DayZ creator Dean Hall has revealed GRUNTZ, a top-down multiplayer horde survival game, and released a free playable prototype on the Ahwoo launcher for Windows and Linux.
According to a release, GRUNTZ is built on BRUTAL, an open-source C# game development framework from Ahwoo and Hall's studio, RocketWerkz. The game is available only through the Ahwoo launcher. An announcement trailer was released alongside the news, with a separate gameplay overview video.
Hall is best known for DayZ, the zombie survival game that began as a mod for ARMA 2. GRUNTZ draws on a different source: Space Station 13, a long-running multiplayer role-playing game where every player has a job aboard a space station.
Groups of players band together on a server to survive waves of enemies. Each player joins as a soldier, or as a colonist in a role like surgeon or janitor. Teams build barricades to slow the horde, keep each other supplied and try to stay alive. There is one life per round.
Game modes and survival systems
The prototype has three game modes, according to the release:
- Zombie Survival (teams fortify their colony and hold off waves of zombies before extraction)
- Xeno Survival (a hive of aliens stalks survivors each night until the core is destroyed)
- Anomaly (teams face off against an unkillable entity)
Damage lands on specific body parts. A leg injury causes a limp; broken bones have to be set, while open wounds keep bleeding until they are bandaged. Fire is useful against a horde, but it spreads. The release says flames can set off ammo stores, rip through buildings and make floors give way.
Roles matter in a fight. Surgeons can craft medicine and treat injuries, engineers can repair barricades mid-fight and soldiers can launch grenades. The release also warns players to watch out for friendly fire.
Rounds are designed to last about an hour, and players can drop into servers that have already started. According to the release, the prototype will be updated often.
The following was sent as a press release to Inven Global.
