Hi, I’m currently cycling between working on a bunch of early-stage game ideas and decided to try a dev log for the game I’m working on mainly right now. I hope that will give me some focus and motivation to finally get something finished or at least closer to a “real game”. I’m working in Godot/C# and like to do all assets and plugins myself (with notable exceptions).
I intuitively tend to approach game developing from two extremes: Coding a robust framework (which most of my projects share), and working on the “juice"... thereby conveniently avoiding pinning down core ideas or even a working and satisfying game loops. I hope to change that in the future 😅 On the other hand, I think I’ve realized by now I always need a good chunk of game look and feel before getting into actual design feels right to me.
In that spirit, here is a quick preview of Zombie Resort, a game much inspired by Cannon Fodder, a classic Amiga game from 1993, mainly in terms of game controls. Your mission is to clear an island resort of a zombie infestation, working your way through several levels in relaxed beach and jungle environments with evolving game mechanics, shooting different types of zombies, rescuing tourists, while keeping an eye on your limited ammo and health. My plan is to turn each level into a bit of a shoot’em up puzzle, and maybe introduce a slight element of economy or shops to get supplies or goodies to help on your mission. My vision in terms of vibe is a mix of relaxed, charming, and somewhat morbid.
Here’s a video of my current status:
(In-game Music, which I butchered for testing the dynamic music system, courtesy of Dominik Sonders, who also contributed zombie sounds)Currently implemented:
- Player control is working fine (point and click with left mouse button to navigate, point and shoot with right mouse button)
- Physics, navigation and shooting mostly working
- Working Framework stuff I developed for all my projects: Menu system, game options, scene management, stage/entity management, etc.
- Juicy features like material-based hit and step sounds incl. randomization, and a basically working dynamic music system, ambient sounds
- Destructible tiles that also change navigation on the map
Important things lacking at this point:
- Need to figure out what actually makes shooting fun instead of tedious
- Implement actual enemy AI (zombies are just randomly stumbling around passively in the video)
- Implement tourists, which will be the other core element besides zombies - and I need to make sure they don’t get in the way and become an annoyance to the player
- Basic core loop not yet established, and I really need to implement starting/finishing/game over/progress to next level stuff
- Thinking about how much story I want to have. I have some ideas I like but it could mean implementing lots of extra stuff (like dialog and task systems, etc.) that would distract me from fleshing out the core game
- Really need to draw more assets. I really love this, even if my skills are limited, but I’m rather slow…
- Design some larger test maps to work on more game elements
Feedback is always welcome! :)