear.

Meanwhile, there's all these corpses lying around the house that perhaps have some ammo on them. We'll have Vay take a look.

7pm​

Shit. Rory's little break-in resulted in him getting mobbed by a group of zombies. He managed to deal with them all, but not without taking a blow to the head. Concussions aren't ideal; we need our survivors at their best if we're to escape the town. Vay and Ozzie, meanwhile, have a break-in to handle of their own. The cannon makes short work of them, however.

Cerulean's managed to make it back to the warehouse. Now he can haul gear across to the house Vay and Ozzie are holed up in. Rory can get to work searching the house he's managed to break in to, and Ozzie can give Vay a hand searching the bodies for ammunition.

8pm​

Nope, no information in that house either. Looks like the north-west is indeed a bust. Rory got attacked again by the mob outside, but managed to hold them off. Time for him to get the hell out of there; we're going to need him in one piece if we're to break into the church.

Vay's going to make another run to the warehouse to grab more ammunition and supplies. The others, meanwhile, can take it easy for an hour or two. As you can see, everyone's starting to get pretty tired. Surviving the undead apocalypse is pretty tiring, after all.

9pm​

Because no-one's stationed inside the warehouse, Vay's going to have to break back into the place again. That'll take another hour, so we'll leave him to it. Cerulean can give Ozzie a hand with the bodies, and we'll let Rory and Ocha put their feet up for a bit. We need them all rested for this attack on the church.

10pm​

Poor Rory. No-one wants to drink with him. Fortunately it's not affected his opinion of the others too much; this group is working together remarkably well, which is excellent. We can probably chalk this up to how busy they've all been: because they've been running all about the town scavenging and searching, no-one's really had the time to get into an argument.

Vay's managed to get back inside the warehouse and deal with the lone zombie inside. Now he can haul back a couple more weapons. The bolt-action rifle is great for sniping and a handgun is always useful as a backup weapon, so he can take those back with him. He can also grab more rifle rounds and more shells; we've got a fuck-tonn of shells back at the house, but it always pays to be prepared. Vay's shot-cannon is easily the most powerful thing in our arsenal, so we want to make sure we've got the ammo for it.

11pm​

As you can see, having the whole group in one place and idle is starting to result in some tensions. We're going to need to get them active again soon. The bodies have been cleaned up, and we've actually got some ammunition from them too. Double-bonus. Vay's back with the guns, and a lone zombie breaking in has been handled by Ocha and the shot-cannon.

This house is a good launching point for an attack on the church, which we'll get underway in a few hours. For now, though, the group's earned a rest.

And that's Day Two of this cheery tale of friendship, perseverance and shotgun lobotomies, everyone. Stay tuned for the next update of ZAFEHOUSE: DIARIES - IWAKU EDITION.

 

[Karsikan the Berzerker]

Vay the zombie killing kroot. Is anyone the least bit surprised?