Hey everyone, my name is Justin Hammond, I’m a developer at Blackmodule Studio and we working on a zombie survival game and I wanted to share a bit about it here, and hopefully build some excitement.
About the game:
The game is a multiplayer survival game set after an apocalyptic virus has ravaged the world. Players must explore and scavenge items to survive.
One of the unique features in the game will be a procedurally generated map, everytime a server is created. We are all about procedural generation here at Blackmodule Studio, so we love to use it. We feel it creates a replay factor that non-procedural game worlds just can’t achieve. Everytime you play, you have a whole new world to explore. The game world will be wide open for your exploration pleasure. This includes fully open buildings to explore! The buildings in the towns and cities will also be procedurally built.
The game will be multiplayer, with servers hosted by independent groups or players, meaning you can host your own server! It will be easy to play with a select group of friends, or you can join a publicly hosted server to play with others.
Survival is a key focus in this game. It’s not just a typical run’n’gun zombie shooter. You will need to scavenge for supplies in order to survive. This likely means teaming up with other survivors to help defend yourself, but it’s your choice of how you try to survive.
Inspiration:
We are big fans of the zombie genre, and like a lot that’s out there. Most of us are enthusiasts of AMC’s The Walking Dead, and we draw some inspiration from the series. Being gamers, we all play lots of games, ranging from Left4Dead to WarZ. I want to point out that, though we draw inspiration from these sources, we are certainly not basing it off of any one of these sources. We also take what we don’t like about how things were done in these shows and games, and ensure we don’t put those things into our game. We’ve also taken some inspiration from games such as Minecraft. We are big fans of the game, and love the procedural generation. This allows an unprecedented replay value, and immersive exploration, everytime you play.
Gameplay:
The game will be a multiplayer game built within Unity. Our intentions are to enable players to host their own servers, so that they have more control over who they play with. This will inherently allow a ‘single-player’ variant by just not inviting anyone else to the server you are hosting.
The primary objectives of the game are exploration and survival. Everytime a server is started up, it will create a random, procedurally generated map. Currently we are playing with map sizes, and we are seeing good results with a 100^2 km map. Everything from the hills, valleys, and mountains, to the forests, rivers, and lakes, all the way to the highways, cities, and buildings will be procedurally generated. The buildings in the game will be fully enterable and furnished. We plan to create many base models for the buildings, and piece them together, procedurally, like legos. This will allow an artistic touch while removing the feeling of a ‘modeled’ city.
Survival will an ongoing battle in the game. Whether you’re surviving zombie attacks, fighting off starvation, or being hunted by other players, you never will be truly safe. In order to do well you’ll need to scavenge items left behind after the apocalypse. Unfortunately the best way to get these items is to search once populated areas. This means confrontation with the local populace turned zombie. Sometimes you may run into other players, this can turn out several different ways. Players may want to team up, but they may also have ulterior motives.
Development:
As we are a small, independent studio, we are currently working on this project on our own time. What this means is that we are going to be doing some crowdfunding to help speed development of the game. We have much more planned for the game if we meet and/or exceed our goals. What I’ve outlined above is only for our initial build of the game. If you’d like to help, then please feel free to check out our crowdfunding campaign.
If you can’t donate, we understand. If you are interested in our project but can’t help out financially, that’s ok. You can still help us out by spreading the word. If you are interested, then there is a good chance you know other people who may also be interested. Spreading the word is just as helpful as donating!
We are very interested in hearing what you all think about the game. Please post here and let us know what you think. Feel free to ask questions to, I’ll try to answer posts in a timely manner, but I won’t be on here all day, everyday. You can also follow the dev vlog we just started, follow us on twitter, or facebook.
Here is a new wallpaper I made for the game. We’ve also decided to call it ‘After Life’.
Here is the latest dev vlog.
Also, here are a few screenshots of some early development in the terrain generation. Enjoy!
Here is a piece of concept art as well:
