So a few months ago I posted about how I want to make and publish a game using whatever coding I can get my hands on. I was looking to make something fun and exciting, but original.
Now I wanted to make a zombie survival game, only with original content for the actual genre. I want to take what zombie survival games have presented, and make up something new and exciting.
For five dollars :D
Keep in mind that all these are just ideas, and the actual game that I eventually want to make is not even nearing development as I have no way of making a game.
So anyways, The concept is really simple. It's a turn-based overhead RPG/RTS. You can control more than one player. You start out with one player, the one you create. Over the course of the game, you meet up with other survivors whom you can take control of if your main character dies, or have defend your base whilst you go out to salvage.
The whole "zombies" technique is looked at differently than usual. Instead of being an actual infection or disease, the zombies are people driven mad. The world isn't so post-apocalyptic as it is that every one of the zombies were people in the country you're in that solely depended on the higher-ups for food and shelter, but once the higher-ups stopped providing for these guys, they went mad and basically turned into hungry monsters.
So let's cover creating a character. You start out by starting a new game, and generating a map. Once it's done doing that, you can select parts for your character's sprite. (This game will use old-school SNES graphics.) Then you can select "traits". Traits aren't very useful when you start out, as all you have is traits for running faster, reloading weapons faster, how much damage you inflict with a specific weapon and so on. Traits only will have a great impact during combat.
Once you start your character, you will spawn next to the bed in your randomly-generated house. From then, your character's thoughts update. Your thoughts journal is updated every time something significant happens. Kill a certain amount of zombies a day, it will update with "I killed x amount of zombies on xxxx of x/x". The first thing it updates with is "There's a weird sound coming from downstairs". Which will be your first zombie.
How difficult it is to start up depends on what difficulty you choose before you generate a map. These would affect how many weapons spawn, how many zombies spawn and whatnot. Easy, Medium, Hard and Pro.
Pro mode would make it so no weapons spawn, there's hardly any rations and zombies are batstuff insane.
Now let's delve into makeshift items and tools. You may be thinking "oh god lol crafting. ripped from minecraft derp", but this is completely different. Say you have no use for a sink.
You get a hammer and a screwdriver from wherever, and brake it up into parts. Let's say, 6 ceramic pieces and 2 steel pipes. Now you can combine items or improvise them. Let's say you equip one steel pipe, and then superglue nails to it. It's now an effective weapon AND a tool.
Or you can make barricades for doors, and nail boards to windows. Makeshift items can be repaired.
Now you go onto building. Building would be difficult, time and resource consuming and tricky. You have to make floors, walls, supports, a roof and sometimes even a door.
Although given enough time, you could turn a house into a loving zombie-proof fortress.
Next is the digging mechanic. It takes two hours ingame to dig a three-foot hole. Digging gets dirt, rocks, grass and pebbles. They all can be used for makeshifting, or just for decoration. Digging can also make trenches that zombies can get stuck in.
Now for combat. Let's say you equip a 9mm. You click on "engage combat" once close enough to the zombie, and the turn-based combat begins. It automatically pauses, and it shows a list of possible moves.
Now let's say you move to the right. That takes one turn. You move, the zombie moves next and then it's your turn. You select the zombie, and if you're close enough, you attack. There's two forms of combat. Melee and ranged.
Melee: Range depends on how big your weapon is, and quality doesn't differ on how much damage you do. Usually one block away. All zombies are melee.
Ranged: Range depends on the caliber and quality of the gun. Usually four blocks away. You do have limited ammo, and there's only so much ammo in a map (Unless you make some).
Zombies can be salvaged for anything they are carrying.
Next is items for defense. Defense items are usually crafted. Zombies aren't your only enemy. One word: Environment.
Here's a list of inanimate things that can kill you:
Falling
Things falling on you
Things hitting you
Deep Holes
Explosive Items
Starvation
Sleep Deprivation
Friendly Fire
Sharp Items
Fire
Things on Fire
Intense Heat
Deep Water
Poisoned Water
Ice-cold Water
Next is needs.
Your character needs to eat, stuff and sleep. Two out of three needs can kill you if you don't pay attention to them.
You can eat items you have in your inventory (EVERY ITEM CAN BE EATEN.)
Sleeping can only be done in places that have no possible way of zombies getting in. (Or zombies not being able to get in over the time you're asleep)
Using the bathroom is required because your character will eventually stuff themself and it makes combat 2x harder.
After that is the inventory. You have 40 slots to hold items, and there's items that can hold other items.
You have six equipment slots, two ammo slots and your character's sprite.
Afterwards is hazards.
Fire, poison, heat, cold, dark, water and momentum.
Fire is the hardest to get through. It spreads, and it's a guaranteed death. Fire is usually started manually by yourself, or it is set by contradictions through appliances or mistakes you have made.
Poison is a little hard to die from. In order to die from poison, you have to set it. You can either ingest poison and die, or die by swimming in water that you've dropped poison into. (Although poisoned water trenches would be a brilliant trap for zombies)
Heat can get you by three ways.
1. You are standing on an oven that's turned on.
2. If fire doesn't kill you, heat does.
3. Going into scalding water will kill you slowly.
Cold is the opposite of heat, and with both ways you have a temperature bar to tell you that you should stop being stupid and get out of that boiling water. There's two ways to die from intense cold.
1. You are swimming in cold water. Cold water can be made from either cooling water with a device, or swimming during winter. Both ways is a stupid idea.
2. You are standing in a very cold place. It takes awhile to die from being in a freezer, but there's always a situation where there's no helping it. (Actually there's not.)
Dark is dangerous, but it doesn't actually kill you. You can't see in the dark with the exception of light devices.
Water is tricky. You cannot move a body of water without great risk, and swimming is a pain in the ass. There's a lot of ways to die from water.
1. A lot of water falls on you.
2. A lot of water pushes you into a wall and kills you.
3. You drown in water.
4. You overheat in water.
5. You freeze in water.
6. You're electrocuted in water.
7. You are poisoned in water.
8. Water pressure kills you.
Momentum is risky. Falling or running increases momentum. Running into things hurts you, and falling too far hurts you.
Next is character mechanics. Things you character can do.
Attack - pretty obvious already
Sprint - use all your power to run fast for a short amount of time. running into things does damage
Crouch - makes you one dimension shorter
Crawl - allows you to crawl through small areas, and remain undetectable to zombies
Dodge - jumps to the left or right
Defend - uses whatever you are holding to block attacks
Examine - examines what you target
Eat - eats anything you choose in your inventory
Sleep - sleeps in that spot
Lastly is randomly generated landmarks.
You can have houses, supermarkets, gun shops, malls and other places.
For landscape, you have have mountains, forests, ponds, lakes, oceans, rivers, hills, holes and so on.
So that's all of my ideas. No, I will not be taking ideas. This will be my game, and I want to develop it myself.
