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What happens when you take the concept of a Rogue Like and mix it with a Zombie Apocalypse? You get Rogue Survivor. Rogue Survivor's alpha was first released on May 3rd, 2010 by Roguedjack, the game's sole developer. Development halted in 2012 with Roguedjack's sudden disappearance from the internet, but resumed in 2018. Get it here.


The Undead Example Feeds Off Your Flesh!

  • A Winner Is You: Your reward for turning on all the power generators in the CHAR Underground Facility? A message from the dev stating that he hasn't programmed in what happens past that yet.
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: Although it isn't determined how much space is in a tile, the sewer tunnels are about half the size of an residential room in width.
  • A.K.A.-47: Anything you see in the Kolt Revolver is merely your overactive imagination at work.
  • All Bikers are Hells Angels: Played straight with the rampaging biker gangs.
  • Armies Are Evil: Averted and then played straight. The National Guard deployments are acting in the survivor's favor, taking out the undead and homicidal gangs alike as they leave supply drops around the city. After Day 10, Black Ops start showing up, aiming to kill all of them. Also It is amazing that this trope is so prevalent that most people on hearing that Black Ops are involved will naturally be tipped off that they are killing all survivors once they arrive.
  • Armor Is Useless: Averted. Even the +1 of a leather or police jacket makes a noticable difference, and the +3 of army armor makes you all but invincible to lesser enemies.
  • Artificial Brilliance: Although human NPCs still do stupid things on occasion (a police officer will happily trade away his only weapon for a single can of soup if he's hungry enough), they're still fairly intelligent, and the AI is steadily improving with each release. They will, for example, always try to ensure they are supplied with food, run away from an unwinnable fight, close doors and windows behind them, work in coordinated teams, and barricade the entrances to their chosen safehouses when they bed down for the night.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Survivors have a pathological compulsion to destroy fortifications and barricades, despite them being put up to keep the undead outside. If they only did this when crazed from hunger it might be understandable, but they seem to be doing it out of boredom if anything else. In any case nonaligned survivors can be as destructive to your safehouse as the zombie hordes.
  • Ax-Crazy - With the release of alpha 6 other survivors can become murderous if desperate, really ramping up the challenge. Then again, this is counterbalanced by the fact that you can kill people and take their stuff, too.
    • Jason Myers. "What a nice axe you have..."
  • Badass Normal: Anyone who survives in the city long enough, be they player character or NPC, will eventually become one of these by way of necessity. Every human NPC, friendly or hostile, in the city receives and spends one skill point every morning, gradually improving their abilities, and scavenging and trading will eventually result in people amassing rather diverse arsenals. The ones that survive that long, anyway.
  • Crazy Survivalist: One possible approach players can take with their character.
  • Cult: CHAR Corporation certainly qualifies.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: Not done per se, but all the cars in the game are wrecked with about half of them on fire, suggesting this happened to every car in the city soon after the start of the outbreak.
  • Face–Monster Turn: The Prisoner That Should Not Be
  • Fragile Speedster: Skeletons are faster than zombies, but have low hit points and can often be taken out with 1 hit. Fortunately, like shamblers they can't climb over obstacles. Rats as well, though they're usually limited to the sewers.
  • Friendly Fireproof: Averted, as you can target non hostile NPCs and make them a 'personal Enemy'. Though doing so will get you marked as a murderer and cops may recognize you as such. There is also an option for the Civilians to assign personal enemies if desperate enough but you can toggle this off.
  • Gathering Steam: Survivors at the beginning of the outbreak start with no skills, but they gain a skill for every 24 hours they survive. New survivors that spawn in as the outbreak progresses start off with an amount of skill points equal to the number of days the outbreak has lasted. After a few dozen days, survivors spawning in will have nearly maxed out skill sets. As an Anti-Frustration Features, hostile survivor groups such as bikers and gangs will stop spawning in after the first couple of weeks so you won't have to be dealing with maxed out hostile NPCs, though Black Ops squads will continue to drop in and try to kill everyone.
  • Grand Theft Me: Played with. It's implied that the Player is really a 'spirit' that is controlling the actions of their host. More shown with the reincarnation system which, when you die, gives you the option to Body Surf to another npc running around in the city. If you do the flavor text claims they 'feel disoriented' for a moment before you gain control.
  • Mighty Glacier: Shamblers are slower that fresh zombies and zombie masters, but have above average health and hit chance.
  • The Needless: CHAR guards defending CHAR facilities require no food (and thus never need to leave their posts), while Jason Myers requires neither food nor sleep and can focus solely on hunting and killing. The Prisoner That Should Not Be, the game's only plot-important NPC, will eventually starve to death if you fail to find him, but it takes 40 days for him to do so, which is way longer than most players can ever expect to survive themselves.
  • Nintendo Hard: You won't have much chance of surviving more than a few days without a good strategy and at least some luck.
  • Redshirt Army: At the beginning of the outbreak, the city has a fully-functioning police force. They do what they can to protect the civilian survivors (including the player character), but in a typical playthrough the vast majority of them will have been annihilated by the end of week one, with maybe a dozen or so surviving in isolated areas. However, they do start with basic body armor, firearms and ammunition, and decent melee weapons, so they do at least put up a better fight than most of the civilian populace.
  • Relationship Values: Followers have a Trust meter which increases by giving them items or saving them from attacks. Don't expect them to take orders until you've proven yourself to be trustworthy.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Sort of. The Kolt Revolver does have slightly better damage than the standard pistol, but also a fewer rounds before needing to reload. All the other ranged weapons far outclass it, however.
  • Short-Range Shotgun: The shotgun has a max range of about 2 tiles. Anything past that has a 0% hit chance.
  • Sinister Subway: The subway system travels from one side of the city to another in a straight line, but not only is each station without power or subway cars, the tunnels are also filled to the brim with undead at the start of the outbreak.
    • Ironically, since the tunnels are sealed off with unbreakable metal doors, the subway stations make extremely good safehouses despite the swarms of zombies lurking literally feet away.
  • Survivalist Stash: Putting together one of these is a very useful strategy, even if it's just holing up in a grocery store with a bunch of ammo and barricading all the exits.
  • The Undead: Of course. In later versions, you have the option to actually be one of them, either as a measly skeleton or a Zombie Prince leading a vast undead army.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: You aren't the only survivor, after all; it's possible to help (or murder) others, if you desire.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: It is possible, if you're killed by, say, Jason Myers, to possess your killer and go on a massive rampage. Playing as a zombie makes this almost the entire point, as well, though it can always be punished.
  • Wizard Needs Food Badly: Even if you get enough equipment to fend off your attackers, starving to death is always a large threat. Rendered especially problematic because there's only a limited amount of food to go around and you're not the only person hunting for it. Once the army starts paradropping in care packages full of food the problem lessens, but a substantial portion of the city's population will likely starve to death before then (including the player character if you're not careful). An update also made it so that the zombies need to eat regularly to avoid rotting, too.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Of a unique type. Wounds created by zombies are no more hazardous than any other (although dying at the hands of a zombie will instantly zombify you), and those who starve to death without even contacting a zombie can potentially turn undead (depending on your settings). In addition, skeletal undead and Zombie Masters (who lead other undead and seem to be intelligent) exist. On top of everything else, all types of undead will evolve into much more powerful forms unless you turn that option off. Whatever the answers, CHAR Corporation is certainly involved.

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