Video Game / Decision

The first note in the diary.
I made a decision. More and more cities become zombie's colonies dropped into the darkness. Earlier, I have only heard of soldiers who left the army who try to clean the cities. One of them saved my life and I joined them. There aren't too many of them that is why they work alone. He gave me a gun and I want to try. This is my decision.

— The introduction of the first game

Decision is series of Adobe Flash games made by Fly Anvil Studios. The player's objective is to make a city safe from the undead by capturing and fortifying all the outposts in the city. The action is from a top-down perspective with two possible control schemes, using the mouse to move and shoot, or using the WASD keys to move and the mouse to shoot.The first thing the player must do to conquer a zone is scout the area, searching for a way to the factory, outpost, and main street in the area. Once that is done, the player must then capture the area's outpost to help reduce the threat level.

As the player captures later zones, they will have to deal with more dangerous zombies, including ones that can use guns, ones that explode upon death, and even giant zombies.

The series currently has five games:

The Decision Series:

1. Decision: The very first game in the series, released on March 13th, 2012. The writing is somewhat difficult/entertaining to read, and the game is lacking in many of the features of later installments, but the game was popular enough to get three others after it.
2. Decision 2: The second game in the series, featuring new weapons, new skills, and new game mechanics. Published three months after the original, and yet somehow a vast improvement over it.
3. Decision 3: The third game in the series, released on November 14th, 2014. It adds two completely new features: survivors that will now appear in the city and help the player, and "inspectors" who unlock new skills and weapons when found. There are several different types of survivor, each of them having their own special skill/benefit when added to the player's team. In addition, zombies are no longer the only threat to the player...
4. Decision: Medieval: Released a couple of months before Decision 3, this spinoff features a medieval theme with a greater focus on melee combat, but it also shares several elements from Decision 3, including inspectors (called "Masters" in this game) and a second threat in addition to the zombies.
5. Decision: Red Daze: The fourth game in the series, and the first commercial and non-Flash one, this game features many of the mechanics that made the series popular, and adds, among other things, fully customizable survivors and unique boss zombies leading the hordes. It was released on Steam and GOG in May 19, 2022.

With the end of service of Flash, the games other than Red Daze now have to be played through an emulator.

This video game series contains examples of the following tropes:

• Action Bomb: Some zombies carry a big gas canister on their backs, making them prime targets. If they get close enough to attack, however, they'll explode, damaging the player quite heavily...
• Armor Is Useless: Averted in 3 and Medieval - while armor slows you down, it also protects you from damage to some degree. Subverted with the orc armor in Medieval which actually increases your speed.
• Bag of Spilling: The player doesn't retain the upgrades they got from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3. 3 actually has the player drop his minigun to the ground after killing the boss and head for the next city.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: It's possible to recruit soldiers to accompany you on most missions. They're useful as a distraction (and don't die), but your character is still the one doing most of the damage.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: One ability turns a monster to your side, though some big monsters are immune. Not so in the 4th game, where you can not only have Olog-Hai fight with you, they transfer between levels until killed or replaced.
• Bullfight Boss: Most bosses will stand still for a few seconds before charging, though the higher ones can also throw debris, grenades and themselves at you.
• Chromosome Casting: You won't find a single female character in the games except Red Daze.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: The second tier of mutant bosses are immune to rage and mind control abilities... but not in Medieval.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Clearing out zombie infestations can be done from the safety of high walls with an entrenched heavy weapon, the enemy making no attempt to fight back. Averted during invasions, where they both try to get past your defenses and tear them down.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Setting all of a tower's weapons to the same type can be this: Gatlings shoot fast but don't deal much damage, the other two do more damage and in a wider area but shoot slower.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Between 2 and 3, the mouse control changed from automatically following the mouse and firing when clicking to following the mouse when clicking and firing if there's an enemy in the way.
  • In Medieval, barrels are worth 50 gold apiece, downgraded to 5 in 3.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Many bosses need to be constantly strafed and dodged while chipping away at their life bar. Subverted once your levels are good enough to mow them down in seconds.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Finishing off downed enemies gets a much higher reward than with guns, but only happens at melee range and if not shooting at the time.
• Escort Mission: Played with in 3 and Medieval - if people are added to your team in the middle of your mission, you need to protect them from damage, but thankfully the people you're escorting can't die if they're critical to the mission (inspectors, workers, etc.) or a part of your squad.
• Engrish: Downplayed - while some of the flavor texts for items and weapons can be difficult to understand, the titles for the skills and weapons can still be understood.
• Evil Versus Evil: The zombies and the mutants will fight each other, despite the description for the Mutant Peon stating that mutants occur when zombies bite each other.
• Exploding Barrels: Barrels and giant reservoirs with radiation symbols are strewn around the maps, with enemies sometimes attacking them. In Medieval, the latter is replaced with a giant cart full of gunpowder.
• Expy: The giant green zombie^and to a certain extent all giant zombies is an obvious stand-in for the The Incredible Hulk.
• Failed a Spot Check: If there's enough dead bodies piled on the ground a single land mine will blend in among them like a salt into water. If the mutant boss placed it you're in for an unpleasant surprise, especially after bringing the behemoth down.
• Friendly Fireproof: The rocket launcher does no damage to you or your allies even when it explodes at melee range, making it a very handy weapon in close combat.
• Forever War: The "Massacre" sites, where unending hordes of zombies and mutants/orcs slaughter each other.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: NPCs you bring with you and those necessary to the mission don't die, they just fall to the ground and stay there until you come near them and there are no enemies around. Non-critical NPCs are entirely vulnerable (and it's quite possible to come across their mangled corpses before you even had a chance to rescue them).
• Gatling Good: The final upgrade for the machine gun weapon is a minigun, as is the cheapest outpost weapon.
  • The machinegun upgrade for defense towers also couts to a certain extent.
• Giant Mook: Giant Zombies and Bosses not only have much more health and damage than regular zombies, they also have different abilities like leap attacks.
• Ground Pound: The bosses/giant zombies in 2nd game ocassionally slam the ground Hulk-style to send a radial shockwave. The player can also obtain this ability, in imitation of wolf mutants and bosses.
• Hold the Line: Many missions have you defend against invading hordes, either on foot to protect the workers upgrading a building, or using automatic weapons mounted onto a building.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: In the first game, it's possible to carry a shotgun, assault rifle, rocket launcher, and grenades all at once. In 3, it's possible to carry a shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, and machine gun at the same time.
• In a Single Bound: Wulvers and mutant bosses can jump absolutely ridiculous distances (from several times offscreen) to get at you. In 3, this ability can be purchased by the player, though nowhere near as far.
• Infinite Supplies:
  • While the player and allies still need to reload, they will never run out of reserve ammo.
  • Subverted in 3, where buildings need materials as well as money to upgrade.
• It Can Think: Several enemies are still able to use weapons.
• Kill It with Fire: A flamethrower appears in 3.
• Lightning Bruiser: In 3, maxing out the health and stamina upgrades lets the player character run without ever running out of breath.
• Luck-Based Mission: The Jackpot achievement, to snatch an extra large sum from an ATM is based purely on how the dice god is throwing in your favor. Good luck.
• Made of Explodium: Barrels will always explode when shot enough times. ATMs in 2 will also explode if shot enough times. 2 and 3 also add huge tanks with nuclear symbols on them, capable of easily killing a player if they're standing too close. Medieval uses gunpowder instead.
• Mighty Glacier: Rocket Launchers (and catapults) have the slowest firing speed, but deal lots of Splash Damage.
• More Dakka: It's possible (but not a good idea, as end-game foes require more firepower to take down) to upgrade an outpost with 3 gatling guns plus a trio of soldiers with assault rifles.
• Multi-Melee Master: Medieval replaces most ranged weapons with various melee weapons... which only make the ranged weapons that much more useful.
• Musical Spoiler: When a boss enters an area, it roars loud enough to be heard around the map.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: You can encounter several friendly orcs in Medieval, one of which teaches you the ultimate abilities after you've proven your worth.
• New Game Plus: In 3 and Medieval, the player can start over after scouting all sectors, retaining all their weapons and skills and starting at a difficulty called "Hard+". However, the masters who teach skills are unavailable until found, so you can't upgrade your weapons before then.
• No Zombie Cannibals: Averted, mutants are apparently the result of zombies biting each other.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In 2nd game, rambling in any cleared sector becomes this^note especially at night as the area is almost devoid of all enemies and the background music is replaced by not-so-distant spooky noises, growls and almost heartbeat-like pounding. The atmosphere becomes like straight out of Silent Hill.
• Percussive Maintenance: Increasing the ATM hacking ability lets you open them faster. When maxed out, you just kick them for instant money (and can then shoot them for a little extra).
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • In the first game, once you accomplish all objectives, the mission ends, so if you forgot to snatch somthing, it's beyond recovery now. The same goes for the entire game, once you gain control over all zones but still have some lingering achievements - there's no hope of getting them after that.
  • Thanks to the Jackpot achivement in the second game being a Luck-Based Mission, it is completely possible that you'll hack all ATMs in the entire city and still not get it. Once all ATMs are hacked, there's no way of getting the achievement sans restarting the entire game from scratch.
  • Also once the defense towers are upgraded to the max, they cannot be reconfigued for other weapons, not even if you lose an area and re-scout it back. If you for some reason completely omitted one kind of weapon on all towers, there won't be any way to reinstall it afterwards.
• Playing Possum: Zombies are often found lying prone on the ground, which doesn't trigger the auto-fire until much shorter range.
• Rain of Arrows: See More Dakka and substite ballistae for gatling guns and archers for soldiers.
• Rated M for Manly: The all-male cast of the entire series, all of them having strong dignified voices (even the somewhat geeky looking engineers) and badass portrait icons are definitely made to appeal to male audience.
• Recycled In Space: Mutants in 3 are, for all intents and purposes, orcs (that can use bows and rocket launchers). So in the Standard Medieval Fantasy setting, they're... un-recycled?
• Regenerating Health: The player gets this at the start of all four games, and can upgrade how quickly it regenerates as well as the maximum health.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Inverted: The revolver that the player starts with in 2 and 3 are actually the weakest of the pistols, though every pistol allows the use of poison abilities.
• Rewarding Vandalism:
  • In the first two games, shooting Explosive Barrels gets 100 cash, which considerably outstrips the amount given by killing zombies on the first maps and remains a excellent source of income throughout the game. In 3 it's only 5 cash (50 in Medieval), but it's still useful as destroying them prevents bosses from throwing the barrels at you.
  • Killing ATMs also gets a small amount of money, and they respawn until hacked.
• Sergeant Rock: The player character is only ever referred to as "Sergeant", and is single-handedly responsible for clearing three cities of zombie infestations, along with personally training the local militia.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: The poison ability causes an enemy to attack all other enemies, increasing their health and strength (and doubling the reward if you kill them). Hilarious (and useful) on bosses, though not all of them can be poisoned.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Appears in all the games except the Medieval version. In the first game, it actually replaces the pistol when purchased.
• Shoulder Pet: One of the Masters in Medieval has a bald eagle on his shoulder.
• Shout-Out: Several to The Lord of the Rings, where the second dog zombies are called wargs, and the biggest troll monsters are Olog-Hai.
• Sinister Scraping Sound: If you hear scraping at night, a manhole has just opened and will soon release multiple werewolf mutants. You should run.
• Sprint Meter: The sprint meter can be upgraded several times, and in 3 it becomes infinite once it and health are maxed out.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: By 3, zombies are limited to melee attacks (except the cops), when 2 had them able to use guns and throw random debris at you.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: Except they're soldiers, who you babysit until they've killed enough enemies on their own.
• Urban Ruins: Every game takes place in a different city ruined by the Zombie Apocalypse, with broken walls, crashed trucks and dead bodies everywhere. Fortunately, humans manage to fight back by creating fortified enclaves and clearing the zombies out one area at a time.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: The flamethrower you can get in the third game has ridiculously short range, scratch damage and doesn't even set enemies on fire. Considering the lengths you have to go through to actually get your hands on it and the excessive amount of cash required to upgrade, you may as well ditch it, because at that point you most probably already have far better weapons at your disposal.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • Leaving a city sector be when under zombie invasion is often better than using the tower to defend it: if the defenses are too weak, the mission fails, while letting them through is just a matter of going on an extra mop-up mission.
  • During defense/rebuilding missions, it's best to concentrate on the smaller zombies and let the bigger ones go through, as both delay construction by the same amount.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: They're a specific breed of mutant that can jump ridiculous distances.
• Worthy Opponent: The orc Master of War in Medieval has some of the best upgrades, but is only available after getting several achievements (finding all other masters, getting 40 kills per minute, poisoning and trapping 50 enemies).
• Zombie Apocalypse: All the games occur during one. The introduction of the Medieval version says that this happens about every 500 years. Decision 3 states that the game takes place 500 years after Medieval, according to the scientist "Bear", who can be found when wandering around the city.

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