Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Game Discussion => Early Dev => Topic started by: roguedjack on June 05, 2010, 06:30:41 PM
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Rogue Survivor
alpha 3.2
More fun, less hassle.
Theme & Setting
Graphical zombie apocalypse urban survival game.
Screenshots & Videos
Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/roguedjack (http://www.youtube.com/user/roguedjack).
Blog: http://http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com (http://http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com)
Environment
Windows, .NET and DirectX.
Don't be afraid of ".NET and DirectX". If you have Windows, you probably already have those installed.
Game Objective
Survive as long as you can and score points.
Features
(In bold new since last major version)
USER INTERFACE
- Redefine Keys.
- Game Options : customize game difficulty and size.
- Game Manual in game.
- Take screenshots in game.
- Scoring with difficulty rating.
- Post Mortem files to share your death with others.
- 9 Musics.
- Resizable game window : play in any desktop resolution.
GAMEPLAY
- Your goal : survive until tomorrow.
- Character creation.
- Undeads and Livings.
- Different AIs abilities and behaviors, watch them fool around.
- The undead menace gets stronger day by day.
- Weather.
- Night & Day cycle.
- Skills, level up each morning.
- Trade with people.
- Lead a party of Followers and send them directives and orders.
- Run or Fight.
- Stamina, Hunger and Sleep.
- Make or break barricades.
- Break stuff for wood.
- Push objects around for mobile barricading.
- Guns and Bows.
- Shoot through windows and glass doors.
- Cops.
- The National Guard.
- The mysterious CHAR Corporation.
- And some more baddies...
- City divided in Districts.
- Different Buildings : Houses, Shops, Offices and Parks.
- District Simulation : stuff happened when you were elsewhere.
- Tag the City with your victory symbol.
- Keep track of your Followers with a Cell Phone.
Download & Requierements
Alpha 3.21
<new version up, please see the Alpha 4 thread>
If you have problems, follow the technical help provided in the readme.
Instructions
readme.txt provided.
Remember to uninstall your previous version first!
Readme
ROGUE SURVIVOR
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> INSTALL
- Uninstall all previous versions.
- Run "rs setup.exe" to install the game.
- Launch via the desktop shortcut or the start menu.
- When you first run the game it will create a Rogue Survivor folder in your documents folder.
Typically on Windows XP:
"My Documents\Rogue Survivor\<game version>\"
This folder will contains your saves, grave files, screenshots, configuration and manual.
> UNINSTALL
- To uninstall the game, launch "uninstall" from the start menu.
- You can then delete your Rogue Survivor game folder created during installation.
> PROBLEM : GAME DOESN'T START OR CRASHES EARLY!
If the game doesn't start or crash when you start a new game try the following steps one by one.
Restart your computer after each install.
1. Update your DirectX installation.
Download "DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer" from Microsoft here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en
2. Update your .NET Framework.
Download ".NET Compact Framework 3.5 Redistributable" from Microsoft there:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e3821449-3c6b-42f1-9fd9-0041345b3385&displaylang=en
3. Update your .NET Frmakework part 2.
Download "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1" from Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=AB99342F-5D1A-413D-8319-81DA479AB0D7&displaylang=en
4. Update your graphics card drivers.
> PROBLEM : I WAS AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER AND THE GAME CRASHED!
Disable your screensaver.
> OTHER BUGS
If you tried the previous solution the game still crashes it should show you a game log.
Please follow the instructions and send the log to the email below.
You can also send the last save file.
You can also contact me if you think you spotted a bug that didn't crash your game.
> CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS VERSION
Check the readme in the docs folder of your game installation for a detailled list of changes.
> FAQ
Game FAQ and other infos available the blog:
http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/
> CONTACT
roguedjack@yahoo.fr
> CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS VERSION
ALPHA 3.21 CHANGES
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FIXED BUGS
- Bunch of random player skills upgrade. Nice but not intended.
ALPHA 3.2 CHANGES
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Bug/exploits fixes, gameplay and balance, noticeable AI improvements for acceptable CPU cost.
FIXED BUGS
- Crash: Giving stackable items would crash the game in certain situations.
- Crash: CHAR Guard AI attempting Shout action while they weren't allowed to.
- Crash: Attempt to fix DirectX error D3DERR_DEVICELOST. A stab in the dark since I can't test the fix myself, tell me if it works.
- Correct difficulty rating in post mortem and hi scores.
- AI considered only the top item in item stacks.
- AI wasn't switching weapon when out of ammo and no reload available.
- AI now resets directives and orders when has no leader.
- AI sensors memory incorrectly used global game time rather than local map time (this affected simulation only).
- Sleeping now illegal if not enough sleep points spent (fixes exploit).
- Equipping an item with batteries now spend one energy unit as you turn it on (fixes exploit).
- Trackers out of batteries were still working.
GAMEPLAY
Followers
- Choose the upgrading skills for your followers.
- New order : Drop all items.
NPCs
- Civilians & Police have a 75% chance to upgrade on mornings on their own (player followers have 100% chance).
Food
- Food has a best-before date, nutrition value is divided by 3 when expired.
- Eating expired food can cause vomitting.
- Army rations no more stackable, but they last longer that groceries.
Dying
- Dead people don't drop all their items, some can be destroyed.
Items
- Dropping an useless item (tracker or light out of batteries) discard it (destroy it).
- Items with batteries are not automatically equipped.
- Ranged weapons can jam when you fire. <insert curses here>.
Undeads
- Undeads level progression back to 3.0 rate (faster).
- Invasion event will progressively spawn hi level undeads (if undead evolution option enabled).
- Zombie Lords now assault breakables too (like Neophytes and Disciples already do).
- Zombie Lords and Disciples will not appear before Day 7.
- Scents life time increased A LOT - Zombies will chase living a lot longer.
- Some undeads smell distance increased.
Breaking
- Breaking fences drop planks.
- Breaking stronger objects drop more planks.
Firing
- Firing accuracy penalty is now given if tired (big penalty) or stamina bar not full (light penalty) (was if running).
Other Bad Guys
- Rebalanced "those guys".
- 2 new items carried by "those guys", one of them is very useful against them.
- Can find two special items in CHAR Offices if lucky (one new, one old). Good reason to visit them.
National Guards
- National Guard leaders now bring one special item after a certain time (was previously carried by "those guys").
- National Guard only comes before Day 10 - no National Guard after that.
- National Guard squad size reduced.
INTERFACE & MANUAL
- New actors icon when they have 3h or less left before becoming hungry/sleepy (green icons).
- Expired food has an icon in inventories.
- Removed cheat keys. Sorry guys.
- Changed some messages.
- Updated manual.
GRAPHICS & MUSIC
- A couple of new graphics (items, icons).
OPTIONS
- Increased default Starving Zombification.
- Increased default Invasion Daily Increase.
AI
- Several specific CivilianAI improvements :
- New : Close door/window behind them.
- New : Close doors and barricade windows near them before going to sleep.
- New : Map exploration.
- Mod : Trade only for interesting items, but will still trade anything with the leader.
- Restricted use of flashlights (again).
- Improved Firing logic when in contact with enemy.
- Fleeing AI try to close/barricade door/window between them and the enemy.
- Fleeing followers prefer to flee toward leader.
- NPCs leveling up try to choose usefull skills (they still have to choose from 3 random skills like you).
- AI only interested in ammo items compatible with carried weapons.
- AI only interested in expired food if lacking food.
- AI will use blue pills more often.
- CharGuardAI and SoldierAI now use Fight or Flee logic (less stupid melee deaths).
- Soldiers and Gangs explore the map too.
- All undeads -except Skeletons- explore the map.
Have fun!
And remember, die with a smile!
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Man this version is so much harder... I'm loving it.
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Hello !
I am trying right now your game. It looks interresting!
Ah! I can't resist to make some suggestiond already... I dream to play a game with a zombie Outbreak starting from day 1: At first there are just a few infected, and mostly civilians. As the infection grows there is the panick in the street, the shops being sacked. And slowly survivors are getting organised, better equiped. The zombie change from fresh corpse to older more decaying one...
I have made a spreasheat about zombie outbreak simulation with some of these ideas. You might have fun playing with. And who knows, it might be a source for inspiration !
http://www.flap.fr/grenier/ZombieSpreadsheet.zip
Well, I stop commenting something I don't know yet, and will spend more time on your game now.
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That's quite tough!
Ok, here are a few quick suggestions that might have been made already:
So far there is only order for barricading.It would ne nice to ask the guys to do a few more things:
- Close the door/window
- attack that zombie
- break that object
- follow me
But I guess that these sort of things were already planned...
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Thanks for the suggestions.
Yes more orders along those lines will come later.
For now I'm mostly interested if the interface for giving orders is good enough or annoying as hell. ;D
As for dificulty it is hard indeed. I'm adding more options to control difficulty (zombification rate), plus features to swing the balance back on the livings side a bit, especially for the player (traps and alarms, loud noises wakes you up etc...)
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In terms of interface, what I have seen so far seems okay. Maybe you could skip the question on who you give the order to when you have only one follower.
There another more common thing that I found annoying: when you are too tired to break something you can still start the mode, but are told that you can't do the action once you choose the direction.
Maybe before opening a mode, there should a check that at least one solution is possible...
Also once you are told that you are too tired to do the action, you still are in the break mode and have to leave manually.
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The new version is awesome.
Actually its THE zombie game that many people were waiting for and its so good, that people started to be really enthusiastic and are suggesting things like crafting, farming on city outskirts, persistent world (like dwarf fortress) and similar stuff. It would be great if you would somehow describe some kind of plan or vision for this project. How far are you planing to go with this? And last but not least, is there a way to support you? (Other than to say that you're doing great.) :)
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Another annoying thing:
I used the left clik instead of the right to drop 4 bags of food. So I basically ate all of them! (and lost them).
Of you are already full the action should maybe be aborted with a warning message...
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Ok, I have played a bit more with the order system. Here are some impressions and suggestions:
- I confirm that I find that there are too many key presses before the order is given. What I would suggest:
-- Skip the followers list if you have only one
-- I guess that we will used "Give orders" 10 times more often than "set directives". So once the follower has been choosen go straight to the "Give orders" screen. Among the orders, "Set directives" is one of the options.
This way, 2 key presses will be avoided most of the time. (Because I don't expect that many characters to survive long enough to have more than 1 followers..)
- I don't really like having to move my hands from the keyboard to the mouse. So maybe include an option to point to the order target by moving a cursor which starts from the follower. (actully, I was the same problem with dropping and taking objects. Maybe "Shift-number" and "ctrl-number" would be good perfrom these actions...)
- With the orders too, there is that slightly annoying issue: it is possible to go in the barricading mode even if the follower has no material. When he tells you that he can't perform the action, we stay in the barricading mode. If we don't wan't to do the test before, we shoudl at least leave the mode after...
That's it for now.
I quite like the game!
Maybe some human corpses now and then and zombies eating them would be a cool addition...
I saw you mentioning some potential scripted encounters cheating the full AI district generation. Yes! I think that it would be fun.
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<useful ui suggestions>
Thanks for the feedback, good ideas that improve the ui with little coding to do, I like that ;D
The new version is awesome.
Actually its THE zombie game that many people were waiting for and its so good, that people started to be really enthusiastic and are suggesting things like crafting, farming on city outskirts, persistent world (like dwarf fortress) and similar stuff. It would be great if you would somehow describe some kind of plan or vision for this project. How far are you planing to go with this?
Next version. Then the next one. Repeat. :D
More seriously, it will basically just stay that : a quite-simple-but-fun open-ended zombie apocalypse survival game.
I won't make a dwarf-fortress-with-zombies, an ultimate survival game with civilizaton rebuilding and sexual reproduction :-* or a fully fledged rpg.
Little by little I'll add features to enrich the gameplay, and develop on features already there.
When I think alll the major features are done it will go beta.
To give an idea, feature I plan to add in next major version (say alpha 4) are :
- more than one map per districts : sewers and undergrounds.
- uniques NPCs, heroes or vilains, with better AI and interaction than average npcs.
May sounds little but its quite a lot of work.
In the next minor version (say alpha 3.1):
- ammo.
- traps and alarms.
- loud noises can wake nearby sleepers (already implemented).
- more useful followers -yeah I know its a never ending improvement quest- : stand guard, patrol the house, give me your stuff etc...
- better difficulty control (zombification rate option, already implemented).
Of course this could change if I find something more urgent to add, fix or balance etc...
And last but not least, is there a way to support you? (Other than to say that you're doing great.) :)
Feedback on stuff I can fix/improve/add relatively easily with good value for the player :
- Bugs reports. I hate when it crashes on people face. >:(
- UI improvement suggestions for features already there, like flap did.
- Balancing problems : this or that is too hard/too easy/useless/too powerful.
- Content suggestion : new items, actors, buildings...
I also love reading people short aars and see what strategy or tactics they use, discussion between players...
Serves as indirect feedback plus its fun seeing my little creation alive and people having actual fun -or not- :)
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Personally I'd stay away from any scripted encounters, I've always felt roguelikes should be near totally random -its so much more fun when something cool happens.
Regardless I have one minor suggestion: The ability to mark locations on the mini-map.
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Marking the location on the minimap is there already. You need to paint it. Paint spray can be found in parks.
Regarding scripted events, it depends what you consider as atmosphere breaking. For example changing the maze generation to include a specific vault is quite common in roguelikes, and is kind of script taking over for a while. Scripts do not have to be fixed things, but can include a lot of randomness. It could be considered as a way to help AI creating some interresting situation...
@roguedjack : Thanks! I am pleased that it helps. Ah, with time I have finally learned to refrain making huge suggestions... It is hard to resist!
Edit: Aargh, actually I can't resist... But yes I agree that a good road for improvement is more the addition of tiny fun stuff that huge complicated systems. I fell that you are more on the track of "survival crisis Z" (a zombie game, full of quick funny things. All of them are rather simple. But put together it makes something quite rich with most features quickly accessible if you know how to get them) than Dwarf fortress. So, well the suggestion is to add funny little things adding flavor : I mentioned the human corpses being eaten by nearby zombies. There could other survivors shouting something once a while, mother with babies... For example human with the same name might like to stick together (such as a familly), and then complain when then lost or a being chased by a friend or a relative. (For familly, we just need to check the last name. For friends, when a character is being generated, he could be linked to a few others...)
Actually what I thought about orders, it whether there could not be another type of interraction, such as "suggestion" to any human. The interface would be the same as orders, but the list would display every humans in FOV (with an option to shout to everybody?). And you could give basically give the same orders as to followers. However there is even less garanty that they would do it. Also they would not follow you. It is like temporaly teaming with someone in the same room as you to survive one fight, but with no guaranty that both lads will stick together after that.
Ok, this suggestion might not be very complicated (It is just a second list applied to an existing system. With one more test: will I do it or not), but now I am getting a bit annoying: it could the other humans who propose you, or the others in their FOV, to help them doing what they are doing. It could be simple. If they are fleing something, they could shout "be carefull, there is a zombie there". If they are baricading "Can you help me close that room", if they are fighting "lets kill that bastard..." and so on.
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I miss to wake up during the sleep, sometimes i don't want to sleep till my sleep bar is full. Could you bring it back or better make it optional? Or having a mobile phone to set alarm to wake you up?
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I had lots of fun with this new version (though i never played the previous ones, having only discovered this yesterday), thank you a lot for releasing this awesome game.
My only suggestion would be to release the game in 2 format, the installer like currently and a no installer version for those that worry about installer being messed up.
Some people may not play with this superb roguelike because of the lack of a no installer version.
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Hello I have been following this game from Alpha 2 and even signed up for your blog. I think it great but there could be some nice improvements. I just registered to Roguetemple just to give some insight into Rogue Survivor
Some ideas I had are:
Some sort of clock that can ring to wake you up. You can set when you want it to ring and if you are sleeping when it rings you wake up. It could have a battery so it has a certain amount of rings before it's out. I would imagine it to be pretty common.
Power plugs: Being able to recharge items using a charger or something that needs to be near a Power plug located in a building. It would be useful to recharge flashlights and other electric items.
Eco-flashlight: A flash light that you can spend a turn to turn the crank to charge it a certain amount. Could be very nice.
Being able to get skills up to level 5.
Some sort of way to get food, maybe farming or something
Being able to cut down trees in the parks: Cutting down a tree could give you some wood. It could take a axe or hatchet weapon and use the break "k" command.
Being able to repair different objects
Being able to make walls or push-able objects that block things from being in the same tile as them.
Making different objects like closets have more uses like keeping items safe, maybe even add a lock item you can find in the hardware store to be able to put on the closet so other survivors can't take your stuff.
Being able to make beds or at least bringing objects through broken windows.
Here is just some suggestions/additions that I think would make the game funner. Maybe put in a option to turn off the infinite food, flashlight, energy things (government found no use to power the infected city) because some of these things would make the game a lot easier.
Also maybe in the far future the choice to play as a member of the national guard or even a zombie that kills humans and tries to control the city by making minions and getting the other undead to follow him.
I hope some of these give you inspiration or something.
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Do you have plans for any additional locations Roguedjack? Like sewers or subways? That would be cool.
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Do you have plans for any additional locations Roguedjack? Like sewers or subways? That would be cool.
Great minds like alike, see my Reply#9 in this thread 8)
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I'll redo the installer.
I added a Game FAQ on my blog.
Don't worry if I don't reply to everyone, I read the suggestions and comments :-*, but its taking too much time for individual answers, time away from actual programming :P
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Alpha 3.1 is out. ;D
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Goddamn char guards! I just heard a bunch of motorcycles and then he shot me... Maybe it was deserved I did break down his barricade and let in about five zombies.
Loving the new music by the way.
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I have been enjoying your game for a few days now, difficult but not too difficult. However, and I know you are aware of this, the exception caused by the "illegal" shout action is driving me crazy. It's ruined 3 of my best games by unexpectedly appearing.
If you want to know where it comes from, I think it's caused by a sleeping CHAR Guard, at least that is where it has happened for me 2 of the 3 times. Just as a I break into the CHAR offices and the Guard is sleeping (it shows in the chat that he shouted "HEY YOU!" at me but clearly he has a blue Z over his head.
In addition, I have been working on some graphics - far from done and really they were just to wet my appetite because - and no offence intended - the default graphics are a bit ugly. My graphics haven't turned out "great" but with the limited number of tiles I think I did a half decent job of it.
(http://imgur.com/SeOPo.png)
A few pictures taken, features the "RIP" replacement (it's meant to be blood, it's a shame that it's also used for things like doors but I think the sacrifice of bleeding doors is just fine ;D), posters are all new and much better in my opinion, walls, floors and doors are all redone. There are a few other things like followers now have a green glow below their feet instead of a blue square around them, CHAR Offices have new walls/symbols (the symbol is the same but the tile is redone) and floors (minor modification, checkered floors). I'm planning to redo the characters with a different design style and obviously finish up the rest of the graphics...
[Somehow this post was redirected to the wrong topic, weird huh, anyway it's in it's rightful home now]
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I have been enjoying your game for a few days now, difficult but not too difficult. However, and I know you are aware of this, the exception caused by the "illegal" shout action is driving me crazy. It's ruined 3 of my best games by unexpectedly appearing.
If you want to know where it comes from, I think it's caused by a sleeping CHAR Guard, at least that is where it has happened for me 2 of the 3 times. Just as a I break into the CHAR offices and the Guard is sleeping (it shows in the chat that he shouted "HEY YOU!" at me but clearly he has a blue Z over his head.
Sorry about that. I know where it comes from and it is fixed in 3.2.
In addition, I have been working on some graphics - far from done and really they were just to wet my appetite because - and no offence intended - the default graphics are a bit ugly. My graphics haven't turned out "great" but with the limited number of tiles I think I did a half decent job of it.
No offence taken, my graphics skills are terrible thats why graphics are moddable ;D
I'll add a mod section on the blog with links to user graphics mods. Once you have yours finalized feel free to send a link.
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I will, I'm just in the process of designing all the character clothes/details. Oh, you should probably look at your blog comments about the bug fixes. I left a comment about a crash bug.
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Hi,
so I my brother just told me about this new cool Game he found and let me play it for a while, unfortunately he alredy uses the save Slot, but we still have this slow beatdown pc that still can handle those Games, that don't solely rely on their Graphics. Lucky me.
First a little fun Story, that happened to me, but you can also skip down to the part with things I thought about. Me having build up a Base in a Shop, it was still early in the Game so I wasn't that strong and had only few things. So I set out to find some Stuff, while exploring found a Girl sleeping in a barely baricaded house, so I waited to invite her into my group with the leadership skill i just learned after she would wake up. Suddenly some Zombies storm the house, so she wakes up from the noise and together we break through the Window and Run like hell. After we lost the Creatures I checked why she couldn't run that fast, she was close to starving and very tired, so I decided to quit exploring for the day bring her to my Base, while on the way I found a Hammer and Bullets for my empty Pistol. We walked past some broken Cars and around the Corner to the Entry but what stood there, one of those Zombie Masters and I wasn't sure if I could beat him. We went around the house, hoping to lure him away so we could enter my Base and regain our Strength. At first it worked, but we soon lost sight of him and hurried on. On our Way some more Zombies spotted us and we ran for our lives. As soon as the Entry to my Base was in sight we also saw the Zombie Master who seemed to have walked back there to wait for us (smart bas####). We had to continue on the Street. Luckily I saw another Store, I ran ahead and prepared to barricade the Door. The Girl didn't come, so I went outside, to see she passed me and kept running and entered another house by the Window while I shot the Creatures to take their attention. I hurried inside my improvised second base and barricaded it behind me. While the Zombies broke through I shot a Magazine at them and then I smashed those that came to close with the Hammer. Finally safe Again I went outside to look for the Girl, but to my surprise a torn body that barely resembled her crawled out of the Window she went in before. Terrified I went back inside and Barricaded the only Door again, hoping I would be left alone, but like I would be responsible for her death she haunted me and broke with some Zombie friends my barricades. The others went down struck by my bullets, but my formerly companyon like a last survivor like I was wouldn't go down so easily. I fought with myself as I was left with an empty Gun and just the Hammer in my Hand, could I really do this, maybe this was really my fault? The Moonlight fell through the open entry as I sunk blood covered down into a Corner. Not my Blood, but what had I done. I had to survive and defeat this Infection, not knowing that I cant win.
I pepped the story a bit up^^
My Thoughts while Playing:
"Go to Order". If there isn't already and I'm just too blind to find it maybe there could be a "Go To" Order be added, because while Playing I had a safe Place where we could loose our followers but my companion preferred to run around and get killed in the end.
"Give Me ** ". Again, if I'm not just blind^^. Even if it wasn't intentional it is very realistic, that you cant just take everything from others, but if I pump someone full with stuff I'd like to be given things I need and not just trade it.
"More Floors". I know you want to add Subways and such but my brother and me also would like Buildings to have more than one floor. For more Realistic and Fun situations like "you entered a Building and it looks save, barricade all Windows and Doors but then one of those strong Zombies crawls down the Stairs and you have to break out and flee or attack the Monster".
more to come^^.
Sorry if I'm writing too much but you have to know, some days ago I bought some new Games from the store but somehow I prefer to play yours over those ;D.
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It's funny. I told my friend a year ago about this awesome idea I had about a roguelike zombie game. Then I see that you've come along and basically made my dream come true (bows before such genius).
The couple of things i would like to see would be the ability to not just mark a home base, but let followers know *This is home* if they can't get in they should hang around out front or call you.
Another thing i could think of would be "unique" buildings based on amount of Districts allowed in the city: A police station and doctors office in small cities (I know there's a drug store, but if later we can build traps having some bloodbags from hospitals and the like could come in handy) to things like Prisons, Full sized hospitals, army base in larger cities. (maybe even a gas station oh please, please, please!)
As for things like sewers and sub-ways the only thing that i could think of is to either have the sewer unmap-able or to rotate the map each time you enter or some such fiendish method to make it more difficult.
I love the fact that the cars themselves serve as a tacticle part of how you move, but it would be great if a burning car could provide a light source (probably just a small bonus) or standing on top of cars increase FoV (not sure if this is already implemented)
Basic hostiles suggestion would be to allow certain enemies to push objects such as a wall of shelves cutting a building in half. If the NPC is clever enough it should recognize this and possibly want to see whats on the other side. This ones not really important in my dream-list but might as well throw it on the pile.
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Some advanced ammo management would be cool, like unloading guns and combining half-empty ammo boxes.
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The ammo combine is already present. Lets say you have 12 handgun bullets and pick up a box of six it will make a box of 18. Then you pick up a box of 20, the game adds the two to the first box you have and makes a new box of the left overs (which by the way would be the 18 anyway.)
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Hey guys, sup author-dude. Just dropping by with some remarks, critiques, and what have you.
First off, this game is fun. I really like where it's going, and I've enjoyed it for hours and hours already, but there's a problem. I'm the goddamn Juggernaut. The only thing that can kill me, it seems, is a crafty Black-Ops man with an army rifle. In my current game I've survived more than fifty days, have stockpiled an additional twenty or so days worth of food, I've raided one C.H.A.R. office already (with the help of zombies anyway) and I have army rifle ammo and medical supplies coming out of my ears. I can do this with some routine, and after you overcome the learning curve it seems pretty easy to make it this long even without followers. So, believe it or not... I think the game is actually too easy. Maybe I'm missing something. I tend to scour the districts I'm in and play cautiously, but the enemies and what have you don't seem terribly aggressive, and grizzled 57-day World-War-Z veteran Bob McGready is finally getting bored with smashing zombie skulls with a huge hammer. If you can ever become bored with such a thing.
So, I'll admit that my play hasn't been terribly exhaustive, but after looking at the game assets I can say that I've uncovered most of what the game has to offer. Some of the harder enemies have yet to appear in large numbers, but even Disciples are easy pickings. I remain enthusiastic that I'll discover and be mauled by new and terrifying foes (that don't use guns) as I continue my quest to survive for a whole year straight, but my interest is beginning to shift toward every gamer's favorite meta-game: plugging the developer with countless banal suggestions!
1. Zombies are supposed to be dumb, sure, but these guys are way dumb. Ol' Bob McGready can hide out in his boarded up apartment for weeks without a zombie incursion. I recommend using a cellular automaton to govern the presence of scents in the game. The longer you linger in one space, the further your scent spreads until it reaches equilibrium with the rate of scent decay. Here's a diagram.
(http://i47.tinypic.com/2s8smfb.png)
If scents decay slowly, staying in one spot will quickly produce a lingering cloud of 'you' around wherever you're hiding, especially if scent decay effects from rain only affect the outdoors. Due to the small size of the grid's data (you'd probably be working with a 2-D array of lists or something containing each actor's UID and how much of their stench is present) it shouldn't bog down the game too awfully bad. If a zombie steps into a tile that has scents, they should begin their usual tracking behavior, and try and track their prey through barricades. The result is that hiding in one spot is likely to attract zombies, eventually. Staying still in a fortified location should still work (and work well if you know what you're doing) but the increased likelihood of being detected would make things much more exciting.
2. An option to build free standing barricades could be nice, but it should require more wood than barricading a door or window. (Fully barricading a door requires about three pieces of wood. A free standing barricade should take at least six to finish.) This would allow you to replace doorways in the absence of furniture or to erect choke points in the streets, but it would be an expensive process.
3. One exceptionally reliable method I have found for disposing of zombies in a risk-free manner is to wait until they come within melee range, hit them, and step backward. They can't attack me, usually. While zombies can't and shouldn't run, short lunges (if the zombie actors have a stamina meter, they could wear out within a couple turns) would make this nearly game-breaking strategy impossible. Maybe you could just reserve it for fresh zombies that are still a little limber.
4. This is a more technical complaint. The game should employ an icon for items that are in your inventory or on the ground which is separate from the decorations used by the actors. (If this is already true and I've just missed it, I'm sorry.) I was working on a sweet ZX Spectrum style graphical overhaul when I realized it might make the actors look all kinds of stupid.
(http://i46.tinypic.com/33wbg5k.png)
I read in the development notes that more extensive modding is going to be supported in the future, so I'm not too antsy about this. It'd just be nice if it were easier to tell the difference between items laying on the ground. If piles of items either had a corner icon indicating that there's a pile there or blinked between the various items laying on the same tile, that'd be fantastic too. Right now it takes a trained (and strained) eye to make out a few of the various bits and pieces. (For blinking tiles, they could blink over pieces of furniture they're stored on as well.)
5. I haven't noticed any of the zombified soldiers wearing their old gear. That should change. Armored zombies that take more hits would be a real treat. (Of course, when they mutate they should shed their armor in the process. That could get a little ridiculous.)
6. Lastly, sneaking! Zombies supposedly don't breathe, usually don't move too fast, and what about those crafty special agents that keep blowing my brains out? (And what about those of us who would rather avoid them?) Being able to sneak around and avoid spot-checks by other actors would make surviving certain encounters which are decidedly not weighted in the player's favor (Black-Ops tend to kill me instantly upon revealing them) more possible, and also make ambushes from the undead rank and file possible, especially in the dark. (Since zombies are guided by smell, sneaking around should have no effect on them!)
I'd also like to second the suggestions of unloading guns (Doom RL does this nicely) and maybe adding a little bit more variety to the items found in-game. And I'd love to pick your brain some time, this is a delightful project that many people have clearly been waiting a long time for.
Oh and, by the way... Why don't burning cars ever go out?
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Oh, by the way, something strange that just happened with my game.
I rescued a soldier from a near-fatal zombie attack who, in spite of having a loaded weapon and ammunition in his inventory, would not fight back. He was out of stamina, also.
The abundance of fully loaded army pistols and ammo, and completely empty army rifles tells me something goofy is happening here. Can NPC actors change weapons yet?
(Edit:)
Upon further inspection, it doesn't seem that soldiers know how to retreat, either. Upon becoming exhausted, they'll stand defenseless and allow themselves to be killed.
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Thanks for the comments.
Hey guys, sup author-dude. Just dropping by with some remarks, critiques, and what have you.
First off, this game is fun. I really like where it's going, and I've enjoyed it for hours and hours already, but there's a problem. I'm the goddamn Juggernaut.
Start a new game with increased difficulty. ;D
But yes 3.1 is too easy. 3.2 will be a bit harder.
There will be more stuff going on in later versions.
1. Zombies are supposed to be dumb, sure, but these guys are way dumb. Ol' Bob McGready can hide out in his boarded up apartment for weeks without a zombie incursion. I recommend using a cellular automaton to govern the presence of scents in the game. The longer you linger in one space, the further your scent spreads until it reaches equilibrium with the rate of scent decay. Here's a diagram.
Already implemented scent spreading, but it ate way too much CPU time for my liking.
2. An option to build free standing barricades could be nice,
You will be able to build makeshift obstacles in later versions.
3. One exceptionally reliable method I have found for disposing of zombies in a risk-free manner is to wait until they come within melee range, hit them, and step backward.
WAD, you are supposed to use your superior speed to your advantage. You are limited by your STA and the tactical situation.
4. This is a more technical complaint. The game should employ an icon for items that are in your inventory or on the ground which is separate from the decorations used by the actors.
Sorry won't happen.
To know what items are on a stack over the mouse over the tile.
5. I haven't noticed any of the zombified soldiers wearing their old gear. That should change. Armored zombies that take more hits would be a real treat. (Of course, when they mutate they should shed their armor in the process. That could get a little ridiculous.)
Not too hot about that.
6. Lastly, sneaking!
Stealth will be added later.
I'd also like to second the suggestions of unloading guns (Doom RL does this nicely) and maybe adding a little bit more variety to the items found in-game.
Unload guns on the enemies ;D
More content will be added.
Oh and, by the way... Why don't burning cars ever go out?
Cause you'll be able to extinguish/light fire in later versions. ;)
Plus it block LOS in streets.
I rescued a soldier from a near-fatal zombie attack who, in spite of having a loaded weapon and ammunition in his inventory, would not fight back. He was out of stamina, also.
The abundance of fully loaded army pistols and ammo, and completely empty army rifles tells me something goofy is happening here. Can NPC actors change weapons yet?
Known bug (see blog).
Upon further inspection, it doesn't seem that soldiers know how to retreat, either. Upon becoming exhausted, they'll stand defenseless and allow themselves to be killed.
Odd, they are courageous but should flee when tired. Will check that.
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Even if you don't employ blinking for stacks of items or anything to that effect, having item icons be separate from the decorations used by actors would greatly improve item visibility. (Games like the tile version of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup implement this, with a separate 'paper doll' for actors and decor and tile icons for items when they're on the ground. It really helps.) I'm assuming that you'll have corpses and blood spatters decay over time, which would also help to clean up the visuals quite a bit.
(http://i50.tinypic.com/2powt8n.png)
Here you can see what I mean. When drawing the world and the inventory side-screen, the game draws from a different stock of images than when it draws the characters.
It's a shame that having scent-tiles spread out chews up too much CPU time. Something else that might be worth considering is to have stationary actors just project a greater 'aggro-range' for zombies if they've been hanging around for too long, or something. That's up to you though, performance is top priority for now.
One other thing that you're probably already aware of: Human actors will not pick up items they're willing to trade for, and rarely seem to eat or sleep. This applies to all living actors regardless of alignment, but actors following somebody will at least sleep more often. (The constant exhaustion does make them easy zombie fodder though!) At some later future date, it would be nice to see other survivors as committed to self-preservation as I am. (By the way, Bob has survived three months into the zombie war. Hooray!)
Great work so far, bro. Keep it up.
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Well, I've been playing 3.1 for a few days and I've had a number of thoughts on features and suggestions. I'm sure many of them you already have planned, some of them you know you won't do anyway and very few will actually be new, but hey, the more feedback the better, right?
So in no particular order, here we go:
Ammo
Ammunition stacks need to be larger. I do understand you probably don't want people to be able to run around carrying hundreds upon hundreds of rounds for their weapons, but some of the numbers feel rather off; two light pistol magazines, for example, occupying the same space/weight as a full bag of groceries, or a shotgun? And for the crossbow and army pistol, the ammo stack size is the same as the weapon's magazine capacity, which makes it just as viable to carry around a bunch of fully loaded weapons as it does to carry a single one with spare ammunition (in fact, more so in the current system, because switching weapons is a free action but reloading is not), a rather counter-intuitive situation! I would suggest that the maximum stack sizes should be a bit improved, and should always at least be larger than the magazine capacity of the weapons they are associated with.
With that in mind I do feel that the ability to unload weapons would be a worthwhile feature. Intuitively speaking you wouldn't want to carry around a pile of heavy guns when you could have a single gun with spare ammo as a more efficient use of space/weight, and nicking the last few rounds from some poor dead sap's magazine to fill your own fits right in with the scavenger feel of the game.
NPC AI (Items)
I am aware you don't want to go into great complexity when it comes to the AI of actors, in order to keep the game running smoothly, but as it stands they are astoundingly bad at item prioritisation and inventory management. As far as I can tell, the AI will *never* drop an item, which I assume is why they always leave an inventory slot free if left to their own devices, in order to pick up food when hungry; I haven't tested to see if a hungry NPC with a full inventory will ditch something in order to pick up food, but I have the impression that they won't. What I'd suggest would be a simple prioritisation system, where each item has a default priority, and the priority as perceived by an NPC dependent on their circumstances and inventory. So, for example, an injured NPC will place a higher priority on medkits and bandages, an NPC that is in possession of a specific weapon will place a higher priority on ammunition for that weapon, and so on. Then, when the NPC is wandering around as it does, if it sees an item with a higher priority than one it already has in its inventory, it will go to it, drop the lower priority item, and pick up the higher one. Ammo for a weapon the NPC does not possess should probably have the lowest priority; food would obviously have a high priority, with medical supplies and weapons a close second; duplicates of items the NPC already has should be considered at a lower priority. Say, a bag of groceries could have a default priority of 7 (9 if NPC is hungry); if the NPC already has a bag of groceries, all other bags of groceries could be at priority 6, including iteratively through the NPC's inventory (so the second bag it has is 6, and the third 5, and the fourth 4, and so on). Clever assignment of default values (and a good set of conditional adjustments) will produce NPCs that, when possible, will sensibly choose which items to pick up and which to discard, never obsessively prioritising one type of item (like food) above everything else thanks to diminishing priority for duplicates, trying to keep a balanced inventory including food, medical supplies, weapons, and appropriate ammo.
This is computationally quite simple as well; you can easily store what the NPC's priority is for each slot in its inventory and the values only need to be recalculated when the inventory changes or the NPC's status does (becoming injured, hungry, or tired). The system could also be used to more sensibly inform an NPC's choices on what they would like to trade for what.
Pushing Things
Please make it so that we can push objects through open doorways. I guess ultimately this one doesn't make a great deal of difference, but it gets kind of frustrating when you have to smash open every doorway between you and your intended destination to get a bed to your base, and can be quite annoying if you've found a particularly sturdy door you'd like to barricade yourself behind, but you'd be forced to destroy it entirely to get a bed in there.
Barricading and Construction
The ability to barricade is very nice, but rather limited at the moment. I feel an improvement would be making different smashable items produce different amounts of wood; so smashing a chair or bedside table thingy would only produce a single plank, but dismantling the bigger, sturdier armoire should grant a full 3 planks of material. Things that are easier to break should grant less material, generally; bigger, sturdier objects, especially ones that fully block travel instead of just limiting to hopping, should give you more material.
FOV and Weapon Range
A quick investigation seems to suggest that the range for weapons and FOV distance is calculated differently. FOV seems to, as would be expected, account for diagonal distances properly to produce an approximately circular field of view (although FOV 2 produces a bizarre visibility pattern), but weapon range does not account for greater diagonal distances - as I just checked, an enemy offset to me by (4,4) was still displaying as within the hunting rifle's optimal range of 4. I noted an earlier discrepancy when one particular opponent shot me from outside my FOV, in bright daylight - FOV 8 - with a weapon that has a maximum range of 8. This was very confusing, and although I can't claim that the AI was cheating - for all I know those opponents are blessed with greater visual acuity and a better FOV than the player character, so they could feasibly have seen me over that distance - weapon ranges and FOV distances should both be calculated the same way, and it's possible you're not correctly checking that an enemy can actually see the target they are shooting at (in the example I suffered the foe had already been alerted to my presence and I was attempting to run away, a couple of steps after which I was shot, so perhaps you're only checking if the NPC's target of attention is within their weapon range and not within their FOV in determining whether or not they try and shoot at you).
On the topic of FOV, I'd like to suggest a new Skill - Perception - which could either offer an increase in the character's FOV at a 1/level ratio or, less powerfully, simply negate penalties applied by darkness or weather conditions at the same rate. Investment would obviously be a benefit to players that have to venture outside at night, and help everyone get the best mileage out of their longer-range weapons even when visibility would normally be too poor.
Follower Control
Much more precise control over the behaviour of followers would be desirable. Attempting to manage their inventories to give them sensible equipment and items is a nightmare at the moment; the ability to direct them to give to you or drop a specific item would be fantastic. It could probably do with only being available to use on followers you have had for a certain minimum length of time, however (say a day) in order to prevent people abusing it by getting a follower, demanding all their useful stuff, and then letting them loose again. The ability to order followers to equip or unequip specific items would also be very useful.
What would also be nice is more precise control over how the AI responds when on Guard or Patrol orders; raising the alarm is all well and good, but I'm sure many of us would prefer that the AI we instructed to guard a doorway actually stay and shoot the zombie using the amazing weapons we painstakingly attempted to get them to take and then continue to stand guard rather than running off to find us. A single directive option to either Abandon Orders or Keep Orders on an alert would probably handle this fine.
Cover and Positioning
It can hardly escape note that some of the enemies you will face have guns, and so rather than a stand up firefight-or-flight, it'd be nice to be able to try and take cover behind all those abandoned cars lying around. This one would be, I think, quite simple to do; you're already computing a path for the shot, simply check to see if the last tile it goes through before reaching the target tile contains a car (or potentially any object that could provide cover), and if it does, reduce the chance of it hitting (or give it a chance to hit and damage the object instead, if potentially destructible objects can be used as cover). This extends the use of all those cars beyond stamina-draining zombie-blocker and makes them objects of tactical consideration even when fighting enemies that use weapons.
On a similar note, thinking about jumpable objects, it would be nice if being on a jumpable object provided bonuses in melee - it's easier to attack down than up, so when you have higher ground relative to an enemy, you should be harder to hit and more accurate/powerful with your downward swings! Again this makes combat more interesting against melee opponents, as instead of always taking advantage of your superior speed to kite enemies, it would be a viable option to leap atop a car or table and stand your ground. It could be an especially useful technique against those zombie foes who aren't zombie-slow, and hence for whom kiting is not nearly as viable an option.
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All those things said, playing the game has been quite a lot of fun so far, and I look forward to seeing what later versions look like.
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I am sad that I could not run this under Wine on Linux. Looks awesome!
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Alpha 3.2 out, first post edited.
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I've been giving the new version a shot. It's a big improvement in terms of difficulty. After 15 days and 16 hours, my most successful character so far finally bit it due to collapsing from exhaustion at a bad time. The city was so thoroughly, hopelessly overrun that I couldn't make a safe-house that lasted more than a day or two in-game. I suspect that, especially due to the new food decay feature, surviving past three weeks is probably impossible, or at least extraordinarily difficult. Like in previous versions, emphasizing the Agility, Light Eater, and High Stamina skills will keep you alive much, much longer, but the constant quest for food will keep you from ever being able to hole up in a safe location for more than five days or so. Any safe location you leave can be considered lost - the zombies inevitably track you back to it thanks to the much more aggressive tracking behavior. The exceptions are offices and stores, which are secure in proportion to how much furniture they contain.
The changes to the food mechanics don't sit entirely well with me, though. Army rations no longer stacking is the biggest complaint I have. Since eventually all food you encounter will be spoiled, you'll always want to carry spoiled groceries over spoiled army rations because the groceries have more food points. I also have to wonder why canned goods don't seem to exist in this world, which could become a rare and precious commodity in the late-game once all regular food has spoiled. Overall the rate of food spoilage seems too quick... A progressive decay of food items would make more sense, where fresh groceries become stale, then spoiled, then rotten. With enough points into Light Eater you can still last a little while on spoiled food, especially if you somehow manage to stockpile it, but whereas in the previous version it was much too easy to hide in a zombie fortress and wait things out, it's almost too hard now to take shelter. At first it's exciting, but this gradually gives way to frustration.
The smarter civilians are a welcome change, though. As are the much brighter, much more effective army guys. I've noticed that even leaderless civilians will gather together in sheltered locations, close doors behind them, barricade windows, and so forth. This makes the initial onslaught much less of a massacre and also indirectly helps the player early on. (They have a tendency to barricade bedrooms for you, and will fight zombies with you if they're cornered.) Much better than the civilians of old, which were just a nuisance.
Melee weapons seem to be very fragile now. This is actually a good thing in that it keeps fights interesting, and you'll want to scavenge up backup weapons any time you're out and about. You can't just grab a huge hammer and be set for the next two months. Have you considered having chairs and tables yield weapons when broken, like a few chair legs or something? This could make the initial arming of the masses easier, but making improvised weapons like these highly fragile would mean any benefit gained from them is highly temporary.
Keep up the good work.
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I want an add:
the chance 'to win the game, running away ....
maybe after a certain number of days in town could get random 'from a helicopter to reach in a given time ....
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Melee weapons seem to be very fragile now. This is actually a good thing in that it keeps fights interesting, and you'll want to scavenge up backup weapons any time you're out and about. You can't just grab a huge hammer and be set for the next two months. Have you considered having chairs and tables yield weapons when broken, like a few chair legs or something? This could make the initial arming of the masses easier, but making improvised weapons like these highly fragile would mean any benefit gained from them is highly temporary.
What I would do is just make the wooden planks usable as weapons, albeit very fragile ones.
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Thanks for all the feedback.
I wanted to see how players coped with the new food situation but its a bit too extreme. I'll make decay more progressive and add more food variety.
You won't be able to push to things through doors/windows, it's a game engine limitation : both door/windows are considered as map objects and you can't have more than one map object per tile. It may sound silly but it makes design much easier... Okay I made the engine and design myself so I'm the silly one here ;D
I didn't change melee weapon break chance (2% per use) you were just being unlucky. Weapon jam chance is 1%,but I might increase that or make it weather dependant.
I also corrected how FoV/LoS range is computed in the next version for less uggly shapes at close range.
I'll consider adding primitives weapons when you break stuff.
About winning the game, it will be possible but this is not a priority. I want the basics done correctly first, I'll do that later (plot + winning conditions).
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Or maybe I was just absurdly lucky back in the other version! I had a hammer that lasted for-freaking-ever, seriously. Many zombies had their skulls renovated by that thing. Over the course of weeks.
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Off topic, probably, but I'd long since forgotten the following link existed and wondered if roguedjack had a take on it/had even heard of it to give it a whirl? Not positive if the purchase links and whatnot still even work, but random stuff like this manifests when I start digging through my bookmarks...
http://deadbyzombie.com/
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I absolutely love the game! It's got some nice graphics, good gameplay, good design, I'm really impressed. The only thing I've noticed is that it's very, very hard. I find myself dying over and over and over unless I'm very careful. Aside from that, it's amazing, great work!
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Off topic, probably, but I'd long since forgotten the following link existed and wondered if roguedjack had a take on it/had even heard of it to give it a whirl? Not positive if the purchase links and whatnot still even work, but random stuff like this manifests when I start digging through my bookmarks...
http://deadbyzombie.com/
Don't know about this game, and never tried a zombie themed rl. For some reason I find I am more creative in games if I don't look at other people similar games, which is complete opposite to the way I work with graphics and musics (I need other people stuff to look at/listen to). :o
I absolutely love the game! It's got some nice graphics, good gameplay, good design, I'm really impressed. The only thing I've noticed is that it's very, very hard. I find myself dying over and over and over unless I'm very careful. Aside from that, it's amazing, great work!
Thanks! Its easier to survive if you make a shelter. Shops are very good for this, destroy the doors and push the shelves to barricade yourself in. Then make runs for food.
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More feedback, and another suggestion:
First off, I was playing the game last night and experienced a rather satisfying defeat. I got chased back to a barricaded shop during a night-time zombie raid, and was subsequently cornered. Upon trying to escape, I found that more zombies were waiting outside. My barricade had turned against me! It didn't take long for the situation to go from bad to worse, but at no point did I find myself cursing the game for being unfair or frustrating. As far as I was concerned, this is how the game should work - one false move, in this case going out at a very wrong time, lead to a cascade of unraveling plans and an eventual outwitting by the game. (In case you didn't know, this is rather unusual for this style of game; most rogue-likes rely on quick, cheap, and unavoidable deaths to challenge the player.)
So, after being impressed by the game's ability to kill me without opening trapdoors beneath my character's feet or something comparably bullshit, I felt I should again let you know that you're on the right track. Very much so. The difficulty curve is spot-on, even though there's nothing really climactic at the end of it yet. (Unless the black-ops count.)
Anyhow, my latest suggestion deals once again with the food issues.
(http://i45.tinypic.com/24649xk.png)
The above meters represent two things:
1. The light blue meter is food as we know it. It goes up when you eat, and depletes rather quickly. With the Light Eater skill maxed, you can last about two days on this before you become hungry, but without it you don't last quite as long.
2. The dark blue meter is a reserve meter. Those dark blue bars translate into a day's worth of food points, but once they're gone, they're gone. (If you were to restore them, it shouldn't be terribly efficient, nor should it be possible to restore them on an empty stomach. Once your normal food meter is full, maybe the reserve meter refills at a rate of 0.25 points for every extra food point taken in.)
This means that if this were implemented, you could survive a week (or less, that's up to you) of hunger before starvation begins to set in. The normal problems from hunger would still apply, of course. Running around fighting zombies is hard work! When the game becomes more feature-filled, players will probably be more apt to explore and take risks. Giving them some extra time to establish themselves (and the civilians too) would depress the early-game difficulty curve, but cause it to rise as 'real' hunger takes its toll. The best part is that you could still have a fairly rapid decay rate for most normal food, and then everyone has an 'oh shit' moment a little over a week in. Just in time for the supply drops to begin, but that's small relief for the survivors given the standard rate of zombie proliferation.
The other changes I'd like to suggest, building on previous replies, complete with quirky 'retro' icons:
(http://i47.tinypic.com/2mx4zro.png)
The two items on the left, a generic 'meat' and 'vegetable' (that's a cabbage by the way) could be especially fast-decaying. Anywhere from two to five days and this stuff should be going all sorts of bad. Bread, that should hold out a little longer, but not much more than a week. Canned food and army rations should last indefinitely, but with the army rations being able to stack higher and possibly providing more nutrition per item. This reintroduces a hoarding incentive, but also allows you to carry more of your food with you (stacking food items) in case you need to move. Which, given the rather aggressive hunting habits of the zombies now, is probable.
Another added plus of the army rations could be durability in another sense. As anyone who's experienced this firsthand can attest, punctured cans of food go bad quick. Spectacularly bad. If there's a chance that the cans can be damaged when you're being attacked by a zombie or shot at, the damaged cans could be made to expire very quickly - within 36 hours or less, perhaps. This means that carrying lots of cans around might be considered unwise unless it's all you have. If that were the case, the player might want to leave those at their base or in safeguarded caches, but carry the army rations with them as they move.
Hypothetically, this would still leave the player hunting for bits of food especially after week two. Any false sense of security given by a healthy food stockpile would quickly dissolve as either the bulk of it rots, or the player's base is discovered by baddies. (And that's the food that the player finds - the rest would be picked over by the other survivors!) Scarcity of edibles would increase dramatically after week two, and the player would have to start relying on their reserve food to make it, possibly not carrying them past week three if they're unsuccessful in locating more food.
A final suggestion - hunger pangs that keep the player awake should only kick in during or near starvation. All this wouldn't make eating optional, but it would make the initial stages of food deprivation more merciful. (And create a slippery slide of confidence-to-despair as that food meter shrinks, until it simply can't be ignored anymore.)
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Hello,
I have just red the blog about sewers. I have some comments about reducing the number of zombie rats. There might be another solution : do all creatures actually have to be tracked all the time ? Some creature types could simply be created on the fly, the number depending on the density level.
This would allow to have more to fight. For zombies, where there is barricading it is not really suitable, but for small creatures such as rats which could slip between barricades, find holes where we thought everyhing was closed the approximation shoudl be OK. And even for them, the critter density could be for buildings (or a limited area) instead of the whole level. So you might find less in a closed room that you cleaned than in the middle of the street.
Also a question about rast : would they be attracted by food/decaying food that a character is carrying or that has been dropped somewhere ?
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I would like to make an suggestion about the Inventory system. In the past, I played a roguelike game called Castle of the Winds, which was unique for an 1989 for having a mouse-based GUI and graphics. One of the things that set it apart was the inventory system, in which the player has to use a variety of bags, backpacks, chest, purse, and belts to carry the items they acquire. Each container had a maximum rating for bulk and weight where items were concerned. Furthermore, the player could only carry so much weight without becoming terminally slow. As such, you could stuff your bags full of items, and drop them when a monster approached. This sort of system might be very good for Rogue Survivor.
Another interesting bit in Castle of the Winds was the Paperdoll inventory, where not only you could put on a variety of equipment through the mouse, but in how certain pieces of equipment offered slots in which to put items for easy access. For example, a wand belt could have several slots for your spellcasting needs on the fly, and the purses automatically sorted out the various forms of currency you could acquire. The game is now freeware and I recommend giving it a spin to get a better idea of how things work. I think that adding a similar system to Rogue Survivor could help with opening up gameplay options where inventory management is concerned. (Such as Bandoliers for ammo, holsters for pistols, backpack types, car trunks, bodybags for the recently dead, and so on.)
This is probably something that can take some effort to implement, but I believe that it could be a good system for this kind of game.
Photo of CoT Inventory
(http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i190/Sabin_Stargem/Inventory.jpg)
Rick Saada's homepage, maker of CoT. The game is free to download. Requires an O/S that can run 16-bit programs.
http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/ (http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/)
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Rats
Rats are actually undead rats, they hunger for flesh, they won't go after "normal" food.
In later versions you'll be able to "trick" undeads by dropping meat to distract them (so including rats).
I solved the "too much actors" problem by rebalancing the default settings.
I also added the subways with zombies, and it works nice.
A "Level Of Detail" approach could work but I'm going for full simulation instead, I don't want the game universe to be centered on the player.
Inventory
A more complex inventory system would be interesting/realistic for some players, but I wanted to have a simple inventory system since the beginning, hence the very primitive fixed number of slots + stackable items system.
Personally I don't like roguelikes where you have to mentally compute weights, slots and whatnot before taking/dropping an item. >:(
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That is fair. Goddess knows I don't care much for inventory management, such as in Baldur's Gate II where my inventory just overflows! I am very much a packrat, so stacking items and being able to horde stuff is a godsend to me. However, I recommend giving CotW a spin and try it out yourself, I think it is the #1 roguelike when it comes to inventory management. Might be my inner fanboy manifesting, though. :)
CaptainFailMore: The art style of those icons is similar to La-Mulana's, that is nifty to behold! ;D
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_U9ivZf8Qtfs/RdkxfFRthVI/AAAAAAAAAAs/XkcMahgL2VE/s1600/La-Mulana%2BSpikes.bmp)
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Actually, believe it or not, they're not in La Mulana's style.
Useless trivia time!
La Mulana's graphics really are something to behold, and not because they're flashy. Actually, it's because the creators of the game painstakingly imitated the graphical limitations of one of the MSX's video modes. The defining characteristic of this 'style' of graphics is that the original MSX could not support more than two colors in a single eight-by-one horizontal line of pixels. Transparent sprites could violate this rule, sort of; sprites were a single color, and were drawn over everything else. Some games demonstrated more colorful sprites, probably by overlapping one or more sprites to represent a single object on-screen. It wasn't a Famicom, but it could still produce some nice looking visuals for the time.
On the other hand, the ZX Spectrum was decidedly not graphically powerful. It was an inexpensive and capable home computer, not a dedicated gaming machine - but that didn't stop anyone. Gamers and game makers embraced the Spectrum warts and all, even though it could only draw two colors for every eight-by-eight pixel block, the size of a single typographical character on the screen. Transparent sprites and other such luxuries were not supported, resulting in fairly severe 'attribute clash', which had to be dealt with in a number of creative ways.
Not only that, the MSX and the ZX Spectrum had entirely different default palettes! While both featured the same number of colors, the colors themselves were different for each. The ZX Spectrum featured something not unlike the default palette in MS Paint, while the MSX was somewhat more varied and a bit more muted. See below:
(http://i29.tinypic.com/x3bhmw.png)
ZX Spectrum
(http://i27.tinypic.com/eildlc.png)
MSX
So, if you feel like splitting hairs...
The tiles I posted could have been displayed by an MSX - with different colors. However, they're meant to imitate the blockiness and vivid coloration of the ZX Spectrum.
Here are the same food tiles, faithfully rendered in MSX style:
(http://i29.tinypic.com/2ez7plf.png)
So now that you've had your fill of utterly useless 80's computer trivia...
I'm a big fan of Castle of the Winds myself. It was my first rogue-like, before I even knew what rogue-likes were! The drag and drop 'paper doll' inventory system was easy to understand, even though the variety of items was somewhat... bland. I didn't care, I was like, twelve at the time. But let's take a look at the inventory system here: Three equipment slots total. One for each hand, one for the body. The only thing that making these slots 'real' would accomplish is that when you equip an item, it leaves your normal inventory. If you could carry anything in your hands, this would give the player a bonus of two extra inventory slots from the start, but unless the inventory works that way then I can't help but feel that these changes would just be mostly cosmetic.
I'm really against giving items specific weights and volumes unless the system is very, very simple to work with. Diablo-style backpacks and others like them (Resident Evil 4, I'm looking at you) are just a pain in the ass. (If I wanted to turn inventory management into a block puzzle, I'd play Tetris or Tangrams or something!) If at some point in the future roguedjack wanted to make the inventory account for small items versus large items intuitively, assigning a simple number from 1-5 representing item size, and then assigning a capacity number to the inventory (say 8 or 10 to start) would be the best way to go. No difficult decimal math on the user's end to tell if something will fit, just simple mental addition and subtraction. Equipped items could be removed from your inventory and carried or worn regardless of size.
With the added inventory space, time management in firefights or zombie raids would become a bit more paramount. Dropping a held item could be considered a free action (I think dropping is already, but you have to remove an equipped first before dropping it) while inserting or removing inventory items should not be; swapping a held item for one in your inventory would take twice as long as dropping the one you have in your hand and picking up another one. Reloading could take as long as swapping, but if ammo is smaller (which it tends to be) then it would make more sense to carry lots of ammo instead of a handful of loaded weapons. (But it wouldn't restrict the player's style; maybe you want to do things musketeer style and have a few loaded firearms ready.) It's a small difference, but with the veritable zombie armies that you run into after week two, escape simply isn't an option most of the time. Small details like this should in practice affect how players prepare for and approach their friendly neighborhood undead-mutant menace without slugging things down at all.
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I think that time management with one's possessions is one of the most important factors in roguelikes and zombie scenarios. Having readily accessible weapons, ammo, or just being able to ditch your heavy canned goods is important if you want to outpace the hordes. That is why guns that use magazines are better than shotguns and revolvers, despite the relative lack of power, since you can reload quickly. Far too often an survivor would find themselves desperately loading shells into the boomstick as zombies encroach from all sides! Fight or flight, time is of the essence, which is accomplished through good inventory management.
By the way, thank you for the quick lesson. An surprising but not unwelcome event. :) You might want to check out the Retroware TV website, the videogame historian talks about a number of consoles and games, which you might be interested in. There is also Kirithim's "Videogames and..." series, which covers a range of topics from the Uncanny Valley to Moral Choices. Good stuff!
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Tile-making progress, because I'm bored:
(http://i31.tinypic.com/28iq9ev.png)
Edit:
And the bunch from today. I'm cribbing some sprite shapes from La Mulana since it makes for an effective paper-doll.
(http://i30.tinypic.com/33o4qie.png)
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Now that is awesome. I really like the Radiation Pink zombies you got there, and it is nice to see Lemeza's relatives checking out modern ruins. It may sound strange, but I think the retro aesthetic used here are more attractive than what we see in many games. Technological progress is good, but it takes stylization to make it worthwhile and possess longevity.
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Then I see that you've come along and basically made my dream come true
I'm with this, I'm loving this game and have been having some awesome moments.
One thing I can't forget is when being chased by a group, a civilian kept shutting the door to an apartment every time I opened it to get in. I thought that was a hilarious act of karma, because often I shut others out and keep them out.
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I've had plenty of moments like that, too.
"Oh shit, a disciple- WAIT, OPEN THE DOOR BACK UP IT'S COM- DON'T BARRICADE IT YOU PRICK."
For the record, I think it's fabulous.
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Thank you for this wonderful game. I am really enjoying it, and it is shaping up to be my favorite rogue-like since IVAN.
You've managed to create a randomized game, that includes non-random elements, without feeling too scripted. That is rare.
The ordering system is a bit clunky, but I'm sure you are working on it. Honestly, if there was some way to manually control and lock the followers inventory, that would address most of my concerns. Right now it's pretty difficult to convince a follower to choose the best weapon available.
The Black Ops guys totally suckered me in, BTW. After 19 games days, I had a nice routine going, and you threw a monkey wrench in there. Thank you for not letting it getting boring. I can't wait to see what else I'm missing!
Keep it up!
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Thanks Elohssa. :)
To be honest once you get to the Black Ops, its pretty much all there is to it, and the gameplay is stuck in a loop.
Only thing you could do is trying to find the special trackers items, if you haven't already, especially the one which is useful vs the BOs.
Alpha 4 will have more content, you can check my blog for more information.
The gameplay getting repetitive is a major concern with this kind of survival game, I'll keep trying to improve the gameplay flow.
Civilians closing/barricading stuff on your escape route is funny. I just had a playtesting game where a fellow retard survivor kept closing doors and windows right in front of me while I was escaping. Seemed like he was actually fleeing from me :-* Finally he got stuck along the map border and kept closing the same window I desperatly tried to get through. I was fed up and blasted the window open. I suppose he died a bit later ;D
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Alpha 4 up, check the new thread.