Video Game / Decaying Winter

Ten waves. Zero mercy.

Decaying Winter is a brutal wave survival game made in Roblox.

In the base game mode, you play in a squad of up to 4 other Agents, members of a government-like group. The objective is to survive 10 nights of two segments each: scavenging for any loot that may help your team survive, and defending your base from other scavs.

In the Last Strandeds game mode, you still play as a small group of Agents, but you have to survive for as many waves as you can while defending a pilot at the center of the map.

You can play the game here.

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Decaying Winter contains examples of:

• All There in the Manual: Most of the lore and information in the game can be found on their official Trello.
• Ammo-Using Melee Weapon: The Decimator's a big hammer with a box of shotgun shells on its model. A chain of shells comes out of it and connects to the hammer bit, and the weapon blasts enemies with a shell explosion on a heavy attack. It never requires you to load it, however.
• Anti-Debuff: Several items in the game will allow you to never receive a specific debuff for a period of time, on top of removing the debuff if you already have it.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • When entering the Armory during the Evacuation route, the Storm timer will be delayed to three minutes to allow agents to get whatever they need in there before the storm arrives.
  • Right before the evacuation, players are allowed to transfer whatever equipment they brought to their base to the dropship, and also get other loot from various places. Additionally, the dropship will also provide enough ammo to last against the scavs.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The Artillerist's ability prompts them to ready their Hand Cannon, firing a defense-ignoring bullet moments after. It can either deal 50 or 150 damage depending on if the headshot is landed or not.
• Artificial Intelligence: Each Agent has an AI device called AGENT on their wrist that resembles a watch. AGENTs inform the team of casualties, incoming enemies, when you enter the storm, and so on.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The A.J.M. 9. It has the best DPS out of any gun in the game, to the point where it can instantly kill anyone not named Commander within one second via headshots. The catch? Even if you discount the ammo issue that plagues all Short Ammo guns, it has very high recoil even with traits to reduce it, and its high fire rate means that it'll empty that 15-round magazine very quickly if rapidly fired. Exaggerated if it's on both hands, meaning not only you have a gun that sprays bullets like crazy, but also has high recoil! The one saving grace is that it's a blueprint weapon, so players who aren't interested in using this gun can get the ammo from the A.J.M. 9 for use with other guns.
• The Berserker: The Berserker, as expected. Alongside having better melee abilities and increased resistance to damage, they can use their Calamity Serum ability to activate a Super Mode that extends through parries and kills.
• BFG: Some of the bigger guns qualify, with one of them being the Hecate, which not only deals a whopping 250 on the head, which is guaranteed to kill everyone that isn't a miniboss in one shot, but is also semiautomatic as well, meaning with a good trigger finger, if you manage to land all 5 shots, that totals up to 1250 damage, enough to kill every boss without firearm resistance.
• BFS: The Executioner Sword, capable of dishing out an One-Hit Kill with it's heavy attack.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: The Castle in the regular game mode is overrun with guards that are far above and beyond any of the scavengers you can find outside it. They all guard the Sledge Queen... who can and WILL end your entire team on her own, as she's armed with an Evil Counterpart version of the Arbiter perk, the ability to parry bullets and heal half of her max HP every time she kills someone.
• Boom, Headshot!: You are expected to land headshots if you want to kill anything without wasting dozens of ammunition. The Artillerist's ability also deals enough damage to One-Hit Kill nearly everything in the game upon a headshot, but deals a paltry 50 damage if the shot lands anywhere else.
• Boom in the Hand: All grenades in the game are capable of exploding in your hand if you hold them while primed for too long.
• Boring, but Practical: Emergency Respirators, the starting equipment for all Agents. It provides complete immunity from the storm for 15 seconds. Not flashy compared to other equipment such as Koldera Black, but it does allow Agents to get out of a nasty situation when scavenging. This is especially useful during Last Strandeds, as the toxins from the storm deal enough damage to kill agents in four seconds, and looting the scav base can possibly take a lot of time to the point where after a successful raid, they're won't be enough time before agents get caught in the storm, so having it is not unrecommended.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Literal example with Skinners, who disguise themselves as melee-wielding scavs until a Agent gets too close or deals enough damage to it, at which point it reveals itself and begins to kill everyone on sight.
• Boss Warning Siren:
  • The AGENT warns the Agents when either Yosef shows up in the base game mode or the boss of a boss wave shows up.
    AGENT: Alert, heavily armoured hostile detected.
  • Every boss wave is also preceded by a sentence.
    At the start of the Raiders boss wave: Metal scrapes across the floor- the grating noise indicates that Sledge Queen is back to take her throne!
    At the start of the Reikgon boss wave: The sky bleeds red as the air thickens with fear - Reikgon and his Shadows will ensure the demise of Eden-227!
    At the start of the Bad Business boss wave: Oh the misery, Everybody wants to be my enemy. Spare the sympathy, everybody wants to be, my enemy!
• Cigarette of Anxiety: The Koldera Black auxiliary equipment is a cigarette that alongside granting you minor buffs also reduces the effect of Morale.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Long Ammo-using weapons, such as snipers, have massive damage on headshots... At the expense of low rate of fire. As such, with the exception of the Dragunov, Avtomat, Hecate and Wolfsbane, they're pretty much only useful for clearing out scavs on the scavenging phase, and god forbid you use them against the Sickler and the Sledge Queen...
• Cyberpunk: There are heavy implications that across the universe that this genre is in effect, given that most of the planets are ruled by Ulacyon Megagroup Corps, the technology seen is very high-tech, and it has a dark atmosphere. As for the weather, there exists a very deadly storm approaching every night.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Every time one of your teammates dies, you gain a Morale. It caps at 4, and all of it vanishes if nobody on the team dies for 1 night. Since this game is Nintendo Hard, that's likely not gonna happen. Every Morale not only increases the damage you take, but decreases your mobility and melee stats as well. It's manageable with 1 or 2, but taking damage from any source has high risk of killing you beyond that. 4 Morale is busted, making you so vulnerable that where you would've taken 6 damage with no Morale turns into over 20.
• Damage Over Time: The Bleed debuff, caused by being shot or taking hits from enemies with bladed weapons. Getting Bleed again when you're already bleeding gives you Arterial Bleeding instead, which can only be cured with the hard to find Esmarch Tourniquet and deals more damage than Bleed itself.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Castle. If an Agent wanders too close to it, they'll be faced with hundreds, if not thousands of bullets flying towards them, and that's not even considering the fact that at any point they might accidentally bring the Sledge Queen out of her area, who is more than capable enough to kill the entire team by herself. It also spawns a lot of crates every night, so eliminating the leader will net the team with at least 5 crates when the next night begins.
• Disc-One Nuke: Most of the loot is randomized. It's very rare, but there's nothing stopping you from finding a fully loaded M60-E6 in a crate on Night 1.
• Driven to Suicide: Pressing 0 will cause your Agent to stab themselves with a dagger, instantly killing them. Inflicting this is also the main attack of the Hanger, although you can survive this one if you can mash E fast enough.
• Enemy Scan: The Executioner and Prophet perks both have this as their specialty- how they do so is where they diverge.
  • The Executioner's Kill-Warrant GPNVG-M42 goggles shows an enemy's health in percentage form and their crimes. Any kills done while the goggles are on becomes a Bounty, which increases the Executioner's damage, and are redeemed into scrap once the goggles are taken off.
  • The Prophet's Savant's Scanner can scan both the environment to mark supplies and scan enemies in front of them to cause a slight Maximum HP Reduction.
• First-Person Shooter: The game takes place in first person, and although there's a healthy amount of options for melee-oriented combat, you'll soon need a gun and some ammo after Wave 5, when the amount of scavs with guns really starts to kick up.
• Fragile Speedster: The Vagabond. Each kill you get with the ability nets you one dog tag that increases your mobility and at 10 or more tags, you can run extremely fast and bring almost everything a night has to offer back to base. If you use a tag, you'll gain health, reducing the need to use health items. The catch? If you take too much damage in a short period, half of your available dog tags instantly vanish into thin air, and your reduced defense doesn't make it any better.
• Frying Pan of Doom: The rare, but infamous "Buckethead" Scav Boss in Mook Clothing is not only armed with a frying pan, but also capable of dodging and blocking bullets. You can get one for yourself as well, though it'll be surpassed by other Bludgeon weapons.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Rarely, a scav would get trapped near the tower, which can be a good thing (since the scav being stuck allowed breathers for ammo and rations) and a bad thing (you need to progress the wave before your buffs expired).
  • It's entirely possible to kill the pilot in Last Strandeds with Throwing Knives. This is more of an oversight than anything.
• Genre Shift: The main game is a First-Person Shooter with some emphasis on melee combat. Last Strandeds, on the other hand, is an endless survival game with a higher emphasis on gunplay and a faster arcade-style pace.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: While the other boss waves in Holdout have at least some lore to them ^{Such as...} Scavs and Raider being composed of various people left behind and rogue agents in Eden-227, the Sin Cult implied to be around everywhere, Ulacyon being a major corporation involved in the "Survival of the Fittest" games, ERU involved in cleaning up whatever remains in Eden-227, there is no lore surrounding the Bad Business and Medieval waves. They just appear out of nowhere to end your run if you're not prepared.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Regardless of the blood everyone has spilled, ultimately, every faction is doing what they have to to survive the apocalyptic conditions of the planet the game takes place on. It's a lawless land, where everyone has to scavenge and kill to eat.
• Guns Akimbo: You're allowed to wield two handguns at once and use them.
• Hand Cannon: The Artillerist's M.A.G.N.U.M. "Impusca Vana" and the Redeemer. The former is an Armor-Piercing Attack that dishes out massive damage upon a headshot, while the latter takes Long Ammo, the ammunition type used by sniper rifles.
• Hold the Line: If the requirements were met for the evacuation ending, after everyone gets near the ship, they have to survive for five minutes against an group of scavs.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Even with a backpack on, it hardly makes sense how you can hold heavy weaponry in all 6 item slots.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: The Vagabond uses Nomad Blade "Kira" this way, with a healthy dose of Off with His Head! upon landing a kill.
• Interface Screw:
  • The tinnitus debuff, which causes the screen to blur and a ringing noise to play.
  • Successfully meeting the requirements for the evacuation results in the player donning the respirator obtained from the Lab, and while it does provide complete total immunity from the Storm, it also obscures most of the HUD.
• In-Universe Soundtrack: The Sledge Queen has a radio strapped to her back that constantly blares Made Of Steel. Treat it as an omen. Amusingly, scanning her with the Executioner's goggles also reveals that blasting music is among her crimes.
• Javelin Thrower: Averted. A throwing javelin appears as a weapon, but the description for it states that it's too heavy to throw.
• Jump Scare:
  • The Hidden is completely invisible, and plays whisper noises if one is near you. Because pinpointing its location is difficult, it's often that a new player will be trying to find loot only to hear the whispers before instantly dying to it.
  • More often than not, scavs can drop from above and take anyone by surprise if they try to loot the Outpost or the Mountain first without checking the upper area.
• "Just Frame" Bonus: The Arbiter perk ability has a small window that lets you punch your own shotgun blast to boost it, doubling its damage and greatly increasing its range.
• Kill Steal: Executioners and Vagabonds specifically need to worry about this. Each of their kills grants a bounty and a dog tag respectively, with the former increasing the user's melee damage and giving 7 salvages per kill once redeemed, and the latter giving the user a speed boost per tag and heal upon consuming.
• King Mook: The Sledge Queen is this to the already formidable Sledgehammer Scavs. She's even got a crown to really hammer that point in!
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: You're given a shield if you select the Zealot perk. Holding the perk button will allow you to hold it in front of yourself and tank massive amounts of damage, but the button can be tapped to deploy it with its own little turret.
• Molotov Cocktail: You can find fire bombs while scavenging, and throw them to cover a specific field in fire for a while.
• Morale Mechanic: Morale, obviously. It's inflicted when an Agent dies, causing a debuff to all of your stats, and it can stack all the way up to 4. Its effects can be mitigated with the Koldera Black's buff and using BL1 (Neloprephine) removes a stack of it.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: There is an enemy referred to as a "Shadow Sickler" in the game.
• Nintendo Hard: This game has plenty of debuffs and dangerous enemies around to keep you busy. You shouldn't expect to have a satisfying amount of healing items, nor should you let your guard down around anyone, as most of them can remove a big chunk of your health if you aren't careful. Some random debuffs can break your arm and remove your ability to shove or aim, break your leg and force you to walk, or even give you arterial bleeding which makes you slowly bleed to death unless you have a tourniquet.
• No Smoking: Koldera Black used to look a lot like actual cigarettes. However, after the main game was removed for depictions of smoking, the palette was changed to make it look a lot less like a cigarette. This was further exaggerated after the game was removed again, resulting in Koldera Black being entirely reworked visually into Koldera PRT-STRS, a stimulant delivered by syringe instead of through smoking a roll of chemicals.
• Not Completely Useless: The Damned is obviously meant to be the game's Joke Character. However, the Damned is immune to the Morale debuff, meaning that the surviving members except the Damned can suicide after the end of a wave, then respawn and get their equipment back. Just be sure they don't try to steal each other's equipment.
• Overheating: The Immolator's ability percentage indicates how close they are to overheating- reach 100%, and it's an explosive death for you.
• Pipe Pain: The Lead Pipe. It's a tier 1, so it's something to be quickly replaced.
• Playing with Fire: The main ability of the Immolator. They can either hold the ability button to activate a flamethrower, or tap it to buff themselves and nearby allies with the ability to burn enemies with their attacks.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: This is the Hanger's main method to kill, though you can fight it off by mashing E.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: The Redeemer, a golden revolver which takes Long Ammo, the type of ammunition used by sniper rifles.
• Sniper Pistol: Normally, the different pistols have the accuracy you'd expect. But, with the right trait, and a Deadeye buff if needed, every pistol in the game can be hipfired rapidly with pinpoint accuracy.
• Super Serum: Stimulants are items that apply a very strong buff, but inflict tinnitus once their effects run out. The Berserker also has the Calamity Serum as their ability which lets them engage a Super Mode.
• The Plague: Every player in the base game mode starts off with a permanent debuff called Infection, which progresses every 7 minutes and can only be suppressed with either Amoxicillin Tablets or Augmentin Antibiotics. As it progresses, you get increasingly worse effects from absolutely nothing at Stage 1 to instant death at Stage 5.
• Too Awesome to Use: While this could apply to any gun, the Negev and M60 are the most notable offenders, given that they have a massive magazine count... And hard-to-replenish ammunition. You're better off saving it for the boss waves, even in Last Strandeds where ammo is more plentiful.
• Useless Useful Spell: Amoxicillin Tablets and Augmentin Antibiotics can help stave off the infection in the main game. They can also be found in Last Strandeds, but since the players are not infected, they're regulated to salvage instead.
• Wacky Sound Effect: Successfully landing a heavy Sledgehammer hit will rarely result in a "BONK!" sound being played out.
• A Winner Is You: Successfully surviving 10 waves has the game saying "You all live to die another day", and then boots all players back to the menu screen. Completing the evacuation is similar, except this time it also displays the end credits and Archdeximus thanking the players for staying with the game even though there were no signs of any future updates.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: You won't die if you are starving or dehydrated, but you will suffer a defense, damage, and speed penalty.
• Zerg Rush: Most of the defense segments can easily swarm you with too many enemies for either your aim or your ammo reserves to handle.

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AGENT: Tropes secure.

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