Any games like Plague Inc, but in reverse?

happyninja42

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Not a fan of "killing everything" kind of games, but I am a huge fan of "fixing the stuff that's totally fucked up" style of games. Post-Apocalyptic city builders for example, or other similar titles. But those usually all stick to a very small scale scope. I'm curious if there is anything more global, or national in scale?

Kind of hard to specify further than that, as I'm not really sure if this fits any specific genre, but games that are basically like "Ok, here is a giant pile of shit, your job is to fix and make things better again, through construction/research/etc"

Any suggestions? The larger scale the better.

Games I already own that I think will probably be suggested for similarity:

1. Surviving the Aftermath (playing this one now actually and it's kind of what's spurred my desire for more like it.)

2. Atomic Society

3. Surviving Mars

4. Sheltered (VERY small scale, but I know it was pretty popular in the indy circuit, so I assume someone will suggest it)

5. Flotsam

6. Cliff Empire

7. Rebuild Series

8. Frostpunk

There's probably others in my steam library that aren't currently installed, but those are the ones off the top of my head and stuff.

So yeah, any other suggestions? Again, the larger the scale, the better, but smaller scale ones are acceptable as well.
 

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Happyninja42 said:
Not a fan of "killing everything" kind of games, but I am a huge fan of "fixing the stuff that's totally fucked up" style of games. Post-Apocalyptic city builders for example, or other similar titles. But those usually all stick to a very small scale scope. I'm curious if there is anything more global, or national in scale?

Kind of hard to specify further than that, as I'm not really sure if this fits any specific genre, but games that are basically like "Ok, here is a giant pile of shit, your job is to fix and make things better again, through construction/research/etc"

Any suggestions? The larger scale the better.

Games I already own that I think will probably be suggested for similarity:

1. Surviving the Aftermath (playing this one now actually and it's kind of what's spurred my desire for more like it.)

2. Atomic Society

3. Surviving Mars

4. Sheltered (VERY small scale, but I know it was pretty popular in the indy circuit, so I assume someone will suggest it)

5. Flotsam

6. Cliff Empire

7. Rebuild Series

8. Frostpunk

There's probably others in my steam library that aren't currently installed, but those are the ones off the top of my head and stuff.

So yeah, any other suggestions? Again, the larger the scale, the better, but smaller scale ones are acceptable as well.
It's too bad FO76 ended up shitting the bed because it sounds like that's what they were aiming for. I keep thinking "Man, a Fallout game based on rebuilding civilization just after the intial radation subsided....that sounds....oh, that's right".
 

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I played Plague Inc. a couple weeks ago. It sucked. Simplistic systems, barely any interaction, and win conditions that can randomly become impossible to achieve.

OT: Isn't that the plot of most games, already? Everything being all messed up, your job is to fix it?

Probably not exactly what you are looking for but: Bastion
 

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Drathnoxis said:
I played Plague Inc. a couple weeks ago. It sucked. Simplistic systems, barely any interaction, and win conditions that can randomly become impossible to achieve.

OT: Isn't that the plot of most games, already? Everything being all messed up, your job is to fix it?
There are some interesting scenarios, like the zombie virus(Fuck you, ZCOM) but the fact you have to kill everyone to win feels a bit obnoxious(unless they've changed the game) because greenland or Madagascar can pretty much screw you immediately by shutting their one port. I would have a series of win conditions or maybe a score based on deaths, infections, time until contained, etc.

Something like DEFCON which scores you on how many you killed vs how many of your people died(biased towards your kills), but there are two other game modes, Genocide where only your kills matter and Survivor where you start with a score and it drops each time you take losses.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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I suppose a little bit of role-play in Cities Skylines would allow you to foster a large enough trusting populace before deleting their sewage treatment, health centres, trash services, placing sewage exit pipes upstream from large populated beaches...and such to provide the perfect sickly environment in which you can leap to their rescue after and claim all heroic credit for.

No one needs to know the truth.

So I won't tell if you won't.
 

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Neurotic Void Melody said:
I suppose a little bit of role-play in Cities Skylines would allow you to foster a large enough trusting populace before deleting their sewage treatment, health centres, trash services, placing sewage exit pipes upstream from large populated beaches...and such to provide the perfect sickly environment in which you can leap to their rescue after and claim all heroic credit for.

No one needs to know the truth.

So I won't tell if you won't.
Cities Skylines actually has one you can do on accident.

Simply put the water pump suction DOWNSTREAM of the sewage outflow pipes(if on a river) and watch your population get sick.

I can't remember if the SimCity games did that but Cities:Skylines does.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Dalisclock said:
Cities Skylines actually has one you can do on accident.

Simply put the water pump suction DOWNSTREAM of the sewage outflow pipes(if on a river) and watch your population get sick.

I can't remember if the SimCity games did that but Cities:Skylines does.
Oof, that's super nasty. But also very efficient. Straight to every family home!
 

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Neurotic Void Melody said:
Dalisclock said:
Cities Skylines actually has one you can do on accident.

Simply put the water pump suction DOWNSTREAM of the sewage outflow pipes(if on a river) and watch your population get sick.

I can't remember if the SimCity games did that but Cities:Skylines does.
Oof, that's super nasty. But also very efficient. Straight to every family home!
Yeah, it's one of those things you wonder "Wait, why can't every city builder do stuff like this?" Kinda like playing D:OS2, seeing all the quality of life features and going like "Why can't more games do this?"

I imagine if you're pulling from a lake or ocean, it's a matter of putting the suction and discharge close to each other.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Dalisclock said:
Yeah, it's one of those things you wonder "Wait, why can't every city builder do stuff like this?" Kinda like playing D:OS2, seeing all the quality of life features and going like "Why can't more games do this?"

I imagine if you're pulling from a lake or ocean, it's a matter of putting the suction and discharge close to each other.
I think there's a certain amount of tunnel-vision involved in any creative process which is exacerbated by the many complexities and time involved in game development that contribute towards intricate sims and RPGs missing the little QoL touches, and that maybe we're seeing them only now due to more people leading development with actual passion and experience in playing the respective genres enough to critically identify them from a player perspective. Also, can't rule out the benefits of early access being utilised for community feedback, or even just a regular release with updates aided by community feedback and general good communication between the two.
Been looking at D:OS2 for a while now. Liked the first quite a bit, until the second map kept throwing over-leveled enemies at me from every direction so I assumed I must have done videogames wrong again. The sequel does have a lot of praise for improvements. Is co-op necessary to fully enjoy the game?
 

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Neurotic Void Melody said:
Been looking at D:OS2 for a while now. Liked the first quite a bit, until the second map kept throwing over-leveled enemies at me from every direction so I assumed I must have done videogames wrong again. The sequel does have a lot of praise for improvements. Is co-op necessary to fully enjoy the game?
I'm playing without co-op(I wanted to say Solo but that would imply I'm using one or two characters instead of four) and am enjoying it. And yeah, I'm hitting a bunch of hard encounters in the 2nd big area as well and trying to figure out the order to them. Apparently Reapers Coast is a well known difficulty spike whereas For Joy mostly went easy om you(mostly) if you were halfway competent with the combat system.

Now I feel like I really need to get good at using the combat in order to really survive some of these fights, or learn to be clever. I just recently learned how to make arrows(and specialize them) for my ranger, but I feel like I'm missing some steps, like how to play my necromancer correctly.
 

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Dalisclock said:
I'm playing without co-op(I wanted to say Solo but that would imply I'm using one or two characters instead of four) and am enjoying it. And yeah, I'm hitting a bunch of hard encounters in the 2nd big area as well and trying to figure out the order to them. Apparently Reapers Coast is a well known difficulty spike whereas For Joy mostly went easy om you(mostly) if you were halfway competent with the combat system.

Now I feel like I really need to get good at using the combat in order to really survive some of these fights, or learn to be clever. I just recently learned how to make arrows(and specialize them) for my ranger, but I feel like I'm missing some steps, like how to play my necromancer correctly.
Oh, that's relieving to hear, as there's always a whispering doubt that maybe the game expected the player to have friends to succeed efficiently. The difficulty spike is noticeably there, though there's a lot of leeway with tricking one's way through some battles with splitting the team and strategic placement and such which still feel like an earned victory by sheer ruthless cunning. Had to restart the game like 3 times, so save-scum has been fully embraced as the favoured party member to avoid any more precious time being thrown away. Might just jump into the sequel anyway, as the writing and QoL does sound more worth the investment, and I've a suspicion the last save has gone the way of the dodo too. Might be worth looking up necromancer info online at some point, as one of the restarts boiled down to not realising the animal communication skill was necessary if I didn't want to lock myself out of content and quests. Some useful info can easily slip by like that.
 

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OP, I noticed a game called ENDZONE on GOG.com
https://www.gog.com/game/endzone_a_world_apart

I have no idea if it's any good but it seems like it would fit what you're looking for.

Neurotic Void Melody said:
Dalisclock said:
I'm playing without co-op(I wanted to say Solo but that would imply I'm using one or two characters instead of four) and am enjoying it. And yeah, I'm hitting a bunch of hard encounters in the 2nd big area as well and trying to figure out the order to them. Apparently Reapers Coast is a well known difficulty spike whereas For Joy mostly went easy om you(mostly) if you were halfway competent with the combat system.

Now I feel like I really need to get good at using the combat in order to really survive some of these fights, or learn to be clever. I just recently learned how to make arrows(and specialize them) for my ranger, but I feel like I'm missing some steps, like how to play my necromancer correctly.
Oh, that's relieving to hear, as there's always a whispering doubt that maybe the game expected the player to have friends to succeed efficiently. The difficulty spike is noticeably there, though there's a lot of leeway with tricking one's way through some battles with splitting the team and strategic placement and such which still feel like an earned victory by sheer ruthless cunning. Had to restart the game like 3 times, so save-scum has been fully embraced as the favoured party member to avoid any more precious time being thrown away. Might just jump into the sequel anyway, as the writing and QoL does sound more worth the investment, and I've a suspicion the last save has gone the way of the dodo too. Might be worth looking up necromancer info online at some point, as one of the restarts boiled down to not realising the animal communication skill was necessary if I didn't want to lock myself out of content and quests. Some useful info can easily slip by like that.
Yeah, I've save scummed a ton in this game, though I do appreciate the game auto-saves right before you might run into a tough fight. I haven't have to restart yet but normally I'll restore a save if it's clear I have no chance of winning(say if I've lost half my party and I've barely made a dent in the enemies), since I'll be restoring once the party wipes anyway.

Pet Pal, the animal talking skill, is pretty much a necessity in this game as well, at least to help with some quests. If you have the definitive version of the game, there's a series of mods, I guess, that you can activate to add QoL to the game. One of them basically lets you talk to animals without taking the Pet Pal skill, AKA giving it to you by default. The trade off is that if you activate the mods, it disables achievements but you can play the game as normal otherwise.

I realized I built my necromancer wrong but luckily respeccing is free from chapter 2 on, so I'll be doing that soon.
 

happyninja42

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Dalisclock said:
OP, I noticed a game called ENDZONE on GOG.com
https://www.gog.com/game/endzone_a_world_apart

I have no idea if it's any good but it seems like it would fit what you're looking for.
Yeah I picked that one up, and it's almost a carbon copy of Surviving the Aftermath.

Also I saw you mention a game multiple times, called D:OS2? I'm drawing a blank on what that is referring to, as I just don't recognize that acronym in common game parlance. What game is it?
 

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Happyninja42 said:
Dalisclock said:
OP, I noticed a game called ENDZONE on GOG.com
https://www.gog.com/game/endzone_a_world_apart

I have no idea if it's any good but it seems like it would fit what you're looking for.
Yeah I picked that one up, and it's almost a carbon copy of Surviving the Aftermath.

Also I saw you mention a game multiple times, called D:OS2? I'm drawing a blank on what that is referring to, as I just don't recognize that acronym in common game parlance. What game is it?
Divinity Original Sin 2. Which is a pain to type so I've tended to fall back on using the Acronym. It's not quite what your looking for but the thread kinda sidetracked talking about QoL improvements, which Divinity Original Sin 2 is good at.
 

happyninja42

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Dalisclock said:
Happyninja42 said:
Dalisclock said:
OP, I noticed a game called ENDZONE on GOG.com
https://www.gog.com/game/endzone_a_world_apart

I have no idea if it's any good but it seems like it would fit what you're looking for.
Yeah I picked that one up, and it's almost a carbon copy of Surviving the Aftermath.

Also I saw you mention a game multiple times, called D:OS2? I'm drawing a blank on what that is referring to, as I just don't recognize that acronym in common game parlance. What game is it?
Divinity Original Sin 2. Which is a pain to type so I've tended to fall back on using the Acronym. It's not quite what your looking for but the thread kinda sidetracked talking about QoL improvements, which Divinity Original Sin 2 is good at.
Ah yeah, I have that game. Just drew a blank on that acronym as I stopped playing it a while ago. Interesting game but I lost...well..interest in it roughly around the time you get off the starting island.
 

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Happyninja42 said:
Dalisclock said:
Happyninja42 said:
Dalisclock said:
OP, I noticed a game called ENDZONE on GOG.com
https://www.gog.com/game/endzone_a_world_apart

I have no idea if it's any good but it seems like it would fit what you're looking for.
Yeah I picked that one up, and it's almost a carbon copy of Surviving the Aftermath.

Also I saw you mention a game multiple times, called D:OS2? I'm drawing a blank on what that is referring to, as I just don't recognize that acronym in common game parlance. What game is it?
Divinity Original Sin 2. Which is a pain to type so I've tended to fall back on using the Acronym. It's not quite what your looking for but the thread kinda sidetracked talking about QoL improvements, which Divinity Original Sin 2 is good at.
Ah yeah, I have that game. Just drew a blank on that acronym as I stopped playing it a while ago. Interesting game but I lost...well..interest in it roughly around the time you get off the starting island.
The plot gets a little more interesting after you get to reaper's coast and the ability to see ghosts is a really cool mechanic(so when you stumble across a bunch of dead bodies, you can often interview them instead of trying to guess what happened). You can also talk to enemies after you kill them, which can be interesting when they're not just so pissed at you that they refuse to talk to you.

However, the if the main gameplay loop wasn't keeping your interest, it probably wasn't gonna get much better as you went on. Combat encounters get a lot more difficult, for sure.