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[SlightlyMadman]

ZedZed is a turn-based zombie survival game, heavily inspired by the roguelike genre.  Still very much a work in progress, but I think it's far enough along that I could use some feedback.  I know the game is pretty ugly at the moment; I'm considering the graphics placeholders for the most part, until I've got the gameplay worked out and can focus on them.

It's very close to feature-complete, so I'd particularly appreciate any suggestions on where to focus my attention.  What needs polish, what could be dropped, and what should be added?

Gameplay is similar to a roguelike, in that it's a randomly generated world, only one saved game can be kept at a time, and it's deleted if you die.  The goal is to simply try and stay alive for as long as possible.  You can pick up armor, weapons, ammunition, and food along your way (but excessive weight will slow you down).  Fatigue, hunger, and thirst will accumulate constantly, so you'll need to rest, eat, and drink to bring them back down, or they'll reduce your stats and eventually kill you.  The game can be played entirely with the keyboard, and I've added limited mouse interaction (right click to move or attack, mouse over items or NPCs for a tool-tip description).

Screenshot:


A windows build is available here:
http://www.ohshitzombies.com/ZedZed/trunk/ZedZed/ZedZed_dist.zip
Or if you have python and pygame, you can run it from the source available via svn:
http://www.ohshitzombies.com/ZedZed/trunk/ZedZed/

The main areas I'm planning on focusing on next are the terrain generation scripts (specifically making recognizable building types, like grocery stores and gun shops), and the NPC AI (adding a command system, where other survivors can be instructed to stand guard or follow you).

edit: Updated screenshot to reflect current build

[Dragonmaw]

This is an alright game, but it definitely feels like a dumbed-down rogue-like. There's a lack of interesting things to do, which is what most of the genre is about.  Don't get me wrong.  It's fun, I just don't feel like it is as fun as it could be.

The other thing is that the graphics are sorta weird.  The styles leap all over the place.  I like the whole Zombies Ate My Neighbors references, though.

Good start.

[SlightlyMadman]

This is an alright game, but it definitely feels like a dumbed-down rogue-like. There's a lack of interesting things to do, which is what most of the genre is about.  Don't get me wrong.  It's fun, I just don't feel like it is as fun as it could be.

Yep, I agree with you completely.  Do you have any suggestions on interesting things one might want to do?  I'm hoping to eventually take it in the direction of building and defending a sort of "home base", and rescuing other survivors to bring them back there.  If you have any other thoughts on what you'd like to do in a zombie apocalypse though, I'd love to hear it.

The other thing is that the graphics are sorta weird.  The styles leap all over the place.  I like the whole Zombies Ate My Neighbors references, though.

Yeah, I grabbed random art from all over the place for the most part, and made some tiles myself.  Eventually, I'd like to put together a nice pretty isometric tileset, but I'm specifically avoiding putting any work into the graphics until I've made the game fun.

[SlightlyMadman]

I just rebuild the graphics engine with an isometric tileset.  It's much more consistent now, although I'll need to modify the character and item sprites by hand to make them match the post-apocalypse setting (since they were designed for fantasy roguelikes).

I've decided I'm going to change the direction of the game a bit, so the goal will be to build and defend a home base.  Simple structures will be able to be placed and build, and commands will be issuable to the other survivors.  I'll post another update, once I've got the basics of that mechanic in place.

[torch]

Could we have some sort of help file please?  I tried the normal rogue keys, but outside of picking some stuff up and having a poke about, I couldn't get very far.  I did shoot a zombie for 78 damage, but then I couldn't figure how to reload. 

[Eclipse]

loving the engine, but yes it definitely feels like a very simple roguelike... but it's a nice little game indeed, maybe you should add more stuff\enemies and so on if you want to go the roguelike way.. or maybe you can even add a party to move, leaving people to play with more than a single character or play it in hot-seat

[jango0821]

I really like the graphics!

[eddietree]

isometric anything is always good..

good work

[William Broom]

You could watch some zombie movies for inspiration on what might be cool features/events to have... for example it was awesome in Dawn of the Dead when they were running over zombies in cars. You could drive your car around to find more survivors, but fuel is very scarce so you have to be careful.

[eddietree]

The thing I didn't like when working with Python/Pygame is how it handles garbage collection, in which you definitely do not have much control.  also, the interpreted nature of python causes it to be very sluggish and resource inefficient. I feel that python is good for smalltime games, but when the game begins to expand, python seems to not scale well.