Hello, friends. I’ve recently had the pleasure of previewing a game called “NEO Scavenger”, which tasks the player with staying alive in a rouge-like, post apocalyptic world. You can find that preview here:
http://www.dadsgamingaddiction.com/neo-scavenger-preview/
I enjoyed the game so much that I wanted to do a follow-up article…only this time, I’ll be documenting my progress as I go. I’ve played the game about ten times so far and each time, I learned something new about how to navigate the world and its mechanics. The following will be session number eleven in what I’m calling “The Vince Chronicles” and should serve to give you an idea of what features you can expect to see if you play the game yourself in its current state. Enjoy!
SPOILER: SHOES!!!
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NEO Scavenger: The Vince Chronicles – Session #11
Traits: Medic, Melee, Metabolism, Tough
I followed in the footsteps of my first playthru, using my Medic skill to revive another individual from the cryo tanks so that they could serve as bait while I hid from the monster that was fast approaching. Like the first time, I found a medkit while searching the room. Unlike last time, I actually placed it in the correct inventory slot (my hand)…apparently the first time around, I put the medkit back on the ground and thus didn’t have it when I left. Lesson learned!
In past sessions, I died of hypothermia a few times. My first order of business was thus to find some clothes, some food, and some water. I found a mushroom and some berries, which I picked and placed into my medkit. I went east from my starting location and “crafted” a tree, breaking it down into its smaller components. I put a branch in my other hand to serve as a weapon and kept going. I discovered some water on the ground in my travels and used the consume action to drink it. Before, I thought I had to have an empty bottle to put the water into first, but you can consume items that are just laying there on the ground. Another lesson learned!
I came across a deserted town and used the scavenge action to see what buildings were available to loot. I decided to search the abandoned apartment building. I came across one shoe…yay…and just my luck, I was noticed by a creature in the process. The bandit was unarmed, but I wasn’t taking any chances this time and spammed the “run” button during the encounter to move farther out of combat range. I was eventually able to flee, though the bandit was intent on following me east. Eventually, he caught up to me again despite my best attempts to flee, hide, cover up tracks, and etc. I got lucky and was able to defeat him with a stick, looting a backpack in the process. It contained three shoes…I apparently wasn’t going to run out of those any time soon. My original shoe had a low durability percentage on it so I switched it out with one of the other ones. I also found a t-shirt, which I equipped.
Night eventually fell and I couldn’t see a thing. I received a warning that my character was suffering from hypothermia. I just kept going in the dark to the east until I came across another town. After scavenging, I found myself a meat cleaver and equipped that instead of the branch. I filled up my backpack to its maximum capacity with crackers, a few water bottles (but no water), a couple of plastic bags, a ketchup packet, , my medkit, and some sort of wrench. I was still freezing, but managed to stave off hunger a bit with some saltine crackers…which made me thirsty. Great.
Not one, but two bandits showed up on different hexes and confronted me individually. Luckily, the first one was “feeble” and “weak.” I managed to defeat him with a few melee attacks using the meat cleaver. I looted a hoodie, which I threw on immediately. The hoodie had some pocket room and I noticed that there was a lighter inside one of those pockets. Now if I could only figure out how to cook stuff…
The second bandit wasn’t armed either and I made short work of him, though my character was very tired and still cold. The loot wasn’t worth taking…just another backpack with more shoes. I made a mental note to open a chain of Payless and Famous Footwear stores once society got back to normal. Anyway, I was still in the town so I went to sleep, or tried to. I was apparently too cold to sleep and kept waking up. I was running low on food, so I ate that mushroom and those berries and decided to check out the next nearby town. My character collapsed without warning and fell asleep, I discovered that I was poisoned…let this be a lesson to you kids…don’t order mushrooms or wild berries on your pizza!
Anyway, I received a warning that my immune system had been weakened and was fighting off an infection, prompting me to open my medkit. Sure enough, I had some antibiotics in there that strengthened my immune system. I made my way to the next town and during a scavenging mission, injured my leg. I took some painkillers I had also found in the medkit and looted some cans of food and water. I ate three cans of food and drank as much water as I could, noting with satisfaction that my hunger and thirst bars were back in the green. I looted three more buildings and had a ton of new stuff to play with…binoculars, jeans, vodka, bottles of cola…and of course, more shoes.
All was going well until I attracted a creature during a scavenging mission. It wasn’t human and had claws…resembling a werewolf. I tried to run, but it caught up to me and slashed me. I slashed back with the meat cleaver a number of times but the thing just wouldn’t die. I tried my luck with running again and succeeded, though I had a concussion, suffered blood loss, and was “weary” from the battle. I moved a hex, covered up tracks, moved another hex, covered up tracks, hid…everything I could think of. I managed to lose it, or so I had thought. On my second run-in with the thing, my character suffered cardiac arrest and died. All hopes of opening a successful shoe business died right then and there.
This was the farthest I had ever gotten…have any of you managed to get farther? Feel free to leave your experiences in the comments below!
Sounds like I need to dial down the shoe loot, eh?
Congrats on getting further, though! Surviving three scuffles, food poisoning, and hypothermia is pretty hard to do!
LOL, nah! Some of my friends would argue that you can never have too many shoes. 🙂
I played this one a few months back and thought it had a lot of potential. It’s also hard as balls. Never managed to the easten location the game was pointing at yet.
Shoes are a swiss-army knife like the towel in Hitchhiker’s guide. In reality you can use them as a weapon, a container, and if you’re feeling particularly crazy, for your feet. Or you could construct a glorious shoe-throne and rule the wasteland with an iron shoe.