A weekend camping trip is a time for fun and relaxation, but for one of your friends, it’s a time to die. When your friend is killed by what appears to be a demon, your group must fight back and find a way to survive. Is this the Apocalypse? Or is this Judgment day?
Judgment Day
Suncrash’s Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation is an Early Access colony simulation game set in a randomly generated world during the onset of a demon apocalypse. You must band together and lead your group through the hordes of spawn that have sprung forth from the gates of hell. Gather resources and craft equipment to fight back against the invading imps. Build a base and defend it against the swaths of demons, dark angels and lichs forming against you. Research human technology to improve farming methods, woodworking and weaponry. Finally, build your occult library and practice the dark arts to discover a way of sending the legion back to hell.
Crafting and Research
Through a combination of gathering and scavenging for resources while researching technology, the player is able to craft weaponry and armour at the workbench. Once an occult library is built, the survivors research the dark arts and gain access to crafting demonic and holy weapons and armour, as well as ritual casting.
Building
Building in Judgment consists of pre-configured log cabins and, after research, stone houses, watchtowers and garden beds. Rotate your buildings as you wish and fortify your colony with spike barricades and sandbags. Research and build a dark altar to summon imps and ghosts to harvest their resources.
Real-Time Tactical Combat
Whether on missions around the map, or when the demons mount an attack against your base, combat occurs whenever the survivors encounter hostile creatures. Normally your colonists fill in roles as needed on their own, but you control them when in combat. Positioning is important, such as fighting from cover, flanking, or ambushing the enemy. Combat is in real time, but pauseable to take time to strategize and give orders. According to Suncrash, the combat system is inspired by such games as Baldur’s Gate, the Dragon Age series and turn-based games like X-Com.
Inspiration
In Suncrash’s own words:
“The concept behind Judgment was inspired most by two amazing games that our team loves to play. We were greatly inspired by X-COM (original and new), in which players struggle to fight an alien invasion by participating in many tactical missions — but we felt the strategy phase between the missions was too simplistic and not deep enough.
Searching for an alternative, deeper strategy phase, we were inspired by Rimworld. The game’s deep simulation was a great inspiration to us — but since the greater focus was around survivors and their needs, we felt too constricted in our small base area.
There was a whole world out there, but we had very little interaction with it. Inspired by these great titles, we decided to create Judgment — which combines deep colony simulation with mission-based tactical combat and world exploration.”
Early Access Updates
You know the drill. This game is in Early Access and that can be a coin flip as to how the game ends up. However, as of March 1st, Judgment has just released Update 11 into Steam’s Beta channel, adding new types of missions, stealth mechanics, a new urban biome, a Priest profession, visible combat stats of enemies, alchemy and usability tweaks to the game. Updates seem to come about every couple of months or so, with Update 10 adding Professions into the game.
The gates of hell have opened, spilling forth it’s dark army. Do you have what it takes to rebuild society and survive the day of Judgment?
Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation is an Early Access colony management game that currently has a very positive rating and is available for PC on Steam and the Suncrash website.
