Last Day On Earth: Survival

My wife enticed me to start playing Last Day On Earth: Survival from KEFIR last Spring. Mostly she screamed out loudly when she got killed and lost her tactical backpack (the biggest backpack in the game) and I asked why she kept playing it. She often answered with one word: "because..." (and was back in the game).

Because it's a game that drag you into it, you want to play more, you level quite fast, you can - if you want - buy coins to boost your energy. In many games, like HayDay, you need to put in real money to be able to be a hardcore gamer, but that's not necessary in LDOE if you have patience. However, you can't take a shortcut and buy everything you want to succeed, that's the main reason why I keep play it. I have a love/hate relationship with this fact because some things are pretty darn hard to find but it also make me save my real money and keep me playing.

For example, when I realized I can modify several weapons with one done weapon mod I started to collect mod-plans and farm the parts. That objective also made me overcome my fear of the Big One or go deeper into the more difficult maps.

A brief introduction of the game

You have survived the pandemic that wiped out 90% of the Earths population and now you need to survive a zombie apocalypse. In this world most of the living (or nonliving) beings are either enemies or resources, so the first is mainly composed by zombies, aggressive wild animals and most survivors (PvP) and the latter by plants, minerals and wild animals you can get something from but that will not try to eat or kill you. You have to build a home base, your safe spot except every 24h when the zombie horde attacks your base (avoid be in your homebase at that time!) 

Learning that occurs from HayDay is for example math and the ability to deal with money, but also collaboration and teamwork. But what does LDOE teach you? Or what possible learning occurs from LDOE? Roberto Alvarez Bucholska made a blogpost about it in February 2018, interesting thoughts yes, but the blogpost is nearly three years old.

Learning objectives of LDOE: Survival

First, languages.

If English is not your mother tongue you need English to conquer not only the game itself but also the wiki. Wikis are always reliable sources for practicing another language, you learn without thinking, you achieve the learning when you finally get your quest solved!

Second, creative writing. 

Both Elegy for a Dead World and Storium use game mechanics to encourage creative writing. In LDOE:Survival you explore the destroyed civilization, after the pandemic (terribly current with COVID-19 ravaging the world right now). With only 10% of the worlds population still alive you have two objectives: (1) search for the truth (in game storyline) and (2) document an entry journal of how you will survive in this zombie apocalypse.

Third, skills in collaboration, communication and teamwork. 

Key competences of lifelong learning. In Season 9 the developers lowered the level to join in the crater with a second character. Instead of must be level 150 it's now only level 15. Your students can quickly level to 15 and then you can team up with a guild in the crater: both co-op in the nearby areas but also do instances together. To be able to level in your business you need to go to instances, you can't go alone.