Bay 12 Games Forum
Other Projects => Curses => Topic started by: Jonathan S. Fox on January 26, 2013, 05:26:33 pm
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As some of the people who have been around for a couple years might remember, I was working on a big fancy zombie game with graphics and stuff, initially based on Liberal Crime Squad and called "Zombie Survival Squad" but eventually drifting from it and having an identity crisis. I stopped work on that to make something supposedly shorter term that could actually make money, but that short term project turned into a big project, and long story short, it's been a long time since I've worked on the zombie game.
Two weeks ago I gave myself two weeks to whip up a prototype of what a proper Zombie Survival Squad, closely based on Liberal Crime Squad, would look like. Since those two weeks have elapsed, it's time to share the result of that work.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_1.png)
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_2.png)
The game is EXTREMELY INCOMPLETE, but I've built a version that should (untested) work on Windows.
Windows download link:
http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_3_3_2013.zip
(How to use: unzip somewhere, double click zss.exe)
I haven't provided support for Linux or OS X in this download, but it's very possible for the future. The game is written in Python 3 using the Libtcod library (which in turn uses SDL). This things are all well-supported on Linux and OS X.
Question:
Is this something I should continue to pursue? Do you want to see this game made?
Development goes much faster than the graphical version I was working on before; in a couple weeks I've gotten about as far as months of development on that version took me. My biggest stumbling block is that I don't have a good idea of how I can make anything resembling a living making this game; even though there's a significant audience for this type of game, most ASCII games are free and open source.
Still, I've been really enjoying the development process so far, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and impressions.
Note: This engine can support graphics. Both tile graphics in place of text, and just straight up shoving full color images onto the screen.
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Zombie game like LCS? I'll take a look after work... definitely want to watch development on this!
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YES. OH GOD YES. OF COURSE I WANT THIS.
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After trying it for a few minutes, the main things seem to be that I can't equip anybody with things and that I can't leave the "out on a raid" screen.
And yes, I think you should keep doing this. Being able to punch a zombie's head off is too funny to lose.
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Oh my.
Yes! Do it! C'mon, do it! Go! Go! Go! Go!
I also like the part about it theoretically being able to support graphics.
So, can you just not select menu options other than "move out" yet?
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I haven't even tried it yet and I still think it's a good idea. Graphics don't make the game--player options and the ability to build up do, IMO, and your work generally handles those pretty well.
Will get it transferred and take a shot later today.
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Meh, I think you should put LCS as your #1 priority.
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Implemented the equipment screen, updated the download.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_3.png)
You have two weapon slots -- sidearm and large weapon. You can use either, both, or none. If you have items in both slots, your character will swap between them automatically in combat, based on whatever will get the best results.
Also fixed an issue with the base screen UI that made it so if you pressed enter on the top-level menu, it sent you directly into combat. Also a crash that would happen if you removed everyone from your raiding party and then tried to go forth.
Some hotkeys while in combat:
F or Zero: Attack nearest enemies. Useful when you have guns, to attack at range.
I as in inventory: Go to equipment screen, manage your gear.
Period or G: Grab one of the items the party is standing on.
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posting to watch because this is fucking awesome.
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Is there a way to leave the mysterious complex where you go on the raids yet?
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Is there a way to leave the mysterious complex where you go on the raids yet?
Not yet -- you're trapped there forever. Or at least until you close the program.
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Is there a way to leave the mysterious complex where you go on the raids yet?
Not yet -- you're trapped there forever. Or at least until you close the program.
I'd make changing that a priority ;D
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I'd make changing that a priority ;D
Indeeeed. Otherwise, I'm liking this.
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Hey, great, tbh this was more what I was hoping for than the other game you where making, random char stats please, making do with what you get is always fun.
In terms of making some $, is throwing up a kickstarter for a couple of grand an option? its not a living, but it could keep the wolves from the door for a little while. You could also talk to darkling wolf who is pretty much main dev of cataclysm these days, polite words could probably get you access to the new cataclysm and the sorts of people who would be interested in this game, if only to help build a player base.
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I haven't even tried it yet and I still think it's a good idea. Graphics don't make the game--player options and the ability to build up do, IMO, and your work generally handles those pretty well.
Will get it transferred and take a shot later today.
Shot taken. Missing a DLL (MVCB100, IIRC). Game fails to run. <shrug> Would appreciate a fixed Metal Detector & LCS build, but whatever.
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I'd make changing that a priority ;D
Indeeeed. Otherwise, I'm liking this.
Yeah, okay, I'll add a door. :P
Hey, great, tbh this was more what I was hoping for than the other game you where making, random char stats please, making do with what you get is always fun.
In terms of making some $, is throwing up a kickstarter for a couple of grand an option? its not a living, but it could keep the wolves from the door for a little while. You could also talk to darkling wolf who is pretty much main dev of cataclysm these days, polite words could probably get you access to the new cataclysm and the sorts of people who would be interested in this game, if only to help build a player base.
Random character stats, definitely. Probably with more control over your founder, as in LCS, so you can customize your start.
Kickstarter is an option, but I'll need a strong selling point to make it work -- games as a field have been really successful on there, but it's not free money -- projects only get backed if they're actually compelling and exciting. I think it's doable, but my prototype of the game will have to mature a bit more. A couple of screens and some big ideas doesn't prove much.
I haven't even tried it yet and I still think it's a good idea. Graphics don't make the game--player options and the ability to build up do, IMO, and your work generally handles those pretty well.
Will get it transferred and take a shot later today.
Shot taken. Missing a DLL (MVCB100, IIRC). Game fails to run.
Okay, thanks for the report; I'll provide the appropriate DLLs with the next build. Installing this package from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8328) should also solve the problem.
Meh, I think you should put LCS as your #1 priority.
<shrug> Would appreciate a fixed Metal Detector & LCS build, but whatever.
I won't be doing anything big with LCS, but I hate to leave you hanging if I'm neglecting a pending issue. I've gone ahead and located the Metal Detector bug and committed a fix to the latest SVN -- a rebuilt game will have working metal detectors. I'll also get a new release up for LCS in the next couple hours, incorporating the various changes people have contributed to the game since the last release (including the metal detector bug).
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Yeah, this looks straightforward. I mean i could see how this could be VERY enjoyable.
Just make these notes thou:
If you're willing to go commercial with this, having no graphics, i have no idea how efficient it would be UNLESS it proves to have some incredible set of features to back up for the lack of graphics (and justify the lack).
Even so, you will only reach only a small group of people that would be interested.
So how much profit can you gain?
What i've just said is common sense, and said it more to see how are you planning to deal with it, since i'm pretty sure you have an answer for that.
Don't get me wrong, i have nothing against going commercial with this, personally. Even more going without graphics. As i can see it, no graphics means a hell of a lot more features that could make the game shine!
PS: And yes, of course we can be your devoted beta testers through out development that get to play the for free!
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Sweet. PTW
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If you go the Kickstarter route, you have to make sure the rewards are designed properly so that you could fulfill them. The second-worst thing that could ever happen to a Kickstarter is getting overfunded, and thus receiving the pressure of trying to fulfill all backers' orders. Granted, that's not as a big of a problem as trying to get people interested in a zombie rogue-like in the first place.
Since you do admit that this game cannot really be sold, I think you should try the Ransom Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_model), offering to make the source code and the game free if your Kickstarter is fully funded, and then have rewards be you inserting backers into the game, either as randomly generated names or as possible parts of the "main quest" necessary to get out of the city.
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As suggested, I added the ability to go back to base after you send out a raiding party. To make this meaningful, I made the food/water tracking impactful, added healing at your base, and made it so you can collect the required food and water with your raiding party. More changes below.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/knifehands.png)
Changelog:
- Added an exit to the mysterious compound where you fight zombies, so you can go back to safehouse
- Added character stats and character header
- Added knifehands zombies that can cut your head off
- Added food and water tracking, damage for not having enough, healing while resting in safehouse
- Added many new sources of food and water
- Added several new weapon and armor types, including a shotgun and two melee sidearms
- Added incapacitation due to damage
- Added variable limb sever chance by weapon
- Made party members that die get kicked from the party and drop their stuff on the ground
- Made it so you automatically pick up items you walk over
http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_1-28-2013.zip (http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_1-28-2013.zip)
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How did this take me two days to notice? Great stuff!
It might be cool if instead of gasping in pain zombies would be knocked to the ground. They'd then keep trying to climb back up until you kill them.
Damn, those knifehand zombies. Not sure I'm a fan of those.
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one thing that I find very few zombie games do well, is any sort of weapon durability tracking. Also the ability to block/counter/defend yourself with a melee weapon, generally in most games getting close to a zombie with a melee weapon is almost certain to get you hurt. Any plans at all to adding melee skills, so that lone zombies would be a lot less harmful against people with melee weapons? Maybe fatigue or something that gets used up as you block/counter attacks to make fighting 1-2 zombies in melee safe but multiples can still overwhelm you. Preventing the 'Urist Knocks the bolt out of the air with his sword' spam that df sometimes has :p
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Is infection to be taken in account as future feature?
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To be honest i find this game enjoyable even as it is at this stage.
It's just so well done, although i cannot say what is well done but i love it!
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What are your plans for how this game starts out?
Multiple start options, like LCS, would be neat.
Something like:
[ A] You have spent years watching the news, waiting, preparing for the rebuilding of society. You will have several (rand # of weeks/days) to prepare for the collapse as isolated reports come through.
[ B] A few days(rand # of /days, max of a week) ago you personally witnessed one of the first reanimations. The ramifications of the illness are not lost on you, but you were not prepared to abandon society. The journey will be difficult.
[ C] They are coming, it has been on the news. Evacuation will not be necessary, only a quarantine. But the stories you had dismissed indicated that the disease spread with great ease. Humanity will fall.
[ D] You have been living under a rock. On your way home from your job, you finally figured out that society has collapsed. OR You wake up to the sounds of gunfire and moaning.
Option [ A] might then take you to your founder preparation screen, which gives you plenty of additional resources "You have made certain to keep good credit, and can remortgage/draw up loans very quickly", "Your basement is handloader's heaven", "You have scouted out several retreats, several of which you know are within your immediate means of purchase", "you have purchased many books on skills, and printed out [vital information from the internet] (handloading data, nutritional information, stuff for home-canning, etc)."
Option [ B] might saddle you with poorer start options. "You have x# of children, you will have many mouths to feed, but more hands to aid in the fields", "you live in a gated community but your home has many windows", "Remaining an active shooter has proved difficult with your finances.", "you live in a new community with few friends."
Option [ C] gives you a few hours to run home, panic buy, "you drive to several gun stores, most of which are closed. He tries to do the background check, but then he hands you the (random legal firearm) and tells you to get home and be careful" "You head to walmart but the shelves are almost empty. You still manage to grab [things]. Checking out, you have maxed out your CC/emptied your bank account(if your occupation is pretty shitty)" "You head to Home depot, buy wood, and start barricading your home." "You race to pick up your kids and loved ones." "You call your mates and make plans to meet up later." "You fill every receptacle in your house with water." "You take the time to move everything important to your second story, then destroy your stairwell."
Option [ D] would only give you Founder options. Housing, contacts, dependants/cohabitants, resources, and tools are completely randomized.
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One thing I noticed is that there is no lose, and you can send dead people on raids, and when you do you can't move them.
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This looks pretty awesome, "Rise of the Conservative dead" anyone?
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Included DLL solved the problem; thanks. (It may also cure a similar DLL problem I had with an unrelated engine. Will find out Friday or so.)
After a few problem/learning playthroughs, this one's looking good. We had a few close things and Rick put a lot of effort into it (still fighting despite being Out Of Action), but everyone's healthy again, we've army armor, helmets, shotguns, and 9mm for all, with a plentiful supply of food & water. 19th Jan.
Things that are impressive:
1) Scrounged gear is visibly helpful: armor makes attacks bounce, shotguns routinely cripple Zs, etc
2) Squad members can recover fairly rapidly, given resources
3) Resources tend to make themselves available if you work for them
4) Interface, & especially the font selection, seems just creepy enough to properly set the mood
5) Cleared terrain stays cleared (since site raids are the ONLY way to acquire resources ATM, letting the player pull out without further risk seems fair.)
Not so much:
1) Vision area is inconsistent/zombies tend to pop up out of nowhere (a square that looked clear from a square away can suddenly have a Z when you move adjacent--this can be nasty in the early going)
2) Unclear on food/water requirements
3) Not sure what effects the bandages have
XML, and maybe some low-level Java/Pascal (if I'm lucky and the compiler cooperates) is all the coding I can do. Let me know, though, because this feels like it can & should go a lot farther than another zombie game I know, and I'd love to help.
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Not particularly exciting today, I worked mostly on smoothing out some rough spots in the interface. This really should have been out at least a day ago, but I was a lazybones and played too much Orcs Must Die 2.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/safehouse_log.png)
Changelog:
- Unified interface to remove hotkeys from menus and add number pad support to menus.
- Added indentation in message log for readability.
- Added a message log to the safehouse screen.
- Prevented enemies you just spotted from acting before you can react.
http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_1-31-2013.zip (http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_1-31-2013.zip)
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I think that zombies should be doing less massive single strikes but should be getting more small damage hits. They should be slowly wearing you down before the horde. It would work especially well if coupled with them spawning behind you based on how long you've been in the area. It should be about the horde slowly wearing you down and you deciding whether it's better to keep searching for food or run before too many of them show up.
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I think you should make people eat and drink less, or make them more plentiful. One time someone was badly wounded and found at least 20 units of food and water and they ate through that before he was even able to heal.
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THIS LOGBOOK NEEDS A SLOGAN!
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4) Interface, & especially the font selection, seems just creepy enough to properly set the mood
I one hundred percent agree, that font fits perfectly.
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If you're willing to go commercial with this, having no graphics, i have no idea how efficient it would be UNLESS it proves to have some incredible set of features to back up for the lack of graphics (and justify the lack).
Even so, you will only reach only a small group of people that would be interested.
So how much profit can you gain?
Yeah, I've thought about that. It's certainly a concern, and I expect the answer to that question will ultimately determine whether I can finish making this game.
If you go the Kickstarter route, you have to make sure the rewards are designed properly so that you could fulfill them. The second-worst thing that could ever happen to a Kickstarter is getting overfunded, and thus receiving the pressure of trying to fulfill all backers' orders. Granted, that's not as a big of a problem as trying to get people interested in a zombie rogue-like in the first place.
Since you do admit that this game cannot really be sold, I think you should try the Ransom Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_model), offering to make the source code and the game free if your Kickstarter is fully funded, and then have rewards be you inserting backers into the game, either as randomly generated names or as possible parts of the "main quest" necessary to get out of the city.
That's what I've heard about Kickstarter rewards, and I had a similar idea in mind for how to structure a Kickstarter campaign; a fully-funded project would result in an open-source and free game, with backers given early and ongoing access, cameos, and greater creative impact. I may alternatively go for a tiered solution, where I have a low goal to just fund the game's development, while crossing my fingers for sales later to make it more worth my time from a financial perspective. Backers would get access to the full game in perpetuity. A stretch goal, at a more comfortable funding level, could be to release the game as free and open source.
I haven't really decided on this stuff though; at the moment, I don't yet have the game in a compelling enough state that I would back it myself. It really needs to be far enough down the line that a larger number of people would crave to see the game completed and in their hands.
It might be cool if instead of gasping in pain zombies would be knocked to the ground. They'd then keep trying to climb back up until you kill them.
Yeah, it uses the same incapacitated messages for humans and zombies right now, and that's kinda lame. They're written to be vaguely ambiguous, but it's still not very zombie-like. I think both types can stand to have more distinctively human and distinctively zombie incapacitation text.
Damn, those knifehand zombies. Not sure I'm a fan of those.
I think that zombies should be doing less massive single strikes but should be getting more small damage hits. They should be slowly wearing you down before the horde. It would work especially well if coupled with them spawning behind you based on how long you've been in the area. It should be about the horde slowly wearing you down and you deciding whether it's better to keep searching for food or run before too many of them show up.
I'm imagining these to be related, since normal zombies shouldn't be doing massive single strikes. "Knifehands zombies" are a part of my personal zombie lore (not drawn from any other sources), and I like the idea of zombies who look similar to the bread and butter minimally dangerous ones, but turn out to be really scary. I've also drawn inspiration from Left 4 Dead's idea of special infected. I think that's a powerful idea that opens up a lot of possibility space in both the lore of the zombie apocalypse and the depth of the game. At the same time, I think of Romero zombies as the baseline for a "zombie apocalypse", so things should keep touching back with that. My sense is that most of the time, you should be dealing with slow, mindless, countless zombies, that wear down your resources and only really ruin you when there's a bunch of them and you can't find a way around them. But once in awhile, I want you to deal with something really scary.
one thing that I find very few zombie games do well, is any sort of weapon durability tracking. Also the ability to block/counter/defend yourself with a melee weapon, generally in most games getting close to a zombie with a melee weapon is almost certain to get you hurt. Any plans at all to adding melee skills, so that lone zombies would be a lot less harmful against people with melee weapons? Maybe fatigue or something that gets used up as you block/counter attacks to make fighting 1-2 zombies in melee safe but multiples can still overwhelm you. Preventing the 'Urist Knocks the bolt out of the air with his sword' spam that df sometimes has :p
I'm not sure if I'll have weapon durability tracking; it's not something I've thought about at all.
I do think you make a good point about wanting to make sure that melee is viable. Badass heroes mowing their way through the zombie horde with a chainsaw is a part of the iconography of the genre, so it would be good to capture that. Left 4 Dead does a pretty good job with that, since your melee weapons one-shot enemies in a large arc, and you can alt-fire to knock back large groups, but can still get overwhelmed if you aren't careful. I'm definitely planning to have skills in the game, but haven't designed out the exact impact they have, so I can't really say whether a melee skill would directly make you harder to hit while using that weapon. For ensuring skilled melee combatants can still get overwhelmed, I personally like the idea of penalties for being surrounded more than exhaustion; exhaustion would add an extra thing to keep track of and try to manage. This again is something I've not in any way nailed down though, so I'm just speculating about options, not promising anything.
What are your plans for how this game starts out?
Multiple start options, like LCS, would be neat.
-snip-
I'm thinking of having a LCS-style multiple choice thing at the start. I think I'd want to make it less of a difficulty selection and more about choosing between several balanced options, but I really like the flavor of your ideas. Instead of giving you a branching choice of "A) get great options / B) get okay options / C) get bad options", it could just present each set of options in sequence. So you could have one part where you pick a great survival advantage, another where you pick some last-minute preparations as the terrifying reports came in, a question about the people you managed to stick close to when the area was falling apart, a question about where you holed up, a question that gives you options of a scary situation after everything went to hell and how you dealt with it, stuff like that. The course of the questions would both serve as character creation and tell the story of what you were doing before, during, and after the apocalypse, leading up to this point where you decide to try to gather survivors and take leadership.
1) Vision area is inconsistent/zombies tend to pop up out of nowhere (a square that looked clear from a square away can suddenly have a Z when you move adjacent--this can be nasty in the early going)
2) Unclear on food/water requirements
3) Not sure what effects the bandages have
XML, and maybe some low-level Java/Pascal (if I'm lucky and the compiler cooperates) is all the coding I can do. Let me know, though, because this feels like it can & should go a lot farther than another zombie game I know, and I'd love to help.
1) Fixed the zombie popping up issue in the last release; the problem was that zombies get to act after you, so you can step into their view and they can then respond and step forward adjacent to you in the same turn. It should now act more intuitively.
2) Food and water are 2 per day per person, this should also be more clear now that the game log is in place.
3) Bandages do nothing, they were literally the first item I made when I was building and testing the engine. I think I've pulled them from the list of items that can appear in the world for the next release. I want medical supplies of some sort, but I may abstract them more and have it be a thing where you need to have enough supplies at your safehouse or you won't be able to treat injuries effectively.
The game is written in Python, one of the slickest and easiest to use general-purpose programming languages in the world. Python is used by some professional game development studios as the scripting language they let airhead designers play with to code up a few limited aspects of the game, while the genius programmers work with harder C and Java code to do core engine stuff. I'm using it for the whole game, so it should be pretty easy to understand.
I'm also writing the game with an eye on modding potential. All in all, while I'm not looking for help with the game at the moment, I suspect that if I do release the source code and open the game up to modding, you'll find it a lot easier to work with than LCS.
I think you should make people eat and drink less, or make them more plentiful. One time someone was badly wounded and found at least 20 units of food and water and they ate through that before he was even able to heal.
The eat/drink rates of 2 bottles & cans per day are based on some survival research I've done, though I am planning to let you alter the rationing to reduce or increase the rate of consumption, with certain consequences. Difficulty of finding things is definitely something that can and will change though, and I'm planning to have other ways of getting food beyond just scavenging with the raiding party.
In the game as it currently is, you can't really afford to have the entire squad sit out because one person is badly hurt; if you have 4 people alive, you'll burn through 24 cans and bottles in just three days. If somebody is nearly killed, best to reorganize and pull them out of the raiding party, sending out those who can still fight. If you have only a couple people left, you may not be able to do this, but your supplies will last longer. If you have lots of people and they're all badly hurt, you're probably in trouble.
4) Interface, & especially the font selection, seems just creepy enough to properly set the mood
I one hundred percent agree, that font fits perfectly.
Yeah, I count myself extremely fortunate to have access to this font. It was included with the libtcod library I'm using for the game's graphics (such as they are).
Edit for missed:
Is infection to be taken in account as future feature?
Yeah, but I haven't decided how to make it work. I added dead people coming back, but that's not really the same as a person being bitten and certain to turn.
To be honest i find this game enjoyable even as it is at this stage.
It's just so well done, although i cannot say what is well done but i love it!
Thank you, and I'm glad. One thing I'm trying to do to encourage this is make the game easy enough to play that you spend less time wrestling with the UI and more time actually playing than in most games with an ASCII interface. I'm looking especially at LCS, DF, and Roguelikes in general, which all have a fairly steep learning curve just to figure out how to do stuff.
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I created a basic map editor, which I have packaged in today's download, and made the game look first for maps exported from the editor when sending out the raiding party. I also made it so dead allies and enemies will sometimes come back as zombies. Repeatedly, if they aren't dead enough the first time.
(http://jonathansfox.com/ZSS/editor.png)
(http://jonathansfox.com/ZSS/shaun_dead_again.png)
Changelog:
- Added map editor
- Added ability of the dead to rise again and feed on the living
- Added new food items, books
- Added raid casualties to the safehouse message log
Editor Notes:
- Left-click and drag to paint floors. Right-click and drag to paint walls.
- Make sure you have at least 50 tiles of open space on the map.
- Just rename map.zmap (in the maps directory) to something else if you don't want to overwrite it when saving a new map.
http://jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_2-3-2013.zip (http://jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_2-3-2013.zip)
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I'm imagining these to be related, since normal zombies shouldn't be doing massive single strikes. "Knifehands zombies" are a part of my personal zombie lore (not drawn from any other sources), and I like the idea of zombies who look similar to the bread and butter minimally dangerous ones, but turn out to be really scary. I've also drawn inspiration from Left 4 Dead's idea of special infected. I think that's a powerful idea that opens up a lot of possibility space in both the lore of the zombie apocalypse and the depth of the game. At the same time, I think of Romero zombies as the baseline for a "zombie apocalypse", so things should keep touching back with that. My sense is that most of the time, you should be dealing with slow, mindless, countless zombies, that wear down your resources and only really ruin you when there's a bunch of them and you can't find a way around them. But once in awhile, I want you to deal with something really scary.
You could take a page from L4D and make it so there are special zombies that separate members from the group. The captured member would be removed from the party and the special zombie would move away with the captured group member. Then you would need to chase after the special zombie to get your group member back. (Maybe the captured person could break free but that's an idea for later.) This would force you into tactically disadvantageous situations but would feel a bit less arbitrary.
Another thing to do could be area of damage zombies. I'm thinking zombies that explode in tentacles like in Resident Evil 4. The idea here would be that they make an area several spaces across very dangerous but are immobile and eventually die off on their own. If you need to you could attack them to make them die faster but this would probably cost you.
Another !fun! thing could be trap zombies. They would bait you to step on them with good items. If you step on them then one or more of your party members gets ankle-grabbed and several additional zombies come swarming. If there are any corpses nearby, they reanimate. This could add a little bit of gamble to items. Maybe you can't risk getting that Kevlar vest...
It would be nice if body armor showed up in the outfit spot at a higher priority then padded clothes. Best case scenario would be if there was Body Armor (+) to indicate padded outfit underneath.
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my game is not saved does this happen to anyone else?
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That feature does exist yet, AFAIK.
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my game is not saved does this happen to anyone else?
That feature does exist yet, AFAIK.
Yeah, I haven't implemented save functionality. There's a load game option on the main menu, but it doesn't (yet) do anything. The map editor's map exporting served as a proof of technology on how I'm going to save games though.
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Had the game freeze up on me. It was when I was about to be attacked by a zombie cat if that helps. Any questions before I close the window?
Yay, first bug report!
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-wtMZgE1dl1M/UQ9AF18-FVI/AAAAAAAAAB8/g1yRK0YQlSE/s807/freeze.jpg)
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Had the game freeze up on me. It was when I was about to be attacked by a zombie cat if that helps. Any questions before I close the window?
Yay, first bug report!
Hm. I can't think of anything useful to ask, and don't know why it's crashing. Let me know if it happens again, especially if you can spot a pattern.
Actually, one question: Can you close with the close button in the corner? Big red X or whatever?
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The close button worked.
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The close button worked.
The thing this tells me is that only the gameplay thread crashed, which means it's probably a fairly run-of-the-mill crash/freeze bug. The close button stops working if the part of the game that handles input freezes. As that part of the game has very few moving parts, bugs rarely affect it, but those that do are likely to be more esoteric problems that are harder to uncover.
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CONTINU DIS EPIK GAEM!!! NAOZ!!!!
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Re Fox:
OK, thanks for the information. I'm no "coder": what extremely little programming-language I know came from reading open-source code. Most of the Department Store expansion owes its existence to robust code-documentation (thanks!) and alt-copy-paste (thanks again!).
Weapon durability/ammo isn't viable at the current state IMO because there's no way to recover/replenish it, and no way to expect what weapons will be available to replace depleted weapons. Too Awesome To Use sets in, especially when one can't change weapons on-site. "Oh shit a knifehands--get the contingency shotgun!"
Concur re Q&A-style character generation. It ain't broke, no need to fix it.
Interface is fairly streamlined, true, though that'll hopefully change as more options become options. Might help to explicitly let people know about F to attack at range, though, as I keep finding myself thinking in LCS-mode where all battles are in melee, firearms or no.
Re Mainiac:
Until/unless there are sustainable ways to keep a squad going outside of raids, PLEASE NO item-trolling zombies in the raids. It's not much of a gamble if you *need* that crate of MREs to keep the squad alive. Capture zombies might be similar to the Smoker and use a ranged attack similar to the Squad. Area-effect zeds might be interesting but are a serious hazard in confined spaces.
Agree re outfit prioritization.
General thoughts:
How will players get more squad members?
Will a high Health stat offset lacking medical supplies, in similar fashion to how it speeds HP regen in LCS?
Sound-tracking: might a Katana be quieter than a Shotgun blast, so does not alert zeds throughout the area? (Could be one way to make melee viable.)
Alternate raid locations, with different item weights/risk, etc? (Could be a good way to reward backers: I'd consider paying to let people raid my former grad-student apartments, and I had some decent gear. Probably not good safehouse locations though.)
Games I'm thinking of, which you may/not be familiar with:
Survival Crisis Z: graphical roguelike that could have been great. But it ended up Conservative.
Attack of the Paper Zombies!: Open-field, limited-resource RTS: direct the marines to clear out the zombie spawn points. They upgrade as you progress.
Bottom line: Fox's work on LCS has demonstrated to my satisfaction that he's capable of making, or at least positively developing, a squad-building roguelike/RPG that I'd find worthwhile. Taking the general concepts of LCS and putting them into the zombie genre strikes me as hella more palatable than the closed-source game for which I wrote the FAQ. His time & his life, thus his call, though.
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Looks awesome. PTW.
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Jesus Christmas, I thought this project was dead!
It is so glad to see it back on track.
Keep up the good work.
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This is great fun, even without most of the features. Can't wait until its finished!
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PTW. I'll check it out after work. I am very excited for this.
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Moving out and having 3 zombies in your FOV at the start = "You dead, suckah."
You can move out when no one is alive, and of course can't move back.
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Warning : Severe memory leak results in endless Page File Usage growth and renders the game unplayable.
Attempting to end the application with Task Manager resulted in...
ZSS : Not Responding
End Program - ZSS : Not Responding
Soon followed by...
Windows Task Manager : Not Responding
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Posting to follow, looks snazzy as hell.
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The big new feature is saving and loading -- saves should even be forwards-compatible with future versions of the game, if I handle things right. Each day the game saves, and you can continue from the main menu to pick up where you left off, or select New Game to start a new game. I still haven't implemented a proper game over, so you can get into a state where you have a saved game, but it's unplayable due to everyone being dead; for now, just pick New Game from the main menu when that happens.
Other changes include some changes to enemies and spawn rates, and more books. I also laid the foundation for a couple new features that aren't complete yet. You can now select Library in the safehouse submenu to see your collection of books picked up on your adventures, and may run into a few rare survivors while fighting zombies. They stand there doing nothing unless you bump into them, in which case they say something friendly (or unfriendly) and then go back to doing nothing. You can press F or 0 (zero) to attack them like any other enemy. Being fragile living things with no equipment, they die pretty easily, and drop nothing but their corpse. Which may actually become hostile later.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/clowncar2.png)
http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_2-8-2013.zip
Changelog:
- Added autosave and continue support
- Laid groundwork for forward compatibility on save files and map files
- Altered the requirements for a creature to revive as a zombie
- Changed representation, balance, spawn rates of zombies
- Removed nonfunctional "EXP" header from party listing
- Preferred body armor slot over clothes slot when displaying outfit
- Added novels
- Added library screen
- Cleaned up memory leaks
- Fixed bug where people could stay in the raiding party if they starve to death
- Fixed bug where not all items would be picked up from a square at once
- Added initial rare spawns of (very incomplete, do nothing) human survivors
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It would be nice if body armor showed up in the outfit spot at a higher priority then padded clothes. Best case scenario would be if there was Body Armor (+) to indicate padded outfit underneath.
Done!
Most of the Department Store expansion owes its existence to robust code-documentation (thanks!) and alt-copy-paste (thanks again!).
The LCS XML stuff was done by... Carlos Gustavos? Or one of the other unsung heroes who regularly do cool stuff for the game without calling too much attention to themselves. It's good stuff.
How will players get more squad members?
I am envisioning two main ways: You encounter survivors with your raiding party and talk to them, or they show up at your safehouse and ask to join.
Will a high Health stat offset lacking medical supplies, in similar fashion to how it speeds HP regen in LCS?
Probably; I see medical supplies as an accelerator on healing, rather than a mandatory thing.
Sound-tracking: might a Katana be quieter than a Shotgun blast, so does not alert zeds throughout the area? (Could be one way to make melee viable.)
I haven't gotten to this yet, but I did a little bit with sound in the earlier graphical version of the game. The idea of shooting attracting zombies is a pretty common trope, so I think it would be cool to have that in. It'd be pretty easy to do too.
Alternate raid locations, with different item weights/risk, etc? (Could be a good way to reward backers: I'd consider paying to let people raid my former grad-student apartments, and I had some decent gear. Probably not good safehouse locations though.)
I am definitely thinking of a couple different ways to do this. I don't intend for the game to always be randomly picking your destination and dumping generic items everywhere.
Survival Crisis Z: graphical roguelike that could have been great. But it ended up Conservative.
Attack of the Paper Zombies!: Open-field, limited-resource RTS: direct the marines to clear out the zombie spawn points. They upgrade as you progress.
Bottom line: Fox's work on LCS has demonstrated to my satisfaction that he's capable of making, or at least positively developing, a squad-building roguelike/RPG that I'd find worthwhile. Taking the general concepts of LCS and putting them into the zombie genre strikes me as hella more palatable than the closed-source game for which I wrote the FAQ. His time & his life, thus his call, though.
I haven't played either of those games. What went wrong with Survival Crisis Z?
I think I missed some context on the second paragraph here. What is this FAQ you wrote?
Moving out and having 3 zombies in your FOV at the start = "You dead, suckah."
You can move out when no one is alive, and of course can't move back.
Warning : Severe memory leak results in endless Page File Usage growth and renders the game unplayable.
Other than getting screwed by spawning into a crowd of zombies, these should be fixed. For memory leaks, most of the game is cleanly garbage collected, but I had a couple of objects that call into a C library to allocate memory, and forgot to call into the library to release the memory again when the objects were destroyed. The only case where I could figure out that it could cause this sort of catastrophic level of memory usage was if you idled on the combat screen for a really long time, since one of these leaky objects was created and destroyed regularly on that screen, even if you aren't doing anything. There were smaller leaks that occurred every time you sent out your raiding party, but these alone couldn't have caused the issue you described.
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Weapon durability/ammo isn't viable at the current state IMO because there's no way to recover/replenish it, and no way to expect what weapons will be available to replace depleted weapons. Too Awesome To Use sets in, especially when one can't change weapons on-site.
Each character carries a sidearm for exactly that reason.
Until/unless there are sustainable ways to keep a squad going outside of raids, PLEASE NO item-trolling zombies in the raids. It's not much of a gamble if you *need* that crate of MREs to keep the squad alive.
But that's the best part- you must *need* the supplies to make the gamble, it's not like you won't be expecting it after the first time or two. The power of the trap needs to be appropriate to the loot though- trapper zombies shouldn't just spawn on a single first-aid kit.
Sound-tracking: might a Katana be quieter than a Shotgun blast, so does not alert zeds throughout the area? (Could be one way to make melee viable.)
The other would be ammo, or even additional exp- it's a lot easier to pull a trigger then to cut a zombie down with a sword. I highly recommend the game Wasteland (heads up: it's from 1988) for inspiration.
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New version:
Spawning on a square with loot doesn't pick it up.
Zombies with both legs blown off can still move without issues.
F-shooting with a zombie and a human within view targeted the human first. (Wut?)
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F-shooting with a zombie and a human within view targeted the human first. (Wut?)
Also saw this. Did you also see the human before you did the zombie?
Characters. seem to prefer the 9mm to the shotgun. Is that intended?
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OK. SCZ required player-controlled torture to progress the plot (two separate occasions), routinely sent things sour despite the player's best efforts, and denied the player the ability to influence the plot; I wrote the FAQ on it so after that slog I'm hoping for better here.
Problem with sidearms is that they too would be subject to degradation. Fists are ineffective IME. If weapons must be made limited-use, best to make it comparable to LCS and leave melee weapons invulnerable.
I suspect a1s & I have different definitions of "gamble". Gambling IMO involves deciding whether I can afford to risk what I've got for something that I don't need but would be nice to have. I'm understanding a1s' definition to mean doing something risky, whether or not I need the beneficial result. Forced-choices aren't gambles, IMO, and given the penalties for starvation, lack of food/water qualifies as forcing a choice.
(Now, a fresh, loaded Shotgun, on the other hand, could be acceptable as a bait item. Cf. Alien: Resurrection.)
Looks like generic XP are out; not sure if Fox wants to retain the Juice/skillXP system or not. Wasteland was at last check not open-source or freeware. My day job prevents taking advantage of Underdogs, etc. Sorry.
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I suspect a1s & I have different definitions of "gamble". Gambling IMO involves deciding whether I can afford to risk what I've got for something that I don't need but would be nice to have. I'm understanding a1s' definition to mean doing something risky, whether or not I need the beneficial result.
I fail to grasp the difference. Is it that in your version you have something physical that may become lost to you? ???
Forced-choices aren't gambles, IMO, and given the penalties for starvation, lack of food/water qualifies as forcing a choice.
It's not a forced choice. Not usually anyway. Imagine this:
You're foraging in an abandoned building and come across what looks like a backpack full of stuff. There's an unopened can of condensed milk sticking out of it. If you get it, this one item might make your trip break even. On the other hand, you know that grabbing too-good-to-be-true item stashes is exactly what made Johnson lose his left arm to the elbow. But if you don't, you might run into zombies anyway. Also there might not even be any food here- maybe whoever was gathering it put it in that backpack. And left :-\. It could happen. So what do you do?
The point of gambles is that you go for high risk, high reward options. If the player already has more stuff then they need, doing such gambles in unnecessary. If they are starving all the time, it's unavoidable. But if they're only starving one night a week- they have a choice.
Wasteland was at last check not open-source or freeware.
You're right. I keep forgetting games from over 20 years ago aren't free. And it's not even on GOG >:(. the 3 ideas are:
-The world has ended, ammo is now scarce. Don't use it when you don't need to and diversify your ammo use.
-It's easier to pull a trigger then it is to sword someone to death. Melee gives more EXP.
-Harder checks= more skill advancement. Like LCS.
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A zombie
Twice! Twice!
I love this game. :D
Going forward I'd like to see either the zombies be tougher or see them start travelling in packs. It would also be nice if there were easy locations for the early game without many zombies but these would quickly run out of loot. Difficulty curves and whatnot.
For a non-raid location I'd suggest that there be a simple exchange that would let you exchange water for food and vice versa but not at a 1-1 rate.
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Re gambling: if I need that item cache to avoid starvation, rigging the cache and calling it a "gamble" strikes me as unfun. If it's a question between having to put people on food/water detail rather than training or doing XYZ long-term beneficial task (rig up solar panel, etc), that might be a "gamble" and a value-add to the game. I'm looking for being able to pass up the potential-trap (perhaps I only sent in two people?) without endangering the ZSS' long-term survival.
It would help to have a farlook. If the player hasn't yet realized that bright symbols are high-value--and therefore likely to be trapped--the "gamble" fails because it's not an informed decision.
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I think that guns should have a lesser chance of turning the zombies into the % corpses that don't come back.
I love the come back to life feature. It gets a verbal reaction from me more often then not.
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F-shooting with a zombie and a human within view targeted the human first. (Wut?)
Also saw this. Did you also see the human before you did the zombie?
Characters. seem to prefer the 9mm to the shotgun. Is that intended?
Humans are barely in the game right now. They're basically zombies that don't attack you and that say stuff instead of being attacked when you bump into them. They have equal targeting priority to zombies, are (in this release) a legitimate target unless there are zombies closer to you than they are.
Sidearms are used interchangeably with primary weapons, but always to your benefit. When your characters use a 9mm instead of a shotgun, it's because their shotgun attack was going to do less damage on that turn, probably due to a bad roll. I'm concieving of sidearm use as less of a "dual wielding system" and more of an opportunity attack thing, where it's always helpful to have a backup weapon on hand to take advantage of unique circumstances. I'm thinking this can be flavored up more to make it more cool and easier to understand what's going on.
Problem with sidearms is that they too would be subject to degradation. Fists are ineffective IME. If weapons must be made limited-use, best to make it comparable to LCS and leave melee weapons invulnerable.
What I'll probably do is have no durability on weapons, but track ammo for ranged weapons. Balanced right, this makes ammo caches a really exciting find. Not all ranged weapons will be really hard to supply; some ammo is more common than others, and I think it makes sense to support crafting things like crossbow bolts or arrows.
I think that guns should have a lesser chance of turning the zombies into the % corpses that don't come back.
I love the come back to life feature. It gets a verbal reaction from me more often then not.
The % corpses are extremely mangled to the point that they have no head or no body. I'll probably do something like LCS, and make it so most guns can't remove body parts. Which doesn't mean they won't permanently kill zombies, but they won't render them into comforting % corpses in the process. This already happens to a certain extent; you get a lot more dismemberment with a shotgun or katana than you do with a 9mm or combat knife.
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I like your thinking on ammo. Given the nature of the game you should be able to get the balance on ammo just right and it's the best system IMHO if you can do that. One thing I'd suggest would be making it so that all ranged attacks have to be done before melee attacks, forcing you to make a strategic choice of whether to use ammo or not. This might work better if there was a way to quickly switch between your gun and melee primary.
That's cool to know about the sidearms, pretty cool system actually. I was wondering why my character would sometimes randomly punch instead of using their weapons. I take it that the punch roll was better then the weapon roll.
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If it's a question between having to put people on food/water detail rather than training or doing XYZ long-term beneficial task (rig up solar panel, etc), that might be a "gamble" and a value-add to the game.
That does help me understand the difference between our views on "gambles", thank you. I would call this a "tradeoff", rather than a "gamble" (which, like I said, in my view entails high risk and reward scenarios), but I think 'doing noncombat stuff' should be in the game too, so at least on this point we a agree.
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Are there any plans for modifying/combining weapons and armor? Or using them for another purpose? Or at least a discard option, for all of the junk we pick up, once we get everyone in full army vestments.
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How would one win? Kill the 7 billion or so zombies roaming around, or get a stable shelter that can last long enough that the zombies kill themselves?
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Well the intro text says "restore hope" so that is kinda vague.
I remember a while back Mr. Fox was talking about a victory condition involving going through multiple steps to equip a transport and get out of dodge. I'd like to see the option to set up a society though. I think LCS could actually be a pretty good inspiration here. Where LCS has a politics page, ZSS could have a "society" page with the different needs of survivors beyond your immediate group. Through your raids you can provide for societies needs and help rebuild the survivor community.
For instance there could be a "barricades" need. More barricades mean more people survive attacks meaning there will be more survivors around. There could be several ways to increase the barricade level. You could have your squad members "build community barricades" directly through the job menu. You could donate tools, books and/or materials to the community (or get a smaller impact by selling them.) The barricades would decay without your help, just like the issues in LCS slowly turn conservative.
Other possible needs:
Armories (find them, make them or help weaponsmiths), these increase the number of survivors and make it so the ones you find on site are better armed.
Electricity (Scronge up a generator, provide gasoline). Helps the community the rebuild and protect itself (lighting helps defenses)
Water (provide bottled water or help the survivors get it from the pipes). Helps survivor numbers and at the top level gives you free water.
Food (provide canned food or help farmers or farm yourself). Helps survivor numbers and lowers the price of food when trading for it.
Squad Reputation and Squad Respect: Based on your actions people can like you and have respect for your abilities. Respect lets you attract survivors and reputation means you'll attract higher heart individuals who are more trustworthy.
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Well the intro text says "restore hope" so that is kinda vague.
I remember a while back Mr. Fox was talking about a victory condition involving going through multiple steps to equip a transport and get out of dodge. I'd like to see the option to set up a society though. I think LCS could actually be a pretty good inspiration here. Where LCS has a politics page, ZSS could have a "society" page with the different needs of survivors beyond your immediate group. Through your raids you can provide for societies needs and help rebuild the survivor community.
-snip-
I love that idea! I would also love to see a map of some sort, so you could explore different locations throughout the city without using menus.
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Sadly coming up with the idea is the easy part.
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Well the intro text says "restore hope" so that is kinda vague.
I remember a while back Mr. Fox was talking about a victory condition involving going through multiple steps to equip a transport and get out of dodge. I'd like to see the option to set up a society though. I think LCS could actually be a pretty good inspiration here. Where LCS has a politics page, ZSS could have a "society" page with the different needs of survivors beyond your immediate group. Through your raids you can provide for societies needs and help rebuild the survivor community.
For instance there could be a "barricades" need. More barricades mean more people survive attacks meaning there will be more survivors around. There could be several ways to increase the barricade level. You could have your squad members "build community barricades" directly through the job menu. You could donate tools, books and/or materials to the community (or get a smaller impact by selling them.) The barricades would decay without your help, just like the issues in LCS slowly turn conservative.
Other possible needs:
Armories (find them, make them or help weaponsmiths), these increase the number of survivors and make it so the ones you find on site are better armed.
Electricity (Scronge up a generator, provide gasoline). Helps the community the rebuild and protect itself (lighting helps defenses)
Water (provide bottled water or help the survivors get it from the pipes). Helps survivor numbers and at the top level gives you free water.
Food (provide canned food or help farmers or farm yourself). Helps survivor numbers and lowers the price of food when trading for it.
Squad Reputation and Squad Respect: Based on your actions people can like you and have respect for your abilities. Respect lets you attract survivors and reputation means you'll attract higher heart individuals who are more trustworthy.
These are the sorts of long-term pursuits that successfully getting the MREs would enable. I still think solar panels are a better call--though they won't provide much power they aren't loud, gas-guzzling units that by rights ought to attract zeds.
Thanks for posting, mainiac.
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MREs do go bad...
http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/mre-shelf-life.html
Having to contend with seasons as start options would be VERY fun.
A complicated world that balances resources and player actions. (The store shelves are bare. This looks like the third time you've raided this house; the ketchup soup last night wasn't very satisfying). Ammo scarcity- finding that one guy with 1000's of ammo neatly packed in ammo cans, a lot of homes have evidence of having had a gun, but it's gone for obvious reasons. Finding things that are absolutely useless and heavy at first. (There's a MIG welder in this house, you probably don't need it.)
Another idea for ammo scarcity:
At first you can find ammo. Then you stop finding it (a graph resembling y=1/x).
Keeping shells isn't easy, but you can spend an hour picking up brass, something to make players angry over not doing so in the beginning due to time contsraints.
Finding components, but no handloading equipment, and the inverse.
Finding Black powder weapons (you find a muzzle loading .50 rifle! all that gunpowder you found 2 months ago suddenly comes to mind...)
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I've got a general question for you programmers out there. I'm dabbling in the field myself (degree in computer science, but not actively programming for a career), and I was wondering how one even starts making a game like this, like what steps do you take to actually get this to a working state? I'm sure you can't just start coding then figure it all out later, especially making ascii-based games requiring tilesets etc. I'm just wondering what order you do things in, the steps needed to get something like this working, and things like that. I'd be interested in making little games like this as a side project, but I just have no idea where to start or anything. Assume I'm not completely dumbfounded by programming, I have some minor experience in Java/C++ and a little bit of python, I just wouldn't know how to get everything to work together, or how to implement save states, or even how to make the whole graphics portion of it.
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
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I've got a general question for you programmers out there. I'm dabbling in the field myself (degree in computer science, but not actively programming for a career), and I was wondering how one even starts making a game like this, like what steps do you take to actually get this to a working state? I'm sure you can't just start coding then figure it all out later, especially making ascii-based games requiring tilesets etc. I'm just wondering what order you do things in, the steps needed to get something like this working, and things like that. I'd be interested in making little games like this as a side project, but I just have no idea where to start or anything. Assume I'm not completely dumbfounded by programming, I have some minor experience in Java/C++ and a little bit of python, I just wouldn't know how to get everything to work together, or how to implement save states, or even how to make the whole graphics portion of it.
There are several ways (paradigms) of how to do it. And, surprisingly, one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_build_model) of them is (I'm over-simplifying) "start coding and then figure it all out later". Basically what that approach entails is that you always keep a working prototype (or rather minimize the times when it's broken) and add features to it as you go. This approach is great for game development, because there's always an alpha on hand to show people and get feedback. Getting that feedback (even if it's your own feelings on the game), you can "figure it out" and take your project in a new direction.
If, on the other hand, you're pretty sure you know exactly what you want (like maybe you have a course assignment), then there's a model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) where you plan everything out, figure out how all the parts connect and build your application. This will make coordination easier, as well as testing, and you won't waste time on stuff you later decide is too complicated (or not enough) and have to replace. It's also, in my experience, less !fun!. :-\
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I've got a general question for you programmers out there. I'm dabbling in the field myself (degree in computer science, but not actively programming for a career), and I was wondering how one even starts making a game like this, like what steps do you take to actually get this to a working state? I'm sure you can't just start coding then figure it all out later, especially making ascii-based games requiring tilesets etc. I'm just wondering what order you do things in, the steps needed to get something like this working, and things like that. I'd be interested in making little games like this as a side project, but I just have no idea where to start or anything. Assume I'm not completely dumbfounded by programming, I have some minor experience in Java/C++ and a little bit of python, I just wouldn't know how to get everything to work together, or how to implement save states, or even how to make the whole graphics portion of it.
There are several ways (paradigms) of how to do it. And, surprisingly, one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_build_model) of them is (I'm over-simplifying) "start coding and then figure it all out later". Basically what that approach entails is that you always keep a working prototype (or rather minimize the times when it's broken) and add features to it as you go. This approach is great for game development, because there's always an alpha on hand to show people and get feedback. Getting that feedback (even if it's your own feelings on the game), you can "figure it out" and take your project in a new direction.
If, on the other hand, you're pretty sure you know exactly what you want (like maybe you have a course assignment), then there's a model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) where you plan everything out, figure out how all the parts connect and build your application. This will make coordination easier, as well as testing, and you won't waste time on stuff you later decide is too complicated (or not enough) and have to replace. It's also, in my experience, less !fun!. :-\
Yeah, I would definitely be one to get it semi-working and then add stuff as I go. But I was more wondering along the lines of what exactly I need to do to get it working. I can code fine, but I have no idea on how to make it into a working exe or even where to start to actually have it do stuff. I can do logic and programming, but I don't know how to, say, make the whole game into a package that can be run and worked on, or even how to display anything graphically. I'm sure, using ZSS as an example, that I could do the actually gameplay elements like programming AI for zombies and stuff, but I don't know how to package it all together and get it to work, like I have no experience with compiling or anything like that.
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This sounds fun. I'll have to try it out!
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I've got a general question for you programmers out there. I'm dabbling in the field myself (degree in computer science, but not actively programming for a career), and I was wondering how one even starts making a game like this, like what steps do you take to actually get this to a working state? I'm sure you can't just start coding then figure it all out later, especially making ascii-based games requiring tilesets etc. I'm just wondering what order you do things in, the steps needed to get something like this working, and things like that. I'd be interested in making little games like this as a side project, but I just have no idea where to start or anything. Assume I'm not completely dumbfounded by programming, I have some minor experience in Java/C++ and a little bit of python, I just wouldn't know how to get everything to work together, or how to implement save states, or even how to make the whole graphics portion of it.
Yeah, I would definitely be one to get it semi-working and then add stuff as I go. But I was more wondering along the lines of what exactly I need to do to get it working. I can code fine, but I have no idea on how to make it into a working exe or even where to start to actually have it do stuff. I can do logic and programming, but I don't know how to, say, make the whole game into a package that can be run and worked on, or even how to display anything graphically. I'm sure, using ZSS as an example, that I could do the actually gameplay elements like programming AI for zombies and stuff, but I don't know how to package it all together and get it to work, like I have no experience with compiling or anything like that.
A lot depends on what sort of game you want to build.
ZSS is written in Python using Libtcod (LIBrary for The Chronicles Of Doryen). A guy who goes by Jotaf wrote a pretty excellent tutorial for python+libtcod (http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod) that walks you through the stuff you're feeling a little lost on -- it starts with installing libraries and software, copying files into a directory, then opens up a blank file and steps through coding it line by line. At every step, the reasoning and expected logic of the code is exhaustively explained. The tutorial steps through iteratively developing a game from the ground up, sometimes going back and revising things initially done in a quick and dirty manner to make them more flexible. It covers making a window, drawing to it, keyboard and mouse input, saving and loading, handling data internally, map generation, building to an exe file... it's pretty sweet.
Of course, it's making a generic roguelike. You won't end up with ZSS or anything with fancy graphics at the end. It does, however, provide a great tutorial for how to do what it does, and I stepped through this same tutorial when initially building the game. Though I hope you'd have trouble seeing the evidence -- I deviated wildly from the tutorial at every step, and used it mostly to answer the same sort of questions you had; "I can already build structures in the general sense, but how do I lay in the foundation/plumbing/electrical for this building I want to make?"
If you're looking for more graphics support than an ASCII game, you'll want to use a less specialized library than libtcod, and get help specific to that. You may need a bit of luck to find a similarly robust tutorial to the one I linked above, but there are still resources out there. For 2D things, there's SDL in C, SDL or SFML in C++, and PyGame in Python. Maybe Direct2D for Windows-only applications? I'm not sure for Java. In 3D I think you'll be looking at OpenGL or Direct3D, but I think if you're going for 3D you'll probably be better off going with something like Unity rather than trying to roll your own engine, because that gets complicated and you probably want to be making games, not writing graphics code. I don't have significant experience working directly with any of these libraries (though I have worked on teams where others did), so I don't have much commentary beyond that. I could tell you about graphics in Adobe Flash or Adobe AIR, but it doesn't sound like that's where you're looking.
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Aha! That was the kind of thing I was looking for! Much appreciated, that'll do nicely for me. Yeah I'm basically just helpless as to getting started, but like you said, I'll probably be off deviating from their steps as well, writing my own stuff.
Many thanks!
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Hey fox, are you gonna keep working on this awesome project?
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Hey fox, are you gonna keep working on this awesome project?
Yes, I'm just being a lazy bum.
You can help me by advising me on what you feel would add the most to the game as a next feature.
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I got some ideas:
The Obvious Ones:
1. a skill/class system based on the books available to the survivors.
2. Character aging and death.
3. Agriculture.
4. Armor and weapon Crafting.
Next, some suggestions of my own:
1. a finite map made up of multiple sectors.
2. survivor factions that fight over the previously mentioned sectors.
3. Recycling destroyed vehicles/armor/weapons.
4. Needs other than food and water, specifically entertainment.
5. Limited loot for each sector, forcing you to either: A. recycle things you don't need. Or B. Move to a new city with different factions.
6. News/world events that affect the game.
Ex. "Over your salvaged radio you hear of national guardsmen being deployed near your area."
Or "Your constant broadcasts have attracted the attention of bandits."
Which would possibly lower zombie spawn rates and increase enemy human spawn rates respectively.
7. Skills being passed down over generations (assuming the player survives that long)
Welp, those are just my ideas, whether or not you use them is up to you.
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I agree generally with the above, but I disagree with the class system suggestion. Personally, I think it would turn out to be a gimmick that doesn't add more than it restricts. The system in LCS is a great starting point.
I like the finite map, and traveling to other cities. I was instantly reminded of Organ Trail.
My suggestions for the short term:
1. Skill gains. If you can only add one thing, add this.
2. Agriculture and recruitment in the same package. Pretty simple.
3. Defenses and buildings, maybe with recycling of weapons. A first step could be a well as a counterpart to the farm.
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Haha, Organ Trail. Still doesn't beat dying of dysentery. I do like the idea of traveling to different locations on a map, but mainly I'd like to see the outlines of features fleshed out. Such as the safe-house section, adding farming, utilities, defense, etc. Plus vehicles, which seem to be planned. Ways to find and recruit new survivors, perhaps by exploring those locations, and more interactions with the existing NPC's.
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Hey fox, are you gonna keep working on this awesome project?
Yes, I'm just being a lazy bum.
You can help me by advising me on what you feel would add the most to the game as a next feature.
I think there are two things that are pretty simple but would be good to do next:
1) Experience system. I think LCS is a great inspiration here, higher levels give you a simple boost to stats, nice and simple.
2) A non combat site. Just as an example of things to come. Before I suggested an exchange where you could trade food for water or vice versa.
And you aren't a lazy bum, you are doing something awesome just as a hobby.
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I'd probably go with the non-combat site, especially if it came rolled up with farming and recruitment
And maybe an option to start distilling water? Heck if water doesn't seem to be pretty scarce if the group has more than a few people.
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Tomorrow:
1. Skills and skill gains.
2. Assign people to jobs, starting with scavenging, which scrounges up food and water outside the activity of your main squad. Jobs only done when they're not already acting with your squad.
3. Ability to recruit survivors you meet, if you have room in your squad for them to come with you.
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YAY!
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Awesome!
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If you sit around in this game you will starve, quickly.
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If you sit around in this game you will starve, quickly.
With in the week, certainly, but if you are smart, and don't take anymore hits than you need to, you can run with a smaller party till the others heal, which could take a week. I have been able to wait for 3 or 4 days with out feeling stressed about food.
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The main changes are skills, recruitment, and jobs for people who aren't headed out with the raiding party. The scavenging job is very powerful early on, but will drop off in effectiveness as you use it more, since your scavengers will have a harder time finding unlooted locations. Currently, there's no risk to scavengers. I'm planning to change that.
The changes are pretty substantial here, and saves aren't compatible with the previous release. I'm still planning to have more save compatibility between releases than with LCS, but I elected to not spend the extra effort of converting the old Rick Grimes saves to the new random character stuff.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/jobs.png)
Download:
http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_2_27_2013.zip
Changelog:
- Added recruitment
- Added scavenging, basic tending to injuries
- Added skills
- Changed attributes
- Changed starting situation to a much more spartan beginning
- Increased sight radius
- Prohibited enemies from spawning within sight of the player
- Juggled item spawn probabilities, increased water drop slightly, added a couple new weapons
- Used combat skills to influence hit/miss in combat
- Made you autopickup items underfoot even when you're attacking
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Sweet!
I think there might be some sort of bug in the attack probabilities when you attack very wounded zombies. I seem to get in very long miss streaks against them despite easily hitting normal zeds.
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Sweet!
I think there might be some sort of bug in the attack probabilities when you attack very wounded zombies. I seem to get in very long miss streaks against them despite easily hitting normal zeds.
Hm, I'll have to check into that. The hit/miss mechanics are very new, so they might be buggy.
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hi, just played the new version
may i suggest make the sight radius be a cone or triangle in the beginning when you have one survivor
or if it's possible make the light of sight not go through the wall block?
it's just me but
i keep imagining the character looking around nervously clutching a baseball bat
also please please move the add a space between the name and weapon column
i randomned christopher richardsWeapons i know it's just cosmetic sorry
loving the item autopickup yay
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Just grabbed the new version, runs fine under wine btw. I'm glad to see that the, I assume randomly named, hero has the same surname as me. This can only bode well :)
Edit: or not... on the plus side my safehouse seems happy to go on existing day after day without anyone alive in it :)
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may i suggest make the sight radius be a cone or triangle in the beginning when you have one survivor
or if it's possible make the light of sight not go through the wall block?
I don't want to implement directional vision, since it's a significant amount of work to do so, and it would only really make sense when you have one person. I'm not a huge fan of directional vision in these sorts of games, since I think it implies the character has poor situational awareness and isn't looking around. I'd need to add buttons to let you turn around in place without taking time, and then that would add several extra keystrokes for the player to do what's a very simple action in real life.
Light is already blocked by walls right now, but it's (intentionally) on the generous side when calculating what squares you can see.
also please please move the add a space between the name and weapon column
i randomned christopher richardsWeapons i know it's just cosmetic sorry
I think this really comes down to "Christopher" and "Richardson" both being too long for the space provided; it's hard to squeeze a name like that in while still making room for everything else in the game. I'll shrink those and a couple other long (10+ letter) names, using similar substitutes like "Chris" and "Richards".
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Played my first game on the new version... found out 'the more the merrier' = starvation.... Great game though.
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PTW
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After playing the update, I would say that with the new view range, guns are OP. I can shoot anything, and it will die. Without touching me. I also prefer the tighter view distance, because it adds tension. It felt scary, and now it's nowhere near that.
I also think that winning means seven survivors, with 309 food cans and 178 water. Water is still not as common as food. Is the food to water ratio on purpose, Fox?
I also recruited Samuel Jackson as I was writing this. He had 7 in all combat stats. I handed him a shotgun and told him to kill some zombies. And add nicknames, so I can nickname him 'L'.
Edit: Seven is too many. Six is the perfect number, because the extras can't scavenge for themselves effectively.
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I also think that winning means seven survivors
Pfft. 4 survivors all the way.
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Pfft. 4 survivors all the way.
Frankly as soon as you get something like a katana or a fire arm then just one, maybe two is plenty. But this is early days so I don't expect it to be balanced yet.
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Very interesting! I look forward to any and all updates. Played for an hour or so. As long as your first guy survives long enough to recruit another one, you're all set basically.
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So I heard the game got a lot easier with the addition of scavenging and recruitment. In this release, the pendulum swings the other way, and combat becomes significantly more dangerous.
Headline features are improved zombie AI and limited ammo on guns. The AI changes include making zombies slow to notice you, but able to hunt you after you slip out of sight. Most notably, however, firing guns will aggro zombies in a wide area around you, who will start to pour in on you. Let me know if it's too much.
Ammo limitations work a bit differently than in LCS. Your squad shares a common ammunition reserve and will freely share ammo with each other. Shotguns reload one shell at a time, and reloading takes an action during combat, but all weapons can be reloaded for free (in terms of time) while moving. When you have two weapons equipped, reloading during combat is prioritized only if the potential damage of the weapon being reloaded is more than four times the damage that would be done by attacking with the other weapon. Reloading is lossless, so non-empty magazines get abstracted back into the ammo pile, but your survivors won't reload guns that use magazines unless they're almost empty. Empty weapons can still be used as clubs, and are more powerful than your bare hands in combat.
Melee weapons are much more valuable this release, and the crossbow also sees its star rise significantly with these two features. The crossbow is both the only ranged weapon that is silent, and the only ranged weapon with reusable ammo. You can usually find its bolts dropped to the floor or stuck in the corpses of fallen zombies. On the minus side, it doesn't share a skill with any of the other weapons, must be reloaded after every shot, and has the least plentiful ammunition. And while its bolts are usually recoverable, they will still sometimes be lost.
These are some pretty substantial changes. Let me know they feel and how they affect the gameplay.
(http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/gunsarebadmmkay.png)
Download:
http://www.jonathansfox.com/ZSS/zss_python_3_3_2013.zip
Changelog:
- Added ammunition
- Added improvised melee attacks with ranged weapons
- Removed defensive benefit from having high dexterity
- Removed the ability to make unarmed attacks when weapons are equipped
- Reduced chance of attacks missing in general
- Reduced availability of scavenging supplies slightly
- Zombies start not noticing player, may take notice when in line of sight
- Zombies wander around aimlessly when not alerted to the player
- Guns are loud and attract zombies
- Zombies that lose sight of the player or hear guns will chase with pathfinding
- Zombies can no longer become incapacitated due to pain
- Armor is now considerably less effective
- Reduced length of some too-long character names
- Fixed crash bug on equipment screen when you had no equipment
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After playing the update, I would say that with the new view range, guns are OP. I can shoot anything, and it will die. Without touching me. I also prefer the tighter view distance, because it adds tension. It felt scary, and now it's nowhere near that.
This is great feedback. I'm leaving the view distance as it stands for now, but I'll be thinking about this and may play with it going forward.
Is the food to water ratio on purpose, Fox?
Not directly, but I'm aware of it and haven't made an effort to strictly balance them. My intent is to have water easier to get a stable supply of in other methods. There's plenty of water around, as I envision it, it's just most is unsafe in several measures. Once you have purification methods, water should be easier to come by than food. Your people should probably start drinking dirty water when you run out, but I haven't written anything to enable that.
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Great to see an update! Thanks! But are saves still compatible? And if so, how do I transfer the save? Do I just have to plop the save.sav file in the new file?
After playing the update, I would say that with the new view range, guns are OP. I can shoot anything, and it will die. Without touching me. I also prefer the tighter view distance, because it adds tension. It felt scary, and now it's nowhere near that.
This is great feedback. I'm leaving the view distance as it stands for now, but I'll be thinking about this and may play with it going forward.
What about flashlights? When on, they attract zombies, and their batteries run out. When off, your view distance is reduced to, lets say, 3 tiles. You could have flashlights with varying intensities, with more powerful ones giving larger view distances, but using more batteries, and attracting more zombies.
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
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Maybe make it so that when you find survivors they start out with a random amount of wounds rather then being in perfect health? :)
It would be nice if there was an option to sneak at a slower speed so you can sneak up on zeds and go for a stealth takedown. Would need some mechanic to keep you from sneaking all the time though.
Your people should probably start drinking dirty water when you run out, but I haven't written anything to enable that.
That's a clever idea.
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Six is the perfect number,
28 too.
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Hey Fox, are you going to give this game a proper name or will it be nameless?
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It feels like scavenging is broken. I get the same amount of stuff no matter how many people are doing it or their skill level. Also maybe increase weapon spawns a little, I went out 30 so times and only found combat knifes. Overall great game even if its a little to difficult right now. Also I think survivors should have weapons and armor on them when you find them instead of them having somehow survived using only their fists.
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How can I progress? All I can do is go out and scavenge over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over *stops for breath* and over and over and over and over and over. Is there a manual?
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Hey Fox, are you going to give this game a proper name or will it be nameless?
I think that the running name is Zombie Survival Squad.
How can I progress? All I can do is go out and scavenge over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over *stops for breath* and over and over and over and over and over. Is there a manual?
That's all there is right now. Its only been in development for 50 days. Give Fox some time.
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Hey Fox, are you going to give this game a proper name or will it be nameless?
I think that the running name is Zombie Survival Squad.
I hope he changes it, it just sounds weird to me since its basically the same thing as Liberal Crime Squad.
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I think that the running name is Zombie Survival Squad.
I hope he changes it, it just sounds weird to me since its basically the same thing as Liberal Crime Squad.
[/quote]
There's only 1 word in common. You must hate games with "dragon" or "star" in the title.
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I think that the running name is Zombie Survival Squad.
I hope he changes it, it just sounds weird to me since its basically the same thing as Liberal Crime Squad.
There's only 1 word in common. You must hate games with "dragon" or "star" in the title.
[/quote]
Its not that, its just because hes working on games that are similar, run similar, and CODED similar. They just seem TO similar to me.
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I've been playing some now. A few things I've noticed:
1. There's a lot of menu options which evidently aren't implemented yet. Similarly, there are some other survivors, but they don't do anything except say random stuff when you bump into them. The first would probably be best removed for now, and the second certainly would.
2. Water is really hard to get. I'm constantly raiding for water jugs and juice boxes when I have enough cans and MREs to last my group for well over a week. It sometimes seems that there are more boxes of MREs than bottles of water!
3. Gear is really really easy to get. My two-man, one-woman group (Short Round, the kid, died early on) is all equipped with a katana, a handgun, military armor from head to toe, and padded clothing, and I have a helmet, a wakizashi, six shotguns, seven combat knives, a spare handgun, nine crowbars, four extra katana, seven spare military body armors, eight kevlar vests, an army helmet, and five extra sets of padded clothes which aren't being used. This is around January 20th. They can take out any zombie in a blow or two and are almost unaffected by zombie attacks. In short, the game is now based on finding water and getting the first strike on zombie beasts and knifehands rather than actually surviving like one would in a zombie apocalypse.
4. Zombies gasp in pain, groan in agony, fall unconscious, glare at people, etc. This could just be a quirk of the type of zombie involved, but it still seems wrong.
5. Zombies can get up after headshots, it seems, and seem to go down too easily from body wounds. Again, could go along with the type of zombie.
6. Zombies never appear in proper hordes or even packs, just a zombie or two, maybe three, stumbling towards the group before getting cut down once they enter range.
7. Overall, the game is too easy once you get through the first few weeks. Even the Spectre of Thirst doesn't help--it just means you need to wander through a lot of complex before finding enough water. The only thing that can even injure you is a lucky strike from a Knifehands or something, which is usually only possible if you wait a moment too long when letting it approach.
8. The handguns look like potions. It irks me.
In short, it's a game in alpha and in need of work. Keep up the good work, though, and it has potential.
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You are playing with an old version. Survivors are now recruitable, zombies dont groan in agony, complexes are more dangerous, etc. Also the menus aren't going to be removed, their going to be utilized. This is a game in early development, don't expect stuff to be finished.
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I'm currently working on lighting, so that you have long sight range outdoors or in other lit areas and very limited sight range indoors.
I've been playing some now. A few things I've noticed:
You are playing with an old version. Survivors are now recruitable, zombies dont groan in agony, complexes are more dangerous, etc. Also the menus aren't going to be removed, their going to be utilized. This is a game in early development, don't expect stuff to be finished.
So, this is true. But it's also great feedback, and the older version thing is entirely my fault. I haven't updated the first post in a couple of releases. This is now corrected.
If you redownload, much of your feedback will be addressed. Two ones that aren't addressed are ! feeling wrong for guns, and wanting to see proper pack/horde zombie behavior.
The symbol for guns is easy to change, I'll think about it. I'm not sure what would be a better choice; I hesitate to just use ) or } as they'd appear in Nethack or Angband, since guns do not look like metal bows.
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I like ! for guns myself. Looks like a bullet coming out a barrel.
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You are playing with an old version.
So I've gathered, now having read through the thread. Sorry about the confusion; silly me thought the OP link was to the most recent version.
Also the menus aren't going to be removed, their going to be utilized. This is a game in early development, don't expect stuff to be finished.
I don't; I'm just expressing my opinion about if unutilized menus should be visible.
Anyways...for handguns, how about an r or something? Looks like a pistol to me.
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You are playing with an old version.
So I've gathered, now having read through the thread. Sorry about the confusion; silly me thought the OP link was to the most recent version.
Also the menus aren't going to be removed, their going to be utilized. This is a game in early development, don't expect stuff to be finished.
I don't; I'm just expressing my opinion about if unutilized menus should be visible.
Anyways...for handguns, how about an r or something? Looks like a pistol to me.
Maybe p or P for shotguns?
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I'm currently working on lighting, so that you have long sight range outdoors or in other lit areas and very limited sight range indoors.
This sounds like a great and easy solution. I cant wait to see it implemented.
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Anyways...for handguns, how about an r or something? Looks like a pistol to me.
Maybe p or P for shotguns?
I'd say a j or (in some fonts) l looks more like a shotgun.
Anyways, I've played the new version some. Still noticing a notable lack of water as opposed to, say, clips of ammunition.
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Anyways...for handguns, how about an r or something? Looks like a pistol to me.
Maybe p or P for shotguns?
I'd say a j or (in some fonts) l looks more like a shotgun.
Those seem like good gun representations.
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I've finally "beaten the game " (I've got 2 months of supplies, more ammo than I can use and my five survivors all have 4+ in skills and katanas and can clear up complexes with getting even a minor injury), and frankly it's already great.
Now, a thing you should fix is the zombie's pathfinding. Right now, they seem not to take other zombies into account when computing their path, which mean they all line up nicely and you can kill them one by one. It makes hordes of zombies much less scary. Since this is going to make the game even harder, I'd suggest you also fix the wound system. Right now, limbless zombies can run as fast as you and claw you to death. Likewise, armless survivors can still wield a katana and a wazichaki. Fixing this will make it easier to flee hurt zombies.
Oh, and add a button to kill/leave behind a survivor. Don't want the whole squad to die because legless Jane is holding them behind.
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Similarly, perhaps add some kind of way to kick out other survivors--both to conserve supplies and for social reasons.
Kicked-out members of the group would not be happy with you if you encountered them later.
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Oh, and add a button to kill/leave behind a survivor. Don't want the whole squad to die because legless Jane is holding them behind.
Similarly, perhaps add some kind of way to kick out other survivors--both to conserve supplies and for social reasons.
Kicked-out members of the group would not be happy with you if you encountered them later.
I just send my extras out naked and unarmed. If they can feed everybody for a day, I let them live. I felt like a terrible person when I saw my first Z. They died 3 turns later.
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Lighting is finished, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I also fixed the pathfinding per Sheb's suggestion. I had disabled them paying attention to other creatures when pathing due to a bug that came up when that happened, but I was able to find and squash said bug this time, so enemies will now swarm you somewhat intelligently.
I tried out the suggestions for using letters for pistols and shotguns, but it's no good. The eye too readily recognizes them as letters. Letters in roguelikes are usually reserved for the first letter of the name of the object or type of object: r for rats, j for jellies, that sort of thing. Going against that causes as much or more confusion and consternation as reassigning the traditional symbol for potions does.
I'll probably throw in rationing and maybe scouting, then make a release late Friday. Rationing is the ability to change your rate of consumption on food and water; it may come with a rewrite of how food and water affect health, and possibly drinking dirty water, but I don't want to overpromise. Scouting is a job used to identify specific one-shot locations likely to have a certain type of loot. Scouting's a pretty big task, but it's a significant step forward.
On a tangent, my computer is having significant stability problems, crashing several times per day. I know at least half and possibly all of the problems are some sort of failures with my 4-year-old video card, so I've ordered a new one, but it won't be here for another week or two. I'm pretty good about saving often, so I haven't lost work to this, and hopefully won't. But it disrupts my workflow, frustrates me, slows me down, and there's always the chance of progress being set back by unsaved work being crashed into oblivion.
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You could go with Cataclysm's letter assignments, ( for guns, = for ammo and / or = for melee weapons, dependent on how large the item is. I can't see ! as anything but potions, first aid kits and chems now.
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Ahah, great.
Here is my own crappy contribution: Sheb Badly Made Bundle of Maps (BM²) (https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9l-U4RdIci8dHlhNFQwQkFPMEU/edit?usp=sharing)
Just replace the current map folder by this one in the ZSS folder. It contains the two standard map, as well as a supermarket, a gas station and an appartment building (well, the first floor).
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It didnt sound that hard from what you guys were describing, but I found it immensely hard. I had to continually dart in and out and hope a zombie didn't get close enough to scratch.
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Early game is quite difficult. I lost 3 or 4 times before "beating" the game. I'd suggest starting by scavenging for a week or so, to build up food and water supply. Then go hunting for more weapons. Flee any special zombies, or any concentration of zombies. Don't use firearms in the beginning, as the blast bring a rush of zombies.
Retreat when you're wounded, and wait for healing. In the first couple month, keep your survivors on scavenging duty while they heal, so as to keep your food and water reserves.
As soon as you think you can support extra survivors, recruit them. Extra hands mean extra attack in combat. My current squad is 6 strong, and can one-shot any zombie. Even Knifehands aren't really scary anymore.
Use doorways to avoid being rushed.
Also, be careful with your pathing. If a zed is one tile away, moving toward him will let him get an attack on you. If you move sideway, he'll use his turn moving close to him and you can attack first, hopefully kinnig him in the process.
Edit: Also; here is the second version of Sheb's Badly Made Bundle of Maps (https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B0cuS1kJmsyjM0ZCLUNCY0hGRjg/edit?usp=sharing)! It includes several corrections to my previous maps, as well as 3 new maps: a fllout shelter, a church and a sewer map (Don't ask me what your survivors are hoping to find there).
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I died over a dozen times before I could get rolling on the new version. Lots of fun.
Would it be possible to get an option to start a new game? I always had to exit and restart the program when I died.
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This is super cool, please continue working on it!
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I've noticed that scavenging grows less and less worthwile the more you scavenge. Is this intentional, or does the skill have anything to do with it? What I first thought was that maybe the algorithm was accidently reversed, so the higher the skill the lower the salvage. Thoughts?
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No, it's a feature to represent your scavenger depleting "sure" sources of food and water and forcing you to get your squad out.
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Just wanted to pop in to say I would definitely love to see another roguelike like this. Kind of like Cataclysm, but without the sci-fi and in strategy mode.
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Another way to solve the zombie pathing would be to allow the zeds to stack. After all you can have up to 6 humans on a square why not allow a level playing field.
One other thing that i think would be interesting is have the survivors you find be targetable by zombies once you have seen them. make it a race to save them.
- bugs
When have to many (more then 14) survivors you cannot alter their jobs or 'in squad' status due to being unable to scroll the list. (You can workaround it with the sort list)
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I have a first draft of rationing in, but I'm not entirely happy with the interface screen or the effects, and there's still some remaining rough areas I want to get ironed out before making a release.
For some cooler news, I may not have mentioned that I added some rudimentary stealth effects earlier: Lone characters are much sneakier than groups. No skill rolls at the moment, but it's still a neat effect, and one that I think I like better than a stealth mode toggle.
One of my goals is to minimize the number of buttons and keys on the exploration screen, and drill your input down to interesting decisions rather than bookkeeping. A stealth toggle would need a drawback to be interesting, and the drawback needs to be finessed well or you're likely to want to always activate it out of combat and deactivate it in combat, reducing it to bookkeeping. Passive stealth avoids that potential problem.
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I think that it sounds like good reasoning to keep everything as streamlined as possible, but how much of the stealth effect is going to be clear to the player and how much is going to be firmly under the wrapper?
In any case, looking forward to any developments that come about.
totally not a blatant bump
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Seems like a super fun game to play :).
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Posting to watch.
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Seems like a super fun game to play :).
I agree with this bump. How goes work on it Fox?
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I see your bumps and raise you a screenshot. Haven't you heard? Real is brown.
(http://jonathansfox.com/ZSS/brown_is_real.png)
The revised layout isn't really done, but you can see where it stands now. I wanted to make the map more centralized and somewhat bigger, so I looked to other games than just Oubliette. Specifically, the later Wizardry games. I don't like the block of text for showing equipment, but I do like the layout much more, and I also like the fact that it's got a bit of space for... controls or something.
You can also see from this picture that I've been experimenting with graphics for the game: custom separators, walls, and floor textures. I made icons for the creatures too, but they all kinda looked the same, so I threw them out. It's really important that the game be easy to visually understand, and while letters may not be friendly to newer players, at least they're easy to tell apart.
The long delay in updates wasn't just due to spending some time on LCS; the reality is that I'm going to have to do some combination of raising money to finance the game's development or selling the game. I spent about a week moping around depressed about whether I'll be able to actually finish the game, and then I stopped being an idiot and put some effort into making the game attractive enough to sell. So that leads to this particular side project of sprucing things up a bit.
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I like the tiles and the new interface. I'd probably drop some money on this.
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Nice to see harsh gritty realism colours.
Hey Fox, could you do a donor perk where if you contribute early you can get your full name in the game? So there would be a chance that a random first and last name would be picked and a chance that it would pick the full name of a donor?
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Shameless bumps are fun!
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I like it! It looks much more sleek and less like a demo. Anything exciting news feature wise?
Also, I would totally donate for this game.
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wait, you can sell this? thats allowed?
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Well, it is his own code, I think. Also, you could probably call it a parody, too. I don't think it too much of an issue.
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Hey Fox, could you do a donor perk where if you contribute early you can get your full name in the game? So there would be a chance that a random first and last name would be picked and a chance that it would pick the full name of a donor?
Yes, I'll post more information when I have it.
wait, you can sell this? thats allowed?
Yes. I made it!
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Aw man, this is fantastic, I really enjoyed my first play around with ZSS!
I managed to get up to a healthy 4 survivors before my raiding party got butchered and water supplies started dwindling, ending with the remaining two (inexperienced fighters) PCs getting torn apart by Knifehands and Hulk Zombies...
Fox, regarding the problems with identifying different zombies, would it be out of the question to implement something similar to the "K" button 'Look' function in Dwarf Fortress?
Also, do you intend to set up a webpage with perhaps a small LCSWiki style guide, and some way for us to make donations?
Congrats on a good effort and here's to its future development!
(& cheers for updating LCS)
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Looks good. Keep it rolling on.
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How do you get more people?
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NVM, found out myself
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PTW.
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I tried it out, I'm not sure if you start with a random number of people or not, but I only had one, and everyone else died by the day after I got them. I think that zombies by themselves should be easier to handle, and shouldn't move as fast as you do. Also, I found out that guns are pointless, the horde they produce is far to large to face, and I would often have to leave the map from being overwhelmed, even when I wasn't useing firarms, before I could find even a single item.
I think this game has a lot of potetial, but as it stands right now, there's quite a bit I don't like about it, mainly that zombies are too fast.
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Holy sweet lordly christ I'm excited to see you actively programming and doing something new.
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Let's get those pesky suggestions out of the way first:
- A way to toggle off firearm use, melee should be your main strategy due to the stealth benefits, and firearms sort of a backup weapon. Being able to bring extra weapons (At some kind of drawback? Carrying capacity is an idea but I'm not sure if I like it) and changing your loadout while on-mission would do the trick.
- A sort of strategy selection, telling your squadmates how to fight. Primarily I would love to see an option for selecting certain members to hang back, dealing less (or no) damage, but becoming less likely to be targeted by zombies. It can be pretty frustrating to have to retreat just because one squadmate is severely wounded while the others are doing fine. The risk of pressing on with a wounded person wouldn't disappear, (Would the smell of blood attract zombie dogs maybe? That's getting ahead of myself I think) but it would lessen it, and give the player more control.
- Most of all, keep doin' whatever it is your doin'! All the things that are lined up to be worked on but incomplete are great ideas. It's your game and I'm confident it'll only get better the more you work on it.
Getting that out of my system: I've already had a lot of fun with the game as it is, so thank you for that.
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This game needs to come back to life. Like a zombie.
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Like a knife-hand zombie.
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Tahujdt uses Necromancy! Its sorta-effective!
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Tahujdt uses Necromancy! Its sorta-effective!
Now I am visualizing a ZSS/Pokemon crossover.
From there, it's a short step to an LCS/Pokemon crossover.
O.O I must go mod now.
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This game is a death by dehydration simulator. No matter what, I never have enough water.
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This game is a death by dehydration simulator. No matter what, I never have enough water.
Do you have the most current version, or the version on the front page?
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Post to Watch!
Assuming you haven't dropped dead while making it, and assuming ZSS hasn't dropped dead either.
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Silly lunatic, the already deceased cannot just drop dead.
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I knew it! You're all zombies! NOOOOOOOO
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hello everyone! i have 2 things to say
1. I like what you have done john fox on this game and i think it it great.
2. john are you still making this or are you no longer? or are you just taking a break from ZSS for a bit?
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2. john are you still making this or are you no longer? or are you just taking a break from ZSS for a bit?
I'm currently not actively working on it now, but might again if I get into the mood for it!
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okay i was just wondering because i like the game.
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Posting to watch for if things start happening again.
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I played this a while ago thought it was time to show my support for it.
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it's bin a LONG time but i will still show my support for it.
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Please update this game; I want to play it.
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Just here to assure everyone that I am also still interested in this game.
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Yeah!
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Why do you raise my hopes only to dash them violently?
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Why do you raise my hopes only to dash them violently?
Because it's hilarious.
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Why do you raise my hopes only to dash them violently?
Because it's hilarious.
Dead baby.
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Please add the song "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton to this game (you can play it as Ogg Vorbis using SDL2 and SDL2_mixer). It is freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), as explained in the FAQ on his site here (http://www.jonathancoulton.com/faq/). In fact ALL of his songs except for "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone" (which are copyright by Valve Software and not available for free) and "Wikipedia Chanukah" (available for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) instead), are available for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), and paying him money for them, the $1 for each song suggested on his website, is entirely optional.
I hereby give you, Jonathan S. Fox, legal permission to use all the code I have written for music playback, as well as all my other code contributions to Liberal Crime Squad (past, present, and future), in your Zombie Survival Squad game, if you want to use them.
Anyway the song "Re: Your Brains" is awesome and also free. There are a number of different music videos of it on YouTube. Like this one: "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton - Moontalk Productions [HD] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81qIUuExQmQ). Or this one: Re Your Brains (Dragon*ConTV 2007) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOlznuyPOeM). Or this one: re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton - NahtonStudios (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zry0m1VDTH8). EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH THOSE VIDEOS BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME.
There might also be some other free-as-in-freedom songs you can legally use about zombies, although to be honest I haven't found any yet... plenty of songs about zombies I can download torrents of or get off YouTube or download as MP3s off various sites but the others are technically copyrighted without any sort of, ya know, way to use them legally. And in a software project like a game, things have to, ya know, be legal. So that's the only zombie song I can find for ya right now that's legal to use in yer little game.
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/me drools
Yes.
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I wanna ptw.
Got murdered
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Is it possible to read books or is it just my game?
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Also, what about farming?
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And the prize for "unnecessary doublepost of the year" goes to...
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Also, what about farming?
Real farming is horrible. Crops take 4-6 months to grow (that's 120-180 days/turns). You have to spend large amounts of labor on it (hard to say how much, not knowing the specifics of tools, weather, land quality and fertilizer availability, but probably 2-3 orders of magnitude more than scavenging for canned food, even after supermarkets (grocery shops/produce warehouse/other high food concentration places) are already looted and you have to look piecemeal in houses) In fact hunting would probably be a better option (unless you're stuck in Central Park)
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Thats if you dont have the crops that grow in 60 days, or those (like taters) that are (for the most part) plant and forget, or feel like cocking around with fertilizer.
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60 day crops are stuff like tomatoes, peas and beets. They have relatively small yield/labor compared to wheat and potatoes (but they can be a great source of vitamins and minerals). Potatoes are not "plant and forget", you need to weed them regularly, and there is a somewhat finicky early phase where you want to grow them slowly, without exposing to light or using too much source potato.
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(for the most part) plant and forget
Potatoes dont need asmuch labor as comparable crops after planting and until harvest, which is why it was popular for people who worked on farms in, say, Ireland to grow potatoes for themselves while they worked on a larger farm growing something more labor intensive.
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Well, you know, I never cropped a share in my life (actually, I killed a cactus, so I'm the opposite of a good farmer.) There's still the fact that it takes dozens of days. This just isn't fun, compared to gathering supplies in zombie infested buildings, IMHO.
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Theres fun and then there is alive, but good point.
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This game is incredibly difficult. I basically can't do anything but die. Kudos for that!