Zombie RPG

[Architex]

I plan on creating a game, like a mix between fallout3/gta and an ordinary type of game like doom3 or something, maybe with a little less actual rpg elements, into a very first Zombie rpg, featuring 1 huge world to explore, vehicles a bunch of weapons, etc.  The world is coming along just fine in my opinion, slowly but surely.  Unfortunately, I cant model humans/creatures/characters.  Im best at architectural and landscape elements, which sucks, it's going to be a major challenge.  Hopefully soon, Gekido will release the character tutorial which will give me a 'thankful' boost in my project.  Indulge in the latest screenshot!

[Architex]

Here's another one for all of you.

[Squat]

I really dig that concept. In fact, it's something I myself have been wanting to build for quite some time. In fact, my kids game is being built with much of this same concept in mind except that the zombies are bugs and critters. There are SO many concepts available with that starting idea. Left 4 Dead, Killing Floor, Nacht De Undertoten, Dead Rising...etc are all pretty damn good zombie games, but every single one of them misses the mark by a landslide. They're all so thin and cheap and usually just mean running from A to B while not dying. Ok, random enemy spawns? That's not unique. Unique would be actually being able to barricade yourself and having a purpose. The idea of adding vehicles to a zombie game is actually unique in many ways and opens itself up for a lot of gameplay goodies aswell. I hope you bang this baby out because it's definitely something I'd like to play. A zombie killing RPG? Sign me up!

[Architex]

Haha, alright man.  This is going to be more of an outside type of game, maybe, if I figure out how to implement this, groups of people that have objects to possibly "buy" items in safe places, that sort of thing.  Actually, Deadrising was one of my inspirations for the game.  I really liked the game, but I was disappointed because you couldn't actually 'leave' the mall to go into the town, where in the beginning when you're in the chopper I thought I was going to be able to fight the zombies out there, the isolation in the mall was a little bit of a downer, but still fun game to play. 

Also, as far as the actual mission design goals, aka the main objective of the game, I'm thinking about having the character having to find a 'cure' for zombie virus, a vial, hidden somewhere in the gigantic level, but I'm putting that aside for now.  I'm taking a unique approach to creating the game into sort of a religious perspective, which is create the world first, then the people, then the code for the items and so forth.  I'm forgetting the design it on paper first, and just improvise the design, constant changes will be made to perfection. 

[Squat]

While your creative juices are flowing, please allow me to share some immediate ideas.

I like the cure idea. I like it further than just finding a vial and winning a level. I think you should get the cure, implement it into some sort of weapon, and actually go around turning zombies back into people that you then have to escort back to safety. Perhaps the weapon could be a simple syringe, requiring both close range and some time to take effect, thus you cannot save everybody and must pick and choose. You could then set up some missions where you have to cure and rescure a particular zombie, perhaps a mayor or something. The workload increase is that you'll want to create a normal version and a zombie version of every character in your game. I think you could get away with that simply in the texture and material alone. That then affords you the goddamn sweetest thing in gaming history and that's seeing them transform as you transition between the different skins...back and forth. Sorry, the sweetest thing is turning into a zombie yourself and being able to move freely about the undead...while the townsfolk take potshots at YOU! What do you think? I gotta admit, I think it sounds like an awesome game.

[Architex]

haha, yes those are good ideas my friend.  I was leaning towards the idea, though, because the world is going to be gigantic, it would be more of like a scavenger hunt for it [ the vial ].  But, now to think, turning it into a weapon would be nice, but the only thing is there's going to be like a thousands of zombies, lol, I plan on, once I have a working zombie model, which I need to learn to create beings first, and learn how to animate things better, I plan on seeing if I can use the spawner feature to create the zombies, so they're going to literally be everywhere spawning on certain textures on a terrain. 

So having said that, using the vial as a weapon would void out the end of the game...or does it have to end?  Ah, I dont know.  Maybe use the vial on some master zombie who controls the life of all the zombies on the planet? 

Anyways, also in the works, which was thought of last night at work, I also plan on making the mini map look like a GPS, which will show street names.  After thinking of this, I thought of maybe making an MP game of this would be pretty tight, and the web export looks interesting but I dont really know how it works exactly. 

[Ron]

Sounds like a great idea and the artwork looks awesome. There is literally no limit to what you could include. Its amazing how slow fresh ideas can be with big name games and yet they have so many people at their disposal.

Also, the new sky system will be a great asset, you could even put in some sort of time limit by scripting a sun to come up and you need to complete the mission beforehand. I poked around with the sky and you can make a spooky looking clouds/sky easily.

Look forward to see more 

[Squat]

I was thinking that you could have thousands of zombies, but only a particular few could be cured and rescued. That could even be as specific as one solitary character within the storyline. I still think the notion of having to "tame" some enemies instead of easily blasting them from afar is a cool and interesting twist on the usual norm.

It might not even have to be a weapon, rather a deployable object that attracts them or traps them and then does its thing. It doesn't have to be a crazy hardcore feature of the game. In fact, if it's slipped in with subtlety, it can really shine as a great feature.

It could also be a finale type of reward. Perhaps the players will reach the end of the story, which rewards them with the total cure. They can then be done or go around collecting trophies for saving the town instead of blasting it. Then it's not getting in the way of any other story arcs you may have come up with.

One of the things that I absolutely FRICKING HATE (sorry folks) is getting to the end of a game and then having the only option left after that be to start over from scratch in the same state as the first time you turned it on. Any game that lets you keep your powerups adn weapons earned when you start over is a winner in my book. Rewards should be real and super power against the super weak is a super reward. In the end, you already hooked the player into playing through the whole game, so what's left but to reward them? Punishment? WHY? All that for nothing? WTF? I hate that crap. SO many games that are fun to play are now unplayable because they're fully explored and there's no reason to go back.

[Architex]

Well....You know, I was also thinking of having NO ending whatsoever, I mean really.  If the world is infested with zombies, there's no frickin way a person is going to be succesful getting rid of them.  But if I were to go this route, I would have to find a way to make the replay value outstanding.  Maybe like in crackdown where the player has to find all those orbs? ( Still haven't found all btw  )  Something to make the players keep going.  Or the scavenger hunt is, I thought, interesting, where the player has to find items, 1 item of each placed in the titanical huge massive level, and perhaps clues?  I dont know man, but the main plan right now is to build the world, then LEARN character modelling, LEARN animation, Place items, and then so forth.  It's gonna be awhile.

[Squat]

it seems all roads are long when making games. The game could go on eternally by mimicking most MMO's out there. Simply respawn the mobs on timers and keep upgrading the level cap and items list. Once you get a database of things working, you should be able to continually expand upon that and it'd be great. The game would build itself up over time into something huge.

I thought about respawning zombies and even though this is what I'd consider the most obvious idea for them, I don't see many games having them come crawling out of the ground. It's usually the indie and flash and old arcade games that did it. That way they can spawn in view and it's not questionable.

[gekido]

I've been experimenting with a 'Zombie Shooter' concept as well, using the Traffic Manager and default AI scripts for my zombie spawners.  Zombies are a perfect start for AI scripting because they aren't really supposed to be smart ;}

Once I finish up the character tutorials, next on my list are:
- vehicle setup
- AI / Enemy controllers
- Using the traffic manager to spawn enemy objects & control where / how they spawn

I'm hoping to have all of the above written up shortly (along with examples for people to check out).

[pixel_legolas]

i remember when you made a zombie game with a fotball or something and the zombies chased it

[Squat]

Yeah, whatever happened to zombie soccer?

[Squat]

I was thinking about another idea that could work well for your concept and that's the notion of light sources attracting enemies. It would be pretty cool and easy to implement into the code. You could have zombies go to lit areas from long distances and then go for players when they're closer. That would encourage dynamic lighting aswell as people keeping a low-profile and sneaking around.

I remember this one level in Everquest 1 that was a forest and whenever it was daytime, the enemies were like level 1-8 and basically deer and rabbits but after 6pm in-game time and it got dark, it would infest with level 30-40 skeletons and ghouls. It bridged an area between a complete newbie zone and basically a level 10-20 zone and was the most genius and freaky thing I've ever played through. If you made nighttime more dangerous than daytime, it would add a LOT of energy to a zombie game. Some of the rules are like filmmaking, people need just as much calm and rest and safety as they do adreneline and fear. Daytime could be preparation time aswell as exploring time and perhaps inventory management, where nighttime would be hell on earth with little time for anything but shooting. If you had a barricade system where players could construct different things or perhaps gain strength to move larger objects, it would be almost a large scale turn-based strategy game.

For the barricades, I've seen it done in Call of Duty where you go up to a window, hold the button and boards fly up out of the ground and shift into place. It's effective, but adds a totaly unbelievable element to an otherwise completely reality based game that's clearly trying to ground itself in reality. Made little sense to me why they didn't just have you hammer up a board yourself. It would be a bit of a trick to code properly, but a deployable piece of wood that can be nailed up at doors and windows would be an AWESOME feature...especically if it actually created physics constraints so piles of things would get stuck together and make for more combined weight....maybe a completely rigid joint.

[Architex]

Hey hey, sorry, haven't been on for awhile, I now work 2 jobs, . 

@Squat:
Anyways, you know squat, that light idea reminds me of the part in the movie George Romero's Land of the Dead, when they shoot off those firecrackers and the zombies all stare at it dumb founded, lol.  Perhaps I can incorporate that somewhere in it, maybe it will be some kind of missiles that go off or something. 

@Gekido:
This is true.  I was thinking of the zombies moving slow and using a melee attack ( I'm thinking arm them with the knife weapon, but make the weapon completely invisible via the surface tab...Dont know if the enemies could have the knife weapon though.  <---- I'll think of this once I get the actual Zombie somewhat up and running. )

@Ron:
The sky system is great indeed!  You know though, before this sky system was released, I had white fog with a pure white background giving it a silent hill look.  Kind of boring though, but I figured seeing slow zombies on the horizon slumping around would give the game an eerie feeling along with ambient sounds a zombie voices being heard in the environment.  ( Which for the background, its debatable if Im going to switch back to it.  It's a minor issue that can always be corrected later, so I'm just leaving it on the table for now. )  EDIT:  Of course...I can always change the cloud colors to white and grey along with the white fog???  This may be the way to go....

On a side note, I think I have thought of an idea to make the game run smoother, as far as loading buildings and other structures as well.  I am thinking of creating a template where, in the spawner tab, spawns buildings ( I've mentioned this before somewhere, some post regarding spawners ).  That way I'll be able to literally, PAINT the buildings on the terrain.  In order for this to happen, the terrain object will have to have it's own separate texture for each individual building or structure.  It will only spawn 1 building per texture as well, because last time I fooled around with this, 12 buildings were spawned all together, lol.

I believe this will allow me to have a bigger world running more fast and smooth with even more objects.  I really like this spawner feature, oh the things I could do with it!