Smaller update this week because most of what I worked on was just optimizing code…

The ailment system has some new additions:

• When your character is bleeding, he’ll now attract all nearby zombies
• When your character is too sleep deprived, there’s a chance he could pass out. This leaves you vulnerable. Clicking your character repeatedly, however, will slap him back awake
• When your character is too hungry, he’ll clench his stomach to ease the hunger pains. This prevents you from using weapons until you eat again (although you’ll still be able to attack with your fists)
• When you’re suffering from one or more ailments, you’ll slowly become delirious. This will cause the screen to wobble and your character will stumble around, unable to move in straight lines

Special attacks and attack bonus upgrades are also disabled while you’re in the later stages of suffering from any one of the three main ailment types.

Also, all 900 item icons were re-rendered at double resolution to make them look crisper at higher (retina) resolutions.

I’m also thinking about adding some food/sleep/health bonuses, that will give the player extra damage/speed/defense bonuses when you get extra food/sleep/meds. That will help to balance things out so you are inclined to eat/sleep/medicate yourself more often — not just to prevent death.

So I’ve got all the new zombies integrated into the game now, as well as all of the various different behaviors they can exhibit.

Zombies can now also get their heads crushed and destroyed, their arms ripped off, and their legs removed (forcing them to crawl after you). Depending on the occupation of the zombie, it may also carry a weapon or have extra armor. Zombies that wear helmets have to have their helmet knocked off before they’ll take any bodily damage.

There’s also a new three-tier wellness system I added (which replaces the old hunger system), which keeps track of your hunger, tiredness and blood levels.  Beds that are found (or crafted) can now be slept on, and sleeping can also regain some HP depending on how tired you are when you fall asleep. Explosions and zombie attacks can also cause you to bleed out now, and if you do not find medical attention after the bleeding starts you’ll slowly lose HP and eventually die of blood loss.

Other various tweaks to the UI have been made, like popups showing important information and the amount of HP lost/gained after an injury/heal.

I’ve also optimized a lot of the background functions controlling the AI. The A* pathfinding algorithms now use about 40% less memory and are faster as well.

Here’s a youtube video showing most things mentioned above. Only thing to keep in mind is that the zombies in it are just generic neighborhood zombies, so you won’t see any of the ‘special’ ones like animals, clowns, swat members, etc…but don’t worry! They’re still in there!

So I’m done creating the various zombie types that will appear in the game, and I’m officially sick of painting textures!

Some of these will only be able to spawn in certain areas, but others (the more generic ones) will be able to spawn anywhere.

Next thing on the todo list is to create their various special attacks and behaviors, and incorporate them all into the zombie spawning engine.

(Click the image for a full-size view)

So one of the things I’m currently implementing in Zombox, is a more interesting world and more interesting types of zombies.

Currently, the game features a plain city with a single zombie type of various sizes. I displayed a teaser image of the new zombie animals in the last post, but I’m also adding all kinds of other zombies.

The new city is going to feature more interesting ‘zones’. Farms, shipyards, marshes, graveyards, etc. And each of these zones will feature unique zombies relevant to that specific zone. Some of these zombies will also have special behaviors and attacks to keep things interesting.

Here is a teaser image of some of the new zombie types. I still have about 25 more to make. If you have any suggestions for cool zombie types, post them here and they might make it in the game!

My life has settled down a bit so I’m able to work on Zombox again!

Here’s a taste of things to come…

As mentioned in the last update, I’ve been working on the new passive item system and now it’s fully implemented.

As a reminder, passive items are stat boosters that can be swapped in and out of the main passive item slot at the top of the screen.

There are 39 passive items in total right now, which fit into the following categories:

Shields: These block or dampen attacks that hit them. Each shield has different properties…some shields just block attacks, some block and deflect damage onto the attacker, some can be used to shove attackers onto the ground, etc.

When using a 1-handed weapon, the shield is held by your left arm in front of you. When using a 2-handed weapon, the shield is carried on your back. Since the shield only protects the area that it covers, how you carry it affects what part of your body it protects.

Watches: These affect the speed at which different things occur in the game. For example, some watches speed up your ability to pick locks, others extend the length of time special attacks remain activated before requiring a recharge, etc.

Music Players: The adrenaline rush from listening to awesome tunes with these players while fighting the undead hordes gives you damage/defense boosts, at the cost of electricity.

Health Monitors: Breathing monitors, heart rate monitors, step counters….these various monitors measure your vitals as you move throughout the environment. The more steps you take, the more bonuses these monitors will provide for you. Depending on which one you’re using, they can earn you HP, XP or both based on the distances you walk.

Bracelets: These bracelets of various shapes and sizes give you a health boost each time you successfully land a critical hit on a zombie.

Necklaces: Necklaces offer a variety of stat boosts. Some increase critical hit strength, some boost defense, and some allow firearms to shoot through multiple targets. Necklaces are sort of a ‘catch-all’ for cool passive bonuses that don’t fit into other categories.

Armor: From wrist guards to historical pauldrons, these armor pieces offer the player various defense boosts.

I also created a lock pick item that can be used to open any locked items in the game. Pete is the only character that can pick locks without using it. A backpack item has been added as well, which allows you to increase the size of your inventory when you start the game, you only have 4 available inventory slots, and must purchase the backpack upgrade to unlock all 12 slots).

I also implemented some of the other upgrades from the upgrade menu….for example, the upgrades which allow zombies to drop HP boosts when killed instead of just dropping coins.

Here are some images and .gifs which demonstrate some of these new features.

So as I implement all the character upgrades, I’ve been re-thinking a few of them.

One of the changes I made this week was having the special attacks occur after you charge your weapon with zombie hits, rather than at random intervals. This has the benefit of making special attacks a reward for fighting skill, while also allowing the player to strategically decide when to use them (because after you charge your weapon, you won’t go into special-attack mode until you tap the weapon icon).

Here’s an animated .gif showing how this works (the overlay text is for illustration only):

So I’ve been working on getting the upgrade system actually implemented into the game.

The upgrade menu can now be opened by clicking your character in the inventory panel. The various categories in the upgrade menu can be examined by clicking the arrows to the right and left of the category name at the bottom. The actual upgrades for each category can be examined by clicking the arrows under each upgrade animation.

The main guy in the upgrade animations is no longer nude, and instead he adopts whatever clothing your character is wearing.

Also, I’m about half-way done implementing all of the actual upgrades into the game. There are now special attacks you can perform, all kinds of stat bonuses, special items to get, etc…all purchasable with upgrade points within the upgrade menu. And in case it wasn’t clear, every time you gain a level from earning XP (by killing zombies, performing quests, etc), you get a new upgrade point you can spend in the Upgrade Depot.

The following animated .gifs demonstrate how the animated menu looks, and a few of the special attacks (special hand attacks, special 1-handed melee weapon attacks and special 2-handed melee weapon attacks)

 

Hey everyone, it’s been a while since the last update….so here it is!

There are 5 playable characters now….each one with unique stats and abilities. (Click each of the names below to view the characters)

Roy.

Susan.

Pete.

Randy.

Mary Beth.

There is also an on-screen map that has been added, and each character’s special ability has an icon that appears in the GUI to activate it.

There are many more things I still have to take care of, when it comes to the core gameplay, but I should be able to get those done in the coming weeks….which means then I can move onto the quests/storyline and eventually get this thing released!

It’s been a while since the last update, but never fear! Zombox is still alive and well.

Here’s a rundown of the features that have been added!

• All NPC dialog trees have been finished.

Also, here’s an image outlining how the node system works:

• The main sewers are now filled with NPCs
• You can buy/sell from NPCs
• You can loot items off dead NPCs
• You can heal NPCs who are injured for an XP bonus.
• There are now 15 mini-sewers packed with secret areas, items, and zombies.

Here are animated examples of each of those, in order: