About The Project
I’m aiming to develop this game for the PC using the Unreal Development Kit engine. We would first do a proof of concept for our game and present it to various publishers in hopes of getting funding to develop the game for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Otherwise we would go at it alone and see where that takes us. It would be a long road but if we do this right and have the right talent behind it (yours?) - I personally believe this could be one of the top selling games in whatever year it’s released in.
We’re primarily looking to add additional modelers to the team, but if there are any animators or programmers that are interested, we would love to have you. Depending on how much you involve yourself in the project - you would get a fair share of the profits this title generates.
My goal is to have the game ready for release to the retail market by Halloween 2011. I’m sure you can understand the significance of this release date. (It’s Halloweeeeen! And our game has zombies!)
Regarding the story of the game itself:
Things would start with a young teenager in his room in an apartment complex. It’s would be a rainy night. The lightning and thunder outside would be keeping him up. Suddenly something outside his bedroom door begins to knock on the wood. The knocking turns into pounding! The door is slowly torn down and in walk the main character’s mother and father - having become zombies. Sadly there’s only one thing the player can do - and so he grabs his baseball bat and the player would have to bash in his parents brains.
What we would do after this opening is let the player out into the city. There would be a number of NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) screaming for help and the player would have to chose which ones to save. The others would get devoured. This would specifically affect the story for the game.
And so the first half the player would work to get together a convoy of survivors from all different walks of life. Eventually things would play out as the convoy gets into a number of challenging situations as new varieties of zombies show up, food starts to run down, and people in the convoy start to lose their minds and go crazy. Overall the game will not only be a game about zombies but also a game about the human condition. I’m not sure yet where the story would end up either - but the game wouldn’t give you a health bar.
Get bit once. You’re dead. The end. One approach I’ve had is lets say the player and the convoy are fighting zombies and one zombie gets up on the player and bites them. Well they push the zombie off and shoot it in the head. Suddenly once the other people in the convoy see that you’ve been bit and they shoot you dead on sight - and that’s how the “Game Over” screen will come about. Get bit and everyone on your team will murder you. Personally I think it’s a pretty novel way to do a game over.
If someone on your convoy is bit once - they either die or can suffer for a while until they become a zombie and you can kill them then. It’s up to the player. There would also be 100 weapons in the game and the player would assign which members of the convoy got what.
Designs and Themes
We need to do a proof of concept that will prove to publishers that we can make a really exciting game. And a huge part of what really interests publishers is the look of a game. Right away they will decide if the game has the right look to “sell”. All this means is that we would do one level in the game that will really showcase what our project is all about.
The key visual thing we’d be going for with this game is an accurate depiction of a zombie bite. There has never been a game to accurately depict the zombie bite and we want to be the first. Usually, as you can see in games like Left 4 Dead - the zombies kind of run to the player and kind of slap them and their health goes down. Well we want to show zombies sinking their rotting teeth into people and pulling away with bleeding flesh in their mouth. It would be gory and disturbing - but that’s precisely what a zombie apocalypse should be.
Regarding settings - I had one idea of a short storyline set apart from the main campaign in Tokyo, Japan. A piece of the game centered in this locale would be breathtaking and would really make our project look exciting and fresh to publishers.
http://www.spa.ucla.edu/up/webfiles/…njuku-45_4.jpg
http://www.planetperplex.com/img/vdb_tokyo_by_night.jpg
http://www.wallpaperbase.com/wallpap…yo/tokyo_1.jpg
I’m also thinking of a zoo setting where we could introduce infected animals like gorillas and tigers. That also would look really amazing to players and publishers.
Well…
I think that should be more than enough for you to go over for now. Our goal is to have a very working proof of concept by GDC 2011.
We will do weekly updates of where we’ve reached in the project.
Thanks for reading,
Zen Davis
Contact information:
AIM: ZenDDavis
E-mail: [email protected]
Team Currently Consists of:
Emma - Concept Artist
Thomas - Concept Artist
Gerard - Concept Artist
Hyrohiku - Concept Artist
Seawad - Concept Artist
John M. Osbourne - Concept Artist
Matjoshas - Concept Artist
Paul - Concept Artist and Animator
Eugene - Animator
Sn1pe56 - Animator
Mark - SFX
Trevor - SFX and Modeler
Jake - Modeler
Emile - Modeler
Matthew - Modeler
Henry Poon - Programmer
Peter - Writer
Zen - Game Designer / Writer
Seeking:
Character Artists
Environmental Artists
Attachments
Hope you got my msn.
