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 Wilderness: A Survival Adventure was developed by Titan Computer Products and published by Electric Transit way back in 1986, and might possibly be the most grognardy survival simulator ever produced. It was developed with the help of a whole slew of scientists and survival experts (the manual itself can be considered a light weight survival guide of sorts), and it features a 3D view of your surroundings and a topographical map generation system which is pretty impressive even today, which makes me suppose that it must have been completely mind blowing back in the dark eighties. As the name of the game suggests, our goal is to traverse the wilderness while surviving dangers such as wild animals, starvation, dehydrating, dangerous falls, poisonous plants, your own stupidity, as well as of course the unforgiving elements themselves. It's not as easy as it sounds, so it's a good thing I have the LP subforum here to help me!  The game unceremoniously drops us off at the main menu, where we have a few options. The game comes with a pre-generated map as well as the option to start on said map with standard settings, providing a decently easy first game.  Of course, we won't be doing that. Your first task will be to decide where exactly we are going to be surviving (or not). Each of the different countries features different terrain, climate, wildlife, as well as availability of food - so choose wisely!  For this screen, I've made the decisions for us. You can either play as the sole survivor of a plane crash with the objective of reaching the ranger station in the area, or as an archaeologist trying to find the Lost City of Gold, retrieving a priceless statue, and returning alive. We are going to be playing the plane crash scenario, partly because I find it more interesting, and partly in order to keep the length of the game more reasonable. I've also declined to choose the time of year, for some added challenge - and also it's not like we planned to go down in an airplane crash  You may wish to keep this in mind when voting for a country.Research mode just allows you to play the game as a learning experience without the risk of dying, but where's the fun in that? Also, we have a few bits of personal information to fill out. These will affect many things such as our stamina, carrying capacity, resistance to cold and disease, needed caloric intake, and so on. What's our gender? What's our weight in pounds? (one kilogram is roughly 2.2 pounds) Do we have a Small, Medium or Large body frame? What's our length in inches? (one meter is roughly 39.4 inches) What's our age? What's our resting pulse in beats/minute? Also don't forget to vote for a country! (British Columbia, Sierra Nevada, Burma, New Guinea, Bolivia or Chile)
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May 16, 2018 15:05
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 05:12 |
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I'll submit myself I guess. Gender: M Weight: 159lb Frame: Medium Height: 67in Age: 24 I'm a real baby goon Pulse: 80bpm ish And Myanmar (formerly Burma) because it's closest to where I live. Let's go on a tropical holiday!
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May 16, 2018 15:15
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Let's go to British Columbia and make the gooniest protagonist possible. What's our gender?: Male What's our weight in pounds?: 320 Do we have a Small, Medium or Large body frame? Large What's our length in inches? 73 inches What's our age? 29 What's our resting pulse in beats/minute? 150
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May 16, 2018 15:15
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I swear this game is based on a book. What's our gender? Female What's our weight in pounds? 420lb Do we have a Small, Medium or Large body frame? Large What's our length in inches? (one meter is roughly 39.4 inches) 69in What's our age? 13 What's our resting pulse in beats/minute? As high as possible
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May 16, 2018 15:16
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Your age, weight, and size don't matter when the plane begins to sputter Burma Shave
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May 16, 2018 15:50
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What's our gender?: Male What's our weight in pounds?: High as possible. Do we have a Small, Medium or Large body frame? Large What's our length in inches? 48 What's our age? 82 What's our resting pulse in beats/minute? 130
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May 16, 2018 15:58
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What's our gender? M What's our weight in pounds? (one kilogram is roughly 2.2 pounds) 178 lbs Do we have a Small, Medium or Large body frame? Large What's our length in inches? (one meter is roughly 39.4 inches) 1.987 Meters What's our age? 63 What's our resting pulse in beats/minute? 35 Sierra Nevada
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May 16, 2018 16:09
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What's our gender? Female What's our weight in pounds? (one kilogram is roughly 2.2 pounds) 287 Do we have a Small, Medium or Large body frame? Small What's our length in inches? (one meter is roughly 39.4 inches) 40 inches What's our age? 42 What's our resting pulse in beats/minute? 42 Country: Chile
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May 16, 2018 16:28
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oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit boy this game OWNS. i will not be voting personally but this thread is bookmarked as gently caress
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May 16, 2018 16:34
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Oh, I remember this one. Mostly I remember dying horribly and achieving absolutely nothing, repeatedly.
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May 16, 2018 17:22
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Gender: M Weight: 270lb Frame: Huge Height: 75in Age: 34 Pulse: 72 Bpm And, being a Canuck, I'm going to vote for beautiful British Columbia Which is a province, not a country. Enjoy mountains and temperate rainforest.
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May 16, 2018 18:14
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actually, real question: Covski, do you intend to just do one game, or do you intend to basically go through this until we're all doing this competently? most of your LPs have been the former, but this game has a TON of content and would really benefit from the latter.
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May 16, 2018 18:53
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Holy poo poo, I played this game with my dad when I was a kid. I remember that he would play until we had some survival-related issue and then I would look up what to do in the manual and he would do that. It was super-fun, thanks for the walk down memory lane op.
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May 16, 2018 19:04
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Coolguye posted:actually, real question: Covski, do you intend to just do one game, or do you intend to basically go through this until we're all doing this competently? I mean, based on thread choices so far, if there's only going to be one run it won't even make the second page.
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May 16, 2018 19:27
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Black Robe posted:I mean, based on thread choices so far, if there's only going to be one run it won't even make the second page. We should do a run for every submitted body to see how improbable our survival is.
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May 16, 2018 19:30
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Coolguye posted:actually, real question: Covski, do you intend to just do one game, or do you intend to basically go through this until we're all doing this competently? I absolutely intend to show off as much of the game as possible, so I'm counting on at least two runs to showcase the differences between different regions and climates. Whether or not that will be enough for us to have a winning game will depend on just how bad goons are at surviving  I will most likely do a second run even in the improbable scenario that this first run is actually successful, depending on thread interest and how much of the content I manage to show off.I'll also be including screenshots from the manual when applicable, so hopefully we'll learn some interesting real life tricks! (Disclaimer: Please don't rely on information from this LP in a real life survival situation  )The tally for locations so far: British Columbia 2 Burma 2 Sierra Nevada 1 Chile 1 If there's no consensus on body type, I'll probably pick one at semi-random (with some concessions for what values the game allows). A fat goony type does seem fitting for the first run, however.
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May 16, 2018 19:48
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Is the game realistic enough that real world survival knowledge will be useful?
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May 16, 2018 19:49
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chitoryu12 posted:Is the game realistic enough that real world survival knowledge will be useful? yes. there's some stuff that isn't modeled but a lot of it is very real. this game taught me how to read a topo, among other things.
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May 16, 2018 19:53
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To add to that, the game assumes that the player character has quite a bit of survival skills (building shelters, treating wounds, making fires, things like that), but real life survival knowledge absolutely helps playing the game competently. Especially for things like navigation (which is a large part of the game) and gearing up for the trek in a sensible manner, but also for many "common sense" practices. Of course, the manual covers all of them, but someone with real experience could probably play the game well without using the manual for more than looking up the phrases the game uses.
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May 16, 2018 20:06
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I've always wanted to see this game. It's that perfect mix of grognardy survival and gamey business. Kind of Robinson's Requiem-flavoured, with fewer shooty bits. Bookmarked.
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May 16, 2018 20:39
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TheLoneStar posted:What's our gender?: Male this
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May 17, 2018 04:32
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We just need a tiebreaker between British Columbia and Burma, and we're ready for the adventures of the obese geriatric goon dwarf!
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May 17, 2018 08:58
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First thing that popped in my head when reading those was the Lumberjack's Song, so British Columbia it is.
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May 17, 2018 09:09
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Oh man, this game. I played the crap out of it when I was a kid and didn't know any better. For some reason my intent on finding my geographical location through terrain recognition and making a beeline straight for what I considered safety without veering course for anything didn't work too well. Then, sometimes it did so.
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May 17, 2018 11:07
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 We're off to beautiful British Columbia, which apparently is on the opposite coast from the District of Columbia, for some reason. Huh. I've gone for a pretty average difficulty of 5 out of 10. The difficulty not only affects the harshness of the terrain, but also the amount of supplies we are given as well as the frequency of animal encounters and bad weather. I will probably show off a level 10 run at some point.  The game generates the map line by line from bottom up, starting with the general topography...  ...continuing by drawing rivers and lakes...  ...and finishes with adding wooded terrain (which I failed to screenshot) and finalising the topographical contours.  Aaaand we're done - don't worry, the map we'll actually be using in game is a lot more readable than this. As a side note, the manual mentions that creating a map will take somewhere between one and three hours, depending on the difficulty. On a modern computer, it takes a lot less than that. I also want to mention again how impressed I am by this 33-year-old engine's ability to create great looking procedurally generated terrain!  Meet our hero! He's a bit taller than specified, and I think 350 pounds (159kg) is about the highest weight the game will accept. Still, I think he's about as short, fat, old and goony as we could ever hope for.  We can further adjust the weather and wildlife, by choosing a value between 0.01 up to a whopping 99 (in case you can't have fun without a cougar poking its nose in your business every time you try to do something. I'm leaving these at the normal value of 1.  A first summary of our situation. We're a fair bit north, but not as far north as we could have been, all things considered. Relatively speaking, as a eurogoon, the 54th parallell isn't even that far north - it's in line with northern Germany or northern England. Of course, the Canadian climate is fair bit harsher at the same latitude. We've also caught a decently lucky break in going down in October, rather than in the middle of the winter. Needless to say, a trek in the summer would have been nicer, but at least we probably won't have to deal too much with frostbite and snow blindness. Small blessings! Also, not starting of injured is really nice - there's a pretty high risk of starting of with at least some bad cuts from the crash.  Our objective. The game also somewhat judgingly calls our difficulty level "respectable". Thanks, game! Note that in a real-life situation like this, the correct decision is almost always to remain where you are and await rescue, if at all possible. Apparently, goon-grandpa here has decided that this is not a possible course of action.  And here we are dropped off, facing the remains of our aircraft. The wreck of the airplane contains a whole lot of gear and supplies, and can also be used as a quite good shelter if we need to remain here for some reason. Now, for our first order of business, let's get our bearings.  The command TOPO shows us our map. Our game area is 90x67 miles (145x108km), and also supplies a semi-helpful 50 mile (80.5km) legend and a reminder of our latitude (relevant for navigation using the sun) and our magnetic declination - that is, the difference between magnetic north (which is moving at roughly 55km per year). When the magnetic declination is positive, as it is here, magnetic north is east of true north. At the distances and terrain we are navigating, we probably don't have to worry about it, but it might be good to keep in mind. The white lines are the contour lines, representing elevation. Each line represents a height difference of 400 feet (122m). The more lines closer to each other, the steeper the slope. The purple is rivers and lakes, and the black shaded areas are woodlands.  Pressing S (for Scale) on the topomap allows us to zoom in closer for a better look. Here, we're looking at the top left corner of the map which allows us to see the little square representing the ranger station, where safety awaits us. So now that we know where we're going, where ARE we? Let me just check one thing...  WE HAVE A COMPASS  This is a great find, and I'd argue it's one of the most helpful things to have in your starting equipment - and it's absolutely not guaranteed at this difficulty level. Having a compass makes navigation immeasurably easier, by giving you a way to orient yourself without relying on the sun and stars which may not always be visible. Being able to reorient yourself at will also largely removes the danger of getting completely turned around and having to walk in circles, which is always a big risk especially in terrain such as jungles where you have very few landmarks to use for navigation. Not saying that navigation without a compass is impossible - we will absolutely be showing that off in a later play-through, there are some cool tricks to learn - but it is a huge quality of life improvement, both in general difficulty and for your sanity as a player.  Let's put that compass to use, shall we? There are several different ways to look around. We can freely pan around 360 degrees, which can be very useful for setting course towards a particular landmark in the distance. We can also look left and right relative to our current facing, which is a good way of turning in increments without losing track of the direction you were heading. Using a directional aid, we can face towards any cardinal direction or towards a specified azimuth (ie a direction measured in degrees from north, with south being 180, etc.) Let's survey the area to see if we can get any idea of where we are. Here, we are using the compass to look north. (USE COMPASS/LOOK NORTH - yes, the directional aid needs to be specified every time you want to look in a cardinal direction. I could also type USE COMPASS THEN LOOK NORTH, if I wanted to type it as a single command.) Okay, big mountain and a single happy little tree north of us.  USE COMPASS/LOOK AZIMUTH 45  USE COMPASS/LOOK EAST Look at that beautiful sunrise! In the east, as it should be. One peak to the north, another peak to the east of us. Is it smaller, or just far away?  To the southeast we have what looks like wooded terrain with some rivers cutting through it.  Looking south reveals it to be a pretty large area, covering the entire approach to yet another peak.  The wooded area continues to our southwest, seemingly leading into a valley between the hill to our south and a range with three peaks, the closest one being very steep.  Said steep hill is directly to our west, behind the wreck of our aircraft. A river also flows around it, joining the one running through the valley.  There's not much to the north west, except a very distant peak and the slope of the big mountain to our north.  And we've come full circle, facing north again. So, after this tour, can you figure out roughly where on the map we are? Also, based on this supposed location, suggest a route for our trek towards the ranger station in the north west. Once we have a general plan, we're going to look at equipping ourselves and setting off!
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May 17, 2018 11:56
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I reckon we're somewhere here - looking at the super-steep hill with a river to our W. Therefore, I reckon we should loot the plane for anything we can, then head to the river and follow it NW. We're gonna need to find something to carry things, and a way to start a fire pronto.  e: Don't take fancy map to mean I'm certain on this. I have zero survival knowledge beyond 'wolves bad'. lofi fucked around with this message at 13:12 on May 17, 2018 |
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May 17, 2018 13:07
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I think we should at least pay a visit to Goatse Lake north from our apparent position. It's a very important landmark for goons after all.
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May 17, 2018 13:11
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lofi posted:I reckon we're somewhere here - looking at the super-steep hill with a river to our W. Therefore, I reckon we should loot the plane for anything we can, then head to the river and follow it NW. We're gonna need to find something to carry things, and a way to start a fire pronto. Yeah, that steep hill to the west makes me think you've got it right. Let's loot the plane first to see what we're setting out with.
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May 17, 2018 14:11
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Also, what's the battery life on our Rascal?
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May 17, 2018 14:39
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I'd agree on the estimated position. The first thing we should do is strip the plane of everything we can and take inventory. Even if this takes a few hours, we'll have to prepare to spend at least one night in the wild, and to cross at least one or two rivers. Following the river is a good idea for both hydration and keeping direction, but in the middle of the map we're looking at the river going through flat land with a large wooded area. This might mean some type of wetlands, and we have to avoid this at all costs. Our carcass will be pretty much incapable of propelling us through a marsh for more than a few steps, and that thing could be 20 miles long if we try and keep right next to the river. So I'd say our best bet is to follow the general direction of the river on its north side, but avoid anything where our feet start to sink by steering northwards uphill. That being said, if the hills turn out to be very rocky terrain, that would be an excellent opportunity to take a fall, and break all our bones while rolling down into a ravine or something. We'll just have to feel for the path of least resistance. Crossing rivers is also going to be a pain. Here I think our best bet is to try find a flatter piece of land, as the river will be wider, but slower and shallower. Our blubber will support us to an extent, and the weather conditions make getting wet more an annoyance than a lethal danger. If we can find a crossing where our feet touch the ground the whole way, that'd be ideal. Besides the obvious supplies available from the plane, like food, meds., a backpack, knife etc. here's what I'd look out for: * Some kind of flotation device for the river crossings * A plastic bag we can tie up to store a dry change of clothes, and other stuff that we don't want wet * A bottle of booze, for providing morale, disinfectant and an improvised incendiary device in a pinch * A gun, for when the booze runs out
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May 17, 2018 14:45
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Good call on the wetlands, we're gonna struggle on anything more than a golfing fairway. Can we loot the bodies of the other passengers? We'll need to travel light, but we should totally strip the plane and lay everything out before we decide what to take. If we luck out, we might get a backpack. A bottle or two for water would be nice too (plastic ones we can scrunch up when not in use - Cataclysm DDA maybe taught me a few useful bits after all)
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May 17, 2018 15:40
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If this was real survival we'd be able to eat the bodies of the other passengers
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May 17, 2018 16:13
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The main thing here will be to get to the riverbank and check the orientation of the river itself. If Goonpa is where proposed, you will be able to look north and find that the riverbank will lead you southwest to northeast. Looking at the topo, it's also possible that the river will end up being almost straight north-south, which would actually put you in the southwest quadrant of the map. Due to the game's low-fi graphics it's difficult to tell at this distance. The steep hill isn't conclusive just yet. Presuming we are where we think we are, though, this is a pretty big softball on the game's part. We'd be no more than 20 miles away from the ranger station as the crow flies, with no more than 30 as the deer walks. So presuming no big mistakes we're looking at 3-4 days' travel to the station, and that's with a river nearby.
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May 17, 2018 16:51
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Coolguye posted:Presuming we are where we think we are, though, this is a pretty big softball on the game's part. We'd be no more than 20 miles away from the ranger station as the crow flies, with no more than 30 as the deer walks. So presuming no big mistakes we're looking at 3-4 days' travel to the station, and that's with a river nearby. Forget about any hills though. If this game handles things realistically, Goonpa's heartrate is about maxed out at rest for his age. The moment he does anything strenuous he should start having a heart attack. 20 miles might as well be on the moon.
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May 17, 2018 17:57
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yeah, my eyeball of the map presumed we would somehow cross the river, but avoid any major elevation changes.
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May 17, 2018 18:01
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Coolguye posted:We'd be no more than 20 miles away from the ranger station as the crow flies, with no more than 30 as the deer walks. What's the maximum character height?
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May 17, 2018 18:29
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I don't think we have our position quite right. We see a mountain to our north (with a river on it's west side, looks like), but if I'm reading the map right, our estimated position should see a saddle between mountains, with a lake in a depression beyond that. I'd guesstimate us further to the east, but needs to compare pics to map a little more. Beyond that, I agree with the plan. We can get looting/packing while we work on our position a bit more.
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May 17, 2018 18:34
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yeah the number one thing you want to do is get to that river. no two rivers have the same orientation/slope with similar mountain setups per the topo, and since we've got a compass it'll be trivial to figure out the overall skew once we're on the banks and can actually see what we're looking at.
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May 17, 2018 18:50
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Yeah, I think you're right, that would make more sense. If we're nearer the edge of the map, positioning is going to be tricky with so much we can't see - we'll need to basically ignore everything we can see to the east. Current guesstimate!
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May 17, 2018 18:57
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I wish there was a way for us to figure out distance in these primitive graphics. It would be a lot easier to determine just how far away the super steep mountain to the west is.
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May 17, 2018 19:03
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