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[flap]

I know, zombie games seem to be sprouting everywhere, and that proposal is very unoriginal. It must be pandemie that we are having now...

Any way, you would a man, at the very begining of a zombie epidemie. And you are trying to have as many people as possible to survive with you. During the game, you would witness all the different steps of the epidemie :
- a few isolated cases
- explosion of case
- State trying to react
- Failure and dissolution of the state
- Anarchie with the survivors scavenging what is left and trying not to be infected
- First steps of the reconstruction of a society when the epidemie seems to be over (with allways the risk of having a new case, and everything past effort trashed).

As in LCS the city would be modeled with different sites, and each have their own status regarding the epidemie. There would a few local and general parameter measuring the status of the epidemie. Depending on the local or general status different event can occure and people can be met (raiders, military, young fresh zombie or old decaying and starving one ...).

Of course we would need plenty of good juicy text, and some kind of mini games such as the car stealing in LCS, adapted to the situation (and the stage of epidemie: erupting with weapons to kill all zombies and people who have just been beaten will not really please autories before their collapse)

The fun parts would be the witness of the collapse of the city step after step while the survival is getting organised, make the link between the characters life at each stage (for exemple what would become a fireman during the epidemie ? some help, some become raider...), and finally have some relation tree for the characters so we can have some of these juicy moments when someone as to kill a friend who has just been biten by a zombie, meets its zombified brother, or finds is surviving aunt.
An other important and fun part is of course the scavenging, survivors gathering, protection of the resting place.

I don't know if much code from LCS could be used...  But the general idea of squad wandering around in town and changing the fate seem to be perfectly well adapted to the game.

Comments ?

[Shades]

Modelling from the start of the collapse rather than just the survival part is an interesting change, which makes your proposal seem less unoriginal than the epidemic of zombie games coming out (see what I did there? ... hmm I'm just not witty )

[flap]

Nice little bit of word shifting. 

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I've been thinking of stepping away from LCS to make an ASCII zombie game in a similar squad-based strategy/RPG style for months myself; I just haven't had time. The motivation is something you probably observed yourself while thinking about this: zombies are fun, and the Liberal Crime Squad gameplay structure really does fit a zombie apocalypse much better than a political satire. Zombie apocalypse has broader appeal, lets everyone but the Australian government feel better about the fact that they're shooting people around the city, and lends itself to better pacing and lots of cool storytelling opportunities.

[dbfuru]

This would be awesome! Watching events unfold would be awesome! Maybe you could have a group of hippies spreading the word against a new drug or something, and then it gets administered, causing the population to turn into zombie-esque beings.

Like, a few things in LCS could be changed to fit, change the jobs to scavenge for... and maybe instead of being accosted by the police, the Zombies find you! And if you give up, they kill you. No jail, of course.

I think it would be very interesting having a game like LCS with zombie survival elements.

[Jetman123]

During the night, all is quiet... until one survivor raises an alarm.

The zombies are attacking this safehouse!

Escape or Fight!

Zombie bites at Bill Fawkes in the head!
Bill Fawkes's left eye is punctured!
Bill Fawkes whimpers softly for mother.
Leader shoots at Zombie with a Double Barreled Shotgun!
Leader hits the head BLOWING IT APART!
Zombie stands headless for a moment and then crumples over.
Zombie bites at Leader!
Zombie misses.
Zombie bites at Bill Fawkes!
Zombie misses.
Zombie bites at Ashley Obama!
Zombie misses.
(eVade)
Zombie bites at Bill Fawkes!
Zombie misses.
Zombie bites at Bill Fawkes!
Zombie hits the left leg.
Zombie bites at Ashley Obama!
Zombie misses.
Zombie bites at Leader!
Zombie misses.
Zombie bites at Ashley Obama!
Zombie hits the left arm.
Bill Fawkes screams until the scream cracks dry.
Bill Fawkes asks quietly for coffee.
Leader has managed to slow the bleeding of Bill Fawkes's wounds.
Bill Fawkes says "Mama baby. Baby loves mama."
Bill Fawkes asks for a blanket.
Bill Fawkes begins hyperventilating.
Bill Fawkes screams until the scream cracks dry.

You have escaped! Unfortunately at a great cost, as anything or anyone you have left behind has been abandoned to the zombie horde. After running what seems like five miles, you make it away into the wilderness. You had best find a new safehouse soon before you're zombie meat!

*An hour of searching later*
Bill Fawkes growls agitatedly.
Bill Fawkes snaps at Leader while administering treatment.
Bill Fawkes mutters something about how hungry he is.
Bill Fawkes asks "Hey, issat bl-blood? Ooh..."
With a growl, Bill Fawkes lunges at his former companions, having been claimed by the virus!
Bill Fawkes bites at Ashley Obama!
Bill Fawkes hits the neck!
Ashley Obama's jugular is severed!
Ashley Obama screams until the scream cracks dry.
Leader MISTAKENLY shoots at Ashley Obama with a Double Barreled Shotgun!
Leader hits the body.
Ashley Obama cries silently for mother, breathing slowly, then not at all.
Bill Fawkes bites at Leader!
Bill Fawkes misses.
Leader clubs Bill Fawkes with a Double Barreled shotgun!
Leader hits the head.
8 of Bill Fawkes' teeth are knocked out!
Bill Fawkes bites at Leader!
Bill Fawkes hits the body.
Leader's left lung has been punctured!
Leader begins hyperventilating.
Bill Fawkes bites at Leader!
Bill Fawkes hits the left arm.
Leader screams until the scream cracks dry.
Bill Fawkes bites at Leader!
Bill Fawkes hits the head.

*Shortly thereafter*

Z - Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains...

*High score screen*

[LiteralKa]

I've been thinking of stepping away from LCS to make an ASCII zombie game in a similar squad-based strategy/RPG style for months myself; I just haven't had time. The motivation is something you probably observed yourself while thinking about this: zombies are fun, and the Liberal Crime Squad gameplay structure really does fit a zombie apocalypse much better than a political satire. Zombie apocalypse has broader appeal, lets everyone but the Australian government feel better about the fact that they're shooting people around the city, and lends itself to better pacing and lots of cool storytelling opportunities.

Maybe you could do ZOMBIE MODE.

[flap]

I've been thinking of stepping away from LCS to make an ASCII zombie game in a similar squad-based strategy/RPG style for months myself; I just haven't had time. (...)

Don't worry, I probably won't have time either !!! When programming I am often doing overcomplicated things, which really satisfy me to the intellectual point of view, but makes my development very slow (this with the fact that probably don't code more than 5 to 10 hours month...)

However, I might have fun working on the concept and design of the game. I see at least on thing where we have to go away form LCS : when behind raided, we have only 1 squad moving around. Here we must be allowed to place few people around and barricade the place (basic requirement for Zombie game). But quite q bit can be reused : the news paper related event would be fun at the beginning of the breakthrough, and make feel stronger the collapse of the society as they are not released anymore...

OK, lets start the brain storm ! (though I won't come back before one week). The main questions that I have is what would be the different steps of the society collapse, and what game opportunities it creates (for example stories of breakthrough in some towns, causing a surge of population to supermarket in our, with eventual panic and some people being curshed by the crowd, the police coming in action before the breakthrough, the breakthrough, the collapse of all structure, the health risk due to the accumulation of dead bodies and sick people allowing other epidemia, and so on...).  Other questions are : is there only one sequence of events, or different possible path (will the army be able to secure a part of the town for example ?), and does the sequence of events as to be same everywhere in the town the player is, and does everything has to be happening at the same time.

Really playing during the collapse would be fun : as the hacker is spending time in LCS to get information on the population mind, one could try to gather info about the breakthrow, but he would have to adapt it equipment with the evolution of the epidemia (computer/internet at the beginning, but then use an emitting and receiving radio, or other communication system)

Hmm, it sounds tasty...

[Jetman123]

You should be able to walk around a large map/world, or perhaps go to different locations looking for a place to stay before nightfall. Instead of waiting a day, you'd wait an hour. So you'd have to balance grabbing more ammo/medical supplies and treating your wounded against finding shelter before nightfall. Of course, once you find a safehouse, you can still go out for stuff, but that's a dangerous proposition.

So! Main ideas:

1. Each "turn" is one hour, instead of one day.
2. You can turn abandoned buildings into safe houses.
3. You can also stay out in the wilderness, but this is near-suicide when nightfall comes.
4. Staying in a saferoom or out in the wilderness, or even while searching for a saferoom, you can do various things like make excursions for medical supplies, try to find guns or melee weapons, or look for other survivors.
5. You start at 6AM, fresh having run your legs raw from escaping an overrun military/CEDA evac post. You have 12 hours to find other survivors and find shelter.
6. Each night, the undead will attack your safehouse, until you manage to get further away from the city. The attack is large and you kinda need to be in a safehouse or be extremely heavily armed to survive it.

Thoughts?

[E. Albright]

Point 3 seems questionable, if by "wilderness" you mean non-urban areas. Reduced population density should make outdoor survival far from suicide (though if you were attacked, it would be much more dangerous).

Also, it would help if you established whether the zombies in question are classic slow zombies, or new-fangled turbo zombies.

[Neonivek]

A large aspect of the game is What IS a zombie in your setting?

Is it variable? are there multiple kinds?

[mainiac]

Given the medium, you wouldn't need to explicitly answer that question.

[Neonivek]

Given the medium, you wouldn't need to explicitly answer that question.

I don't mean in "cause" unless it is important (For example not all zombies can infect others through biting)

But do these zombies get powers, do they have biological needs, are there improved zombies, are there zombie animals, mutants, are they different at other times of day, can they open doors?

So these questions need to be answered as they represent the flavor of the challenges.

[Peepshow]

You can please all by just having a "classic zombie" mode and a super-zed mode. Sorta along the lines of LCS's conservative nightmare mode etc.

[Jetman123]

Or, better yet, have a variety of zombies you can toggle on and off at game start. Regular zombies, fast zombies, fat zombies (BOOMER!), super zombies (TANK!!!)...