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We've now fully implemented all core elements in Zafehouse: Diaries.

The most important feature we've added is the win condition. A rescue chopper will arrive in a few days or weeks and you need to scour the town to find out exactly where, when and how to contact the chopper. The radio and rescue frequency are the most important items: you can get lucky when the chopper arrives by being in the right place at the right time, but without the radio and frequency, it'll just fly by.

Moving between locations is now more strategic: you can investigate, assault or just dive straight into a new location. If you're uncertain about heading to the hospital, send out some investigators first. They'll check out the surrounding area and peer through windows to see how many zombies are inside. Then you can send in some armed survivors to pick off zombies from a distance - and even take out zombies inside by shooting through windows. [singlepic id=50 w=240 float=right]

And finally, relationships can now be manipulated. Relationships affect just about everything you do in the game. If your survivors aren't getting along, they'll split up during combat, argue, hurt each other, and generally perform poorly at anything they do; when the group is happy, everything ticks along smoothly - barricades are slightly stronger, traps don't misfire as often, meals are prepared well and the group is generally better prepared for combat.

While you have some indirect control over relationships by creating situations where positive experiences might happen, we wanted to make it more strategic. This is where rumours come in.

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Your survivors all start with a blank slate - you know a little bit about them, but their past is hidden. By creating a rumour about one of your survivors, you reveal something about them to the group. This can have a positive or negative effect on relationships, so you have to be careful that your rumour won't backfire. You also don't have unlimited rumours - you need to create the right rumour at the right time, making this one of the game's most strategic elements.

The game is on the final stretch now. We'll announce the release date soon.

At some stage we'll get the original Zafehouse website back up and running again -- a "Classic" version, if you will. Until then, you can download the game that started it all from our download site downloads.zafehouse.com.

Alternatively, you can grab it and the source code via the direct links below:

Zafehouse [Download]
Zafehouse source code [Download]

[singlepic id=47 w=200 float=right]We've just posted some screenshots from the latest build.

The UI isn't set in stone yet and the diary entry code is in heavy development, but they should give you an idea of the main UI components: the diary, the planning screen, survivor relationships and dilemmas.

More soon.

Welcome!

You're at the home of Screwfly Studios' first game, Zafehouse: Diaries.

The game is in active development, due for release in late July. We'll release more details and screenshots over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, subscribe to our newsletter, RSS feed or Twitter feed to keep updated on progress, purchase info and beta-testing slots.