History VideoGame / NeoScavenger

** Liquids can be poured out of bottles to produce stacks of droplets - bottles are only necessary to transport the liquid between hexes. This means that boiling lots of water with tree bark to produce tannin tea results in a field full of tea drops. If one has trouble remembering which of their bottles contain which(water, whiskey and cola bottles use the exact same sprite when full no matter what liquid is in them), one can simply pour them out and re-fill bottles as they please.

** Bows and arrows are dirt-simple to craft; the bow is just a branch whittled with any sharp tool with medium thread for the bowstring, the arrows are just branches with foil or paper for fletching and glass shards tied on short thread.

** Scavenging is ''always'' easier with a source of light. You can spend weeks finding flashlights, AA batteries, and [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality somehow]] extracting the electrical charge from ''any other'' kind of batteries to keep the AAs charged. Or you can use a ''lighter'', which is also good for starting campfires, takes up a third of the space, and ''doesn't'' burn a charge of electricity every hour. On top of that, a lighter only loses about 1% of its durability for each use; a fully functional lighter can be used ''one hundred times.''

* EarlyGameHell: The first few turns of the game will put you in a desperate struggle to find shoes and clothing to increase your movement and avoid hypothermia. Following that, you will then need a pack to carry stuff and tools (crowbars, bottles, and lighters being some of the most important ones) before you're safe and ready for the rest of the game. '''Any and all''' opponents can swat you like a fly.

* EarlyGameHell: The first few turns of the game will put you in a desperate struggle to find shoes and clothing to increase your movement and avoid hypothermia. Following that, you will then need a pack to carry stuff and tools (crowbars, bottles, and lighters being some of the most important ones) before you're safe and ready for the rest of the game.

* LuckBasedMission: The EarlyGameHell. Can't scavenge a weapon before the feral dogs show up? You're dogfood. Can't find a damn ''metal container''(a tin can will do) fast, so you can make tannin tea to treat the dysentery you picked up ''before'' you could boil water? You shit yourself to death. Can't find ''shoes''? You'll ''starve to death'' limping between scavenge sites on blistered feet.

* BraggingRightsReward: The best armor and weapons in the game can only be acquired by attacking DMC personnel - DMC guards in general, and
crafting the Gauss Rifle requires destroying multiple DMC Drones (heavily armored, flying robots that fire armor piercing shots), which are significantly harder to kill than any other enemy in the game. It's really not worth the effort since the DMC ''never'' initiates any kind of hostility towards Phillip throughout the game, and pissing the DMC off cuts him off from ''all'' the stores save the trading post at the MagicalNativeAmerican ATN Enclave.

* BraggingRightsReward: Crafting the Gauss Rifle requires destroying multiple DMC Drones (heavily armored, flying robots that fire armor piercing shots), which are significantly harder to kill than any other enemy in the game. And since you have to get into trouble with the DMC to fight the Drones in the first place, it's really not worth the effort.

** You can somehow extract ''electrical charges from batteries'' before consolidating them in a single battery. This is ''really'' noticeable around the Detroit MegaCity, where every tent city hex has an unlicensed power tap that Phillip "uses" to produce charges, which he then empties out and stuffs in his electronics. Even better, Phillip can do the same with an RTG; a freaking ''kitbashed man-portable fission reactor''.

** Scavenging is ''always'' easier with a source of light. You can spend weeks finding flashlights, AA batteries, and [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality somehow]] extracting the electrical charge from ''any other'' kind of batteries to keep the AAs charged. Or you can use a ''lighter'', which is also good for starting campfires, takes up a third of the space, and ''doesn't'' burn a charge of electricity every hour. On top of that, a lighter only loses about 0.05% of its durability for each use; a fully functional lighter can be used about ''two hundred times thus.''

** You can somehow extract ''electrical charges from batteries'' before consolidating them in a single battery. This is ''really'' noticeable around the Detroit Mega-City, where every tent city hex has an unlicensed power tap that Phillip "uses" to produce charges, which he then empties out and stuffs in his electronics.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: You can somehow empty water out of containers ''before'' you decide which bottles to carry it in(water, whiskey and cola bottles use the exact same sprite no matter what liquid is in them), but you can somehow extract ''electrical charges from batteries'' in the exact same manner; this permits the game to treat them as ammo, saving a lot of coding hassle.

* LuckBasedMission: The EarlyGameHell. Can't scavenge a weapon before the feral dogs show up? You're dogfood. Can't find a damn ''metal container''(a tin can will doo) fast, so you can make tannin tea to treat the dysentery you picked up ''before'' you could boil water? You shit yourself to death. Can't find ''shoes''? You'll ''starve to death'' limping between scavenge sites on blistered feet.

* LuckBasedMission: The EarlyGameHell. Can't scavenge a weapon before the feral dogs show up? You're dogfood. Can't find a damn ''metal container''(a tin can will doo) fast, so you can tannin tea for the dysentery you picked up ''before'' you could boil water? You shit yourself to death. Can't find ''shoes''? You'll ''starve to death'' limping between scavenge sites on blistered feet.

* LuckBasedMission: The EarlyGameHell. Can't scavenge a weapon before the feral dogs show up? You're dogfood. Can't find a damn ''metal container''(a tin can will doo) fast, so you can tannin tea for the dysentery you picked up ''before'' could boil water? You shit yourself to death. Can't find ''shoes''? You'll ''starve to death'' limping between scavenge sites on blistered feet.

* LuckBasedMission: The EarlyGameHell. Can't scavenge a weapon before the feral dogs show up? You're dogfood. Can't find a damn ''metal container''(a tin can will doo) fast, so you can boil water and tannin tea for the dysentery you picked up? You shit yourself to death. Can't find ''shoes''? You'll ''starve to death'' limping between scavenge sites on blistered feet.

* LuckBasedMission: The EarlyGameHell. Can't scavenge a weapon before the feral dogs show up? Dogfood. Can't find a damn ''metal pot'' fast, so you can make sterile water and tannin tea for the dysentery you picked up? You shit yourself to death. Can't find ''shoes''? You'll ''starve to death'' limping between scavenge sites.

* BoringButPractical:

* GameplayRoulette: Normal "exploration" mode is turn-based with action points, on an isometric hex map. Combat is text-based, with each side take turn performing one action each turn. Encounters play out like a text-based adventure game.

* [[spoiler: TheIlluminati]]: Inserting Hatter's bug into the [[spoiler: Camp Grayling mainframe causes the Illuminati logo to appear on screen, advising the player to run before the base self-destructs. Their motives are unclear, although its likely they either wanted to access the PRISM's surveillance network or to destroy it.]]

* MagicalNativeAmerican: InvokedTrope, as the [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve game world's "belief makes reality" rule]] has given the ATN Enclave (a native american group) limited magical powers, and were also the ones to create Philip's protective talisman

* '''NoDeathRun''': If you die once, ''you go all the way back to the beginning''. So the only way to reach the end of the game is to use a comprehensive player's guide, be extra cautious, and have a lot of luck.
* PermaDeath: Yep.

* ShoutOut: Philip Kindred is a shout-out to Sci-Fi writer Creator/PhilipKDick.

* ShopliftAndDie: The Red Gnome Diner is the only place in Michigan that serves genuine, sanitary, high-quality, pre-apocalypse food. Eating there doesn't come without a high price though: The meals all have a hefty price tag ($20.00, $24.50, $32.50) and tips are mandatory (+15% of the selected meal's price). If you run without paying the bill, you'll get away but you can never eat there again because trying to do so will get you chased off where you might get disoriented and run over by traffic. If you forget/refuse to tip for the meal too many times, you will get banned from the diner where any attempts to enter will either get you killed or remove the location from the map. For an establishment that is very reputable and lucky, they're very pragmatic and stingy about their income.

* CrazySurvivalist: One of the game route is to become one of these. Stock up purified water, cured meat and non-perishable food, gather some good clothes and shoes. Prepare spare weapons and ammunition. Then make several other camps and keep stocking up.

** One newspaper article describes rebellious militias in the Galilean Confederacy coming to prominence and fighting each other in space and on the surface of Jupiter's colonized moons.

A free demo as well as the current version can be found at the [[http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/2 developer website]], on [[http://www.desura.com/games/neo-scavenger Desura]], or on [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/248860/ Steam]].

* BraggingRightsReward: Crafing the Gauss Rifle requires destroying multiple DMC Drones (heavily armored, flying robots that fire armor piercing shots), which are significantly harder to kill than any other enemy in the game.

* MagikarpPower: The Electrician and Mechanic Skills have very few uses to justify the skill points you would spend to have them. [[spoiler: However, they are the only skills that will let you craft a Gauss Rifle.]]

* PowerUpLetdown: When you're looking for footwear at the start of the game, you may find flip-flops and rag shoes in your scavenging efforts. Both are so bad that you're better off being barefoot for a bit longer: flip-flops have a high chance of falling off every time you move or end your turn and rag shoes will give you blisters if they're worn for too long.

* BookEnds: The game starts with Philip waking up from his cyrosleep pod, and is disoriented as he gets back up and assesses his surroundings. [[spoiler: In the game's ending, Philip climbs out the crashed UAV pod, and is once again disoriented as he examines his current location and realizes that he's in Indiana.]]