Fall of Atom

Technical Questions

What is Fall of Atom? The Fall of Atom is a realistic, post-apocalyptic action-RPG game set in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania in a timeline that diverges from our own near the end of the Cold War. It begins fifty years after a nuclear war between Soviet Russia and United States in 1987.
Who is developing Fall of Atom? Fall of Atom is an indie game being developed by Digital Morphine Games.
When Will Fall of Atom be released? Fall of Atom is being developed from the ground up on an engine of our own design. While progress is rapidly being made, development is still in its infancy and it is too early to give a release date at this time.
What resolution will Fall of Atom run in? It should support whatever resolution your screen allows, but the details are not available at this time.
What platforms will Fall of Atom be available on? At release, Fall of Atom will only be available for the PC. Other platforms may become available at a later date.
What will Fall of Atom be rated? Fall of Atom will be rated M for mature.
What languages will Fall of Atom be available in? At this time, Fall of Atom will only be available in English.
What do you by realistic post-apocalyptic game? Our goal is to create a post-apocalyptic game based on the real world, and Fall of Atom will include as many of these features as we can realistically implement. For example, your character will need to eat and drink or else starve and die of dehydration. He must sleep to avoid hallucinating or going insane. It doesn’t end there. With a medical doctor leading the development of the game, we strive to make a game as medically realistic and fun as possible. Injuries will include bleeding, infection, complications and long term effects. Psychological factors such as morale drain, fear and insanity will also play a major role.

Gameplay Questions

What kind of character can I play in Fall of Atom? The choice is yours to make. Fall of Atom is taking a revolutionary approach to character building in that it is an entirely skill-based system. Skills can be improved by use or by training. Some can be improved by reading books. There are no classes or levels in Fall of Atom holding you back. We will have starting templates available (i.e. farmer, militiaman, etc.), but these will only effects starting skill values. Your character becomes whatever you want him to be.
Will I have my own house/base? Yes. Find a place in the wastelands that you like? Flag it as your own and you can begin building the base of your dreams using material you find in other places of the wasteland. Craft your own furnishing or find furniture in the wasteland. Don’t ask us to help you carry a couch from Ashtebula to Akron though (both are places in the game).
Why is everything rusted, broken, or otherwise non-functional? Fifty very difficult years have passed since the fall of the bombs. Enough time has gone by that copper will corrode, machines will freeze, plastic will crack, rubber will break down and rot and ferris metals will rust and disintegrate into hunks of junk. It takes a lot of people, functional factories and a healthy infrastructure with a working power grid to produce new replacement parts. In Fall of Atom, the population has been reduced to a percent of a percent, far fewer than is required to keep infrastructure functional. In short, people are too busy just finding food, water, shelter and defense to pull the world from the ashes. Technology is still out there though, and your character will have all the freedom to teach himself/herself how to repair such things, but it will be hard.
How can humanity survive in a radiated wasteland? It is a common misconception that a post-nuclear world would be choke-full of radiation. With air-burst nuclear detonations, most of the radiation is deposited in the cities that are targeted. A smaller percent of nuclear war-induced radiation is spread as fallout (i.e. radiation that is transported as fine dust in the wind). Considering the surface area of the world, the fallout would be spread thin. Furthermore, it would be largely cleared by wind and rain, sinking to lake bottoms and down the rivers into the oceans. The major byproducts of a nuclear blast are Strontium-90 and Cesium-137, both of which have half-lives of approximately 30 years. This means that after fifty years, only 33% of that radiation would still be around. In summary, most of the radiation 50 years after a nuclear war would likely be at ground zeros, at the bottom of lakes and at the bottom of the ocean. The remaining radiation wouldn’t be much more than the background radiation we experience today. If we were discussing the conditions immediately after the war, that would be different, but those conditions are far enough in our game’s history that organisms are no longer dying of radiation sickness unless they stray too close to ground zeros.
Why is there so much vegetation everywhere? Another common misconception is that a wasteland should look nearly bald with dead plants. As discussed above, there would be very little radiation in most places of the planet fifty years after a global nuclear conflict. Even after a nuclear war, plants would likely survive because they are highly resistant to radiation and many can enter a dormant state to survive extended nuclear winters. As such, the plant-life that survives the nuclear winter will be free to grow unchecked in the years afterwards. Such is the case in Fall of Atom where vegetation has had fifty years to grow and thrive. Without many humans there to take preventative measures, plants can and will grow through even the smallest of cracks, up through basements and straight out the walls and rooves. This speeds the breakdown of infrastructure and will be reflected in the maps and artwork of the game.
How can we survive without industry? It can be argued that people survived for many thousands of years without industry. While it is true that technologies from automobiles to factories have made modern life a whole lot easier, many of these things are technically not necessary for our survival. What matters most in a wasteland world is having enough food and clean water to go around, making agriculture a staple occupation until there is enough of a supply of food to give people more free time. In effect, the human race will have bombed itself back to an earlier time period. Lacking enough people, the infrastructure would simply crumble. In the brief interim, culture would become somewhat steampunk and agrarian.
Are the people, plants and animals mutated by radiation like in other post-apocalyptic games, movies and books? No. As discussed above, there isn’t actually that much radiation to be encountered in this game. Also, as cool at the idea sounds, radiation does not create super monsters. Yes, it causes mutations, but those tend to be terrible birth defects, cancer or radiation sickness. Radiation is not beneficial, despite what some games, movies and other media would lead us to believe. If there are going to be monsters in a post-apocalyptic game, it would have to come from something else.
If there isn’t much radiation, will there be any monsters in Fall of Atom? The answer is a big YES, and without giving away any of the story, rest assured there is an explanation for why there are monsters roaming the wastelands.
If there are monsters then surely there are guns to fend them off, right? Yes and no! First, infrastructure will crumble, exposing most stored bullets to the environment. Bullets don’t weather very well. Many will not fire at all, and of those that do, many will produce little more than a puff of smoke. Second, most firearms will be exposed to the same corroding forces, so to have a functional firearm in Fall of Atom, you’ll need to salvage parts from ruined guns and reconstruct a functional one. To have functional bullets, you’ll need to be lucky enough to find them… or learn sufficient chemistry and have the tools necessary to refurbish old ones. Keep in mind that under these conditions, firearms will be highly prone to misfire or jam. Keep a knife or sharp piece of metal handy when that happens!
If fifty year old ammunition is unreliable, what other weapons are there? There will be guns and ammo that can be refurbished, but for the most part the character will be relegated to using primitive weapons such as knives, sticks, bows and anything else they can get their hands on. The same applies to any humanoid found throughout the wasteland. We are aiming for a somewhat medieval arsenal in the game. If a wastelander can create a halberd from an old fence post and a lawnmower blade, you can expect to encounter such weaponry.
Where has all the power gone? With insufficient population to maintain the power grid, electricity will not be generated, starting from problems at the remains of the power plant, to collapsed power lines to gnawed wires in houses. The system would be in desperate need of repair, requiring time and resources for outside the means of a population on the brink of extinction. While a few enterprising individuals will have found or fixed generators giving them limited electricity, the power grid is a thing of the past. This also means that there will be much less light pollution, leading to very dark nights. Unless the moon is out and there is no cloudy overhead, you’ll need a flashlight, lantern or torch, because the game will not give you much ambient light. Furthermore, in caves, there will be no ambient light at all. The screen will be completely black without lighting, and if the light goes out your character can begin to panic.
What kind of mood and ambiance can we expect from Fall of Atom? You can expect realism and a very dark gritty feel. It will contain adult content meant for mature audiences. It is meant to be a mix between post-apocalyptic, medieval, a hint of steampunk, tribal and horror. No electricity, no air conditioning, no running water, terrible monsters all around… it’s college all over again.
Can my character really go insane? Yes. There are myriad of ways your character can go insane including, but not limited to: seeing certain monsters, character death and murdering others. While there are methods to reduce the effects, the wasteland is an unforgiving place and all whom venture out into it risk exposing themselves to things best left unseen.
Will there be player killing? Yes, but murder will increase your insanity level. In short, psychopaths represent a very tiny fraction of our society, so rare in fact that it is assumed that PCs in the game are psychologically normal individuals. War and killing will cause a character to go mad with guilt. These penalties do not apply to killing for food or defense. We plan to also implement a bounty system. The more PCs you kill, the more you’ll be constantly hassled by gangs of bounty hunters. With that said, we plan to institute a couple PvP areas that do not cause these negative effects so that you can happily destroy your roommate’s pitiful character without retribution.
Will there be factions I can join? Yes. There will be several factions in the game and it will be possible to join more than one at a time. Furthermore, they won’t know you are a member of the other factions unless you do something to make it obvious. Feel free to play one against the other.
What are the benefits of joining a faction in Fall of Atom? Access to faction specific quests and gear and reduced prices at shops are just a few benefits of joining a faction in Fall of Atom.
Will there be vehicles? Yes, but not right away. While passenger cars are useless on the torn up roads and fields of the wasteland, vehicles such as ATV’s, dune buggies, dirt bikes and jeeps are possibilities should the character find the materials to repair them and learn enough mechanics to put the pieces together in the right order. Please keep in mind what a car would look like if left in the rain and snow for fifty years, though. Also keep in mind that most of the cars were already ten years old when the bombs fell. As such, finding working parts is extremely hard. The tools themselves will be in terrible shape.
Will there be crafting? Absolutely! Fall of Atom will have an extensive crafting system allowing the player to craft everything from weapons and armor to their very own base and all of the furnishings within.