$180,000 - The Weapon Pack - REACHED!
 
$210k - New Areas (Military Base, Regional Airport, County Fair, Mall) - REACHED!
 
$240k - More Attack Animations, 2 New Allies, 2 New Shelter Upgrades. - REACHED!
 
$260k - More Character Creation Options, More Zombie Variety, Post-Release Game Modifiers - REACHED!
 
$300k - The City Area (High risk, high reward), 1 New Ally
 
$330k - Animals Added, Dog Allies Added
 
$360k - Mini-Expansion For Backers After Release (Adds military-grade weapons and zones of control)

We had three last minute $5000 backers unlock the animals with minutes to spare.

October Update
Update #22 - For backers only · Oct. 06, 2012 · 35 comments
 
It’s October, which marks the beginning of our third month since Dead State’s Kickstarter was successfully funded. Our team continues to turn out new content, GUIs, animations, and gameplay code. We’ve made significant improvements to the Shelter, including finishing all the upgrades, giving the constructed areas a “scavenged materials look”, and finishing off the basement and second level. Additionally, I’d like to present this image:
 
What you’re looking at may not be a “pretty” area, but it’s pretty exciting to us. That’s the starting area of the game right there. Your decisions are yet to be made, your map is blank, your allies are all still alive, and your enemies and the undead are lurking out there – this is the moment where your story begins. We’re pretty excited about this image, just because we know what’s in store for you. It’s that moment in every game where you don’t know what to expect yet, where you can’t wait to get out and experience everything. (“Experiences” that we’re working on right now.)
 
 
Design continues to work primarily on dialogue. As stated before, there is not only a lot of dialogue, but complex dialogue that spans great lengths of time and decisions rather than the length of completing a quest. I thought it might be interesting to shed some light on our ally creation and dialogue writing process. It starts with Annie and I discussing concepts for characters in the shelter. Usually, everyone we add needs to create a potential conflict or interaction with one or more other characters in the shelter, plus bring a set of skills and personality traits that are not duplicated by another member of the group. We usually try to figure out if the character is going to be more useful in combat or out of combat, or if they unlock some other potential aspect of the shelter, like a new type of job or a prized skill (like a doctor). We also try to figure out if the character is traveling alone or with others – if they’re traveling with someone, it instantly creates an interesting narrative point, but that bond needs to be reinforced throughout the dialogue and even in the gameplay.  
 
 
After we’ve come up with the basics of the character, we put together a bio for the character. We use backstory for writing purposes only, to give us a more fully-fleshed out character whose life did not begin when the player met them. While you’ll never see the backstories we create, elements of their lives will creep into their dialogue, and an attentive/inquisitive player will learn a lot more about their allies over time. Sometimes you may not know about certain aspects of the character unless a certain path is triggered, like watching them die from infection or gaining enough trust from a friend of theirs. However, like in real life, you will never fully understand everything there is to know about an ally (unless you’re one of the writers).  
 
 
We translate their former profession and hobbies into stats and skills. Someone who was a park ranger might have a high survival skill because they can identify plants and a higher vigor because of time spent walking trails. They may have a perk for traveling faster on the area map because they know how to lead people through difficult terrain. These are gameplay skills that may make an ally more appealing if their character’s dialogue makes them seem difficult or combative with other allies. We balance gameplay advantages and personality flaws for every character you can add in the shelter.
 
 
Before writing the character, a list of every interaction possible with the player or other allies is made. This outline is used as a guide to track all the events we need to write. If we feel there’s a lack of interesting dramatic points or decisions, we will add them at this stage or while writing. We also simplify any chains of events that seem too complex or frustrating for a player to figure out. Some adjustment may be made to pace a character’s arc out over time to make sure they continue to pop up in the story. Additionally, we figure out any random events this character might be associated with and questions that the player may want to ask them (including dialogue for resolving personal requests).  
 
 
From here, it’s all dialogue writing, which can introduce even more nuances and character developments that can only come out as we are subjecting ourselves to that character’s point of view. And now you understand a bit more about the dialogue process. We’re hoping the extra effort provides an experience that you won’t find anywhere else.  
 
 
That’s it for this update. Remember, you can always interact with us on the forums if you’ve got questions. If you have received a survey (anyone $21 tier and up did) and still haven’t returned it, please do. For those with Radio access, expect another update very soon. As always, thank you all for making this possible.

This month’s progress has mostly involved our programming, design, and art staff plugging away at a few ongoing large-scale tasks. Dialogues for most of the allies have been finished up to first draft standards, which is a lot of writing! We’ve also been finishing up system revisions and GUIs, with most of the GUIs for the game existing in their final form now. Our programmers have continued to add more and more functionality to our combat, loot, and equipment systems and revised numerous tools to help us more quickly construct and implement items. As we get more attack and death animations in place (we just upgraded our model rigs to allow them more range of movement), combat will start looking a lot more like it will in the final game. All the Kickstarter items have been fully designed and balanced against our other weapons.  
 
 
On the art side, the art team continues to construct our modular shops and city pieces. Now that the shelter assets are all finished, we’ve started working on the first few areas the player will visit in the game. The modular commercial district pieces are used to build the various towns, shopping areas, and rest stops found in the game. You can see a bit of some of the pieces in shot below:

 
All the sidewalks, roads, stores, awnings, and street props are individual parts, somewhat like a city toy box that allows us to rearrange them and easily construct them into new levels. Ease of assembly is pretty important because of the number of locations in our game. Interestingly enough, our art team has virtually visited Central Texas through Google maps to look for inspiration in constructing many of the town maps.
 
 
Additionally, we’ve hired on an assistant programmer to assist us with scheduling, conventions, testing, and managing Kickstarter. The producer’s job is to crack the whip and make sure we’re finishing our tasks on time. We’re hoping to bring on a few extra people to help out on other tasks in the near future.
 
 
As we go forward, many of the individual pieces we’ve built (dialogue, models, systems) are going to start coming together and allow for more functional builds that feel a lot more like the final game. If you can’t wait for the next update, remember to stop by our forums if you have questions. For those of you on the Radio, we’ve also got a new update for you today too. For those of you in the US, we wish you the best of luck scavenging yourself up some cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie filling this week. We’ll be back next month for another update on Dead State – thanks for your continued patience and support!

 
Update #24 · Jan. 13, 2013 · 8 comments    
Starting this month, backers won’t be the only ones reading our updates. By popular request, we will start making new Kickstarter posts accessible to everyone who wants to follow Dead State. And in the next few months, expect a lot information and footage on the game. It’s going to be an exciting (and busy) year ahead for our team.
 
 
After a brief break for the holidays, we’re back at work on a new build for the game. We’re in the process of getting our systems up to alpha level – some of the systems on deck or done include looting, equipment, combat (for some melee and ranged weapon sets), noise, and AI. Work continues on story-related writing and design, plus lots of new art and animation to breathe even more life into our areas and their inhabitants.  
Here’s a shot of the near-final medium store frame:

 
This building is a Diamondback Hardware Store, one of many you’ll come across and one of the first places you’ll be heading to in the game (gotta get tools and materials if you want to keep that fence up!)

 
No zombies or looters in there yet, but something tells me it’s going to be a bit more dangerous the next time we head in there.  
 
 
As we mentioned in the last update, we construct stores with a set of basic pre-fab components that can be moved around to create new areas. In addition to the medium stores, we’re working on a basic set for all the fast food stores, restaurants, bars, and diners.  
 
 
Programming continues to implement GUIs for all the major menus and systems in the game – equipment, looting, character, goals and allies, and shelter management - while art and design tweak them slightly for ease of use. This is the basic framework that makes the game feel more functional and final. While we may continue to iterate at the testing stage, we’ve already worked out small kinks in the ease of use and presentation of each menu.  
 
 
In the next few weeks, we’re going to try to show you all the first post-KS footage of the game so you can take a look at our combat, AI, and one of the near-final areas in the game. Keep watching our Facebook and Twitter for info on the video release, as well as for new developments here on Kickstarter. We’re grateful to all of you for your continued support and enthusiasm for Dead State and we look forward to bringing you closer to the zombie apocalypse in 2013.

What you’re about to see is our work-in-progress combat demo. It shouldn’t be seen as a preview of a final game, but as a milestone that shows a lot of our basic systems coming online as a playable whole. There’s still a lot to create and balance, but the basics of the game that you helped fund is taking shape. Let’s take a first look:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featu [...] UytozV39zI
Couple of notes on the video:
 
 
-Everything you’re seeing is real-time, no editing tricks, no pre-scripted behavior. AI reacts to noise and zombies will spawn to the map if you make too much noise. They spawn at the blue exit zones.
 
 
-All our map pieces are built in a modular fashion. Creating pieces or structures once allows us to easily drop them down on a grid and arrange them to create a new map.
 
 
-Llano is one of the first areas, and it’s fairly forgiving. Both Vic and the player character were slightly more buff than they would be for the final game. They are using lower level equipment and have no armor on.
 
 
-Although I didn’t loot every container, collecting supplies is really important. Combat is dangerous, but sometimes unavoidable. Killing enemies doesn’t give skill points - gathering resources or meeting objectives does – but all the same it’s a good idea to stay well-equipped and alert.
 
 
-You may notice guns are noisy but powerful. It may be easier to clear out zombies with them, but you will constantly alert area zombies or summon new zombies to the map, which will chew up your ammo. Ammo is pretty scarce in our game. Enemies are dipping into their ammo on hand – if they use it up on you, they won’t have any when you loot them.
 
 
-Pathfinding is unoptimized, which will explain some slowdown in narrow areas/near doorways.  
 
 
-The looter is reloading on her turn. Since there’s no animation, it might seem like she’s not doing anything, but that’s what she’s doing. You may notice it when Vic just stands there on his turn too.
 
 
-Zombie noises are placeholder. A final sound pass will happen closer to beta.  
 
 
-Ally implementation is still being fine-tuned.
 
 
-Zombies have a grapple attack that is not featured here. The only attack they have in the video is their basic claw attack. They are a lot more dangerous when they have their full set of bites/takedowns, which are being fine-tuned right now.  
 
 
-Loot containers are getting a visual tweak so that they can be spotted by sight alone.
 
 
-There will eventually be a musical stinger to notify you that someone can see a new enemy.
 
-Weapons have multiple attacks. We're still working on alt animations and effects, so we didn't show them off.
 
-We are working on trying out a “zombie turn” where all the zombies move at once.  
 
 
One of the difficulties of filming was that because our game is so reactive to what you do, it took us quite a few runs to get everything to play to the demonstration. You can see the difference with the noise in the last segment. Had we gone in with no prior knowledge of the area, the player and Vic could have a much harder time with the map.
 
Please feel free to drop by our forums and join the discussion about the trailer. We would love to hear your feedback or have the team answer questions about mechanics or planned features for the next build. In a future update, we’ll be showing you the other two major components we’ve been working on – dialogue/reactivity and Shelter management. Thanks again for all your support!