Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Development => Programming => Topic started by: Robot on February 08, 2011, 06:24:16 AM
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I'll be the first to say this is borderline "rogulike" but it's very similar. It's an ANSII action game, but requires many of the same skills as roguelikes, etc. Anyway.
I want to start by saying that so far, this game is fun as hell to play. I really feel like I'm in a city crawling with zombies and have to slowly mow them down, but it just doesn't stop. You can actually kill every zombie/mutant in the city (right now that's the only way to "win"). The difficulty is brutal. The machine gun is very easy to use, and very effective and trashing zombies.
The working title is "Mutant Apocalypse" but that could change. I'm developing this with Megazeux, after I discovered it was possible. Megazeux is an incredibly powerful ANSII game creation engine, but I have complete control over the characters.
Anyway, right now the hero can run around part of a city. The city and buildings' floor plans are realistic, and there are literally thousands of zombie/mutants to destroy.
You have regular machine-gun ammo, and 2 kinds of bombs. You start with some lives and can collect more. Ammo is everywhere, but the giant caches are well-guarded. You might be able to grab 2000 rounds easily enough, but you'll need to use that strategically to gain the 10,000 you'll need. You can collect gems and coins for extra points.
Features finished:
40% of the City, including:
-ONE GIANT MAP, that simulates the city
-dozens of buildings (apartment complexes, a giant shopping mall, alleys, etc) with realistic floorplans
-hives of zombies waiting to attack
-mobs of mutants set on search and destroy
-tons of powerups
-intense difficulty
-decent level of realism
-keys which lock certain areas (including the shopping mall, a zombie movie staple)
Looking for thoughts, feedback!
It shouldn't take too much longer to finish, Megazeux is ****ing awesome. I was going to code this in C++, but it seemed pointless when Megazeux already did everything.
You can also follow dev on my website for the latest news on this game,
Check out the website for screenshots:
8bitcity.blogspot.com
http://8bitcity.blogspot.com/2011/02/realistic-zombie-apocalypse-ascii.html
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If we're going to blast hordes of zombies with bombs and chainguns, count me in. I'd like mine to leave corpses and chunks, please. And resurrect on occasion.
Minor gripes:
- There's no such thing as ANSII. The screens definitely aren't ASCII, or even standard ANSI. They're in ANSI modified to look like pictures.
- I'm wondering what could possibly be realistic about an ANSI zombie shooter. A zombie invasion is hardly a realistic theme. Also, the map doesn't look the least bit realistic. Given the representation limitations of a character-based grid, I'd ditch the idea of realism, and focus on gameplay/fun and strategy instead. You could add doors, and stairs to different floors, for example.
Major gripes:
- I'm not saying you can't compare this game to a roguelike, but the game seems to lack two elements that I like about roguelikes: randomness and field of view. I dropped ZZT ages ago because it couldn't generate random maps and there was no way to have a wall block the player's view; I'm not sure if newer versions of ZZT/Megazeux support this.
- You'd get more/better feedback if people would be able to play the game. Release a barebones version quickly, and post a link. Also show it to the Megazeux community, I expect they won't give you as much grief about randomness or FOV as can be expected from roguelikers.
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I really just meant realistic in scale. I'm not going for total realism, but I see my post makes it sound that way, thanks for clearing that up. Things that are realistic:
1. Size of City (close)
2. Number of Zombies
3. Building floorplans
4. Persistent world
I can add separate floors (and you have a "base" you can hide in) but I think I'm going to keep it all on one map because it really makes you feel like you are in a sandbox (and I use the term loosely b/c you cant do much extra collect and kill). That's not to say that other versions can't have more levels or dungeons, etc.
Thanks for pointing out the problem with ANSI, and, yea I edited the characters myself and I'm not very happy with most of them. I'd like to release the barebones beta soon :D
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You can download the game now.
http://8bitcity.blogspot.com/2011/02/mutant-warzone.html
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Just released a new version.
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I dropped ZZT ages ago because it couldn't generate random maps
I actually remember a couple of modules for ZZT that did generate random maps. Can't remember the exact names, but they were made by the same author and I think one had "December" in the title. I believe MZX is more powerful than ZZT anyways.