Dead State - Death in Dead State

Brian Mitsoda latest design update talks about his view on death scenes in general and how they will be done in Dead State. Here is a snip:

Movies and TV have frequently relied on death for cheap drama or resolution. While there has been a lot of maturity in the storytelling (especially in cable television dramas) there will always be the good guy lives/bad guy dies, famous last words, and morality plays. But there have been plenty of deaths in movies and TV that have come out of nowhere or that were painful to watch (emotionally) in a very real way. Death of a main or a popular character before half the movie or TV series was over, characters in an unwinnable scenario, and quick and senseless deaths have all been used to elicit a feeling from the viewer that the story is not playing by the rules. At this point, subverting a trope or expectations is enough to shock an audience and make them start worrying about the characters’ fates.

 

Dead State is open-ended – any NPC can die at any time. Some of the death in the game relies on personal player attachment and game mechanics to punctuate the event - for example, having a favorite character get killed while out scavenging. Here one minute, gone the next. Characters react to death of loved ones, but life goes on. However, some deaths are the slow, lingering type – the death of infected, specifically. These are the deaths I’ve been writing at the moment. It’s one thing to have someone get shot by another scavenger senselessly, but watching them die in front of you and having to execute them before they turn (for the good of the shelter) is a more gut-wrenching experience. What’s worse – losing someone unexpectedly or watching them die slowly in front of you without being able to do anything?