Zombie Incinerator

You are trying to find your way out of zombie infested island, but you can’t see much because it is too foggy. So you use your flamethrower to light the torches and not get lost. Find the empty area in the game to call the helicopter, while burning zombies.

I appreciate all feedback :slight_smile:
Please tell me what can I add more and improvements (for example I couldnt change the firstpersoncontroller script so it would block movement while mouse button is clicked)
Download Link : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WqMbkiwhvr3DoF9XZyq8MCgNOuYm6eHs

This game is really bad, I’m sorry but you didn’t even try.
No pause menu
No restart after death
No way to close game
Can go out map

I think that is a fairly harsh and unsupportive comment Muhammed, not one typically seen in the GameDev.tv community.

Things I liked;

  • scenery / terrain - it’s clear you have spent some time thinking about this when creating it, the use of trees and grass is good, they add to the overall experience but without being “too much”, especially the use of grass which is easily over applied.
  • lanterns - I noticed one of these, but it was by change that I set it on fire, after I had I started to set them all on fire. I don’t recall whether this was part of the section/lectures or not, my gut feel is that it isn’t, so, nice feature!
  • audio - the repeating “spooky” sound effect adds to the atmosphere created by both the story and the scene, especially with the use of fog
  • flames - nice touch, looks good and the burning zombies work well too

Things that could be enhanced;

As Muhammed has already mentioned, the game would benefit from some additional options, a pause menu would be useful, with options to Resume / Restart / Quit perhaps.

With regards to being able to leave the map, it’s clear that you have designed the scenery to try to prevent this, however perhaps the inclusion of your model and the player controller have gone against you a little. You can set a max angle for characters to walk, this may help to reduce the issue of the player leaving the map, however you have a very high jump, I suspect even altering the climb angle players would still be able to jump to get over the scenery. One solution could be to add some “boxing” to prevent the escape.

  • jump height - mentioned above, feels too high, almost as if it were low gravity
  • footsteps - inconsistent sound, there are footsteps as if the player is walking on a tiled floor, yet they are walking on grass/rocks, an alternative sound effect could be used to enhance this, and possible changing it when the player was on the rocks
  • firing - it isn’t possibly for the player to fire if the run button is depressed, even if you are standing still on the spot
  • firing - it isn’t possible for the player to fire if the walk button is depressed. If you start firing, then walk, the firing stops
  • dead zombies - they can still move after dead, on one occasions I saw one flat on his back burning but was sliding across the floor (flat surface), this looked more unnatural than you may have intended :slight_smile:
  • obstacle avoidance - the zombies have an obstacle avoidance distance set, this might be just a little bit too high, as they circle around trees at quite a distance
  • zombie player detection - you have to be quite close to the zombies before they are attracted to you and follow, even closer before they attack. This may be by design, it does create a situation however where the zombies are more of an obstacle than a force to be battled, something worth considering from a design/story perspective.
  • I noticed there were some rock formations which didn’t look like they were based on the height map, but their mesh data/colliders I think may be a little off, there was one rock I was able to jump up but I was jumping up in mid air, and landing, which looked odd. Ironically, it was this one from which the helicopter was called in, this was quite cool but as the helicopter arrived it then landed on the ground not the rock formation, thus is actually went through the rock formation to the terrain.

    This also had the consequence of the player not being able to get into the helicopter! :slight_smile:

I think you have a good start to a game here, so well done, what it could do with now is a little polish.

Try to resolve the game breaking issues first, so the bounding boxes to keep the player “in”, ensuring the helicopter can land more appropriately and is accessible. Make sure that any win / lose scenarios are handled, e.g. if you die, make sure you can restart the game, if you win, let the player know and again make sure you can restart.

After that I would look at the jumping/rock climbing issues and the firing. Following on from that it’s mainly tweaking.

Addition ideas;

  • wind - seems fairly continuous and equal in strength everywhere I go as a player, the tree movements are all the same etc. This could be varied and would add to the ambience/atmosphere
  • creepy audio - the looping is noticeable, and it’s possible just a little bit too loud, minor tweaking but would again help with the atmosphere, as could additional audio effects such as a subtle beating heart effect or similar, not continuously, but just triggered every now and then, make the player think “uh, oh, something bad is about to happen” - even if it doesn’t! :slight_smile:
  • lanterns - I’m not sure if these were supposed to be to set out to the escape route to help the player or not, initially they felt like they were, later they didn’t. They need a purpose for being there if they are gong to be static. An alternative might be to allow the player to “plant” / “place” a lantern, this would allow them to see where they had been, but without havning them already in place.
  • escape points - I found one, as mentioned above, are there more than one? Is one easier to get to geographically but has a higher rate of zombie spawning? Is one harder to get to geographically but then has a lower rate of zombie spawning?
  • endless flame thrower - its fun to use, but where is the player storing all that fuel? It strikes me that if the player had limited fuel to use this could add even more challenge to the game. The zombies would need to be a little bit more aggressive too. You could add the amount of fuel, and number of remaining fuel cannisters to a HUD for the player. Perhaps a bar which indicates the fuel currently loaded which starts off green and goes to amber and then red as it diminishes? You may of course then need a reload animation.
  • sound effects - these zombies dont moan/groan! They could also let out some screams when burning. Consider varying the pitch on sound effects like these so they dont all sound the same.
  • water - the camera shows a normal view but with fog when underwater
  • being underwater - should the player really just die? How about adding a breathing mechanic to indicate the player holding their breath? Again, consider a bar, perhaps blue this time, which again changes as they use up their “air”, as it gets low you could have some cough/choking sound effects before the player drowns/dies.
  • swimming - this would be an addition to the above, you could let the player hold their breath for so long but also allow them to swim.
  • reasons for not swimming - swimming would allow some more difficult areas of your map to be circumvented, so you would need to consider some in-water-dangers, perhaps some crocodiles or other nasties, these could either act as a deterent or, make the player consider their route through the water more carefully. In water nasties could move more quickly than the player.
  • player health - it would be useful to have some indication of the player’s health, especially if they can be attacked by zombies but not instantly die. This allows the player to determine which risks to take, for example, if they have full health they may run through a large herd of zombies, if they have low health they may move more cautiously around the outside of the map.
  • player energy - a representation of how tired the player is. Running would make this deplete more quickly. Being attacked would deplete this more quickly. Swimming would deplete this more quickly. Staying still for some time could slow allow this to regenerate. The energy value could be used to change the player’s maximum walk/run/swim speeds, or prevent them from jumping etc.
  • collectibles - these would need some careful consideration with regards to placement, it needs to make sense, but potentially you could add things which help to increase the player’s health (bandages/medicine perhaps), or the player’s energy (food/drinks), and of course, you may want to add the odd fuel cell for the flame thrower. The reason these need careful consideration is that if you just scatter fuel cells everywhere it looks very fake. Try to think of the why is this fuel cell here? Why is this food here? That would lead me to think that perhaps these items are not just found outside but maybe you could introduce the odd shack or damaged building, not too many, just a couple. As a story, it would then make more sense for the player to try to rest in one of these locations, safe from the zombies, and they may find some abandoned items that could be useful, food, camping gas etc etc.
  • smell - thinking about these flesh eating zombies, at the moment I’m guessing each zombie has a range at which they become interested in the player. You could influence this behaviour slightly differetly. If the player had a smell for example, the strength of which was indicated by the radius of a sphere collider around the player and each zombie had a sense of smell (these would be varied, e.g. not all the same setting), which also was determined by the radius of a sphere collider around each zombie, then only when these made contact would their be any interaction, but you would introduce a greater sense of variety in the behaviour of the zombies. You would need to experiment a little bit with this and potentially factor in how close the zombie was the player as some form of multiplier, otherwise closer zombies with a bad sense of smell may ignore the player whilst zombies who were further away come charging in.
  • speed - at the moment I think the zombies all move at the same speed, like the sense of smell, this could be varied per zombie within a set range. This would then create more variety as zombies could move together as a herd but still retain a degree of individuality.

I hope the above is of use and gives you some ideas, well done for completing this section of the course and create a good start to a game which has a lot of potential. I would really like to see an update to this game, appreciating your post was some time ago, but hopefully you have continued with your game dev journey and may have additional skills and ideas that you could incorporate.

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Thank you for your very detailed comment. This was my first attempt at a 3D game since this was the part of 2D course and I just wanted to finish something quick to move on, did not expect such detailed comment after months. It was overwhelming a little, and I know game is very bad compared to what I can do now. Unfortunately I wont be developing this game further but I will surely consider what you wrote that I am developing another game now. Much thanks. Also could you help me remove the post or the link because I know this is not very high quality.

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Hi Bartu,

You’re more than welcome.

I think you may be being a little hard on yourself, and no worries with regards to not developing this game further, it would be great to see what you are working on at some point if/when you feel ready to share with the community.

With regards to deleting your post, unless you are really sure you want it to be deleted my preference would be to leave it in place. When students start the course they are often all very much in a similar position, and seeing what others have done and what can be achieved can be very inspiring. Just because you may feel it isn’t your best work, and remember, we are typically always our own worst critics, it doesn’t mean that someone else wouldn’t be inspired by it, or, learn from it. Perhaps they might encounter a similar issue with the helicopter going through the terrain a little but seeing your post then serves as a little reassurance because someone else had the same issue etc.

Let me know, it would be a shame to lose it, but I will understand if you feel that you want the topic deleted.

All the best, and I will look forward to seeing some updates on your latest project as and when :slight_smile:

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