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The Ultimate Zombie Video Game
Topic Started: Jun 2 2011, 10:25 PM (255 Views)
Omega
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Master of The World
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If you haven't heard yet, I've been a big zombie fan for several years. Been killing them since my days playing MediEvil II. They're that predatory enemy that has long captivated us as both the ultimate fodder and the ultimate doomsday scenario. However, I've been looking to lay the groundwork for the ultimate zombie survival video game ever since reading Max Brook's Zombie Survival Guide, which lays out a more logical blueprint for what a zombie is and what it can and cannot do. Not only that, it teaches you survival skills applicable to both a Zombie Apocalypse and other such situations where you may find yourself without essentials for a while. So before I reveal my ideas, I wish to hear yours if you want such a game as much as I do.
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Black Golem
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With neither Will alone nor Strength alone
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personally the best Zombie game ive played is the RE Outbreak games man those games were ahead of there time.
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http://zeiksanimereviews.wordpress.com/ Current Watch though and review: G Gundam/Macross 7/CG Akito the Exiled /Jojos Bizarre Adventure
"I, too, am a true Gundam Dynasty Warrior!" - Kira Yamato
"I will fight with this sword! Knight Gundam, Launch!" - Kira Yamato
"I've finally come to understand what I'm really fighting for." - Kira Yamato
"if theres a hole a guys just got to be ready to thrust into it!" - Ryoma
"Beyond the beaten path lies the ultimate end. It matters not who you are...Death awaits you." - Nyx
"No one's going to decide my future. No matter how hard, I'll choose it myself!" - Kira Yamato
"If a god gets in our way, he gets cut down! If a devil gets in our way, he gets shot up!" -Ken and Ryo
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Omega
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But what are your stances on FEATURES. Games have a topic already. And I don't think that any RE or current Zombie game truly captures the essence of Zombie lore. Good games they may be but not the best they could be. I envision a game where you actually have to SURVIVE. I'll detail it out here with a document I wrote a while back as the blueprint for the Ultimate Zombie game. Those willing feel free to add. This will be in parts, so be sure to comment after each.

In the year 20XX, the world has been engulfed by a deadly virus. The pathogen causes it's victims to die and then reanimate as the walking dead. They have swarmed Man's greatest cities and devastated continents. Only small, tight knit groups of humans remain. The time has come for the Human race to unify and strike back...

Getting Started
The game begins with the player getting to create their own character as well as a team of friends (4 characters in total to start with). You modify every aspect of their look, such as hair, eyes, facial features and clothing. However, you also get to select their style of fighting in three categories: Ranged, Melee and Empty Hand. This also gives you the option of choosing their starting equipment. Though the martial art style of empty hand can be freely chosen for any type of player, the preset classes have preferred types of weapons in the ranged and melee categories. For example: A sniper will want a scoped rifle of any kind and will use a knife for close quarters combat. A brawler, on the other hand, may carry a powerful, heavy melee weapon and a small, lightweight pistol. If presets aren't your cup of tea, you can make a custom class with your own weapon limits, name and skill set. Each character class has set skills that are either combat based or supplementary. Supplementary skills work towards healing injuries and helping to repair and construct things. Combat abilities are often additions to attack strings or special effects that can destroy zombies faster or take out groups. After creating your character's stats, you can alter the personalities of your own as well as the friendly CCs. This affects how they'll act in the story and in combat.

After characters are done, the tutorial begins. It first off shows you how to use your character and the team you've created. This includes combat and basic strategies for fighting zombies (as well as when not to fight them). This is also where you build your first safehouse, which will be your safe haven for the first few moments of the game until you wish to expand your "domain". This introduces upgrades to the shelter like a greater size, stronger defenses, traps and supply wells. It even shows the results of a fully upgraded shelter, which is the size of a mansion. The tutorial also introduces the players to the different missions, like rescue, base defense, base capture, establishing supply lines and other exploration missions.

Weapons and Skills
Of course, when in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, you can be sure that you will need guns...lots of guns. However, the game includes a balanced system of playing. Melee weapons are included and are often recommended over guns, because within the game Zombies can detect the player for miles if a gun goes off, whereas a stealthy melee kill alerts no zombies and keeps you safe from being swarmed. Weapons can be found in homes and at stores in several of the towns. There you can purchase upgrades and extra ammo. For melee weapons, sporting goods and decorational stores are good as they'll usually sport casual or actual weapons. However, you'll eventually want more bang for you buck. Once you reach cities, you have actual smithing businesses to check out. They can customize current weapons or build one from the ground up for you. Guns run on a few statistics: Accuracy, power, stability, range, rate of fire, and recoil. Accuracy is of course how accurate the weapon is over a great distance. Power refers to caliber and will have more penetrating power, potentially killing several zombies with a single bullet. Stability ties in to recoil. If a gun has high recoil it will bring down your accuracy by kicking back and throwing off your shots. However, if the gun or subsequent upgrades bring up its stability. If stability is equal to or higher than recoil the gun is stable and won't kick when you fire the weapon. Range is of course how far away a target can be hit, rifles being the king of this. Finally, rate of fire is how many bullets the gun pumps out every second. The higher the faster. Melee weapons are rated on similar qualities, being power, speed, range, critical, weight and sharpness. Power, speed and range are self-explanitory, but critical is not. Critical is the chance of killing a zombie in one swing. Certain weapons in the game are maxed out in this stat, meaning they insta-kill a zombie every other swing. This is because Zombies can either be killed by beheading or bisection, which is available to only really heavy or really sharp weapons. Speaking of which, weight is one of those determining factors. Heavy weapons can do massive damage but have a slow speed. Blunt heavy weapons can crush skulls with a single blow, while heavy swords and pole arms can bisect and decapitate with little effort. Sharpness is for lighter weapons, such as the katana, monk spade, naginata and falcata, all who can OHKO zombies depite weighing a maximum of 5 pounds.

Now on to skills. Skills are unique to one's class, but vary depending on whether or not you chose to use a custom class. The custom classes can pick and choose from the presets what kind of skills they want. This has a drawback though. If you pick a custom class your skills don't max out at the same level as the presets. However, this is compensated for being able to choose more skills than the presets have. Several range from faster reloading to damage modifiers which add extra damage or special effects. The most useful skills are those involving building and healing as both are key to surviving. Building skills allow your character to both build and repair shelters and make modifications including turrets and sentry guns. Healing skills often include being able to treat an ally who has been bitten or affected by environmental effects such as cold or heat. As usual, skills don't come cheap and cost SP to use.

Missions
As explained in the tutorial, there are several missions you and your group must partake in. The most basic is the rescue mission. In all four seasons of in-game time you have the oppertunity to search the surrounding area for humans who have managed to survive the Class 3 outbreak. Each individual is monitored on your map along with a countdown timer. This timer shows how long you have until that person dies. The timer isn't based soley on zombie attacks, but the environment as well. In the Summer months, survivors can last indefinately, as they can't freeze to death or be put in situations where their ability to fight back is severely impaired. But, once Autumn arrives, the rules of the game change. The timer is set to approximately one month after September ends, due to the declining temperature and the possibility of mist and fog being more common, which puts them at risk of an ambush. Winter is the worst of it. As soon as December begins the timers start, and you have only one or two weeks at most. With in-game time lasting in minute scale to real time (24 hours scaled to 24 minutes split between morning, day, noon and night), this actually pressures the player into balancing time between rescue and alternate missions as well as when to do them. Beyond juggling missions, the way time passes allows day to turn into night quickly, immediately taking the advantage away from the player and giving it to the zombies, who can spot prey in the dark due to acute sense of smell and hearing.

The next mission type is defense which can occur at any fortified location. The motive is this: zombies have sniffed you out and are calling for reinforcements. Kill them all before the horde becomes too great to handle. After a battle, fortifications will be damaged and need to be repaired. In fact, if you leave a base unattended for too long, zombies will attack and slowly whittle down the defenses until it is overrun. If you intend to explore, the player can assign an ally to base defense. If the character has building and repair skills, then the base can last indefinately without any assistance. Also, those whom you've rescued can defend bases and shelters as well. However, unlike your created allies, there's no guarantee that they will have the skills necessary to repair any damage to the base, as skills are set and spread out amongst surviving characters.

The polar opposite of the base defense is the siege, in which you use all of your resources to invade an area densely populated with zombies. The object is of course to kill every zombie within the designated area and to allow the citizens to once again roam free. These areas, like bases and shelters, become safe havens for you and your crew, but provide more services and can become impenetrable once their defenses are maxed out. Towns and cities can support more people living in them at once and are more than capable of defending the barricades while you're gone. This aspect makes them key points for both shelter and supplies for your bases, making them the best location for supply runs.

Speaking of which, there's the supply run mission in which you must locate an area like a shopping mall or supermarket and create a guarded trail that allows supplies to be delivered to your base at a regular interval. The supplies are what allow the player and CPU allies to repair damage to the base, heal wounds and stay well fed and hydrated. Ignoring this will eventually kill you and your allies, as it's necessary to eat and drink every few hours (if unsure of what times in-game to eat/drink, it should be around the usual time you would in real life: breakfast, lunch and dinner, though drinking often is a necessity during the summer). At certain points in the game, the time your character can last without eating or drinking as well as how much food and water replenishes the gauges will be increased by large amounts.

Finally, there's mop up operations. These missions are random and occur in areas where the zombie population falls below 10 and all the towns and locations have been fortifide. To completely eliminate the threat in the area, you can assemble a team and head out into the surrounding area to kill the remaining ghouls. Once accomplished, regular patrols will be set up to find survivors for you and to kill any zombies from other areas trying to enter.

Environmental Effects
As I may have said before, the environment will be your primary foe. The realism of the survival aspects extends to your character's status in certain conditions. There are, however, some that work in your favor. This will merely be a list and explanation of the effects certain environments have.

Daytime: In general, daytime is the controlled sample in the experiment that is this game. The daytime has no real added conditions on its own, but rather through the compounding additional effects like seasonal differences and weather conditions. Daytime allows full visibility (disregarding weather) and is the best time to fight zombies, who have no advantage over the player in this condition. Daytime is also when zombies aren't hunting as efficiently as they could be, so be sure to say "Hello" to any member of the undead who happens to stray from the group.

Dawn/Dusk: A sort of limbo time. Dawn and Dusk are the shortest times of day but are also one of the most disasterous or advantageous of the times. When the sun begins to set your teammates are stricken with fear as it ushers in the night, when zombies have all the advantages. Dawn has the opposite effect. It boldens your allies as they win an advantage over the zombies, and where the zombie's senses no longer hold you in check.

Nighttime: The most dreadful time. Night strips away the advantage of sight from the player and his/her allies and gives the advantage to the zombies who can still find humans through smell and sound. Nighttime travelling requires a flashlight or any luminescient object capable of illuminating the path ahead. A zombie ambush is to be expected, and feared as a swarm of undead could encircle your group and easily take you out.

Rain: Every once in a while, it will rain. The rain does a few things, it obscures vision up to several feet and can sometime be accompanied by fog, it also cools the air and can drench the player in water, lowering body temp and thus causing cold damage or causing illness. It also slows movement as flooding can occur as a result of the powerful storms.

Mist/Fog: The most dangerous of passive effects. Mist and fog don't damage the player directly, but obscure vision even in the daytime, removing any advantage that they would have had. It's advised NOT to travel in fog.

Snow: Even worse than fog and rain as it combines both together. Snow is a winter exclusive, but it's the most dangerous effect. It not only reduces visibility, but it drops body temperature far greater than rain and is much more likely to cause illness or even death if ill-equipped to handle it. However, zombies are inactive during winter and are therefore unable to ambush you with the lack of visibility.

Hail: This one is simple, it damages the player very little, but it can do wonders against zombies, halting their movement.

Cold: A natural effect of Winter, cold weather can induce sickness and can kill if left exposed to it for too long. However, cold weather freezes zombies solid for the winter and keeps them dormant until the spring.

Heat: A natural effect of Summer, hot weather causes someone to dehydrate at a faster rate than normal. Wearing certain clothing types and standing in shade can of course reduce the effects of heat. Like cold weather, hot weather can kill if left exposed for too long.

Humidity: A dangerous factor for hot weather, humidity can render shade and clothing useless, or anything cooling in nature (breezes, sweat, etc.) impotent.

Terrain

Grasslands/Plains: A basic expanse of land where tall grasses prevail. These lands offer the advantage of open space and nothing else.

Forest/Woods: Thick vegetation common in the Northeast, these areas are both good and bad for fighting zombies as they can conceal you or a zombie. Roads often run through these areas along with the plains.

Mountains: These high areas can prevent zombies from following you. Mountains require too much dexterity for a zombie to be able to scale, let alone walk up a mountain path.

Valley/Gorge: These deep canyon-esque areas are death traps for almost anyone who finds themselves caught within their precincts. Zombies love this type of terrain.

Swamp/Wetland: A zombie hunter's worst nightmare. Swamps and other such areas allow zombies to sink into their watery depths and then rise again to grab an unsuspecting person and drag them under. Swamps are also centers for many poisonous creatures and an overall toxic environment.

Bodies of Water: The best method of travel and one of the safest locations, these areas keep zombies submerged and can keep them from attacking by dragging them along a current. Lakes and the ocean can provide permanent safety from the undead if a house is suspended above it.

Taiga/Tundra: Frozen wastelands found in the mountainous regions. These areas are only during winter and offer the most zombie protection, leaving some zombies exposed for execution via bullet or thrust to the skull.

Seasons

Summer: The starting season, Summer has many advantages. The weather is mainly hot so changing clothing doesn't happen often, and environmental effects aren't as prevalent. Daytime lasts the longest during summer and it also has the shortest nights (11 minutes of daylight to 9 minutes of night). The prolonged time of visibility lends great advantages over the zombie horde, but it doesn't mean that the player is invincible. Zombies are still roaming around in the highest numbers that can be mustered. Though look on the bright side, survivors can be left alone for the entire season until you rescue them.

Autumn: The first equinox, Autumn has equal minutes of day and night, thus making it imperative to manage your time. The temperature shifts in October and November from hot to warm and then to cold. Nights start to become very cold. The visibility is further compromised by the numerous weather effects that plague this time of year, mainly fog and mist. Survivors have less time to survive due to the colder temperatures, but zombie counts start to dwindle.

Winter: The most dangerous season for the player due to the sharp drops in temperature and the long, cold nights. Though no zombies are roaming around, survivors die quicker, lasting from 1 to 2 weeks. Snow and other such weather conditions reduce visibility and can cut an adventure short. This, however, is the best time to be rescuing survivors as you don't need to kill zombies to do so. The weather also renders shelters and bases nigh indestructable as no zombies will besiege them.

Spring: The final season, Spring is like Autumn but in reverse. It starts off cold in March and ends up warm or even hot in May. Zombies are slightly more than Winter, but not as plentiful as in Autumn. Survivors have a better chance of surviving towards the end of May, but early on have about the same chance they do in Winter.

Necessities

Sleep: One of the three most important aspects of surviving. Sleep is needed to both keep your character sane and healthy. You can sleep at any time, regardless of day or night. The amount of time sleeping can also be set. By taking "power naps" you can extend your productivity and stave off any health risks. In the event that you don't get enough sleep, your character can get sick and will start to hallucinate or even fall asleep for no apparent reason, waking up at a random time. This can spell doom since it leaves the player not only vulnerable to the zombies, but to the elements as well.

Food: An obvious necessity. Food replenishes energy (including water in small doses) and keeps the character in max condition. If neglected, stats drop temporarily, though it can also lead to death if ignored for too long. However, eating too much can also make the player sluggish and not as responsive, so eating enough to max out is all that's needed.

Water: The most basic and important necessity. Water plays a part not only in performance, but for survival in hot weather, where energy and water is sucked away fast. If ignored, it has similar consequences as food, but not the same for when indulging.

Sex: Sex is completely optional, and is based on the character's sexuality and that of those around the player. Sex is done off screen, but is referenced to with moaning and accompanying noises. Once done, any effects like fear or stress that affect the character mentally are erased and the character is thus immune to any further effects. However, this is coupled with not being able to use adrenaline or other boost skills in combat.

Weapon Customization

Anything goes in this world, so being able to combat the undead at a moment's notice is a good skill to have. You can take any existing weapon and outfit it with bonus items like a taser or oil for flammability. These kinds of customizations add bonus damage to weaponry that can't be achieved normally without high level skills. Some of these customizations are grounded in realism like the rest of the world around you, while others are in for pure amusement, like the black-hole round for guns or the earthsplitter for blunt weapons or the ever wonderful South Star Special for blades. Customization requires no skill or special location. All you need are the two items you wish to combine.

Skill List

Construction: Able to construct various structures, offensive, defensive and otherwise like forts, shelters, sentries and walls along with vehicles. (Available to Engineer class)

Cure: Able heal injuries and special afflictions. (Available to Medic class)

Forge/Manufacture: Able to create weaponry and ammunition. (Available to Engineer class)

Med Kit: Able to create medical supplies that can be carried in the individual group member's inventories. (Available to Medic class)

[to be continued]

Edited by Omega, Jul 4 2011, 09:51 PM.
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Black Golem
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With neither Will alone nor Strength alone
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There's a reason i avoided that, and thats that this all matters on what a person perceives as the "Ultimate Zombie" experience....

some might think this realism and the feeling of been outnumbered where your chance of living is slim. Others might want ultimate freedom where everything can be used as a weapon to help them fend off Zombies, some might prefer to have Zombies be easy to kill and just have fun mowing down tons of undead. Some might want an inevitable death and a feeling of slowly been overwhelmed like what Nazi Zombies offers others will want to "win". Some people like the old slow shuffling Zombies and the suspense they can give, while others prefer the fast paced panic caused by running Zombies some want both.

Ultimately you need to tie down what you want the game to be, if its going to be about survival do you pick teamwork or loner, realism or fun, suspense or panic, liner route to safety or open world... can you even win the game or is it just to see how long you can stay alive.

my own opinion? I like all kinds (Except open worlds, hate them in any game), the old Resi's had great atmosphere that I'll never forget, Outbreak added a sense of urgency with the virus bar, Nazi Zombies does the feeling of slowly (or quickly lol) been overwhelmed by numbers, it also strikes a nice blance between been able to mow down zombies, always fun, and there numbers overwhelming you . but a game that tried to do everything would just end up a muddled mess
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http://zeiksanimereviews.wordpress.com/ Current Watch though and review: G Gundam/Macross 7/CG Akito the Exiled /Jojos Bizarre Adventure
"I, too, am a true Gundam Dynasty Warrior!" - Kira Yamato
"I will fight with this sword! Knight Gundam, Launch!" - Kira Yamato
"I've finally come to understand what I'm really fighting for." - Kira Yamato
"if theres a hole a guys just got to be ready to thrust into it!" - Ryoma
"Beyond the beaten path lies the ultimate end. It matters not who you are...Death awaits you." - Nyx
"No one's going to decide my future. No matter how hard, I'll choose it myself!" - Kira Yamato
"If a god gets in our way, he gets cut down! If a devil gets in our way, he gets shot up!" -Ken and Ryo
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Omega
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Master of The World
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Yet I expressly asked for your opinions, not a thesis on the state of the world in terms of zombie games. I know what the world thinks already, but what would you consider your perfect zombie game that was tailored to your likes and dislikes but still worked well. That was my question. What would you like to see more in games involving zombies, etc.
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