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!
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