Unturned
| Unturned | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Smartly Dressed Games |
| Publisher(s) | Smartly Dressed Games |
| Designer(s) | Nelson Sexton |
| Artist(s) | Nelson Sexton |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux |
| Release date(s) |
Windows, OS X
Linux
|
| Genre(s) | Survival |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Unturned is an indie, free-to-play, zombie-themed survival game designed by Nelson Sexton, the owner and founder of Smartly Dressed Games.[1]
Gameplay
Unturned is the one of the best rated games in the steam store as of December 2nd, 2016. The game starts by dropping the player off on a map of their choice; whether Prince Edward Island (PEI), Yukon, Washington, Russia, or a custom one made by the community, or the player.[2] With nothing in their possession, players must find weapons to survive against zombies as well as find supplies to keep from dying of starvation, thirst, disease, or in the case of Yukon and other winter maps, cold. The game has three difficulty levels. In the first difficulty level, Easy, loot spawns are 50% greater than the game's next difficulty setting, Normal. On this setting, there are standard spawns and nothing added or subtracted. And Hard, where loot spawns are decreased along with higher zombie damage. In Unturned 2.0, there was a similar gamemode, Hardcore. It had a variety of changes, including some of the GUI being removed, and various things were made harder. In Gold mode, special cosmetic options for the character and interface are unlocked. As the player progresses through the game, they gain experience points from killing zombies or gathering resources which can then be used for skills boosts and an expansive crafting menu. These skills can affect simple things, such as doing more damage with either a melee weapon or ranged weapon, to increasing vitality or lowering the rate at which the player dehydrates or starves or their ability of farming or cooking over a fire to not starve. Random Boosts are somewhat random abilities, such as an increased throwing range, or triggering a velocity boost on corpses every time you kill zombies, players and animals.
Unturned also includes a multiplayer gamemode. Server owners may modify the server settings, some of which are shared with single-player, while other settings are exclusive to the game-mode. These include the enabling or disabling the ability to have player versus player combat, allowing players to sync their character data between servers, putting up server plugins such as shops, or kits, and setting a maximum capacity for players. While server admins can kick/ban abusive players. Ports were added for private server hosting.
Unturned features a Gamemode called "Horde" that spawns the player with one gun and 3 magazines to survive waves of zombies, akin to Call of Duty Zombies. While there are no official Horde maps, a lot of maps feature this Gamemode on the Steam Workshop.
One of Unturned's Gamemodes, Arena, puts players against each other in a Battle Royale type of scenario where they must scavenge for weapons and supplies and continue moving to the specified spot where the "barrier" closes in.
Development
Unturned was developed by Nelson Sexton, also known as SDGNelson (in Steam) and DeadzoneZackZak (Roblox) , an eighteen-year-old from Canada.[3] Sexton started his career with Roblox development, creating two of the most popular games on Roblox, known as BATTLEFIELD and DEADZONE.[4] DEADZONE, a game in Roblox, is a zombie-survival game, similar to Unturned. DEADZONE is no longer playable in Roblox due to the game being "Exploited", making other users copy the game. When Nelson saw this, he gave up on ROBLOX and starting to work on Unturned. Unturned was originally listed under Steam Greenlight as Unturned 2 and was rated #3 of all Greenlight games. It was successfully Greenlit on the 28th of May 2014 and is now available on Steam. The game is continually being updated to add more items, features and mechanics, as well as fixing current ones that do not function as intended. The game has seen drastic changes in this preview branch such as graphical improvements, support for user-created content on Steam Workshop, dedicated servers, and much more. Currently, updates and new item releases are scheduled every Friday.[5]
The most recent map, "Russia", was the first time another person besides Nelson Sexton was credited for work on something in the game. Credit was given to "Justin 'Gamez2much' Morton" and "Mitch 'Sketches' Wheaton" for work on the map itself, "Alex 'Rain' Stoyanov" for creating most of the new vehicles, and "Amanda 'Mooki2much' Hubler" for work on structures and objects.[6]
On November 22nd 2016, Nelson created a post titled "Postcard from Hawaii" on the official blog for his company "Smartly Dressed Games". He stated that a team of community mappers are working on a new Hawaii map. According to the blog post, the four community mappers are "Rain, Spyjack, Mooki2much and Gamez2much".
Reception
On July 17, 2014, PC Gamer published a review of the game saying that while "Unturned has few real ideas on its own" it is a simple, accessible survival simulator that one may enjoy provided they can "stomach the low production values"; however, the author adds that with Nelson constantly updating the game, it is expected that many more features may be added.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ Patricia Hernandez (2014-07-10). "The Story Behind Unturned, One Of Steam's Newest Top Games". Kotaku.com. Retrieved 2014-08-02.
- ↑ Nelson Sexton (2015-07-12). "August Plans". Smart Dressed Games. Retrieved 2015-07-18.
- ↑ Fackler, Alan. "From ROBLOX Game Dev to Steam Sensation". blog.roblox.com. blog.roblox.com. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
- ↑ Fackler, Alan (July 11, 2014). "From ROBLOX Game Dev to Steam Sensation". roblox.com. Retrieved June 21, 2015.
- ↑ "News — All News". store.steampowered.com. Retrieved 2016-06-15.
- ↑ Sexton, Nelson. "3.16.0.0 Update Notes". Steam. Steam. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
- ↑ Andy Kelly (2014-07-17). "Unturned review (Early Access)". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2014-08-02.