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[mainiac]

The smooth scrolling movement in this version makes it feel like the PC is skating if you hold down a movement key and sway from side to side.  Kinda hypnotic.  I suddenly wished there were a zombie apocolypse themed skate park that I could glide my way through, humming a jaunty tune while weaving between the undead.

Make roller skates an item in this game!  Penalty to melee attacks but bonus to speed.

[Yannanth]

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[Urist Mcinternetuser]

Glad to see this wasn't abandoned, I hadn't checked in a long time.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

text like "Fists" and the numbers in the boxes should not be selectable (I think you convert them to symbols? Haven't used Flash in a while but I used to be decent with it).

It's super easy, I just haven't bothered to fix that yet. Literally just one line to set a property on the text. textField.selectable = false.

The FPS is surprisingly low and I wouldn't expect the game to be doing many computations or anything! Even when moving, the game runs at a constant 8/9 FPS. I found this quite odd. With the flashlight on, it drops by 1 FPS. When switching tabs (Firefox), down to 4 or 5. Though it is almost always at 8 FPS.

I assume the "graphics update" had a high ms count, and logic would run multiple times and be very low ms despite this? The graphics update includes lighting and field of view, which is by far the most expensive operation I have running. I may need to change my algorithm -- it works nicely, but it's a major performance hit right now.

I wonder, will the character sprite change depending on what you are holding? He seems to be holding a shotgun or rifle and a pistol if I'm not mistaken, but I had just my fists "equipped". His shirt is a bit small as well! Or he's just really fat and it doesn't cover his enormous belly though that doesn't seem to be the case. I hope you'll be able to play as a female character too.

I wasn't originally planning to do this, but after playing a bit of DCSS, I may eventually want to make the character's appearance and equipment visibly change. We'll see!

As for the map generation, it needs a little bit of work. It seems that almost every building is a commieblock, really large and with a wide courtyard but billions of windows. Will you be able to go up and down the floors as well? Going down the road on the far left of the map makes all buildings seem enormous though, and with few places to turn.

Yeah, there's only one building being read in from file and stamped down, and everything else other than that is an LCS-style building. I want to make sure I have the block size decided before creating a bunch of custom buildings that may eventually be the wrong size. I'm also looking at altering the way buildings are clustered around streets, making many smaller buildings, few that a full block in size.

By the way, could you program the arrow keys for movement as well? I'm not left-handed but it would be nice, I'm just naturally drawn to those keys I guess!

Yes, that shouldn't be a problem.

[nenjin]

I wasn't originally planning to do this, but after playing a bit of DCSS, I may eventually want to make the character's appearance and equipment visibly change. We'll see!

Beg, borrow or steal what you can from DCSS. I think for 2D Roguelikes, it's a title that really has its shit together, by virtue of having moved on to all the sundry details that really fill out the game. The customizable and gear-reflecting paper dolls are just one of several things that its maturity as a game has allowed. Then again, it's also a coordinated group effort.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

First off: graphics are quite decent though the flashlight effect could be a bit sexier.

Do you have any ideas of what would make the flashlight sexier?

I wasn't originally planning to do this, but after playing a bit of DCSS, I may eventually want to make the character's appearance and equipment visibly change. We'll see!

Beg, borrow or steal what you can from DCSS. I think for 2D Roguelikes, it's a title that really has its shit together, by virtue of having moved on to all the sundry details that really fill out the game. The customizable and gear-reflecting paper dolls are just one of several things that its maturity as a game has allowed. Then again, it's also a coordinated group effort.

I agree with this entirely. It's a fantastic game and is a tremendous credit to the genre. For anyone who hasn't played, you can grab it here, or play online.

[Yannanth]

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[Jonathan S. Fox]

I implemented a new lighting and field of view algorithm to speed the game up. Performance gain is small on my computer because I'm on a very fast computer, but it should improve framerates on slower computers substantially. The disadvantage is that the new lighting algorithm is not as generous about what tiles you can see, but I think it's a good tradeoff.

Spoiler: "Screenshots" (click to show/hide)

Before:


After:

First off: graphics are quite decent though the flashlight effect could be a bit sexier.

Do you have any ideas of what would make the flashlight sexier?

I was thinking maybe a circular effect with a better fade towards the edges. In other words, the fading effect should not align to the tiles but be sort of independent. It's only a minor thing but the flashlight does seem to make thing really "blocky" right now and I know we're used to ugly interfaces (CLI) but for a mainstream audience it is better to polish out these things. But don't focus on it unless you feel like procrastinating.

Yeah, I'm probably going to stick to tile-by-tile lighting. I loosely know how to do sexier lighting, but the time investment on my part to implement it isn't really worthwhile here, to my thinking.

So what about the other stuff I mentioned, like sleeping? As for houses, maybe they can have certain random attributes... like being full of corpses (is this possible in a zombie universe?) or full up with food in some basement. Or an underground shed in the garden, as if they knew what was going to happen (but didn't live to see their plans through!). How about that?

I haven't nailed down these details, but they sound good. My approach to some of this gameplay stuff is going to be iterative -- implement some gameplay, play the game, decide what it needs. Like a cook improvising by tasting and deciding it needs more salt. I am planning to have hunger and tiring, but they're not implemented right now.

[mainiac]

But what about the roller skates man?  Will there be roller skates?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

But what about the roller skates man?  Will there be roller skates?

It's too early for me to say. It sounds amusing and fun though.

[Montague]

So, I guess this is critism, but dunno how excited I am about another game about zombies. I think if there is going to be a sort of successor to LCS I'd like to see it as a insurgency type game. The LCS model seems suited for a strategic game where the player controls a small force resisting against a much greater force. I think there is more gameplay and strategic possibility in a game that pits a player against something like an alien invasion or occupying Army or government, rather then just zombies. You'd have more types of enemies and more things to interact with and things to do in a terrorist cell/ war-type setting. With a zombie game, you just have zombies, which I'm not sure offers too much variety to keep it interesting in comparison to what you can present in a different setting.

I think the zombie genre has been done to death and I think it limits freedom of play a LCS-style strategy or simulation type game is capable of. I think the game in development now could be reworked as a sort of urban guerrila warfare game, with base and personnel management elements, equipment and things to be developed and a wide scope of goals and gameplay styles. I don't know how well these would work in a game about zombie survival. I's keep what has been worked on already as a "zombie apopcalypse mode" game option, or a result of player actions in the game (terrorists using a biological weapon) or something to that effect. A zombie strategy game alone, seems a little limited and boring to me.

The basic idea of an LCS successor is awesome, but why zombies?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

So, I guess this is critism, but dunno how excited I am about another game about zombies. I think if there is going to be a sort of successor to LCS I'd like to see it as a insurgency type game. The LCS model seems suited for a strategic game where the player controls a small force resisting against a much greater force. I think there is more gameplay and strategic possibility in a game that pits a player against something like an alien invasion or occupying Army or government, rather then just zombies. You'd have more types of enemies and more things to interact with and things to do in a terrorist cell/ war-type setting. With a zombie game, you just have zombies, which I'm not sure offers too much variety to keep it interesting in comparison to what you can present in a different setting.

I think the zombie genre has been done to death and I think it limits freedom of play a LCS-style strategy or simulation type game is capable of. I think the game in development now could be reworked as a sort of urban guerrila warfare game, with base and personnel management elements, equipment and things to be developed and a wide scope of goals and gameplay styles. I don't know how well these would work in a game about zombie survival. I's keep what has been worked on already as a "zombie apopcalypse mode" game option, or a result of player actions in the game (terrorists using a biological weapon) or something to that effect. A zombie strategy game alone, seems a little limited and boring to me.

The basic idea of an LCS successor is awesome, but why zombies?

I don't blame you for being unenthusiastic about zombies. There have been so many games and movies on the subject in the last five to ten years, we're in a kind of "zombie golden age" -- or a zombie ghetto if you're not so hot on the subject. There's still appetite for them though, even if it's not universal. You're right, the engine could be turned around to fit any number of themes, and I'm not planning to throw all the work I did on this game out once I've made a zombie game with it. Maybe another game that uses a similar engine would be appropriate. I certainly think a more direct LCS clone with a fancy interface and shiny graphics would be cool! That said, I'm pretty set on this theme for the game I'm making now.

[EuchreJack]

I remember there used to be a game on BYOND where you were a drug dealer, interacted with the other gangs, bought and sold weapons/drugs/etc, and could even recruit random people into your gang.  I'd like to see this system used to make a game like that in the future.  Anyone remember what game that was?

[Montague]

I don't blame you for being unenthusiastic about zombies. There have been so many games and movies on the subject in the last five to ten years, we're in a kind of "zombie golden age" -- or a zombie ghetto if you're not so hot on the subject. There's still appetite for them though, even if it's not universal. You're right, the engine could be turned around to fit any number of themes, and I'm not planning to throw all the work I did on this game out once I've made a zombie game with it. Maybe another game that uses a similar engine would be appropriate. I certainly think a more direct LCS clone with a fancy interface and shiny graphics would be cool! That said, I'm pretty set on this theme for the game I'm making now.

That's cool, its not like a zombie theme is completely without merit or anything, just seems a simple premise for a strategy/simulation genre game, but I suppose that isn't such a bad thing if its the first project made with the new engine. Zombies or not, I'm definately going to check it out regardless.

I remember there used to be a game on BYOND where you were a drug dealer, interacted with the other gangs, bought and sold weapons/drugs/etc, and could even recruit random people into your gang.  I'd like to see this system used to make a game like that in the future.  Anyone remember what game that was?

I remember something like this, even had a commodity market determined by player trends for drug prices and whatnot. I think there are a lot of games like this out there right now, of various quality. I'd almost like to see something like a game where you play as a mercenary outfit/ PMC/ drug cartel, with freedom to do whichever gameplay style you'd like. Manpower, recruiting, training, equipment, money and base management and all that sort of thing. That always seemed like a good concept for a game, but never seen a really good example of one done well, most games with that sort of theme sucked. MGS Peace Walker, maybe, just because it didn't suck, but was'nt exactly very indepth or strategy focused either.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Friday update!

Key Changes:
- New faster lighting algorithm
- Zombies with zombie AI
- Shooting (no melee yet)
- Window breaking
- New crosshair on targeted enemy

Playable Build:
www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/Z_Alpha_Week2.swf
- Click the screen to give it keyboard focus.
- Use WASD, number pad, or arrow keys to move.
- F to toggle flashlight.
- Space to shoot.

I started the week by working to optimize the lighting and field of view calculations, substituting a faster but more restrictive algorithm. Performance gains seem to be good, but I'm still testing on a relatively fast machine, and will need to hear how the game is running on other computers as well. I added zombies, zombie movement and hunting, window breaking, and shooting. I needed a break from just re-implementing old features, so I also added a crosshair that shows on the currently targeted zombie if the attack button is being held.

The previous overlay for bullet trails actually used a map-sized bitmap in memory that was written to and erased from on a frame-by-frame basis, which was forgivably clunky on a small map, but proved completely unfeasible on the huge map I'm currently using. The new tracer fire looks almost the same, but should run much faster -- the only major difference is that the layering has the gunshots drawing on top of the player and the zombies, rather than the characters drawing over the gunshots. I liked the other way more, but I'll need to change how the characters are drawn to support moving them off the map layer.

Of the things in the preview video that aren't yet re-implemented, the major remaining features are melee attacks, blood, door opening, and items. Weapons are only half-made -- they can shoot, and track ammo, but aren't in the world and don't interact with the HUD properly.