Decided to jump into Bright Nights just because. It's been a great experience, I'm enjoying the crafting, the cars and the NPCs.
I never played CDDA enough to compare it to that, and they put in tile and mouse support since I last played CDDA too, so I'm comparing it more to other games in general.
Bright Nights has the reputation of being a bit more arcadey or forgiving than DDA? The mod load screen was showing it modded out zombie revivification, which sounds like an unfun mechanic anyway. I also did not see any zombies respawn over the 7 in game days I've played, which fits my idea of how a game like this should be balanced.
Balance wise, my playthrough has been way too lucky to really say much though.
I started a fleet footed wimpy ranged character, which turned out to be 'one cool trick' for walking combat. I found a shotty on the first day. The next day I found a cool 556. The next 5 days I found 3 pistols, and that's it. I haven't found the recipes or tools to make bullets.
I visited a sarcophagus, got irradiated and now am an obligate carnivore with toe talons and tough, sandpaper skin.
The parallels with UnReal World are interesting. The survival crafting mechanics are similar to URW, particularly the weather, farming, clothing, and seasons. URW is a bit obtuse and inaccessible in the crafting progression though. In URW, there's often just 1 specific tool to do a certain thing, and you have to guess if they are inaccessible outside of trading. The way you find tools and materials in their expected spots in CBN is a lot more fun.
The world generation of UBN has been impressive. Many varied points of interest, appropriate for city and countryside landscapes.
Anyway, I got a car I want to fix before it falls apart.
