By John Walker on April 20th, 2011 at 11:51 am.
Coo lummee, we find ourselves rather looking forward to the accidentally named Project Zomboid from Indie Stone Studios. Sure, there have been too many zombie games lately, but this one captures our imagination, with its combination of Amiga-ish graphics, and the crafting for survival. Also, there’s a couple of game footage videos to watch, which give me that, “Oh God, no!” feeling of being overwhelmed by the hungry, hungry former people.
Both videos are early footage, and not representative of the final game. I’m assuming the zombos will have death animations before it comes out, and if not I’ll make Indie Stone’s lives a living misery. Apparently I need an eye test.
Here’s an example of that overwhelmingityness, as the character goes from shooty-bangs to desperately swinging a bat at the enormous crowd.
And here’s how the crafting will likely work.
You can pre-order the game for a teeny weeny £5/$8, which will keep the undead wolves away from their doors, and the game in development. They say those who do so will see the first touchable game pretty soon. I just did it. You should too. (Although it’s totally tax deductible for me.)
20/04/2011 at 11:55 Scatterbrainpaul says:
You can tell it’s a slow day at work. I keep on getting to posts on here with no comments yet
20/04/2011 at 11:56 misterk says:
Mm, the idea of a third person shooter where it blanks out places your character cannot see is interesting, and suitably scary for a zombie invasion.
20/04/2011 at 12:17 GoldenPants says:
The vision arc seems a bit too limited though. And maybe some sort of radar blips for a while after you lose sight of a brain muncher. Everyone has some situational awareness.
20/04/2011 at 12:38 lemmy101 says:
@GoldenPants there is a small zone around him that he can effectively see zombies 360 degrees. this along with the arc will increase with skills / perks. :) bear in mind it’s also raining which muffles out sounds and creates constant movement in your peripheral vision.
20/04/2011 at 12:41 aerozol says:
Yeah, things getting blanked out behind the player caught my interest. Might lead to a lot of frantic (or repetitive?) circling, but I imagine that’s what I’d be doing in that situation…
20/04/2011 at 14:47 MadMatty says:
Haha it DOES look like UFO. Same resolution, same isometric viewpoint.
I remember my initial dissapointment with L4D (!) which is good fun and all, but there was no crafting, and pillaging was kindof meagre aswell as the making of barricades was a bit slim.
I want something like Fort Zombie, with higher production values, but this looks like it could be fun also.
20/04/2011 at 15:14 heretic says:
I believe this was used in Nox to great effect.
20/04/2011 at 16:41 arccos says:
I agree with GoldenPants. Realisticly, when I walk, I can see whats all around me without spending time turning my body around. I have essentially a 360 degree line of sight.
It bothers me in FPS’s, but I can’t think of any other way to do those without a limited FOV.
20/04/2011 at 17:42 JFS says:
arccos, are you a mutant? :D
No offense, but it is physically impossible for you to see what’s behind you without turning your head/body or using a mirror. Of course, there may be some sort of vague sensing what’s behind you, situational awareness or whatever, but I think that is represented in-game with that small area behind you where zombies do appear. Unless I misunderstood you somehow, that is.
@ heretic:
Ahhh… Nox.
20/04/2011 at 18:57 derf says:
Mmmm… I think “fog of war” was a bad choice for this game.
22/04/2011 at 15:09 arccos says:
@JFS
I just turn my head while walking. I don’t need to constantly stop and turn my whole body in circles.
Although I could always use a couple more eyes, if you know of anyone selling them.
20/04/2011 at 11:59 McDan says:
Shootybangs! There should definitely be a tag for all games involving shooting and bangs.
20/04/2011 at 12:13 thepaleking says:
I can relate to the main characters inability to run.
20/04/2011 at 22:35 TsunamiWombat says:
I dearly hope theres a sprint button in the finished game.
21/04/2011 at 02:18 MashPotato says:
There is–the animation’s just not in yet, so it would look a bit strange to show someone speedwalking away from zombies ;)
20/04/2011 at 12:20 The Pink Ninja says:
If the mutiplayer is cool I’ll buy it, seems like it could be fun.
20/04/2011 at 15:20 Vengefulpen says:
Has there been any mention as to what the multiplayer is going to be?
20/04/2011 at 12:29 Diziet Sma says:
Looks somewhat interesting but I have to say before I read the article my heart leapt. Those screenshots and amiga graphics simply screamed : “Oh my god it’s UFO : Enemy Unknown with Zombies”. I died a bit inside when it wasn’t.
Yes, I STILL play the UFO series, having got them all cheap on steam and discovered they could run quite happily in Boxer on my work computer. Perfect for a break.
20/04/2011 at 12:47 WASD says:
“You should too.”
No thanks. I’m still waiting for Dead Horde http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/31/theres-a-game-the-name-dead-horde/
20/04/2011 at 12:51 mcwill says:
Wow, more zombies.
Nah, I jest. The whole LOS mechanic looks very interesting and should hopefully make this one genuinely tense, unlike practically every other zombie game out there atm (which is to say 99% of all indie games being made it seems like).
20/04/2011 at 13:31 Atic Atac says:
Awww…looked at the screenshots and was hoping for a turn based X-Com style game…..realtime sux :(
20/04/2011 at 14:03 Atic Atac says:
But then I went out and bought it anyways…..support the indies! :)
20/04/2011 at 13:43 JFS says:
By gosh, the first video is one of the most eerie and oppressive gameplay videos I’ve seen in a long time. I have already donated for this game, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to actually play it when it comes out.
20/04/2011 at 14:12 Navagon says:
I hope that “baseball bat satisfyingness” is something that makes its way into a future change log. But yeah, this is looking intriguing, even though it’s up against some strong direct competition that’s also in the works right now.
20/04/2011 at 14:29 lemmy101 says:
Hiya thanks Navagon :)
Yeah sadly the truth of the situation is there’s a lot of art required and at the moment only one full time artist, therefore for example the baseball bat currently has two frames for 5 directions, which take a good chunk of time to do as it is, for one single weapon.
So we can’t afford to spend a massive amount of time making each lovely sexy at the moment, as there’s the whole rest of the game to deal with.
(Other thing to remember is that in this game, we’re going for more realism and combat is very dangerous, so killing a horde with a baseball bat would be death to the game considering it would probably take a few swings to cave a single zombie’s skull in. Also I kinda got unlucky with my swings with the bat when recording that vid. I killed one a couple of seconds later but one of the zombies spazzed out and jerked about so had to cut just before. ;D)
However things like this will continually develop once the demo is out, and of course we want every weapon to be satisfying as hell to use. :D The shotgun’s just a lot easier to get to that stage since… well, it’s a shotgun. :D
20/04/2011 at 14:48 Navagon says:
The shotgun is definitely a fine example of its kind. No doubt about that. Another frame or two in each direction should sort the bat out too. It’s not really about the damage, as you woudn’t really expect it to affect something that was undead all that much anyway.
When are you expecting this game to be finished by?
20/04/2011 at 15:02 squareking says:
This is essentially the game I’ve been wanting to make. Snap.
20/04/2011 at 15:07 karry says:
Just as X-Com was the peak of squad tactical gaming, and no game to this day can even copy all the features properly – so is Survival Crisis Z for zombie apocalypse survival, destined to forever be the shining beacon on the horizon.
20/04/2011 at 15:54 RadioactiveMan says:
Really? I found Survival Crisis Z to be strange, and difficult to get into. The quests seemed either really easy, or really really difficult: Carry an object to another safehouse you say? No problem. Torture the leader of another safehouse… erm, okay, if you insist… well that was pretty easy, the other people in the house didn’t seem to mind. How about taking over control of a safehouse from the leader you just tortured? AHH so many enemies! Going into the sewers, for any reason? AHH so many enemies!
Those were my impressions anyway. There were some neat bits of randomness in the game, and the faction aspect was kind of neat. There was a good idea in there, but it was not fully developed. Also, the animation was terrible. I wouldn’t by any means compare the quality of Survival Crisis Z to X-Com…
But, off the top of my head, I can’t think of many other examples that are similar-to but also better-than Survival Crisis Z. Dead Rising is probably the finest zombie survival game I can think of, but it has a restricted scope and timeline. L4D is brilliant but is not a survival game. Die2nite is also quite fun, but its definitely a more of a social interaction game, the zombies there could be replaced by any kind of nemesis. Maybe Dead State will become the shining beacon on the horizon? Here’s hoping!
21/04/2011 at 07:58 Heartborne says:
Sooo pre-ordered. Good luck to the devs. Hope it’s successful.
21/04/2011 at 08:35 MrEvilGuy says:
I’m still looking forward to Dead State.
21/04/2011 at 20:36 _Nocturnal says:
This should have totally been a mod for The Sims.
It just needs a diamond above the guy’s head and all your neighbors as the zombies.