Any games that try for 'realistic' post-apocalypse settings?

[Harshax]

The fall of the classic Maya period and the invasion of the Spaniards
Indestructible Metal Men who seem like gods are impervious to your weapons
A huge indiginous people suffers an extinction event from western diseases
An entire way of life vanishes and supplanted by powers that oppress you for hundreds of years

And the natives could never have imagined that. If you had asked them to speculate about what the ending of their world would be like, they'd either have gone with religious dogma or extrapolated the problems they knew about. They would never have imagined aliens. Or, for that matter, metal.

At this point, I can't tell if you're being racist or just trolling someone to get into some argument about the nature of games. You're suggesting no one can write a realistic game called, Primate, because you would have to actually taste shit in order to realistic simulate getting crap in your mouth when another primate flings feces at you. This is a probable scenario when primates argue and it happens frequently, so social combat rules should have more than passing mention about it. You not only should taste it, but you need to taste every varietal of nutty to runny fecal matter suitable for use as a projectile because unless you've tasted dung, you can't imagine it. If this was even remotely true for anything that qualified as a game, then you've made a game for an audience of exactly one. If you must empirically deduce or directly experience reality to make a game from it, then likewise only people that had the same experience could appreciate the turd sandwich you just meticulously crafted. This begs the question, How can this still be defined as a 'game'?

[Occluded Sun]

In Robinson Crusoe the titular character collected supplies from the shipwreck.

In Hatchet the main character ended up getting a lot of supplies fron the crashed plane. If memory serves, the most significant item was a radio.

Right before he was rescued, yes. But they didn't actually contribute anything to his survival, except a single meal (which he shared with his rescuers) and the radio beacon (which he thought was broken).

I do fondly remember the book for spending so much time on the 'mundane' details of survival, which are a lot more complicated and interesting than we really realize. Fighting fantasy monsters isn't the only thing which can be interesting, but a lot of game systems only do that.

[deaddmwalking]

You're saying that the radio beacon that brought his rescuers contributed nothing to his survival?

I mean, sure, up to that point where it was only a matter of time until he died, I suppose nothing from the plane directly contributed to his survival. If that was your point.

[Occluded Sun]

Ultimately yes, he was rescued and lived past winter because of the beacon, but it didn't help him figure out how to not starve during all the months he was isolated. The story of his survival doesn't have the beacon in it until the very, very end. For almost the entire book, the plane (with the rescue beacon) is at the bottom of a lake, unavailable and useless.

The book points out how difficult it is to start a fire. And the protagonist still has one of the easier methods: steel and flint. Trying to make a fire from scratch with friction, if you aren't taught how, is incredibly hard.

I've noticed that a lot of media depictions of people living in various types of post-apocalypse scenarios don't go into any detail at all for how they actually live. Things like finding water that's safe to drink is a major concern - an infection of giardia is no laughing matter, and could easily kill an entire community of people who have no way to treat it.

[Mord]

The "Desolation" RPG deals with an apocalyptic fantasy scenario. It's been a while since I read it, so I'm not sure where it falls on the "realism" versus "grimdark masquerading as realism" axis. Just for example, the intro fic depicts a bunch of peasants murdering some visiting itinerant merchants to steal a steel plowshare from them.

[Occluded Sun]

That looks very interesting... but its site makes clear it's in a high-magic setting. So by definition not 'realistic'.