[XP] Project Z

Overview:

Project Z is a post-apocalyptic survival game, following the end of the world (as we know it) in 2012

Living in a city and surrounding woodlands, you play as Marcus, a high-school drop out, and aided by many survivors that you can find throughout the game world, you must try to build a new life for your growing community, whilst combating the undead. But you aren't the only survivors in the world, other factions of humanity exist, and it's up to you wether you should befriend them for the support, or kill them for their supplies.

Project Z is all about the choices you make. Which survivors, what guns, even what you spend a single day doing. Its a human-eat-human world out there, just make sure you shoot the right ones!

Intro cutscene:

Spoiler for:

Remember, its not finished we still have somethings to tweak.

For e.g.
the cars wheels don't move
the main character is robbing the shop in a Porsche 
the ending is very...'cheesey' but we had to end it for now

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P6P1EWS0

Story:

The mayans predicted that the world would end on the 21^st of December, 2012. The world itself is still in one piece, but not as we used to know it. A deadly virus was released into the major cities in the form of bombs from an unknown terrorist faction. The virus killed, then reanimated 85% of the population in the UK, and in the two weeks of chaos that followed, almost all remaining survivors were killed. In a world where the living are a minority, the last dregs of humanity fight for survival.

Characters:


Marcus:

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A dropout from high school, Marcus turned to the only other reliable source of cash; Robbery. He joined a gang after leaving school, aged 17. Four years later, the Virus broke out in the city, and Marcus and his gang were hiding in their small apartment, forced out into the open when their supplies ran out.

Jake:

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Marcus' old school friend and complete opposite, Jake finished high school, and went on to become a pre-med student in a fairly good University. When the virus struck, Jake was on his way back to the city for Christmas.

Chloe:

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Being a journalist for the London Express, Chloe is a tough cookie. When the survivor camp she was in was attacked, Chloe escaped, and headed out on her own, until she bumped into Marcus and Jake. Chloe has the story of a century ahead of her, and she wants to document everything and discover the truth about the viral outbreak.

Jack:

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Jack owned a seedy gunstore on the outskirts of London. He supplied Marcus' gang with weapons, for a high price.

Undead:

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The enemies of the game More to come!

Other survivors;

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These are other survivors that you can interact with.

Kate
Aged 23
Kate used to live out in the country, but after the outbreak thought it would be best to venture in the wrecks of the city looking for supplies. In doing so got captured by some raiders and found herself being held captive in an old office.


Bill
Aged 46
Lived in and owned a farm before the outbreak. Now he fights for survival along with his family, held up in his farms barn.

Survivor Groups:

Militants:

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The militants are the remnants of the military forces deployed to combat the outbreak. Sheltering in an old airbase and heavily armed and supplied with standard military issue weapons, the militants are rooted deeply into the area.

Survivalists:

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A very religious cult, the survivalists believe that judgement day is upon them, and they are the chosen few survivors, because of this, the survivalists automatically ally with the player, offering supplies and a place to stay. Since they are a religious group they dont like to use violence unless in a life or death situation.

"Techies"(working title):

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The "techies" are an organisation of scientists and mechanics. They use weaponry that is almost futuristic and also have mech-like suits that help them fend off the undead. They've taken shelter in an old car factory, which has been surrounded by automated turrets.

Mountaineers(working title):

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A band of amatuer hikers that, at the time of the outbreak, were climbing a remote mountain. They returned to civilisation to find it in chaos. So decided to stay up in the foot hills, which they thought would keep them safe from the zombies. They were wrong of course, so have made several bases amoung the mountainous area, which they switch between throughout the year. The weapons they use are medieval i.e. crossbows and catapults, because the group fear that using guns would leave them defenseless without ammo.

Weapons:

Handguns:

Spoiler for:

This is the USP, the gun that you are given at the start of the game.

Assault Rifles:

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A staple weapon of the apocalypse, the AK-47.

Features:

Combat:

• Ranged and Melee weapons to choose from
• Uses Blizz ABS
• Construct barricades, and turn almost any building into a safe house
• Infection meter increases every time you take damage from an infected
• Armour can be found throughout the game world to protect the player

Story:

• Uncover the truth about the virus conspiracy
• Examine corpses for clues
• Hack computers and search mail

Survival:

• Collect food, water, medicine and ammo to survive day-to-day life
• Upgrade your house to make sure you withstand the barrage of infected
• Use the prototype cure to halt the infection in your body
• Find survivors scattered across the game world and bolster your ranks
• Different survivors unlock different skills for your party
• Set traps and grow crops

Miscellaneous:

• Trophy system rewards players
  Spoiler for:

  
  28 days later                                                        Survive for 28 days
  Gotta catch 'em all                                                Catch at least 1 of each type of animal
  Bear Grylls wannabe                                              Complete basic survival training
  Nice one, Rambo                                                   Kill a zombie
  The voices told me to                                           Kill 100 zombies
  The forest zombie massacre                                   Kill 1000 zombies
  Gone with the stump                                            Get 50 headshots
  Mans best friend, squirrels worst enemy                  Find Fido
  Shoot first, ask questions later                              Enemy with all Survivor groups
  Diplomat                                                           Ally with all Survivor groups
  Speedy Gonzalas                                                Complete the game in __
  One big, happy family                                          Find all British survivors
  Hey, small world!                                               Discover all map locations
  Paranoid                                                            Save 100 times
  Headhunter                                                        Find all collectable heads
  You seem to be missing something…                      Find 5 collectable heads
  You're off your 'ead mate                                   Find 1 collectable head
  Novice                                                            Complete the game with a C
  Fighter                                                            Complete the game with a B
  Apocalyptic survivor                                          Complete the game with an A
  My middle name is sad                                       Complete the game with an S
  President evil                                                   Kill the president
  Zombie beater                                                  Kill 10 zombies with melee weapons
  Sticks And Stones                                            Kill 100 Zombies with meele weapons
  Where the heart is                                           Go back home
  That’s the ticket                                              Access the secret tube station
  Baby steps                                                      Take 10000 steps
  Look at my Crib                                               Fully upgrade house
  Refurbishment                                                 Upgrade house once
  Making a house a home                                     Upgrade house 3 times
  By the power of Grayskull                                  Find the weapon stash in the barn
  Impenetrable                                                  Man every position
  Can't touch this                                              Survive a night without injury
  • Day and night system
  • Extra game mode for a "less serious" play through
  • Seasons and weather system for added realism
  [li]Unlock additional costumes for main characters based off other video game characters

Screenshots:

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The HUD, all fully working (and evented, not scripted!)

The new, new, inside of the house

The Whole forest, still unfinished

Credits:

Blizzard - for the amazing Blizz-ABS.
All the guys at the Half Kaizer Construction Project (Full list - http://www.hbgames.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39088.0)
Enterbrain - for their brilliant program.
Dasginger - for his spriting skills.

Comments and criticism welcomed, thanks for looking![/list][/list]

Your mapping could be a little more detailed, but the rest of it looks fantastic.

Yeah, alot of the maps are quite empty, but some of them are missing things like people and cars at the moment. Thanks for the comment!

Been playing around with the tileset, and i think ive improved the forest, not just added stuff.

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Only done a section of the forest, but I think it looks better. Again, comments and criticism welcome!

It is looking better, the characters seem a little large in scale to it, however.

Yeah, thats the problem with using Half-Kaiser. I'm starting to resize everything to be proportional to the character, but with only three people in the team, its a painfully slow task... worth it though, I can't stand the RTP characters.

Go you, pookinator. Go you.

It all seems pretty solid -  your weak point is mapping, which isn't bad but not excellent either - but I think you're improving X3.

Again, Go you.

Thanks kitkatkan, and hopefully my mapping skills will get better over time 

Story: A survival horror game. Well your story is decent. What I would like to know is why those certain people survived. You really dont have a story persay, its more of an overview. Your characters are nice and are fresh from other games out there. My only other gripe is the title. Project Z? What you should do is name it from an important symbol or motif from the game itself. (:

Graphics: You are breaking an important rule. NEVER use half-kaizer with the RTP. If you are going to use Half-Kaizer, then use a Half-Kaizer tileset. Your characters are really flat with the RTP too. Your mapping needs a major overhaul. Fog doesnt make a bad map better, fog makes a good map better. Add some more detail, and either get rid of the flowers, or get rid of the RTP. (:

Other: Your features are nice. You have some varying stuff to keep the game interesting. They are fresh and exciting. Instead of making this a whole story game, why not make this into a sort of a giant minigame. See how long you can survive this disaster. As each day progresses, the zombies get harder and whatnot. (:

Story: How the people survived isn't really a big issue, its what they're going to have to do to survive thats the main focus of the game. The main bits of the story are still being worked on (damn over imagination). Lastly, there is a reason for the name being really cliche, but it we didn't want to post the whole of the story that we already had come up with until we had made an agreement on it.

Graphics: Fatal error, I know, but at the moment we are still working on the mechanics of the game, and only one of us in our 'team' can sprite well, so resizing the graphics will be slow. The earlier screenshots had a fog anyway, but was taken from the map editor, to show a bigger area, the later screenshot had much more detail than the older one, and hopefully, the screenshots to come will be even better.

Other: Odd that you suggest making it into a minigame, because thats how we started making this game in the first place, but we kept adding new features, until it was just such a big project on our hands, we decided to make it into a full game, but it is still based around how long you can survive. And thanks for the comments on the variety of stuff in the game, took us a while to get them all working

Thanks for viewing, and the criticism

Just get new tilesets. RTP does not look good for a game like this.

Hi, I'm the main spriter working on Project Z. Its been a while since this thread was updated (a whole month actually) so heres some more characters, just for you

Spoiler for:

The finished survivalist




A couple more militants
   

   

I was about to kick your ass for necroposting, man 

Anyways, good job on those sprites 8 )

Also, glad to hear that you're still working on this. I would have been sad to see this project go.

*UPDATE* 11/08/09 (just)

Added 2 more groups and edited existing groups.

Added a new feature; additional costumes.

*UPDATE* 20/08/09

I've been really busy this week, working on the interior of the cabin in the woods. Its based on the forest town interior, with bits resized, recoloured, or made completely from scratch, so without further ado...

Spoiler for:

Some brand new chairs, only front and back for now

New counters and cupboards for the kitchen

How many houses don't have tvs? Shame it doesnt work...
And heres...

...Everything in action! (Oven still a WIP, and the layout wil end up changing, somehow...)

And to finish, all my WIP character sets:

Left to right: A new survivor; the cop, A member of Marcus' gang for the intro cutscene, The farmers two children, Marcus' alternate costumes. The jacket belongs to another video game character, a big cookie to whoever can guess who's it is (I'm not sure about the likeness to the original)

Oh, and Kitkatkan, sorry I didn't see them earlier, but those Half-Kaizer sprites were really good I would have replied to the thread, but its been 19 days since last reply. Its nice to see this project inspiring people!

hmm is it the jacket from James Grayson in resistance retrebution?
love the story


Good Luck

Its not James Grayson, but looking at his jacket, it may as well have been, its pretty much the same jacket.

I've updated the pic, to make it a bit less bulky looking, and closer to the original.

Thanks for looking, and really glad you like the story

Aww, thanks Dasginger, I'm glad to be inspired 

New pixels are nice-tastic, something about the perspective of the stove is bugging me though -_o

This is starting to improve little by little.

No update, but this project is still active!

And to prove it, I come with presents!
Now you can show your support for project Z by putting one of these in you're signature!

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[url=http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,33622.0.html][IMG]http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt88/Zombie_stuff/ProjectZshort.png[/IMG][/url]


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[url=http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,33622.0.html][IMG]http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt88/Zombie_stuff/ProjectZ2-1.png[/IMG][/url]

It looks awesome, how did you make the trophy system? Maybe you could use some more 'post-apocaliptic' tiles...

Thanks for the comment knightzero!

To answer your question, all we did was make the design for the trophies and make all the switches and variables, then all you do is show picture when the requirement is met.

I don't really understand what you meant by 'tiles', but if you mean the tilesets then, once we have made the hospital and the city itself, it will look more post-apocalyptic.

Yes, that's what I meant. I'd love to see the tilesets...
 Well, it's actually very easy(the trophies)?!
Can you see the trophies you have already obtained as a sort of checklist?

The zombies look good, made by Dasginger I suppose? Keep up the goo- AWESOME work ...

one thing is for sure: I'll stay tuned until the game is out, I'd love to play this, even after the game(demo)is released I'll check for updates.

And one more question:  'The cure' prototype: Is this an item to stop your infection-So you won't become a zombie- and that like hunger (etc.) that the hunger(infection) raises by time(or by being bitten or something) and you will be able to lower the infection level by using the cure?

The sprites and tilesets look really great. Moved to the regular projects section.

Yes, there will be a checklist. Haven't got around to making it yet, but its on the to-do list. Next, the prototype cure will only stop you getting infected for a period of time. For example, usually your infected bar will increase everytime you get hit by a zombie, but when you use the cure it sort of gives you a temporary immunity meaning the bar won't rise.

Thanks for the moving us modern algebra and glad you like the tilesets and sprites.