Z is for Zombie - Coming soon to the App Store!

jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
edited November -1 in Announce Your Game!
I'm very happy to announce, and demo my first Game Salad game, Z is for Zombie. I'll be submitting it to the App Store tonight, but I wanted to post a quick demo I made from it. It's only the first level but you'll get the idea. It's been a lot of fun to make it, especially designing and drawing all the artwork. Every single piece of artwork in the game I made, it's basic but I'm proud of it. Now that the core game is complete, I'm working on actually animating some of the actors to give it a little more appeal.

Anyways, give it a play and let me know what you think!

http://gamesalad.com/game/play/24408
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Comments

  • CorellaCorella Member Posts: 37
    Very cool!

    Animations would be great, indeed.

    Suggestions: Ability to fire projectiles to the left as well as right, and maybe make the projectiles a little more visible.

    A definite submission for the "Scary Challenge of the Month" I'd say ;)
    http://gamesalad.com/forums/topic.php?id=756
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    Thanks for the challenge suggestion!

    I originally gave you the ability to shoot both forwards and backwards, but I ran into a bug so I pulled it out. If you had a projectile shooting right, and hit left, the first projectile would change course. I'm sure it was just some sloppy rules on my end :)

    Good idea on making them more visible too, I'm going to do that now before I submit it.
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    Projectiles updated, I want to keep them small so its kinda in scale, but it's a lot easier to see I think now.
  • superNESsuperNES Member Posts: 166
    Very nice indeed! I really like the hand drawn comic book style, it's very unique and novel. The pacing and the audio also greatly added to the mood.

    I think the boss fight needs some hit sounds - I didn't know I was damaging him until he disappeared. Also during that fight, you could avoid all of the zombie slugs by just hanging out towards the bottom of the screen.

    Aside from running/walking animations, you should definitely add some gruesome (yet hand drawn) death animations - the best part of zombie games is all the meaty gibs without the remorse!

    Can't wait to see more!
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    hey superNES

    Thanks for the suggestions - I forgot about the boss hit sounds, I just kept hearing it in my head :)

    I'm working on some 'Popping' effects when the zombies die, but it took so long to draw everything else I didn't want to delay the game any further. I want it to be very gruesome though.

    I'm going to address that safe zone now, it shouldn't be there.
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    That safe zone should be gone, and the boss now screams every so often.
  • CobraCobra Member Posts: 160
    Brilliant! Love the art style, and the atmosphere you're creating with that spooky background sound and slow scroll...

    I'd also like to see some animations, but very sparingly, in keeping with the art style.

    More development of the boss fight -- a few animations, feedback when the boss gets hit, maybe an even darker atmosphere as you approach the boss -- would really take this to the next level! (In my humble opinion.)

    Good luck, look forward to seeing this on the app store!
  • SDMGSDMG Member Posts: 280
    Very good looking, nice atmosphere, very good sound.
    In my opinion the characters needs to be animated... at the beginning it took me some time to find the start button (the buttons simply don't look very much like buttons... maybee its only me ;)... and i think when a zombie hits me he definitly shouldn't simply run through me...

    I really wouldn't hesitate to animate your actors even when you think you are not an animator... you have this nice handdrawn style in your game so noone is expecting a professional "disneylike" animation...

    cheers

    SDMG
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    Animations are on their way, it's not as difficult as I thought it would be, just a huge tedious pain. I've got the player walking, and one of the 5 zombie types moves too. Now onto the rest!
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    I've just uploaded a huge update. All zombie types are animated, the player is animated. Still working on animating the boss.

    I've also uploaded the full game, all 3 levels plus the survival mode.

    Let me know what you think!
  • superNESsuperNES Member Posts: 166
    Nice work with the animations!

    In the 3rd level, there's a section where zombies are able to come across the top area of the screen, however the player cannot reach that high up, so accuracy is forced down. Also in the last zombie boss fight, the zombie dogs only appear in the lower half of the screen. Lastly, I hear the bosses groan, but I still think you should play a sound everytime you hit them.

    I'm very excited to see the final version on the iPhone!
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    do you remember which section in the 3rd level is off? is it in the forest, field or parkinglot?
  • superNESsuperNES Member Posts: 166
    I believe it was the forest, just before the parking lot. I remember that the parking lot opened up and I was able to then kill zombies that were higher than a certain point on the vertical axis.
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    yep, I found the area, a wall is too low.

    As a side note, I uploaded the iPhone version, so you have to click with your mouse to fire, spacebar doesn't work. I went to fix it and my VPN back home died :(
  • CobraCobra Member Posts: 160
    Looking better and better!

    Quick question: "Toutch"? ;)
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    Cobra, where did you see that? :)

    I just uploaded a fixed version, spacebar works to fire now
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    ahh crap, it's everywhere.
    I wish spellcheck worked when I wrote.
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    and spelling mistake fixed :)
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    Just fixed two bugs, the level 3 bug, and another bug that didn't reset your life when you moved from one level to the next. If you died, you would instantly die every time you opened a level unless you restarted the game.
  • quantumsheepquantumsheep Member Posts: 8,188
    Harrio has a great title for part of his post-mortem - I won't spoil it, but this is a prime example of it! ;)

    BTW - great game - really enjoyed it :)
  • SDMGSDMG Member Posts: 280
    nice animation... much better!
  • SDMGSDMG Member Posts: 280
    nice animation... much better!
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    ok, uploading a new build with some more bug fixes

    - level 1 boss is animated
    - all three bosses show a visual cue when hit
    - fixed a bug in level 3 where bad guys were too high too early so they ran though the forest
    - fixed a bug in the ending where it showed a white block (maybe iphone only)
    - adjusted some spawning rules so there wasn't such a large gap between the last bad guy and the boss

    All that's left is to animate the last 3 actors, and do a little more balance testing
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    ok, another big update, fixed a bunch of bugs, added some visual clues of where to go when the level ends, and animated a few more characters.

    Working on the last two now
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    and it's done for now. I think I got all the bugs worked out.

    Now it's time for some new features :)
  • ktfrightktfright Member Posts: 964
    hehe...he looks like he is moonwalking when walking backwards.
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    just uploaded a new build, I had left the level 1 boss right at the beginning of level 1 :)
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    I swear. Every time I submit I find another bug
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    Just made a trailer for the game and posted it over on youtube. Check it out:
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    double post :)
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