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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, 1 month ago

Viperrr

139

June 04, 2008 10:53 AM

It will take me quite a long time I figure. I am learning as I go!

There is no reason for you not to make this game... Feel free to do whatever you like, I do not own the rights to this concept!

How about we both try and make it a contest? Let the best man win :) We can both make developments logs and post screenshots. This will actually motivate us both to get things done.

deadstar

536

June 04, 2008 11:29 AM

Quote: Original post by Viperrr
Lol deadstar :D Your zombie shooter cracked me up! Nice demo

I'm glad someone likes it. It was supposed to be a fully blown game with story but I had no time left after making the engine.

"The right, man, in the wrong, place, can make all the dif-fer-rence in the world..." - GMan, Half-Life 2

A blog of my SEGA Megadrive development adventures: http://www.bigevilcorporation.co.uk

Blarkage

Author

122

June 04, 2008 12:30 PM

Alright im glad that you guys are trying to make the game and LOOY just because someone else is working on it doesnt mean yours wouldnt be better than theirs if you made it :) (but since you guys are making it a type of competition i think ill put my money on Viperr, no offense LOOY)

LOOY

134

June 04, 2008 03:33 PM

Quote: Original post by BlarkageI think ill put my money on Viperr, no offense LOOY)

You'd be right to do so :D

Yeah ok, lets make it a contest, I'm very new to coding though and I'll have to finish my exams before i can start properly so you'll have a huge head start, anyway good luck.

Blarkage

Author

122

June 05, 2008 06:31 PM

lol LOOY do you by chance have self-esteem issues? lol

anyway good luck with the competition you two :)

dylanwinn

June 05, 2008 07:00 PM

I think that when players are zombified, they should be able to resurrect by killing a team member. The Dead team member would become a zombie, and the zombie would take the teammember's place, except alive. Also, if a zombified player is killed by a player who was not on his team, he should then respawn as a human.

I also think that players should be able to choose to play as zombies, and get the advantage of a larger team, but also the disadvantage of not being able to respawn. Dead Zombie players would be replaced more by AI zombies.

Blarkage

Author

122

June 06, 2008 07:06 PM

I dont really like your idea dylan because then a zombied player will go out and get purposely killed so they can continue helping the team, i think either their should be an antidote/vaccine method of getting players back, and to prevent people from hanging around their team till they get the antidote/vaccine their should be major advantages(for example increased movement speed, better sight, etcetra) to killing another player whether its a zomb player killing a human or a human killing a zomb.

People playing as zomb's is a good idea, but they need to be able to respawn, as a zomb again, to prevent players from dying 30 seconds into the round and not being able to get back into the game so that way it does not get boring for a zomb player, also for choosing zomb at beginning the player will be "buffed" so they can move faster etcetra for choosing the harder team to play as.

BlackRetina

121

June 07, 2008 01:25 AM

Wouldn't it be easier making a zombie mod of GTAIV? The AI is almost already there, only that instead of being arrested you get bitten.
Also, with a tonne of zombies roaming around the streets, there is usually frame rate issues. Now that computers are faster, I think these games will begin to get developed.

Blarkage

Author

122

June 07, 2008 09:28 AM

yes there would be framerate issues, but this type of a project would undoubtedly take a minimal of one year if you had a lot of people working on it, hopefully in the near future their will be good pc's that can run this type of a game, also i think it would be much easier to use the GTAIV maps etcetra for the game, however getting copyrights to it would not be an easy or cheap task.

Viperrr

139

June 07, 2008 02:28 PM

I think recent computers are fast enough to run this type of game. Just don't expect to run it on a 5 year old system. It is profitable for proffesional gamecompanies to make their games run on old machines. Obviously more people will buy it if it runs on their crappy pc.

I have no interest in doing this tho. I am making my engine in DirectX 9 with shader model 3.0
If someone's graphicscard does not support that then they are no real gamers anyway, and I am not wasting my time on getting it to run on their computer.

Now the problem of alot of zombies can be solved with a good LOD system. For both the models and the AI. The greater the distance between you and the zombie, the less detailed it will get and the less AI will be applied to it.

I've been working on the engine for a few days now and its going very well so far :)

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

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🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉

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

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