Ultimate Zombie Death Ball Development Diaries #2: Pre-Alpha

Hi and welcome back to another development diary for Ultimate Zombie Death Ball! This week we’ve begun the final stretch towards our alpha milestone, which means a lot of hunkering down and getting stuff working. Too many bugs, too little time….

The first thing to be fixed was the player’s meat throwing ability. Because this action defines the core gameplay loop, we had to make sure it worked exactly how we wanted. If it doesn’t work, the game doesn’t work. We modified the controls to use a trigger along with the right stick to throw, rather than just throwing on stick release. This was to give players more control over when they throw, and also to stop a bug where the input value from the stick was being set after the stick flicks back, causing wonky throws.

The next problem addressed was defining what the zombies do after the player dies. We removed the zombie wandering after the last build, but having them run south out of the way didn’t really make sense in the world. So, we set to work creating a new machine that will grind up fresh chunks for the zombies to chase, keeping them away from the spawn area for a time so the players can respawn. The current effect looks like this:

Another problem we ran into (and sort of a pet project of mine) was the problem of having our decals match in line with the geometry of the field. I had read online the solution to this problem a while back (Here’s a link to a fantastic slideshow about it which helped me a ton https://www.slideshare.net/blindrenderer/screen-space-decals-in-warhammer-40000-space-marine-14699854), but really wanted to get it working in game… and now it is. I still have some shader work to do to make the blood decals looks better on the field, but they will now conform to geometry as intended.

Another important development this milestone was finally getting our player and zombie models in game for real. Rigging is done, so we only need a few more animations finished before they can be in the game. This facial animation is among the last that needed to be made:

Finally, this week we spent some time meeting with graphic designers to commission posters for our Level Up debut. No pictures, sadly, as this was a *super-secret* meeting. Not much to report on that front yet, as we wait for more info. Anyway, that’s the work we’ve done so far. Lots of housekeeping stuff until Alpha milestone kicks our ass. Until then, thanks for reading!

Ultimate Zombie Death Ball Development Diaries #1: Somewhere in the Middle

Hey, welcome to my blog. My name is Chris Lyons, and I’m the creative director for Devil’s Cider. We are a team making a game that isn’t out yet called ‘Ultimate Zombie Death Ball.’ In the game, you play as a human on a field with a horde of zombies that chase you. Your goal is to control the zombie horde (by throwing meat or by having them chase you) in order to get a ball in your opponents net and score goals. In essence: Zombie Soccer. This development blog begins somewhere in the middle of the development cycle, a few weeks away from our Alpha milestone. The game, for the first time, is in an actually playable form. Things are finally coming together!

First, I’d like you to meat (get it? Meat? ) the development team. There’s of course me, Chris Lyons, the creative director. Jason MacKenzie, our producer. Connor Mitchell, our UI and gameplay programmer. Paul Boyko, our head programmer. Chelsea Saari, our Technical artist. And Christine Harte, our head artist.

Not Pictured: Connor Mitchell who couldn’t make it to the Global Game Jam. Read more about our experience at the game jam.

So, let’s talk a bit about the game in its current form then. This is what I looks like in its current pre-alpha state.

 Were currently using default Unity characters that we’ve colored red blue or green to determine players and zombies. You can run around while being chased by zombies, you can throw meat to direct the zombies away from you, and you can score points by getting the ball in the net.  Most art assets such as players and zombie models are not yet in the game, but will come in the alpha build.

Here is what our player will look like once implemented:

In this gif you’ll notice the player grows and shrinks… That is intentional. We are implementing a system to randomize player body types / gender / skin color so that each time you die you are given a new character.

Oh, and here’s a gif of our zombie walkin’ through the planetarium like:

Playtesting

Our game’s mechanics have all been implemented in a basic state at this point. So, we decided to host a play testing session to see what people thought. It went well!

The importance of playtesting really can’t be understated. It is so easy to develop in a vacuum, where even your trained eye can’t tell what exactly the driving forces behind your game are. But feedback from people who haven’t touched the game before, or who aren’t involved intricately in the development very quickly will point to ideas that weren’t considered before, or reaffirm ideas you’ve had but weren’t certain about. Of course, the next logical once implement these changes is simply to test again, in the never ending loop we call game development.

Audio Recording

Earlier in the week, a few members of the team (including myself) met with our sound engineer and voice actors. We spent around 4 or 5 hours recording zombie noises and player noises; an experience that is entirely new to me. There is nothing quite like listening to voice actors trying to nail a death scream. The actors we’re working with are all incredibly talented and a joy to work with, and they will really add a lot to the game once we have finished recording.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for taking the time to catch up on Ultimate Zombie Death Ball this week. This blog will be updated every 2 weeks with the latest developments on the production of our game. We are very excited to share it with you.

Thanks and until next time,

Chris Lyons.