Dead On: Die2Nite Begins Season 2

How many of you guys have tried Die2Nite? It's a free-to-play zombie survival browser game that sorts everybody into rinky-dink townships of some 30 or 40 people and then sees how long the lot of you can hold off the inevitable in real time, with the zombies attacking every night. It's interesting for a couple of reasons- (1) It's hilariously brutal. (2) It's social. As I covered in my impressions piece, when another player breaks into your hovel and steals your sandwich, you will experience a rare, crystalline anger you have never felt before.

Better yet, the game's just begun Season 2, with a collection of new features, including trained dogs and "extreme camping". I get excited and provide details after the jump.

With Season 2, Die2Nite's new features include:

• Larger maps! That means there's more to explore outside of your town, more loot to find and - most importantly - the chance to get pinned down by zombies when even further away from the town, meaning you'll have to grovel even harder on your town's personal forum that a couple of people should come out with some metal pipes and bags of water to save your idiot ass.
• Extreme camping! Which basically means your character now has options and a chance to survive when spending the night outside of the town, which happens more often than you'd think because of Die2Nite's "town gate" mechanic. Basically, while the zombies attack your defenses every night, if somebody leaves the town gate open (or rather, somebody forgets to close it) then the zombies just come wandering in through the front door, and your town becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet. You're only brainless metaphorically, you see. Anyway, being able to spend two days or more outside of town means you can now travel further, and spending the night in the wild increases your chance of loot.
• A new profession, the tamer! Professions are your reward for subscribing to Die2Nite- special skillsets that allow you to do things the chintzy players can't. In the case of the tamer, you get a three-legged dog who "limps and drools excessively. And she barks. A lot." The dog can carry lightweight items back to town if you're in the wild, or you can give her heavy items if you dose her up with steroids. Which is crazy, obviously. Die2Nite's the kind of game where you don't waste good drugs on a dog.
• More attention paid to shunned citizens! Shunned citizens are totally the best part of the game. They're players who the rest of the town decide to cast out, and end up becoming their own, even-more-doomed faction. With season 2, shunned citizens will be able to scavenge objects from the town's waste and hide objects out in the wild. Amazing.

Have I persuaded you to play it yet? Because I think I've persuaded myself to go back. I wonder if I still have my account...