next »

[Matthew Longworth]

Programming little tanks to drive blindly around an arena pelting eachother with peashooters?  A game for small children.  Real men program an army of the undead! 

Foul abominations created from an unholy fusion of the flesh of the dead, unspeakable dark magics, Managed code and the Common Language Runtime:  This is "Morbid Programming of the Dead - Rise of the dotNetromancers!" - a programming game for the morally bankrupt.

Use the .Net framework (the evillest of programming solutions) to control the actions of your zombies, hunting down hapless victims and recruiting them into your cute pixelated unholy army of defiled, shambling corpses.

More hopefully coming tomorrow, and then every other day my fickle enthusiasm stays on track.

UPDATE: Sadly I won't be able to get everything together before the deadline (at least, not to a point where I would be happy releasing it).

Worry not, work will still continue!

[team_q]

I like the concept, Its funny.

[Alex May]

yes

[Matthew Longworth]

Thanks for the positive comments.  I should probably have de-lurked earlier, but deadlines wait for no man, so I may as well put my internet-pride on the line.

A few more details:

Like most programming games, this is a battle between a number of programs fighting for superiority.  Aside from each team's starting zombies, the world will be populated with a large number of victims civilians.  These poor souls will have a simple, fixed program with two states - completely oblivious and running blindly in terror.  They're pretty much there to get their brains eaten.  The primary aim in designing your zombie horde will be to kill as many as possible to grow your forces before the other zombie 'teams' can.

Whilst there is no 'Dwarf' in the title, I've implemented a somewhat detailed damage model.  Even a simple set of commands such as "find a victim, shamble towards them, bite" will be performed differently by zombies depending on how many limbs they have remaining.

Whether or not the endgame will degenerate into zombie-vs-zombie deathmatch, or if the winner will be decided by whichever team is the largest once the last human has been turned is something I've still yet to decide.  Does it even make sense for a zombie to turn another zombie to your side?  Are there any films with hot zombie-vs-zombie action?

I have toyed with the idea of each zombie horde being led by a single Necromancer (dotNetromancer?) in a similar way to the Commander in Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander - your most powerful single unit, but one that must be protected at all costs.


Been spending the last few days working on-and-off on the programming model and user-extendible classes.  Hopefully I'll have the first version of the simulator working soon, so I'll have some actual in-game footage to show off, rather than concept art and text.  I probably got started on this entry a little late, so it's going to be a bit of a push, but hopefully I'll be able to make it in time.
If only I didn't have to go to work...

[deadeye]

Are there any films with hot zombie-vs-zombie action?

Fido has a zombie fighting other zombies.  The flash cartoon series Xombie does too, if you want to count that.  So I guess there is some precedence.

And, uh, Dead Alive has two zombies gettin' it on.  I guess that's hot action of a sort.

[Hideous]

I need to see Dead Alive now.

[Matthew Longworth]

And, uh, Dead Alive has two zombies gettin' it on.  I guess that's hot action of a sort.

When I first read your comment, I was horrified by the thought that a film like that existed.

Then I realised that I've watched it.  Three times.  And it was awesome.  (Though in the UK it was called Braindead).  Pre-budget Peter Jackson films are things of horrific beauty.

Now that I think about it, if I don't have the time to implement a way for a zombie to wind up with a garden gnome for a head, I will be very sad.

[Retro]

Good thing I checked out the opened threads. From all the random possibilities, I came up with a very similar theme as you. I picked "Intellectual Mind Control - The Lost Levels" and thought - yeah, mind controlled, zombies! And since it's intellectual you'll program them. I even envisioned a pixelart title screen with a zombie saying "I have IQ!" Talking about spontanous burst of the same idea from unreleated sources. Oh well, it's good my title isn't so definite as yours so I'll pick some other theme. The 'programing' aspects are going to be much different anyway since I'm going into prolog way.

Just wanted to let you know, I'm not trying to infringe on your idea. Looking forward to seeing how you turn programing into a game.

[deadeye]

I need to see Dead Alive now.

Yes, you do.  Two words:  zombie baby.

Two more words:  "Your mother ate my dog!"

[Chris Whitman]

Dead Alive was great, but how about Zombi II: Zombie Vs. Shark?

I think other things happened in that movie, but that's basically the only part I paid attention to.

[Matthew Longworth]

Talking about spontanous burst of the same idea from unreleated sources. Oh well, it's good my title isn't so definite as yours so I'll pick some other theme. The 'programing' aspects are going to be much different anyway since I'm going into prolog way.

Just wanted to let you know, I'm not trying to infringe on your idea. Looking forward to seeing how you turn programing into a game.

No problems at all.  In fact, one of the reasons I decided to start this thread was to see what the internet though of my completely bizarre idea of Programming game + Isometric pixel Zombies.  It's nice to see I'm not alone.

As for making a game out of programming - I think it's both incredibly easy and really hard.  There are quite a lot of programming games out there - I had great fun 'playing' Robot Battle and AI Fleet Commander years ago.  The problem is that I can't see programming games appealing to a huge audience - they require a large amount of time to master.  And due to the strict time limits, I'm probably not going to be able to balance Morbid Programming of the Dead to a level required for 'competitive' play.

As such, it may essentially be a glorified screensaver to a lot of people who have no interest in devoting the time required to program their own zombies.  This is probably the biggest flaw in the design, and I'm not sure if there is a way 'around' it.  Does a game need to appeal to every human on the planet to be worthwhile?  I don't think so.

I think every single game I've ever designed I have really been designing for myself.  (This is also perhaps the reason that at last count I have completed exactly zero of them).  We shall see if this one fares differently to the others!

[Chris Whitman]

I think there's a definite niche of thinky people out there who actually enjoy the process of programming and would like the idea of doing it for something interesting in a low-stakes, fun and interactive environment. I've also had similar ideas in the past (I think perhaps it's one of those ideas that occurs to everyone in programming).

I'm looking forward to this one!

[Saint]

http://www.c-jump.com/

</ot>

[Eclipse]

best game ever

[Matthew Longworth]

Arg - curse my perfectionism and need for sleep.  It's taken longer to draw the images than it has to write the code to display them (and I still need to get props and walls and actors displaying.)

So here is a very small map containing some grass, a handful of rocks, and zero zombies:



Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to start the harrowing task of _animating_ the characters!  It's a good thing I've got a few days off work next week.

Once I get the little beggars running around I'll try to put together some video previews - what kind of tools would you recommend for screen capturing? 

[team_q]

Thats cool! It reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Doctor P]

Once I get the little beggars running around I'll try to put together some video previews - what kind of tools would you recommend for screen capturing? 

I would give FRAPS a look, http://www.fraps.com/download.php.

[medieval]

CamStudio for the win

[Matthew Longworth]

You left the front door open - and now the house is full of zombies!

[Alex May]

know the feeling!