Hey thar!So after a couple years of designing (hopefully) fun little games and occasionally embarking on more ambitious projects (Variance is still in a sort of long-term development thingie, for those who are wondering), I've decided to finally settle down and actually make something properly. Not something to just show my friends, not a proof of concept, not a 48-hour prototyping proggie: I mean a complete and marketable game from beginning to end, giving myself a dev time of roughly two months.
Meet Onslaught of the Electric Zombies, a work in progress.
Flashier than most of my projects, thanks to actually having an artist on board.This game means a few things for me. First of all, it's going to serve as proof that I can make a complete and polished product to show to the masses. Goodness knows that I've heard derisive comments about gaming journalists before (usually from those who don't really understand what good journalism actually entails) so I'm kinda keen to show people that I'm more than happy to walk the walk.
Secondly, I've recently been snagged by the gnarly roots of the "serious" game development mindset. While it's certainly useful from a professional standpoint, I really don't want to lose touch with the simple hobbyist joy of creating something fun for people to play. It's for this reason that the project is small and will most likely be distributed as freeware.
Because, well, screw it -- I've never really wanted game development to be a job. I've always just wanted to make fun shit for people to play. And this shit is going to be fun. Or maybe just shitty. I don't know which one yet.
Of course, that's where you step in, oh Hero of the Internets. If you like the idea of combining Minesweeper with RPG dungeon-crawly elements and have decided to ignore the recently called-for moratorium on all zombie-themed games for the next two years (seriously, it's about as cliché as you can get), then do me a huge favour: download this itty-bitty bugger, give it some play time and leave me your comments. It's still a work in progress and rather malleable at this point, so feedback is going to be pretty damn useful and I may just reward you all with icecream.
Maybe.
Give it a shot and let me know what you think. I'm already trying to harvest some developer input from the NAG Online/Game.Dev forum and will probably be slapping this in a few other places afterwards. I just think that, being my personal blog, this would be a great place to put up a game that all of my buddies can have a gander at.
Peace out, and don't let the electric zombies eat your brains. Or batteries. What the hell does a creature like that usually go for anyway?
I love it! can i have some icecream :P
ReplyDeletenice game Rodain! definitely a sweet game. One thing though that i didn't like the feel of was how irrelevant the exits to a stage seemed to me. I understood i wanted to advance, but the main objective seemed to me to get lots of points, rather than actually just getting through. This also then led to me always getting e move ability, and not the tracking, which seems to be what i should actually get to experience the game properly. But anyways, nice game, and i just wish it was longer. i cna haz iceCREAM now???
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the game! Interesting that you chose to use the Move skill: most players tend to ignore it in favour of other stuff. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of scores have you been earning from it?
ummm, i'm on campus atm, but i was able to get +- 30 000 or so. sometimes more, sometimes lots less. I found it depended a lot on luck, what the items and all. fear bomb zombie! Thats my issue though... If my goal is score, then i don't get track till right at the end, and i almost feel like i'm missing the point of the game.
ReplyDeleteCool! I'll keep your comments in consideration. There's going to be more modes in the game as they're developed (16- and 24-level versions) and lots more enemies as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that some of the new enemy designs will actually make tracking more important, making it dangerous to navigate stages without knowing about your foes in quite some detail.
Until then, thanks for the feedback! You've given me something to think about regarding the movement score.