I think the Cataclysm could use with some more entertainment. These are some of the ideas I think would be neat to be added.
More Games:
I get that games are limited because creating more complicated player playable games will be a huge hassle, and not worth it.
But why not add games that just works as a time waster and moral booster for the player character? No need to actually make an ingame game for it. It could just work like the MP3 player.
Desktop Computers:
Vehicle powered of course.
Games could be played on it, or you could play music, or mess with pictures, or do anything else you can do with a phone.
Maybe even use it to remote control other vehicles.
Consoles/ Televisions/ Movies:
All of these would be vehicle powered as well.
You’ll need to collect physical copies of movies and games, and find a console and television to hook up to a vehicle.
But they should be worth it.
The games could be amazing moral boosters. (Maybe the impact of games could lessen like books do after you finish it.)
And the movies could be both moral boosters, and work like books for learning.
I think this is a good idea! Maybe even allow for internet access on the computers, for a random chance to try and gain a new skill level (or some skill experience), learn a location of interest, get a map, learn a new recipe or get music/photos/morale boost, or morale penalty because of bad connection, reading about the apocalypse on the internet or something.
In a world where there’s cybernetic implants, atomic vehicles, power armor and laser weapons, I can’t see how some tech stuff like this would be unrealistic. Maybe make the chances for a positive event on the internet be very low - just have the character waste time and surf the internet (wasting time and batteries).
Maybe add different levels of internet access using different equipment (routers, etc.). Would be a nice future feature to have the possibility of researching stuff on a good network setup. Allow for the character to create new custom stuff (make some sort of in-game editor which writes to JSON files) and 3D print them.
Implying that the Internet in the Cataclysm (in your area) isn’t compeltely down.
Tho IF there is still internet access why not give the choice: Scrounge for area maps/points of interest, search for recipes/infos about certain things (skill increases/recipes. You could ofc tell what skill you wanna increase) or just simply “waste time” and get a mood buff.
Of course there would be quiet the amount of sites down due to the servers being destroyed/connection cut, but the better your computer skill the better and faster you are at finding the things you search for (and if you have a usb/sd card you could save those infos you pilfered for later use, be it for you or your followers)
Portable DVD player/Bluray player could have 12 disc items that give a morale boost or debuff for X amount of time when watched. Similar to MP3 player. But you would have to find those discs in order to use them + player. Also, how many times you watch will diminish in the morale gain like real life. You only get so much satisfaction out of it.
“This film is an art house film. While decent. I feel intellectually stimulated by it and I ponder the nature of the universe…how would it feel to taste the color purple?” 0_0
“Man, oh oh man, that horror flik was messed up! I don’t think anything could be worse than…oh…wait…Now I feel like $h!t all over again. Life is hard” =(
“BAHahahahahahahaa…wipes tears away. I needed that! That was a great comedy.” =^_^=
“Heh, those tough guys in this action film don’t have ANYTHING on me and what I go through all the time. But it was good though.” =D
“How. The. Absolute. F***. Did this pile of excrement ever get made…shame on you Hollywood!” >_>
Maybe have datacenters/server farms/ISPs and personal computers in houses/offices/industries/military facilities/etc. where you can access the internet to some degree, or at least scavenge data from the places themselves.
It would be cool if you could turn radio towers back on one way or another, or perhaps in certain corporate buildings and the like you could somehow access that stuff too.
I feel like the only decent lore-wise excuse for this not exsisting is that all people just have computers implanted upon birth to surf the internet that way!
… Okay, maybe not that.
In lots of cases you could probably access lots of useful information without the internet itself since it is already on the computer’s hard drive.
If you are using a laptop or something else that doesn’t need to be directly plugging into an electric outlet then it would actually NOT make sense for all of them to have 0% charge.
I like the idea of being able to rummage around on random people’s computers or ones in facilities. You could find some pretty useful things…but also some not useful things.
“You boot up the computer.”
“You search the computer’s hard drive for useful data.”
“Oh god its full of clown porn.” -10 morale.
But as I was saying, everyone besides @AlmostHuman might find something disgusting or horrifying on random hard drives. I can see it coming back to haunt you later when you sleep as well.
“you fall asleep”
“you have a terrible dream about clowns. You wake up just as they began walking towards you with a balloon dog and a disturbingly intent expression”
“you wake up”
Another Potential risk:
“You turn on the computer”
“You find a game called Cataclysm, Play it?”
[Y] [N]
If no you turn off the computer.
if yes:
“You play the last save file.”
“The game seems oddly familiar”
“Your character is killed moments after entering a collapsing room filled with hundreds of gigantic eye-covered blobs”
-50 Morale.
Depending on the density of survivors while traditional comercial internet is going to be down survivors who can generate enough electricity might have boot strapped wireless community networks out of pringles can antenas.