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[Zironic]

"Kill the zombies using limited resources" seems almost more like a puzzle game.

Being very partial to Brooks works and logic in general, all resources are limited even in the best of times. In the worst of times (IE the Zombocalypse), this gets confounded quite a lot. So many enemies, so few bullets..

But there's always crowbars! And hammers. and so on. A gun is sorta messy, hard to maintain, uses up resources, and draws the enemy with it's noise. It's also very hard to aim even for a trained marksman at times. Of course melee weapons have the drawback of requiring the physical strength to use them, as well as bringing you into range of the enemy if you're not careful.

Ideally I would go for a system that allows you to carry a gun but encourages careful use of melee whenever possible.

As for secondary enemies, I'd lean more towards scavengers and bandits, as well as the military in some places - they might mistake you for infected, or simply might be assholes. Of course, if you've got vehicles and medical supplies and food at your base, uninfected humans might also be a problem.


As you can see I think about zombies a little too often. oop.

Brooks focused on industrial recovery - invention of axe/shovels for trenching (zombies can't jump) and killing - called the lobotomizer - invention of rifles that are rugged and bolt action and a line technique involving shooting at head level for hours via people switching off.

[Granite26]

Perhaps lower the scale.  Rather than being a global organization, be a group in quarrantined Africa.  Changes the mission structure from 'clear the area' to supply raids and whatnot.

Adding a base defense aspect (even if gameplay trivial) forces the player to horde supplies (your troops spend 50-100 bullets a day holding off zombies, even if you aren't playing them).

Add tension by using T.V. intermissions showing the world having (smaller) problems with a leaky quarantine, and coming closer to napalm/nuking Africa.

Since you're always locked in hell, rescuing survivors would be necessary to expand your party size.  This includes researchers (Think bio-weapons and improvised weapons), fighters, medical techs, and maybe civies (civies count towards your PR rating, which could be used to get supply drops (that you'd have to go OUT to get), delay the final solution, and possibly access government tech like satelite imagery and airstrikes)

Fuel would be at a premium, so your mobility could be neatly constrained, but the late game could involve the entire continent, which means jungle, savannah, deserts, big cities, villages, wildlife, militias, ancient ruins, etc etc etc, everything you could want.  Funding extra bases would be EXPENSIVE (Fuel, Ammo, defenders tied up)

[Jakkarra]

just had a thought, would it be more interesting to have either the game focus on a group of Civvis, rather than the GHOUL, this would make it harder, but possibly more interesting.

[Mephansteras]

I like those ideas, Granite. I could see that making for a fascinating game.

As for actually making this...I hadn't gotten far enough yet to decide if I'm going to to try. It's more then I can do on my own, but if actually get a group of people who want to work on it I think it could be a fun project.

[kholhaus]

You should do it sequentially in development, in a ladder like scale, so the playable version comes out early.

When updating it, you could structure the code so that it only takes a few code references, almost like a mesh to fit together, like inactive features that become active when the right coding is in place.

Hmmm... sounds quite hard though, maybe you DO need a team.

(To elaborate on my above theory, First, Quick-action strategy. Then, Deploying and equipping for battle. Next, the vehicle, point of entry, etc. And then, Mini-base management for funds to buy weapons for singular mission. And then build from there.)

[Zironic]

Make it in ASCII - and make it have First person - wizardy-like dungeon crawls!

[Zironic]

Make it in ASCII - and make it have First person - wizardy-like dungeon crawls!

Well. Make it have ASCII overworld and graphical first person dungeon crawl dungeons!

[Muz]

Hmm.. I'm working on something similar, made in Construct, but it's a shooter instead of turn-based. You could probably recode it to be turn based easily enough, but I'm aiming for destructible terrain and line of sight code, with some crawling, crouching and shooting. It sort of resembles Fallout Tactics much more than X-Com, but with worse LOS.

What should make it more useful to you is that it's in a city setting. And I'm going for a unique feature in the genre where you can take over a building and turn it into a base. So like, if you take over a mansion, you can turn one of the rooms into a workshop, use the bathroom as a storage room, build a turret on the lawn, etc. And instead of funding by money, it's going to support a resource collection/scavenging system.

I could toss you the engine if you like once it's done, but I'm busy on my thesis now and will probably get to work on it at the end of this year or the next. Try and work on the game design first, that's the most important part.. it's the foundation for the whole game.

[Granite26]

Hmm.. I'm working on something similar, made in Construct, but it's a shooter instead of turn-based. You could probably recode it to be turn based easily enough, but I'm aiming for destructible terrain and line of sight code, with some crawling, crouching and shooting. It sort of resembles Fallout Tactics much more than X-Com, but with worse LOS.

What should make it more useful to you is that it's in a city setting. And I'm going for a unique feature in the genre where you can take over a building and turn it into a base. So like, if you take over a mansion, you can turn one of the rooms into a workshop, use the bathroom as a storage room, build a turret on the lawn, etc. And instead of funding by money, it's going to support a resource collection/scavenging system.

I could toss you the engine if you like once it's done, but I'm busy on my thesis now and will probably get to work on it at the end of this year or the next. Try and work on the game design first, that's the most important part.. it's the foundation for the whole game.

This sounds exactly like a game I'd want to play.  (I'm not a roguelike whore at all)  No seriously... I'm drooling

[Mephansteras]

Huh, cool. Sure, Muz, I'd love the code for that when you've got a chance. I've got a lot of design stuff to do on this anyway.

Anyone interested in making this into a collective project?

[Jakkarra]

incredibly interested, im learning C++ as we speak.

[Little]

I vote for the group being civvies, and the goal is get out of the quarantined area, with roving groups of bandits and deserters combined with the epic zombie hordes.

[Jakkarra]

Verily!

it would ruin the name, but Twould make the game more interesting.

[magikarcher]

Personally I loved X-Com, but I was not a big fan of the bases. I suggest having an open-world type thing going on, not First Person, but traditional X-Com Globe style. Fitting with the zombie theme, you could claim/seize buildings as temporary bases. In order to keep ordering a base after the units you control leave the base, you should need some sort of contact (radio, satellite, cell phone, etc.). If you don't have connection with it you will not be alerted to attacks, mutiny, infections, accidents, or any other sort of notification.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Do you want to have some script embedded in the game's engine?
(LUA or Python. Both are REALLY easy to learn for)