I'm currently working on a PC game that revolves around a character stranded in a city full of crazed zombies. Now, this alone is fairly unoriginal. Which is why I want to make the remainder of my storyline as original as possible. Does anyone have ideas for explaining why the entire city is full of zombies? No big evil corporations or terrorist attacks, please. Basically, all I have now is that almost the entire city has been infected. However, a few people are still alive, but only because whatever infected the others is unable to interact with certain rare genetic structures, which these people possess. Is it even possible to make a zombie/horror game have an original storyline, anymore? :(

You could go with a story loosely based on the rapture. I'm not a religious man so I don't know the details of this, but I figure it would be possible to at least somewhat base it on this. If not, you could always say the rapture was described wrong in the bible. Something along the lines of: those who didn't live according to the ten commandments turn into horrible zombies, those who did but renounced their faith have to stay amidst these hellish creatures.

Just a thought.

edit: if you do this, you can also include some other enemies/bosses without having trouble integrating them into the story. For instance, a hell-knight wouldn't be out of place.

I'm afraid such a thing might offend some people. Especially theorizing that it was described wrong in the Bible. Thank you for the suggestion though. :D

While I'm not sure I can come up with an original idea for zombies that isn't terrible, most sci-fi terrors come from abusing the hot science topics of the day; things that most people have heard about but aren't really comfortable with. For today's audiences, good science topics that could easily cross to zombies include bioengineering (genetically modified food or animals, modified DNA, viruses), nanotechonology or cybernetics, or possibly good ol' quantum theory.

To me, zombies would go best with the biological sciences as they're inherently biological creatures. However that's been done to death. You could give it a slightly different edge by not having it done intentionally - no military experiments or evil biocorps, maybe just a freak mutation of a virus or genetically engineered soy beans [grin]. Parasites are another option, although that's been done before.

Do the zombies have to be the animated corpse kind, or just people who act like zombies? If the latter, some kind of mind-altering drug could work. Maybe some basement drug chem lab got a new mix wrong, combined it with some experimental new drug stolen from the test labs at a pharmaceutical company, and it melts the user's brains?

Of course, I'm sure all of these have been done to some extent, but there's rarely any story idea that's 100 percent original that isn't just plain crazy.

The nanotechnology idea caught my attention. Maybe nanobots could reanimate a corpse by interfacing into the brain and sending electrical pulses to nerves and muscles. This could fit pretty well with the usual visualization that zombies don't have great motor skills. They wouldn't if their muscles and nerves were controlled by artificially created electrical pulses.

I'm still open to suggestions, but I wrote that one down as a possibility. ;)

The zombies aren't really zombies, but regular people. The world's food supply is infected with an alien bacteria and the only way to survive is to eat human flesh. At the end of the game you find out that it was all just a big April Fools Day joke from PETA.

lol. Somehow, I don't think an April Fool's joke would be very horrific. :P

I find zombie scenarios are scarier if they aren't explained. The story could be original if you follow different groups of survivors who have their own take on it. There's the religious facet, the scientific etc...

If you keep the story arched on how to survive, what's been tried and such it could make it interesting.

For example:

-John meets up with a scientist who tells him that it is strange because aside from the obvious rotting flesh there are no exterior agents in the blood stream.

-John meets a religious leader who thinks his church is safe because it's followers are pure of heart (and this seems to be true enough since the church hasn't been attacked) but later on you find out that it was just a coincidence and they all die.

Those are my two cents.

BTW I love zombie scenarios and they creep me the hell out. I'll often picture myself in a zombie invasion in different places I go and come up with plans on how to survive.

I like your idea, but would the game ever feel "completed" without an explanation? Won't people be curious as to why they spent 10-15 hours fighting zombies in a video game?

If YOU were in an urban area infested with zombies would you concentrate on getting out alive? Probably. Would you go through sewers, abandoned factories, and old hospitals to figure out why people turned into zombies? HECK NO! By not making the main character into hero archtype and making him more like an average joe the player could probably relate more to him.

I think not explaining a thing adds to the immersion and makes the whole thing seem more real. Dawn of the Dead didn't explain why people were zombies, a reveran (or some other religious dude) says something along the lines of "when there is no more room in hell the dead shall walk the earth" but it's not an actual explanation. It adds to the creep-me-out factor and in my opinion makes it one of the better zombie movies.

You don't need to tie up every loose end.

edit: restructured a few things.

edit2: gawd... note to self: no posting when you've been studying non stop!

[Edited by - sanch3x on February 15, 2007 8:52:07 PM]