New game idea


Viking

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Nov 24, 2010
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For the last couple of months, I've been rather fascinated about zombies. Yeah, stupid right?


I really enjoy The Walking Dead series, Dead Island, Death Valley (rather new and humerous zombie/vampire series that looks like "Cops"), Dead nation, and more.


But the thing I've noticed, there's a lot of zombie shooters, but not many zombie survival games?


I really don't want to call Dead Island a survival game either, because you are too overpowered. And that's the problem I see in zombie survival games, you are either to overpowered, or you have a huge stack of ammo in you super large back pocket. So I thought, why aren't there any zombie games were your priorities are to survive? You guys get me? :p


So I've played with the thought if I was to make a survival game with zombies, how would I do it?


Well, I don't want those "mutant zombies" there, only walkers. And wheres your trusted shotgun when you need it? forget it, you don't find it in garbage cans around the city or a rocket launcher in a phone booth.


My game would be pretty "realistic", saying IF zombies were real, they don't have 20 feet long tounges and they can't run 40 mph. They are humans, dead humans that bite.


And yeah as I mentioned, you don't find weapons everywhere. You have to find a police station or a gun store, and for medkits, where could that be you think? Well, certantly not in the middle of a horde of zombies!


And yeah, weapon efficiency is pretty important. Because in reality, you can't run around with a rocket launcher, a machine gun, 2 pistols, 5 grenades, 10 medkits, your axe and so on. So what weapon you choose to carry around is important when you think of efficiency, likelyhood of finding ammo, reload speed, weight, "user friendlyness".


I really would like to see a SURVIVAL game, and not another shooter. It needs to be open world, and teamwork is key! So I though it should be a game where you could play 1-10 players. But if it should be an mmorpg without leveling set, or if it should just be like a sandbox game, that I don't know.


What do you guys think? Like the idea?
 
Sounds like it would make a kick ass zombie game, now you just need to pitch it to a developer and youve got your awsome zombie game.
 
It could be interesting as long as the games is fair with its rationing of tools weapons/energy etc. Personally id like to see the zombie genre get a bit of a revamp. Zombies in a different time period maybe. The game could be set in the victorian period maybe. Youd still have guns,carriages instead of cars etc. Or maybe Zombies in space.On a space station or a martian colony or something. Zero gravity floating zombies to shoot at. a proper survival aspect to the game could work. There was sos a ps2 earthquake survival game and there is ubisofts up and coming I am alive.


Personally im sick of resident evil games though. The walking dead is fairly enjoyable but a bit generic in plotting in my opinion.
 
Anything about zombies these days reminds me of this article


It's a nice idea, however, I think you'll find (I may be wrong) that your players would end up camping in your gun stores, which would dodge the carrying issue, and potentially make the game boring.


Also, if zombies move at a slower speed, then you'll generally be able to move around them. It'll need a lot of tweaking to see if the game is actually "fun". Good luck though


You might like this game :

https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2pgURWkmds?feature=oembed
 
I agree with you, and I thought one could have a "minecraft" stash style. You just hide everything in a container and you wonder off, and it's still there when you get back.


And about The Walking Dead, have you seen season 2? Swear to god I almost pissed my pants how exciting it was!


and btw, NO TETRIS BACKPACK!!! Hate that in Resident Evil 4. Deus Ex had atleast the decensy to automaticly make room for items.
 
What about if they did that, the result would be that if they decide to camp in a gun store or a police station and shoot the zombies the whole time, it would generate more zombies since they would be attracted to the sounds. And also the barricade would be weakened!
 
What about if they did that, the result would be that if they decide to camp in a gun store or a police station and shoot the zombies the whole time, it would generate more zombies since they would be attracted to the sounds. And also the barricade would be weakened!
Only thing about that is it sounds contrary to the game idea you were proposing (at least the way I read it). There'd be no incentive for the player to investigate your world or move.


That said, there are ways of forcing players out - make it so the zombies can break down doors, and maybe even walls after a period of time; no weapon respawns (or make it a game option). That would at least mean the player could not remain too stationary.


Good luck and keep us posted
 
I think some concepts that would be interesting would be the constrained inventory bit where players had to weigh the tradeoffs of what they need to leave behind. For example, do they carry a lockpick kit? In some cases, it might let the player get into/through a building for a potential shortcut or stockpile and also bypass open (and potentially hazardous) terrain. However, the space taken up by the kit would mean the player couldn't carry as much ammo/medkits/whatever, which could be trouble if the player doesn't use the lockpicks as much as expected. Also, a relatively unladen player would be able to move faster and more quietly, hit harder, and aim more accurately.


IMO, what makes the zombie genre scary isn't so much the zombies as much as the feeling of isolation and chaos that comes with them. Instead of cheap scares, an eerie soundtrack and foreboding scenes would be nice. Diablo and Diablo II had some really eerie music and scenery, but I think the "run around and click anything that moves" of the second game made it easy to overlook the grotesque shots in the dungeons. PS, I was bringing the trash cans in one night and the lights from the kitchen were shining down in slits on the lawn. I thought how creepy it would be to see someone shambling toward me, one second its grisly details lit and the next being cloaked in darkness. It creeped me out for a second.


I think you could find supplies on downed zombies. Today's zombies are yesterday's survivors. I liked how one game had undead national guardsmen dragging their m16s. And assuming an outbreak isn't in its first days, I think gun shops and police stations would be pretty well looted and those guns distributed (or at least stockpiled) elsewhere. But that still means automatic or conventional explosive weapons would be incredibly rare.


And if the goal is survival, you couldn't camp in a gun store because you'd run out of food. The goal would have to be either regrouping with other survivors or escaping a city (or metropolitan region) to find an area more suitable for rebuilding society.
 
You might like Zombiu for the wii u when they both come out as for ones I've actually played zombie estate ( its a Xbox live download indie game ) that I like not really like the ones spoken of here just naming it because it's that cool. I like your concept though just find a way to keep people from camping .
 
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Limited Inventory is a good thing. Initially I loathed it in System Shock 2, but then again you learn to make important strategic decisions that way, more so than in Resident Evil I might say. Also there was the option to increase inventory space by advancing a certain skill. And you would not find any magic boxes that somehow managed to interconnect and beam your items from one place to another. An item stayed where you dropped it. I have always found those chests in RE to be nonsense.


Oh geez, I love System Shock 2 plus gfx patch and multiplayer mode. I haven't had more fun playing co-op than in this game. Well, maybe four-player Mario on the Wii, but that fun is .. different. Not hilarious party fun but engrossed in atmospheric spaceship zombie shooting survival kind of fun. Interesting how I keep talking about SS2 in all kinds of threads.


In RE this limited inventory was used as a kind of difficulty setting, going with Chris left you with 2 inventory slots less compared to choosing Jill. IIRC Code: Veronica lets you find some kind of bag along the way to increase your inventory slots.


DayZ doesn't look bad but it's largely unfinished and has no goal to work towards. AFAIK the developer of that mod has been hired by Bohemia to work on this modification for an upcoming game (Arma 3?).
 
You might like Zombiu for the wii u when they both come out as for ones I've actually played zombie estate ( its a Xbox live download indie game ) that I like not really like the ones spoken of here just naming it because it's that cool. I like your concept though just find a way to keep people from camping .

I heard it might also be ported to 360 as ZombieX?
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/19/the-war-z-announced-zombie-survival-shooter-mmo-with-strong-parallels-to-day-z/


Inspired by the Day Z mod, I admit that I too have recently become fascinated with the zombie genre, I'd like to see something like the original fallout modded a bit for zombies, or resident evil 2 but more open world, being able to explore the city and surroundings a bit, that's just me though.


The character selection was pretty much, easy or hard mode, in resident evil, jill has 2 more inventory spaces, needs one less key (she uses the lock pick instead of the sword key and that takes no inventory space), she also gets a gun earlier on and can get the bazooka, whilst chris gets the much more limited flamethrower, although I think he does have more health. Oh and no barry to help you out.


There's also a hidden harder mode in resi evil, it changes the game slightly to have less ammo and i think the zombies etc do more damage, i miss when zombie games where actually scary too :(
 
You might like Zombiu for the wii u when they both come out as for ones I've actually played zombie estate ( its a Xbox live download indie game ) that I like not really like the ones spoken of here just naming it because it's that cool. I like your concept though just find a way to keep people from camping .

I heard it might also be ported to 360 as ZombieX?
. I don't know I'll look into that ... Ok it seems they are implying that they will ... I will watch this
 
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If I ever get a spare few days I've had a game idea stuck in my head for months.


Slow moving zombies, but thousands of them.


Randomly generated landscape, lots of guns, power ups etc.


You just have to get from point A to point B blowing away as many zombies as you can, but the sheer number of slow movers can overwhelm you. Objects can be pushed about to temporarily block paths (until they are destroyed by zombie weight or gun fire).


I think if done right it could be quite an intense game with some real strategy involved as you explore and find gigantic hordes, which will then - slowly - move towards you.
 
@ Craigix if it didn't require to much processing power you could make it on the Pandora - or not we all know you are very busy
 
If I ever get a spare few days I've had a game idea stuck in my head for months.


Slow moving zombies, but thousands of them.


Randomly generated landscape, lots of guns, power ups etc.


You just have to get from point A to point B blowing away as many zombies as you can, but the sheer number of slow movers can overwhelm you. Objects can be pushed about to temporarily block paths (until they are destroyed by zombie weight or gun fire).


I think if done right it could be quite an intense game with some real strategy involved as you explore and find gigantic hordes, which will then - slowly - move towards you.

Reminds me a little of the game ' The last guy ' on the PS3.


I love the game, its kinda like pac man but you round up survivors from slow moving zombies, and there are some power ups etc.


Each time you try a level, the zombies and layout of the people change.


However, I like your idea of Zombie game, and hope it comes to fruition.


http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-last-guy


http://www.videogamer.com/ps3/the_last_guy/review.html
 
Slow moving zombies, but thousands of them.

ZiNan.jpg
 
Trying to make a game too realistic is the easiest mistake to make in game design. If all you're doing is running away from slow zombies, it would get boring pretty fast. Add some guns, though, and you've got a game that can be quite fun.
 
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