Space Ship vs Zombie Mod - Developer Log 1
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Lately I have tried to gain feedback from hosting a server and observe player behavior. Despite having no direct feedback from this forum, I still decided to continue this mod development.
I've made up my mind to make this mod early access because this is my first public project ever. There maybe flaws, problems or ideas that I won't figure out myself. So I have to set my expectation low, grit my teeth, carry through my youth and show my work. Don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with my hobby.
Knowing that early stage could be hard to get people attention, I decided to share some more about my thought and developing process so that we can feel some connection and improve this project together.
Current mod progress:
Fishy's Zombie Mod v0.2.0 Beta (Nov 27th 2019) (4)Graphic (0%) -- There are no extra skins or sprites for this mod yet because in my opinion; gameplay should go first, polishing should be later. So I hold on visual development for a while until most of gameplay mechanics become solid. I do have a bit of pixel art skill. So properly when the Zombie Class system become solid enough, I will give every class new skin and corpse.
Sound (75%) -- The sound is doing fine for now. I don't have much skill on sound design so I only rely mostly on free sources. Although finding the right sound is quite tricky.
Map (1) -- So far, I've only made one for this mod. Surprisingly, I find some players enjoy it. I will look forward to making more map when the time is right.
Scripting (25%) -- Yes, it's still one big chunk of a mess. I'm planning to rewrite them soon for the next major update. Properly, I will split it into a few smaller files.
Recently, did some experiment about making GUI and NPCs.
For the NPC, I find making drone for survivor is intriguing so here is a image about my drones:
I've played Gradius 5 and I found that having glowing shooting orbs following player is very cool, so I decided to include them soon. Also, the gameplay possibility for player controlled NPCs seems endless. We can make Aircraft-carriers, minions, companions, point-defense systems, homing missiles and many more.
So what do you think?
Gameplay (50%) -- At this moment, the current version is 0.1.2 which is the beta. I did some basic class for survivor and zombie to give players a brief feeling about this mod.
To be honest, I took a lot of inspiration from many PvE co-op zombie game like Left 4 Dead or Killing Floor. Sound old but I didn't find many well made CS2D mod play as well as those so I'm giving this a try.
After some observation, I find that the progressing system is a bit clunky and user unfriendly. So I decided to improve them a bit more.
For the upcoming beta (version 0.2.0), I will introduce some skill trees:
New classes: Instead of preset builds for survivor there will be actual classes. Weapon Specialization: Each will specialize in a certain type of weapon. Skill and Weapon Synergy: Their skill tree will revolve around making the best use of their favorite weapons. Left and Right Skill Branching: As they level up, they will gain higher tier skill. Each higher tier they will have 2 different skill options (similar to X-COM). Reclassing: After they reach tier 3, they are allow to class change. By doing so, a skill from their previous class will pass on to their new class. Thus, will increase replay some replay value. Exclusive Weapon: Each class will gain access to their exclusive shop to buy their class weapon. Freelancing: There will be a special class called Freelancer which will have ability to learn 2 skill tree at the same time. However, the learning curve will be more than twice as long as other class. Also they don't have access to any exclusive shop, so they can't get any special weapon.Table for description -- this is just a plan, not an actual update -- I will change this if there are better suggestion and idea:
The reason for the major change is that while observing player who join and play my server, I doubt that they would figure out how to change their character skill and all other features.
Also some default weapons from CS2D seem underwhelming. When I first made this mod, I add the Critical Strike mechanic just to give sniper rifle and scoping more attention.
I want player to feel every weapon worth playing. I want to give the feeling that every new game will be full of different building options. That's what many RPGs meant to be, replay value.
Therefore, I decided to make class more about weapon specialization while allowing some flexibility to mix and match different play styles.
Also I would like to point out that there's properly won't have any saving mechanic for player progression. Take a look at League of Legend for example, we can have a character from level 1 to max in one game session. It doesn't necessary seem boring as long as there is enough replay value. It's seem to be a better approach for this mod which mean less grinding and more about character planning.
However, I may include a ranking system once the mod reach its first Gold version (1.0). Although, there is a lot of work for me to do until then.
Of course these are just announcement. Some of them may change anytime before the actual update. Also I'm would like to hear everyone thought about it. So if you have any suggestion about this feel free to reply.
Conclusion:
This will be a new challenge for my skill so please expect this to take a few week to complete.
See you in the next update!
edited 1×, last 24.10.19 06:15:36 am
Stinger