I've been playing roguelikes for years and years and I love 'em. Recently I've developed an interest in making my own roguelike becouse I'm also a zombie survival fan and I have never seen a zombie survival roguelike. I'm still just in the process of finding the coding language I want to use so it will take a very, very long time untill I'm even getting started on the coding.
My idea is something like this:
You start by creating your characters name, pick a gender and a starting age, then you pick what skills he will be good at using, for example: Hand guns, rifles, medicin, lockpicking, sneaking, melee combat, throwing, trapping, unarmed combat, gambling, outdoorsman, speech, barter, climbing and repairing.
Hand gun will determine how well you aim with a hand gun, if you have extremely low points in this skill and still use a hand gun you run a risk of accidently shooting yourself.
Rifles works in the same way as hand guns, only they weight more and causes bigger damage.
Medicin allows you to treat injuries, be it yourself or others. Treating everything from scraped knees to torn limbs.
Lockpicking simply allows you too pick locks, quite handy if you are chased by brain hungry zombies and you need a place to hide.
Sneaking determines how quietly you can move around, for example: You find yourself in a narrow street filled with junk and zombies, if your sneak skill is low you sneaking is rather clumsy. Your character's constantly looking over his shoulder and isn't very focused and might stumble into a trashcan and alert the nearby zombies who in turn will alert more zombies and you find yourself surrounded. The higher the sneaking, the more focused your character is on actually avoiding to make noises.
Melee combat allows you to wield melee weapons, everything from forks to baseball bats too tire irons.
Throwing allows you too throw things, the higher the more precision you get. You can basically throw anything that you are able to lift, be it forks, spoons, trashcans, bricks, grenades or rubberballs. You use what you got
Trapping allows you to use and even make traps to well, trap zombies or other survivors if you wish. You can make everything from spiked pits too snares to dead weight traps. Extremely usefull if you plan on staying in one spot for a long time.
Unarmed combat lets you fight with your hands and feet. Low skilled players will fight quite sluggish and then develop better fighting skills. Different fighting moves like can be learned from magazines. Like karate, taekwondo, boxing etc etc.
Gambling determines your luck in well, gambling. The higher the more likely you are to win at a game.
Outdoorsman determines your survival skills, ranging from fire making too water purification.
Speech determines how well you speak, low skilled players will curse alot and generally express themselves poorly while high skilled players will be able to convince people that what you are saying is a good idea.
Barter determines the prices of things.
Climbing determines how well you can climb things. Low leveled players might only be able to climb onto cars while higher leveled players can climb trees and even buildings to escape the ever grasping claws of death.
Repairing allows you to repair things, be it elevators, cars or vending machines. Ofcourse you need to gather the correct pieces and tools.
Now, the gameplay would work something like this: Once you named your character and picked your skills, you will be dropped in a randomly generated city with a random name. You start unarmed and have some random knick-knacks in your pockets like ciggarettes, lighters or things like that. You simply wander around the city, explore buildings and scavenge for items, find a safe spot to call home and try to defend it the best you can. There will be other survivors aswell that you can interact with, ask them to join you, give them equipment and things like that. They will all have randomly determined personalities. Some might be absolutely psychotic, suicidal or simply just upset about the whole situation. If someone gets bitten they will in time turn into zombies.
The inventory is based on pockets, bags and backpacks.
You will be able to move anything that isn't too heavy. You can for example if you wish gather tons of trashcans, haul them up the stairs in a house and as the zombies gets close you can throw the trashcans at them through a window, or you could use the trashcans to block the door. It's all about scavenging for items that might be usefull and use them in a way you think is best.
The goal is simply too survive as long as you can in the city or find a way to escape.
This project will most likely take me years to complete, if I complete it. I might even give up half way through. Anyway, if someone else thinks this sounds like a good idea you are free to use this idea.
