Hi all,
So I’m a long time lurker/occasional question asker. I’ve been working on a survival/lite-horror game for some time now and I wondered whether I should maybe share a little with people, maybe get some feedback etc. It’s very early doors still as I’m working on this by myself so everything is either made by me or acquired through the store/forums etc. I have used some placeholder models as I’ve gone along to help with design ideas - if you have any concerns over use of any media within the videos please contact me and let me know!
Game Background
Initially this started as a simple project to practice making a third/first person shooter. It was quite simple - zombies spawned within a designated area and the player had to kill them. The area was kept small by several devices which the zombies would attack. The aim was to complete ‘x’ number of waves of zombies and keep the zone as small as possible. This was where the working name of Zombie Over Run came from and eventually became a multiplayer mode for the overall game.
I decided to venture out and create a more interesting single player aspect to the game, inspired by the many zombie filled games and movies out there. Specifically games like State of Decay II, Dead Island and Dying Light played a massive part in convincing me you could turn that simple people vs zombies in to quite an engrossing idea.
The project developed to include some of the following ideas:
- Currently playable in 1st or 3rd person.
- Customisable player model (gender, build, facial features, etc)
- Clothing, again customisable through materials, morph targets etc
- A varied item generation system (massively still work in progress) with base items and then many variations from there. This would encompass both ranged and melee weapons as well as worn items.
- A quest/task system for both a main storyline as well as (hopefully) many side quests to develop the world further.
- Customisable vehicles (especially for multiplayer, which has a vehicle orientated mode) to have better armour, mounted weapons etc.
- Voxel terrain (Voxel Plugin - incredible) to allow for quick and easy production of both large scale mountainscapes and deep, dark undergrounds.
- Part of the main map is a city area with over 150 buildings - all of which the player can enter. Currently all interiors are placed almost by hand, but this is still improving at this time. The buildings will allow the player to fully clear buildings. Whether or not we allow them to then keep them clear is still to be decided.
- Factioned NPCs - to change the dynamics for the quests as well as where the player can go without being attacked or given support.
- Interesting NPCs - NPCs can complete day to day tasks, controlled either by an assigned schedule or just whatever appropriate tasks they encounter around the world.
In the future the plan is to expand beyond the basic “zombies” creatures and critters to a slightly more in depth story. But that will be Chapter 2 I think.
So here are some videos showing work as it’s progressed from nothing to a semi-playable mess that it’s in now.
Video Links
[SPOILER]
Menu idea with early assets.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vKcRU0E5N20
Shooting a zombie, driving a truck around a familiar map.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=t3QVwGtmZog
Walking around the MP Workshop, which is where the player sets up their vehicles/weapons before playing. You can see some of the customised, early versions of vehicles here.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=n2NMDghXlHk
Fighting some zombies whos weights don’t allow for good dismembering.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HRWB6fJj0qU
A run on the Dash map The Ridges. **Warning: **This is a long video. It also shows up some issues with the map lagging heavily due to poor design on my part.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=kS746nml4Hk
Simple show of an inventory system design and zombies with varied and bright clothing. Warning: When I say bright I mean horrible colouring.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RzntdliRdh4
A multiplayer map for the Clearance mode called *Downtown. * Called so because it’s set in a down town area…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=f4ZD4oS4vBE
Second video of the same map, showing some AI issues with the zombies.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yevUtRBMY7E
This shows the first settlement you go to after you leave the beginning area, WIP of course.
In the video you’ll see some of the door mechanics. Doors can be locked with a key from either side, and/or one side can be latched. The player can kick through a latched door - obviously this creates noise and attracts enemies.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IQrxr1gqSk4
This is Mole Town. Or the early stages of it at least. Another settlement the player can go to, quite early on in the game. I’m continuing to work on the eerie atmosphere of the area.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hu4fhYGIf8c
This is The Dark Core. Which is a sub-area, partially hidden in the main game. Again quite early in the design, but has some nice atmospheric elements beginning to come through. You’ll also see if set myself on fire by accident using the fire propagation system that I’ve been building.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9MRo5kgFAwY
And the final video for now is of Floating Town. Because I’m always inventive with names. This is a small town in the middle of a small water body which floats, due to the floating bits of it move all over the place. It will receive considerable more work before the playable version comes about.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4eILplDEpJU[/SPOILER]
I’m hoping to get a video of the building system up at some point, but would rather spend the time making it better and improving the room allocation methods. I’ve realised I have no screenshots of the game at the moment as I only really save stuff as video and that doesn’t really make for the most interesting thread to read so apologies for that.
I will be looking for ideas for naming the game as I’m not a fan of Zombie Over Run as a running title, below are some of the ones that have come to mind while I’ve been putting stuff together-
Demise / Demize
Deadland / Deadlands
Survivors
Fallen Earth
World Overrun (WOR)
If you have any suggestions please drop me a note!
I’m very grateful for any constructive feedback, appreciation and encouragement!
All work featured here is pre-pre-Alpha.
