Days of Doom Review

The concept of a band of survivors moving through a zombie-infested America is, arguably, one of the most common stories in the media. Currently, there's a wealth of games and series that focus on the same idea. This oversaturation is the situation in which developer Sneaky Box's newest game, Days of Doom, finds itself. The real question is if the game is worth the attention of any wannabe survivors or if it is dead on arrival.

Days of Doom styles itself as a tactical turn-based roguelike, which for the most part is a pretty unique choice for this setting. Players take control of a group of survivors with the simple task of reaching the rumoured 'Sanctuary', but it's no easy task to complete. The wilderness is full to the brim with various types of zombies, raiders, and even the rumoured lizard people elite. That is, essentially, the entire plot of the game, and there isn't much deeper on offer unless players are looking to delve in a bit. I'll be honest, the plot isn't incredible; if anything, it's stereotypical. However, the point of a roguelike isn't the plot; it's more about the story that players make in their own minds. 

Days of Doom has a simple gameplay system: players start the game with a basic camp, and when they start a new run, they can select three characters/classes to take control of. With the team selected, it is time to head out into the wasteland, or at least the map that represents the wasteland. The map is separated into several different subsections, each one with numerous options for progression through them to the boss fights at the end of each map.

That's right, folks, it's a good old select-your-path system. If you don't know what that is, then I will explain it as well as I can. Essentially, the player has a set amount of fuel for their transport and must choose from options on where to go to reach their destination. Days of Doom separates the choices into fights, encounters, camps, and traders. Camps and traders are simple enough; they offer healing or the ability to buy new party members, food, or equipment. The encounters are, essentially, chances to find equipment, and party members get caught up in a fight unless you sacrifice something. The random encounters can be interesting and make use of certain character classes to automatically succeed instead of using random chance.

The final option is, of course, combat and it's where the wealth of the gameplay takes place. Combat in Days of Doom uses a grid-style system, with each map having various amounts of barricades and the like. Players set their team up on the map, then prepare to engage the horde of zombies coming for them. Each character has an attack skill, an ability, or can choose to guard. These options and the movement are influenced by the two action points that each character has. It's a simple enough system, and each of the characters' uses are different enough, but the problem is that the fights never really change. During my initial playthrough, nearly every fight boiled down to waiting for zombies to reach me and then doing the same moves to win.

The combat is somewhat broken up with the addition of the runes and equipment. The equipment can vary from healing items to grenades and mines. Honestly, with their sparsity and being one use, I often forgot to use them or that I even had them. The runes are items that you can find that offer several benefits but often come with drawbacks. The few that gave elemental effects were easily the most useful as the others had far more punishing drawbacks than benefits. For instance, an item that ups your attack by 10% but lowers your health by 50 points. The main thing I took away from the combat was that it desperately wants some kind of overwatch mechanic. Alternatively, it could have been worth splitting the movement action points from the combat-based points. As it is there is little to no reason to risk moving until the very last moment, so each fight starts with a waiting game and feels more reactionary than it probably should be.

This general feeling of sameness is a prevailing issue, and it makes early runs of the maps drag. This is somewhat lessened by the slow unlocking of new classes and options in the camp. The camp is the easier of the two in concept; essentially, the player earns "reputation" during their runs. Reputation is the only resource that carries over on each run, and this reputation is used to upgrade the camp's features. I will say that the cost of some of the upgrades compared to the amount earned is a bit drastic, but it slowly gets easier as the game progresses. However, it took me a good few runs to get the reputation up enough to start making each run better. The classes are easier to unlock, with each one being found in encounters or fights. 

The biggest issue roguelikes have is that they all can feel a bit repetitive over time. This comes from the general difficulty and the pace of whatever the game's version of upgrades is. Days of Doom has this same problem, and it is apparent in the music choices in the game. The theme of the game is the same in the combat and the slow guitar does begin to grate after a while. However, for all those issues, I did find myself having fun while playing. Once I turned off the music, put something on in the background, and got a few levels on my camp buildings it all started to come together. It wasn't perfect, but there was a flow that kept me engaged for a few hours at a time.