For today’s review, I like to review a strategy game: Intrepid Marmot’s Praise Dead (2023). It has haunted my desktop for months.
This title screen reminds me of Blasphemous, somehow. Maybe because of the priest right there that look at us with shoddy expression. Apparently, Buggos2 is out! Maybe, I will check on that because I like RTS. I played the demo of Praise Dead long time ago and I really like it. So, I bought the full version later on. I think in Demo there’s no upgrades in the main menu and also mining wasn’t released. Perhaps, this is one of video game that’s unusually for Halloween because I barely can recall other game that let you become necromancer and manage zombies. The gameplay will be better explained as I play the game so let’s hit new game immediately.
I can only choose Necromancer Rhal to play. I expect silly name like Necromancer Mort Is or Cadapper. Nonetheless, he has +2 max zombie numbers which sounds useful.
The game has 3 phases. First is town phase where you manage the town, simply enough. Use mouse to click on buildings and icon on the HUD for its explanation. Icons on bottom HUD are (from left to right): coin for gold, human icon for number of townsfolk, chicken drum for number of food supply. Zombie icon for number of zombies and their capacity, green flame to indicate power unit. Fence icon to indicate number of barricades. Sun icon to indicate current number of days. The buildings that are available for now is church and workshop which is a tower on the right side.
Inside the church, I buy organs as material to construct zombie. Necromancer has trading relationship with church sounds abhorrent enough. To make things worse, this priest gladly sells organ of dead bodies. Isn’t that illegal? But if he didn’t do that, I couldn't make any zombie and the game would be stuck. The organs determine the stats for the zombie you create. There are 5 stats overall: 1) Strength, determines attack power. 2) Dexterity, determines dodge chance. 3) Constitution, determines zombie’s max health/HP. 4) Endurance, determines zombie’s % reduction when taking damage. 5) Luck, determines zombie’s critical chance. Needless to say, that the organs provide stats entirely random. You can refresh the wares if you press left-mouse button on the refresh sign at the cost of 10 energy units. Buying organs is simply done with left-mouse button on the wares. But to discard them, you have to hold down left-mouse button on the organ you like to discard and then drag it to compost box. Which is fairly jarring process. But again, it’s probably meant for confirmation to discard the particular organ.
On to the workshop to construct my zombies. The image of Necromancer Rahl now makes more sense with the zombie besides him. So, the thing that he holds is zombie’s arm. Is he checking for pulse? Zombies don’t have pulse at all, right? Anyway, with organs that I bought, I can construct zombies. Need 4 of them to raise 1 zombie. Drag them into the zombie image and then press the “raise” sign. I like to put the organs to logical place but I can’t. Apparently, I can’t put any of organ into his head, including brain! So, his brain goes to his abdominal area. I can’t even exchange liver’s position with lung’s either. So, his liver stationed on chest. Alas! His intestines are in crotch region. I mean close enough, I guess.
Another part of the town that I can click on, is the gate. It allows me to see enemies at night. I realize quite late that there’s option to enrage the enemies above. If I manage to defeat enraged enemies, I will get relic that give boost. However, the enemies will have 50% more attack power and HP.
Once you’re done with town phase. You press on “end town” phase at the right bottom corner and begin the work phase. There are 5 things on work phase, including mining but it’s not unlockable yet. Factors that determine the result of the works is zombie’s stat and bonus multiplier that you can see slightly below the work image. If you feel lazy, you can just use auto-assign features.
The works are: 1) Barricade which isn’t affected by zombie’s stat and there’s no multiplier on it. It only affected by the number of zombies working on it. Add 1 barricade per zombie. As simple as that. 2) Worship, is determined by dexterity. It adds power unit. 3) Farm, is determined by endurance. Naturally, it adds food. The ratio of townsfolk and food consumed is: 2:1. 4) Mining, is determined by luck. It adds iron. Both iron and mining are not unlocked yet so you don’t have to worry about them for now. 5) Recruit, is determined by constitution. It adds townsfolks. It’s not like they try to reproduce or anything. So, recruit is the only way to add more townsfolk. I was dumb back then to think any zombie employed in work phase will not be available for battle phase. Turns out, no. They still available for battle after they work hard like mule. Humans will be very exhausted but they’re zombie. They’re built different.
After the work phase, we enter battle phase. For now, it’s as simple as it gets. My lineup will clash into enemy’s lineup. But again, they’re zombie. Their strategy is as simple as vanilla ice cream. Though as Necromancer, you can cast magic spell as you can see on left corner. From up to bottom: enhance target’s max HP by 10, increase target’s attack speed by 10%, reduce target’s strength by 3, and lastly reduce target’s health by 8 HP. The first two spells and the last ones cost 10 power units. The strength debuff spell costs 15 power units. You press left-mouse button to cast the magic on the target that on your cursor aim or you can press right-mouse button to cancel it. Because your magic target can be either your zombies or enemies, I suggest you cast it before start the combat for more accurate aim. You scroll the battle screen left and right with left and right arrow keys or ‘A’ and ‘D’ buttons. Keep in mind that there’s stock on how many times you can cast spell. You get 3 stock per day but you can save it and it stacks for next day. You can change combat speed in the center bottom sign. It ranges between 1X and 3X, with 0.5X interval.
To win the battle is simple: defeat all enemies. The lose condition also simple: all your zombies defeated. After the battle over, a day passes. The run is over if either blockade number or townsfolk number, goes to zero. Any surviving enemy can and will destroy blockade and kill townsfolk. The numbers depend on surviving enemy’s type and number.
“From a nearby building large, labored movement and the occasional roar can be heard.
A large crash from inside can be heard”
After survive for a day, witch’s house is open. I expect -you know- traditional witch hag attending the house but no. We got this brown bear instead. Are they witch or their pet? No idea. I rather not question the bear’s identity. So, the bear sell relic for relatively expensive price although the price can be varied on the next day. The difference margin is 25 gold or something. The relics also change on next day. Either you buy relics from this bear or you can get random relic by defeating enraged enemies. Pick your poison!
I was dumb. I thought I have to place different organs on a zombie to raise him but no. You can -in fact- put same organ on any kind. There’s no penalty or whatnot if you put same organs inside a body. All you have to think is a zombie requires 4 organs and what the best stats for him. I forget to say that you can put any name on the zombie. The game name the zombie automatically if you don’t feel like to put it manually. You can also exchange the organs that already in a zombie by clicking the name on the top-left corner. The stats and the organ of the highlighted zombie, can be seen on top-right corner. Then you can drag the organs on your inventory to the zombie’s stats part if you want to change them.
Next encounter is against the same masked demons but 4 of them this time. I try my best on naming my zombies. Grunt, peasant, and peon are taken from Warcraft 2’s units. No particular reason for the name “Gremlin”. Miner is intended for zombie that adept on mining and amass lots of luck stats. As for Kubis, that’s Indonesian word for cabbage. I don’t know why I keep thinking something with green color for naming zombies even though they’re dark brown in battle. But again, they’re green in workshop.
One day, a blacksmith comes to town and opens a shop. You don’t need gold to buy his wares. He only accepts iron ingots as payment, perhaps to cover iron cost from making the wares. And you can refresh his wares with 5 iron cost. However, we don’t have any iron ingot yet. So, we have to move on to work phase.
Now, the mining work is unlocked. Miner should be the best for it. My personal opinion about this work phase is: I don’t like the part where I can see man’s ass. I don’t enjoy it.
We got tougher customer called Demon Leach. You can see enemy’s stats in detail if you highlight them like this.
Look at them, doing conga line to celebrate their victory! Heavy_taunt_cong_int_09.wav
We encounter bigger customer called demon brute. My zombies can handle him, right?
Engineer_negativevocalization04.wav. The brute is too strong for us. Our first lost isn’t so bad. Only 20 townsfolks out of 61 perished and barricade destroyed by 1.
Suddenly, there’s event where the blacksmith asks iron ingots for his project either 50 or 100 iron ingots. As he said that the project may ends up in failure, I reject his proposal and he’s bitter about my rejection.
By spending 25 power units, I can upgrade the church so the wares have better grade and adds giant cross symbol on the background too. The rarity color is bit similar to equipment in Diablo-clone games. White < Green < Blue < Yellow < Red. You can see the rarity color in the border on the organs. Higher rarity means more stats overall in the organ. I just realize quite recently that the color bar below the wares, indicates % chance of rarity wares. White grade is dominant to appear with green grade the second dominant etc.
Soldier_negativevocalization04.wav. The demon brute is back and obliterated my whole squad even though one of zombie is armed with spear that allow him to attack behind his comrade.
Next encounter is boss called Unending Mistake! Not only he’s way too strong for my squad, but also he can hit zombie behind the one that wear armor. So, the tank line up is less efficient in this case.
On the next day, there’s an event where unemployed mercenaries demand food and gold from us. This act of extortion can’t be tolerated! So, I send zombies to come over them and rip their organ apart. We have lost quite lots of townsfolk from last encounter but we have more organs to work with. Soldier_goodjob02.wav
Funny enough that the next encounter feels much easier. The enemy was flying demon. Not lots of HP but I notice Gremlin the zombie on the most back of the group got hit. So, the winged demon is ranged attacker.
I was surprised with this report that saying 65 townsfolk killed even though we totally win last encounter. There should be no new casualty, right? Apparently, the report part on townsfolk killed and barricade destroyed is overall number up to this day. Whereas gold income and food consumed are number that indicate on daily basis.
Suddenly on the same day, there’s event where the crops have been cursed. My only options are 1) Forced the townsfolk to harvest or 2) Leave the crops which reduce our food supply and also strengthen demons on next encounter. I choose the first option. We get more food but it kills townsfolks. How am I supposed to know this outcome unless I experience this first. The outcome of second option is stated in option but not for the first option. This is like Odysseus has dilemma choosing Scylla or Charybdis but back then I didn’t know which option is Scylla or Charybdis.
There go the last civilians because of that dumb event. My run is end. You shouldn’t be confused with the inconsistency of villager and townsfolk use. It is townsfolk in the icon on bottom HUD. But some event and the reports state it as villager. Same goes for energy and power. Both refers to the same resource gained from worship and used for church’s upgrade and spellcasting.
I got 39 souls collected from the first run. I think the number of souls is calculated from enemies defeated. I don’t think it’s also calculated from civilian casualty because there were 135 casualties so I should get more than 39 souls, right? With 39 souls, I can spend on…absolutely nothing because everything is expensive. The cheapest upgrade on the most bottom line cost 50 each. Later I notice that I can’t purchase upgrade anywhere even when I have enough soul to spend. Apparently, I have to fill an upgrade on the bottom tier to the fullest and then I’m allowed to purchase upgrade on higher tier and so on. For example: If I aim for Gold on Crits (which makes critical attack produce gold), I have to purchase Luck and Stronger Critical upgrades to fullest first. It’s not bad mechanic. It’s just less flexible than upgrade in Vampire Survivor. On the other hand, the bottom-tier upgrade will complement upgrade on higher tier.
On the next run, there’s event: a group of migrants like to move in to our town. Since our population is not many, I let them in even though it costs food. I have feeling that if I reject them, next demon encounter will be stronger after eating these poor migrants.
On the contrary. On the next day, there’s event where enraged demon gather near the town. In this case, I sacrifice 10 townsfolks to calm those demons since we already have big population and our food supply running low.
Enraged enemies have red aura around them. They have 50% more HP and attack power but if I win the fight against them, I get relic for free. I trust my group of zombies that some of them armed with knife. I come up with more interesting names this time. There’s (Brad) Vicker from Resident Evil. Jengkol is bean with Latin name Achidendron pauciflorum) which has horrible smell but my people like to eat it. Grand’Or (the game can’t accept quotation mark on the name) is soldier that I killed in Kagero – Deception II. As for Mbah Surip. Sit there tight because the explanation is elaborated. (late) Mbah Surip is Indonesian Reggae Singer with top-hit music “Tak Gendong” (Youtube video link), which roughly translated as “I will carry you”. Since recruiting new villagers involved piggybacking them to my town. That inspires me to name zombie with high constitution stats and specialized at recruiting new villagers, with name “Mbah Surip”. Also to honor him. As for the first zombie that died there. That’s probably Miner.
We emerge triumphant. Many zombies killed in process but they will back in next day for work and battle. Don’t worry about them. As promised, I acquire relic “Ankh of Life” which grants 15% chance zombie to revive after killed. Then we got demon stomach that gives stats: spike and life steal. Luckily, I played demo of He’s Coming so I understand what’s spike stats about. Spike is damage that inflicted to attacker that attack the receiver. But I think this counter damage only occur when being attacked with melee mean. I get this demon part thanks to “flaying knife” relic that increase the chance of enemies dropping demon part when defeated. I bought it from the bear. You can see the relic I collected on top part of the screen.
Turns out my run can immediately finish right after the battle is finished if the requirement is met. I don’t get many souls in this run. But at least, I can purchase exactly 1 lowest-tier upgrade this time.
I should explain what relic that the bear selling once in a while. On top rack from left to right: 1) Strange meat, increase food for each villager dies and/or organ composed. 2) Bloated Leech, will heal zombie when demon defeated. The amount of healing depends on defeated demon’s max HP. 3) Targeting attachment, will make crossbow always hit. There’s crossbow sometime sold by blacksmith. It allows zombies on the back able to attack enemies without waiting for their turn to get into enemy toe-to-toe even though it reduces zombie’s attack speed to 0.25. The relic on most right is obscured so I can’t tell what it is. Sorry.
On the floor from left to right: 1) Wooden shield, reduces damage taken by 8. 2) Flaying knife, increase the chance of enemies drop demon part. As I have mentioned before. 3) Throwing star, when enemies dodge an attack a ninja star flies to them and inflict 5 points damage. 4) Strange Pills, when zombie defeated, random enemy will receive damage depends on the zombie’s constitution. 5) Necromancy crown, enemy will receive damage upon casting any spell.
The game is fun but I have to admit that it’s buggy. Sometime draggable icon can get stuck and the game can’t register it to work. For example: that zombie on farming slot. It’s stuck there. Usually, if the draggable icon is placed in not proper slot, it will return to where it belongs but in this moment it doesn’t. The draggable icon can be zombie/demon part, equipment, and zombie. To solve this bug, you can re-enter workshop or church. Or you can exit to main menu in pause menu (activated with “esc” button) and then continue the game. The game has auto-save and you can continue from any phase of the game. Another bug is in battle phase where defeated zombies and demons have stretchy graphic on them or non-stop blinking but it looks fun to see.
What’s this? There are panicking villagers that influence other villager’s morale. Just kill them!
I killed the panicking bastards, but the remaining villagers leave the town. “Your villagers have all died!”. No. The last villagers leave and not died. Perhaps, they are killed by demon in the middle of the road. They should stay, then. Regardless the fault is on me. Let’s try again. To be honest, this game is addicting to me. So, I don’t mind replaying the game over and over again.
On the next run…
Another interesting event. Why I need to spend gold to tell the man-at-arms to find the murderer though? Did the provost not pay them enough to do their damn job? First option is wrong even though our population is too big right now. Also, I don’t want to spend any gold. So, I choose the last option. Turns out, it makes the church closed for several days. No more fresh supply of organ for my zombies, temporarily. At least, I learn that the priest in the church has name: Father Elric.
This event is very interesting. Should I deal this ogre with my zombies, villagers, or by myself. It sounds too humane, but I don’t want to send my zombies because they have to work and fight later. What the villagers can do besides consumes our food supply while practically do nothing? But since they’re useless, sending them to fight the ogre seems futile. Fine! I will fight the ogre myself.
The fight costs some energy and spell charges but I get some powerful demon part from the dead ogre. The villagers should thank and cheer me for this heroic act. Anyway, I like to show you my new batch of zombie’s name. Though Mbah Surip and Miner are still my mainstay. Gadoha is android I killed in Kagero – Deception II. (James) Sunderland is that bastard of protagonist in Silent Hill 2. Then there are Melon and Broccoli. Dammit! I mistyped the name. It should be double “C” and not double “L”. I should proofread the naming more carefully.
Soldier_negativevocalization03.wav. Why can’t you kill this cultist? Or rather why spellcaster can tank so many attacks? That doesn’t make any sense! Spellcaster should be fragile. Apparently, Cultist can automatically cast the damage spell and strength debuff magic.
Soldier_sf13_magic_reac03.wav. Not the cultist again! We may not survive today and indeed we don’t. To hell with your “Crudox Cruo” or “Maranat Spearbook”. I refer to retro FPS: Blood, by the way.
Next run, please.
This event has 2 answer options of agree and 2 answer options of disagree with various degree. I don’t want to be too obedient but I don’t want trouble so I choose the 2nd option from the top. The negotiation was success. I pay less for 100 gold and I gain 50 power units.
I can upgrade the church to 2nd level which add holy candle on the right. Also, better rarity on the wares too. Apparently, to upgrade church I need 25 power units and additional 25 power units for each next upgrade. I suggest you to upgrade the church on 2nd day by not spending energy units on anything else including magic and refreshing the wares in the church on day 1.
Huzzah! Now, we can defeat the bastard Unending Mistake! I have figured better line-up for my zombies! In previous runs, I placed Mbah Surip at the back as finisher unit. This is very wrong way to do it. Since Mbah Surip has lots of constitution hence big HP, he’s very eligible as tank unit. So, I have to put him in the front for more efficient formation. And the rest of the cast will act as finisher if Mbah Surip is down. For fights in early stages, Mbah Surip always wins the damage race against all enemies thanks to his high HP. Next step will be: giving him armor to make him stronger tank. The armor costs 40 iron ingots. However, you should prioritize crossbow (that cost 50 iron ingots) than anything else so you can have sniper on the back line. Sniper should be someone with high strength (because any weapon’s power is determined by strength regardless) and low other stats. If crossbow is not available, spear will do. The spear requires 40 iron ingots.
I said that Mbah Surip should be in the front but since Unending Mistake can hit either front and second front zombie. I like to test with 2 sacrificial zombies: Buncis and Wasabi in front of Mbah Surip. Turns out, they miraculously survive the fight! Buncis is Indonesian word for green bean. FYI, I hate buncis though.
So, I’m rewarded with special relic that can only be obtained from winning a boss fight. There are: 1) Doctor’s bag, increase part inside a zombie by 1. More part means more stats! 2) Prickles the hedgehog, gives all zombies +8 spikes. Prickles may or may not be reference to Sonic the hedgehog. 3) Lemon’s protection, reduces all damage by 8. Doctor’s bag seems the best but I choose Lemon instead. I blame that meme involving USS Essex for this probably bad decision.
I really hate this beetle demon. He’s tough to crack. Although Mbah Surip survives the fight well but for some reason zombies behind him down one by one! What happen here? Maybe the beetle’s attack behind Mbah Surip like Unending Mistake. To make things worse, I put enraged state for this fight. This fight ends up in dud. If you wonder who’s Pierre. It supposed to be Piers Nivans from Resident Evil 6. I should cross-check fact. My bad.
The blacksmith comes again to ask iron ingots for his project. I gave him 100 of them but it ends up in failure. He’s angry to himself. Well, at least not angry at me.
What’s this? A mutiny. The villagers protest over my deed. They know what I’m doing. Yeah. I’m saving your lazy assess, you ungrateful schmucks! I mean, yes. I use your dead relative’s organs to make zombies that farming and fighting demons. What’s wrong with that, huh? None of you can do either of those works. Heck! You don’t do anything at all. You’re here as “live reserve” for my run, as far as I concern.
So, I talk to them calmly. 10 of villagers leave nonetheless. They say they’re looking for better life elsewhere. Good luck with that, stupid bastards! You may settle in capital city with better protection but with bigger tax and living cost. Heck! Most likely, you end up killed by demon on your way before reaching other town even.
On the night 10, I encounter this oddball demon called Globber. Looks adorable. Because of his cute looking, zombies hesitant to hit him thus he has dodge chance: 29% which is quite high.
On next day, demonologist comes to town! He offers some service with demon parts as payment. Demon parts are super rare to obtain but some of his services are worth the trouble especially increasing limit number of zombie! But I need 4 of those demon parts. How this works is: by dragging demon parts that you willing to sacrifice and put them on slot on the left. Selling for gold seems useless and stupid. Increasing zombie’s attack power is the second most useful.
On the 3rd upgrade, the church has more decorative candle! Heavy_goodjob02.wav
You can upgrade 1 more time but there’s no more decoration inside the church. The only indicator of the church has reached the final upgrade is the upgrade sign will become missing.
I really hate this beetle demon. He’s thorn on my side. To make things worse, the occultist also here and he’s in protected position! Spy_jeers04.wav
Naturally, we’re defeated. At least, we got 82 souls this time. If you look closely on population number, it’s -94. How’s that work? Did the demon kill same persons over and over again until the population number reaches -94? I like to end it here but I feel like I want to show more.
On 7th run…
I manage to survive for 14 days and we encounter 2nd boss called Pained Thoughts. Not sure what’s the deal with him other than he’s stronger than Unending Mistake.
Even more later…
At day 21, we encounter another boss. I see. So, every week/ 7 days there’s boss fight. This time it’s Titan from Attack of Titans/Shingeki no Kyoujin. I mean he’s armless and have spikes but you know what I mean, right? Here I put link for Opening 2nd season of Shingeki no Kyoujin to make this moment more immersive. I like to point out that before the fight, Father Elric runs away because apparently this Titan called Last Sin is his own creation. People blaming me for making zombies that work and protect their useless assess when Father Elric is more deserved all the blame because he creates a monster that dooms us all! Though he returns to the church while still feel guilty on next day.
We lost but the game kindly assumes I beat the game in difficulty level 0. Then the game offers me to get into endless mode. Sure. Bite me, game!
The endless mode is just fighting all same enemies but without any new boss fight. At the night 35, winged demon Stolas offers me to surrender but I refuse! We have come this far. So, bite me more, game! Then Stolas put his mark on me which reduces worship’s efficiency by 20%. Demoman_sf12_badmagic05.wav
Several unfortunes happen on following days: gold vanishes, iron ingots vanish, barricade destroyed mysteriously. Even townsfolks die abruptly. The worst of all is: my zombies destroyed! I think the resources destroyed is based on percentage even the townsfolk. So, you don’t have to worry about all townsfolks died and immediately game over. As for zombies, they all destroyed except for the last 3. I have to rebuild them from the beginning but as you can see, I have 2,4626 gold. It’s more than enough to rebuild my zombies.
Let’s take a moment of silence to respect: Spinach, Richard Aiken (the guy who got poisoned by Yawn in Resident Evil), Oplet (antique Indonesian public passenger vehicle), Zamrud (Indonesian word for Emerald), Dodol Legit (Indonesian’s sweet snack that equivalent to Japanese’s Yokan), Statz (Thief that I killed in Kagero - Deception II), Sarmentos (Mr. Sarmento, Indonesian Sarsaparilla candy brand), Pok Coy (Bok choy), Miner and Mbah Surip.
From the point where the endless mode begins, the battle is not about healthy strategy anymore. Logic calculation is thrown into the window and let RNG decides the outcome of the battle. The key to success on long run in Praise Dead isn’t interesting and rely heavily on randomness. Unlike in -say- Vampire Survivor where you can unlock upgrade or evolution weapon. Meanwhile in Praise Dead, you have to rely on the relic that auto revive the zombie. There’s the ankh that I mentioned before that auto-revive zombie by 15% chance. Then there’s Gibbet cage which reduce zombie’s stat but grant auto-revive by 50% chance. So, I got roughly 65% chance auto revive in disposal. Then you complement them with relic that grant effect upon dying or revive such as: Urn, that grants additional random stat when zombie revived or Strange Pills, that delivers damage (scaled with fallen zombie’s constitution) to random enemies when zombie is defeated. Once you have those 2 auto-revive relics, you can just go AFK and let RNG do its works because there’s little thing you can do. Since the stats on both zombies and enemies are too high, most of the magic spell are useless except for the 10% attack speed boost. The battle goes like 1 zombie can block multiple enemies. When he dies, zombies behind him killed swiftly but suddenly another 1 can block multiple enemies. Eventually, we win. Such a madness!
After the events where my resources and zombies disrupted, Shop NPC leaves one by one. Starting with the bear run to forest with fear, Demonologist disappears as mysterious as he first appeared, and lastly blacksmith goes to capitol where his brother held up. The bear is the most useless one because from the beginning of endless mode I already have all the relics. Not the one that I got from boss fight though. Father Elric still stays to bitter end (except for that eventful moment) but my zombies already have the best part within them. So, he’s quite useless.
After all shop NPC gone, all of work are sealed one by one. At this moment, work phase is entirely useless. I can’t recruit new villager anymore because our region is sealed by darkness or something like that. However, the migrant event still can happen. Funny enough. In this case, I should make miner into more combat unit by replacing his parts that boost luck into strength or constitution based. Luck determines critical chance on attack but I don’t like rely on luck. I’m not Katsuya Jonouchi/Joey Wheeler from Yu-Gi-Oh! anime.
Eventually, we are fallen at day 56 because enemies gradually have bigger stats and HP from the beginning of endless mode. But, hey! We got 2,691 souls. That’s big fund for upgrade! Medic_goodjob02.wav
Besides more upgrades, I also unlocked Ritual level 1 which makes the enraged enemies harder (they have 75% more HP and damage instead) and Necromancer Tel’Tal. Maybe reference to Tell Tale? His playstyle is: relies on magic spell because he gains extra spell charge and energy per day. Sounds good but I much prefer more zombies from get go. More zombie means more on everything including harvested resources and more troop in combat. The game updated 3 days ago. I might miss something new to tell you but let that be secret for now. Time to end this, for real this time.
As the title said, Intrepid Marmot’s Praise Dead (2023) deserves a praise! At least from me. It was one of games that makes me “One more time” and I end up late to go to bed, besides Rogue Legacy. The in-game day last for 3 minutes or so. Unless in endless mode where the battles drag for too long like 15 minutes or something. I think beyond the point where Stolas offers you to surrender is not time-efficient for soul collecting and no longer fun. The gameplay is fast-paced mixture of strategy: battle and town management. With added random event to make things more interesting. Keep in mind that some event can have 2 different outcomes when you pick same option. I think the chance is 50%-50%. For example: there’s rumor that bandits disguised as refugees. A group of refugees come to my town. First time I reject them, they revealed to be the rumored bandits. But the other time I reject them, they are real refugee and later killed by bandits on their way. That’s the thing with the events. You can choose to be cruel and immoral because you are necromancer. Necromancers are not known to have good heart or whatnot, afterall. Though I’m not sure what’s the necromancer’s motive to manage to this town other than he loves this very hometown. I doubt his motive is gold because he has to spend gold for that damn Father Elric or the bear. I kind of disappointed that there is only basic zombie. I like to have giant zombie or mage zombie. Maybe the developer adds that later? However, the equipment is what makes your zombies stronger and versatile in combat. They can be armed with knife (low attack power but very fast attack speed), basic sword, rare sword (stronger and faster than basic sword), spear (that allow to attack enemy 1 space away from the wielder), axe (stronger yet slower version of spear), crossbow (for sniper) and sickle (stronger version of knife that can absorb enemy’s health into zombie’s health). As for the armor. Basic armor adds 2 armor stats and add 3% damage reduction. Spiked armor that slightly stronger than basic armor and also add spike stats. Swift armor (orange colored one) doesn’t have extra damage reduction but increase the wearer’s attack speed by 10%. Lastly, heavy armor (green colored one) is simply even stronger version of basic armor. As for stats. Strength probably the most important stats for battle phase even though it doesn’t contribute to any of work activity. Constitution is second important because high health also important in battle. Plus, it determines the result of recruiting villager which is crucial for survival. I underestimated the importance of Dexterity because it’s about dodge chance but I was wrong because it determines the amount of energy harvested which can be utilized for spell casting in battle phase. Then there’s Luck that mainly for iron mining which is important to buy equipment. That leaves Endurance that probably the least useful though it plays important role for farming. The relics are all interesting but not everything is useful. The music probably not the best in quality but it’s calming with little sprinkle of spookiness. The music sounds like bubble in aquarium “Blup. Blup” like that. The sound effect is okay.
Praise Dead (2023) is another game that I can recommend to you even though it’s buggy sometime. The way Vampire Survivor handles with unlockables is more elaborate. Whereas in Praise Dead, just survive as many days as you can. Which is not bad. It’s just too simple. And then I have to rely heavily on dumb RNG to success is not a sign that the gameplay is smart. However, I enjoy this game a lot. Especially when I can put zombie’s name manually. Mbah Surip and Miner are my mainstay. Then I put those poor gits from any Resident Evil games. Heck! Even I put Harry (Mason) and (James) Sunderland from Silent Hill 1 and 2 respectively. Then various name of vegetable, food, and spice. My favorite will be names of my victim in Kagero - Deception II such as Gustero, Statz, Grand’or, or Bashburn. Even though I have to watch someone’s VOD to remember their names. Sometime, I put names from Deception III which has less memorable name. I think I only put name Belstein the Hellknight and Lavaan, prime minister Edgar’s adjutant. There's Doni from Dreadout 1. On some occasion I put name Scout, Sniper, and Heavy from Team Fortress II. Anyway, I have talked too much. I have to prepare for next article…or get addicted again in Praise Dead. :P