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[tysonibele]

Click here for the latest post (updated July 7, 2012)

Hey everyone,

I've been developing a game called Zombox for the past few months for iOS and web with Unity.

It's an open world zombie game with a fully destructible environment, scavenge system with hundreds of items and weapons, crafting system, etc. Been updating it on a weekly basis and so far it's come a long way since the first build.

I'll be posting progress here on a weekly basis and getting all the feedback about it that I can! In the next few months I'll be working on getting a playable alpha out on Unity's web player, and the ultimate goal will be a release in the app store.

I'm always looking for suggestions and feedback!

Here's my development blog.





Here are a couple of screens:

[tysonibele]

Did some more updates to Zombox this week.



The AI has been improved, and the pathfinding now runs asynchronously so longer paths can be calculated with less load on the CPU.

Weapons can destroy environment props and damage buildings as well, and zombies/props/vehicles can be pushed into the nearby streams and rivers causing them to splash in and drown.

Here's a gif showing the splashing in action.

Here's a gif showing the crowd system updating the paths of the zombies. Each new path generated is shown in white

Here's a gif showing a bit of the environment destruction system.

[einstein]

This actually looks fun, nice work thus far!

[bgogol]

Haha, I love this! It looks very fun. I really dig the style and the level destruction. Are those little zombie kids I see? Or are those regular size and there are fatty zombies?

[Pemanent]

I'm impressed! That looks great! Unity you say? Where can I play?

[davidp]

wow, this is neat

i really like the character movement and how they "bounce" from one side to another :D keep it up

[tysonibele]

Thanks guys!

Permanent: There's no beta version out yet to try out, but there will be soon. I'll keep this thread updated with my progress on the game and of course post when it's ready to play.

[Chris Pavia]

Very much looking forward to something playable

[Danrul]

Blatant Boxed In Ripoff.  I hope you can't sleep at night you derivative scum.

[tysonibele]

Blatant Boxed In Ripoff.  I hope you can't sleep at night you derivative scum.

Never heard of it, but ok.

[motorherp]

Blatant Boxed In Ripoff.  I hope you can't sleep at night you derivative scum.

 

The only info I can find for a related game called Boxed In is a project you started in 2009 who's devlog thread is deeply buried and looks like it was quickly abandonned after it was started anyway.  Even the photobucket account you used has since closed so non of the pictures even remain to be seen.  I'd say it was amazingly unfair to claim zombox is ripping you off.

The only other game I think you could mean would be boxhead zombie wars, but then robotron style gameplay, voxel/box graphics, and zombies are all very frequenctly re-occuring game ideas.  I dont think its unreasonable to imagine that two people could have pieced together these 3 popular and over-used game elements independantly of each other.  Not that that's a criticism of your game zombox, but you are playing it very safe, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[tysonibele]

Here's a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at Zombox's object pooling system, which manages to maintain a huge sprawling environment, full of hundreds of destructible objects, on iOS devices with no in-game load times.


Click here for the complete explanation.

[bgogol]

Dang, that is seriously cool. You have some talent. Pay no attention to the bullshit "overused" or "ripoff" or retarded "playing it safe" comments mucking up this thread. It's tough enough to put work like this into a game, and even harder to do it all by yourself. You have to have simpler graphics like this to have a shot at even getting anything done...

Personally, I think it's still a unique project and I'm hoping you finish it. Destructible environments? Crafting? Yes, please. There still aren't enough good, open-world zombie sandbox games out there. Rock on, brother.

[hyperduck]

Yes, I likey

[tysonibele]

Character customizations have been added to Zombox. The main character can now be dressed in various clothes, including over 60 hats, shirts and pants. Each clothing item provides a unique bonus to the character's stats. Some items provide extra armor, some provide extra hit points, some increase speed, some increase the chances to land a critical hit, some increase attack and others regenerate health.

Clothing items, like all items in the game, can be found throughout the world.

[delete me]

Here's a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at Zombox's object pooling system, which manages to maintain a huge sprawling environment, full of hundreds of destructible objects, on iOS devices with no in-game load times.


Click here for the complete explanation.

That has got to be one of the coolest gif's I've seen in a long time. I'm really looking forwards to this.

[Pemanent]

60 hats

oh good. The more hats the better right? I really love where this game is going. Keep it up!

[:^)]

Following this. Looks super awesome.

[tysonibele]

More updates have been made to Zombox!

-been working on building interiors...about half of the interior models are complete

-controls added to allow the player to rotate the camera

-doors must now be manually opened/closed

[Lizardheim]

Wow this game looks fun.

Any estimate when something playable will be released to the public?