Beyond Fallout

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Sun May 19, 2002 4:34 am

There was a thread started by Mystery G.D. over at the old DAC about things that draw people to the post-apocalyptic world:

Just to tangent here and maybe start a productive discussion, but when you say 'more exploration into a post apocalyptic world', what do you see or think of when you examine the idea or exploring a P.A. world? Do you merely look for P.A. combat or is there satisfaction for you in exploring a 'alien' yet familar world ( alien being used loosely )? I invite everyone to post their views on what they 'feel' about a post apocalytic world. What attracts you to such a world? What do you see as the causes for such an event? What is the mood? Hope? Loss? Mystery? Renewal? Exploration of a strange landscape? Secrets revealed?

I wrote about what influences drew me to Fallout and the post apocalypse:

One of the books that I enjoyed a long time ago was an Andre Norton sf story called "Daybreak 2020 AD". The cover was really cool with a painting of a guy dressed in rags crossing a river in a log-raft with a vast, decaying city on the other side of the river. He explored the city and tried to figure out about the past and what happened. I really got into books that explored decaying cities and planets. Another good one was Larry Niven's "A World Out of Time".

I think Fallout was great for it's time but the technology available now for making games is a lot better and more advanced games can be made. It would be great to actually go through some massive cities and explore and find out what happened and find a way to restore civilization. Fallout 1 gave me the feeling of exploring the vast PA wilderness and unfortunately some of that feeling was lost with Fallout 2. Combat shouldn't play that important of a role, but I guess it will always be there to cater to the average gamer. In a way, Myst and Zork, The Grand Inquisitor would be a cool way to create a newer Fallout. Think of something like that with almost no combat and first person but in a fully interactive post apocalyptic world!

Maybe a Fallout sequel may not be the best for this type of game, but I would like to see something in a PA setting. At times Fallout got too populated and advanced. Maybe the game would work well about twenty years after a major nuclear exchange. Cities would be large radioactive craters and most life would be dead from the radioactive fallout. You could play a character who had survived in his own vault somewhere in the countryside and decided to come out to find survivors and to try and rebuild some semblance of civilization. Perhaps he had a small airplane so he could travel to other areas but only had a limited supply of fuel on the plane and of course can only land in certain areas. So he would be limited to the places he could visit.

There would still be some bad guys that he would meet to fight, but maybe a combat system could be created so that it wouldn't turn into a first person shooter. I guess the goal would be to find enough other people of both sexes to make a colony to restore civilization. You would also have to find supplies to be able to make the colony self-supporting and to grow food, safe water, defensible, and create a power source. Meanwhile you have to find food to eat and not make you sick and find potable water and gasoline for your plane. After a certain time limit, you would have to have enough supplies and systems on hand to enable the colony to survive. The game should be able to compute what your chances at survival are based on all of these variables.

So in other words the setting isn't all that important, but you should be able to explore areas to find useable supplies. Random hardships would pop up to make it more difficult like radiation, weather, irradiated mutants, disease, and accidents.

A very good book that has a theme similar to this is "Earth Abides" by George Stewart although the Niven book I mentioned above is very good too. Or J.G. Ballard has several good books exploring themes of surviving after a major catastrophe.

So I'd like to continue this thread and hear people's ideas on the original questions.

Zila · Post by **Zila** » Mon May 20, 2002 5:02 am

A world out of time by Larry Niven is a great book.

Slider · Post by **Slider** » Mon May 20, 2002 5:13 am

One of the things that I like most about Fallout is that you get explore not only how a city would end up after being hit by a couple of a-bombs but you get to interact with the people of the region. You see how humanity can act at its worst and its best. It shows whether people go for chaos or go for order, whether people are followers or leaders.

Knight · Post by **Knight** » Mon May 20, 2002 9:57 am

There was something I did like but not anymore...it deals with geography. When you look at the map you see two or three craters but than you find some areas that look like cities and you find not much in those small urban areas. It would be nice if you could find at least a large urban area that still has towers and even a subway system!

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Tue May 21, 2002 3:15 pm

Knight wrote:There was something I did like but not anymore...it deals with geography. When you look at the map you see two or three craters but than you find some areas that look like cities and you find not much in those small urban areas. It would be nice if you could find at least a large urban area that still has towers and even a subway system!

The problem with that is that towers have to be maintained. Even over the course of a few decades, a large building will settle. Walls will shift. Pipes need to be maintained. Ceiling tiles will crack and need replacing.

You get the point.

A large tower that goes unmaintained for over a century will most likely collapse due to neglect even without the stress of having an atomic calibur bomb dropped near it.

Depending on how the subway is built, tunnels could collapse due to weathering. Ground water seeps in to cracks, erodes the materials, and cracks get larger and wider.