An untapped Genre, and an idea of a possible game.

Blarkage · 2008-06-24T10:38:23

Iv'e been thinking about a few types of games I, as a kid(i'm 13), would like to play. As i thought about it i came to the conclusion that i wanted to play some sort of a zombie horror survival. When i went online, to the store, and viewed magazines i found there were almost none that were any good or worth playing. Recently i've found a decent one called Dead Frontier, its not all that great and so i've been starting to think about what i would like in a game about zombie survival. I read an article that covered some of it, but then i read some more and found out that the company wasn't even going to bother making. The article talks about starting in a tiny hotel in a small city, you and a team of survivors managed to meet up there, you have a hunger meter and zombies have found out where you are, you will need to keep the hotel safe and get food and ammunition for guns at the same time, so you will have a team of eight and you will have to send four men out to go get food and ammo and four men need to stay to keep the hotel from being overrun. Also while doing this there are seven other teams of eight out there that you can choose to help, if there in trouble, or just leave to die. This seems like a very good idea and there are really no other games like it. Some ideas i would like to add about this project(i hope you guys work on it because im only 13 and dont have much experience). I would like for their to be multiple buildings, each with stuff inside of it, for ex. one house had a gang member living in it who had an uzi, or something like that. Also when you use a microphone depending on how far from each other, in the game, depends on how loud or quiet you hear the guy talking. Also you can form an alliance with another team, if you can find them, then you can move to a bigger building, like a store or a mall, and try to defend all, or part of it. The zombies should run about 80% as fast as you, but there should be enough of them you cant simply run by them. I want multiple maps, the more the merrier, and perhaps something realistic like a part of NY, NY. Also when you start your multiplayer account you choose a class/profession, for example your guy was a police man or a doctor who survived(other possible classes/professions are thief, can get into buildings better and search them better, computer technician, can run a security system, if the building has one, and with the help of a doctor to get a zombie sample can make a device that tells when a zombie is near, construction worker, can smelt down metals to make bullets and can make metal into pieces to help secure a building). When a person gets bit a doctor can work on them, if the doctor gets there in time, and can cut the disease out of your skin before you turn into a zombie. A system rates players before the game so they can determine who they play against so its fair. However it should be some what like a normal city and should not have unlimited ammunition or food. But your construction worker can make some bullets for you, depending on what metals you can find will determine the bullets, and he will need to go to the gun shop and bring back a bullet making and filling device, and there are also farms on the outside of the town, unless its NY, NY or any other big city, that you can get food from and plant food in that you can harvest, if you live long enough, and use(i personally dont think the plant and harvest idea is very good but i want the communities ideas and opinions on it). Also if you can get to a radio station and have your computer technician work on it to make it work, you can call for an air drop of supplies, the supplies should only be able to be called two times per team. There should be an assortment of weapons from pistols to shotguns, maybe one rocket launcher or two if you can break into the police building and get into their gun stash. How To Win How to win should simply be last team standing, but you cant kill other people, that would make it too easy simply to go out and shoot the other teams so your team is last alive. If one man survives his whole team gets some sort of reward, for example next time the man that lived will have a gun to start with. Also, i think their should be some sort of a level system and skill system so players have something to look forward to with the end of a round. Depending on a class/professions level determines how fast they can make stuff, and determine how good they are at their jobs, for example a computer technician can break a police stations password lock depending on his level. I hope you like my idea, and I really hope that someone will start to work on it(but I really doubt anyone will). Thanks for reading this and I hope you see the untapped potential of this genre as well. Please comment and tell me new ideas and thoughts, or complaints about this idea. [Edited by - Blarkage on May 14, 2008 8:25:48 PM]

Writing for Games Game Design

Started by Blarkage May 10, 2008 07:20 PM

104 comments, last by Zooch 16 years, 2 months ago

Viperrr

139

June 16, 2008 02:19 AM

I dont think zombies should be able to climb walls, cause then your "fort" would be overrun too easily.
Remember the scene in Dawn of the Dead where they are on the roof of the mall looking out over the crowd of zombies?
Now imagine if those 200 zombies could climb walls...

Also it would be too hard for me to program this. Making them crash through barricades will be challenging enough! But I will worry about the physics later.

Now about a website. If we are going to make this a team effort, it would be nice if we had a place to exchange files. Can someone here set up a private messageboard with a file upload system? We could use a password protected forum where the development team can post sourcecode, screenshots, models, etc..

Lopherus

132

June 16, 2008 04:42 AM

For now i am doing models like clocks and glass cups.. :P, better some1 else do the private forum for file exchange.

I thought last night , what if when its day survivors attack when its night zombies attack, and both could have some some time to prepare, since the sun isnt good for zombies :D

Viperrr

139

June 16, 2008 04:54 AM

Kinda like in 'I am Legend'. That's not a bad idea..

LOOY

134

June 16, 2008 06:23 AM

The only problem with day and night cycle is it could be too fast, making the game feel a bit unrealistic (well, other than the zombies :P) but if its too slow the game will be a bit slower paced. It really depends on whether this is an MMO or just an MO.

Something else we haven't discussed is perishable items, Food, Water, Health Packs, etc. Should we include some kind of hunger/thirst system or should food just act as a rubbish medkit?

About message boards, we could use freewebs couldn't we, and maybe use rapidshare/photobucket/whatever for file + photo sharing.

Lopherus

132

June 16, 2008 06:31 AM

Freewebs is fine with me, and i need to see how rapidshare works.

Can u give me a list of medical items or food you would like, then i can try make the model for them :) We can put them inside fridges and microwaves :D for example. I thought of a banana for example or a sandwich.
I think hunger will take the dynamics :) but i dont know :)

Viper do i export the whole number of items in .x or i export them separetely 1by 1? Would be better for me to export them all at once and then if u could separate them, resize them if needed and texture if needed.

LOOY

134

June 16, 2008 06:48 AM

It's not much but it'll do for now, sorry but don't have time to add anything to the homepage or blog right now, the forums are up though.

http://www.freewebs.com/zombiegamedev/index.htm

Viperrr

139

June 16, 2008 07:14 AM

Quote: Original post by Lopherus
Viper do i export the whole number of items in .x or i export them separetely 1by 1? Would be better for me to export them all at once and then if u could separate them, resize them if needed and texture if needed.

I cannot import .x files into max, so I can't change them. You would have to send me the .max or .3ds file. But you don't use 3DS Max do you? What formats can you export your models in?

Blarkage

Author

122

June 16, 2008 07:49 AM

if you look in the original post you will see that it says there should be a hunger bar, otherwise players will be able to just sit in their forts and keep shooting and their will be no motivation to leave, if there is a need for hunger you would be able, just like in a movie/real life(i know its hard to compare a zombie game to real life), to horde massive amounts of food and hold down the fort, also bullets will be a factor, you will need plenty of ammo or several good melee weapons.

Also lets leave this as the last post and go directly to freeweb for all ideas etc. and post under the "I just want to share some ideas" section.

LOOY

134

June 16, 2008 08:24 AM

Ok guys im trying to get free webs to password protect the forums, but it seems to be down at the moment, if I can't get passwording to work, I will seperate the forums into two pages, and make one a friends only page, I'll give everyone that's already got access the username and password to the admin account "zombiegamedev"