Don't Get Left Behind

Explanation report The objective of my game is to get rid of all the zombies that come your way without losing all your health hearts which is when the game ends. At the same time, the player defends himself from the zombies, they can collect money that is being dropped when the zombies are killed which is the points system in this game but also a way of counting the number of kills that each player gets differentiating each playthrough, this makes the player want to focus on losing the least possible health points so they can last longer and therefore get the most points possible.

The game is set on a farm that’s been hit by a zombie attack, and the player encounters farm elements like barns, tractors, little rivers, scarecrows, and windmills. The dark colours of some of the elements around the map create a dark and sinister atmosphere.

One of the challenges that the player will encounter is that the only way of getting a health point back would be waiting 50 seconds meaning that the players will have to be strategic with their gameplan and avoid getting hit by the zombies the least possible, this makes the gameplay experience feel as if you were playing Dark Souls where if you lose, you lose all your progress, this is done to bring out the competitive side of the people playing and incite them to try and get a better score than the game before.

The players will also have to be careful when walking through some of the areas of the map, like the one in the picture below. As you can see, it’s a narrow corner where zombies could be waiting for you on the other side, resulting in the players losing at least a heart. One of the best ways of playing the game is by constantly moving. That way, the zombies will find it harder to hit you, and therefore, you’ll be able to last longer.

At the start of the game the player will see a starting screen with art work of the game where he can click the bottom that says 'Play' and it'' take it to the game, when the player dies he'll hear a game over sound effect following a game over screen that'll take the players to the starting screen.

Some of the game mechanics are that the character has a gun which he uses to eliminate any hostile life that comes his way, the main character has 15 health points, his weapon takes 1 health point away from the enemies and the gun has a set fire rate and a delay when clicking the left mouse bottom when shooting to so that the player can’t spam the gun and make the game too easy.

The player will be able to shoot from any distance and still hit the zombies as a way to counter the turret zombies shooting at the player, a timer of 0.01 seconds is set once the bullets coming from the player hit a zombie to destroy them.

As the player picks up the money that the zombies drop when they die the player will get several fire rate boosts making his gun shoot faster rewarding the players for surviving longer, such rewards will be obtained as the player hits the 10-point mark obtaining a 0.1 fire rate increase, 25 points mark obtaining a 0.2 fire rate increase and 40 points mark obtaining a 0.3 fire rate increase.

When the player is being hit its character will flash and a portion of its health bar will disappear until there’s nothing left and the game ends, when zombies are being hit, they’ll flash red for a second and then they’ll change colour indicating that they’re about to die.

The zombies will have a different health system not to make it impossible for the players to kill the zombies which the regular zombies will have 5 HP and turret zombies will have 2 HP, when they both get hit, the main character flashes for a second and the zombies turn red for a second.

The map is designed in a way that the players can roam around and still be able to survive perfectly, there’s not the best location to stay at but there’s is an easier way of going far in the game which is to kill the zombies as fast as possible because the game will carry on spawning enemies which can form a hoard of zombies that could harder to get rid of if the player doesn’t keep a steady pace getting rid of them but the speed of the zombies compared to the player make it a bit easier to scape them.

The main character will encounter 2 different zombies, the ones that will just chase you around the map and hit you once they’re close and then there’ll be a different kind of zombie called the sniper, the meaning of this name is that this zombie will shoot the player from a certain distance which won’t be too far away to not make this zombie too annoying but the player will have to aware of this and dodge any bullet coming his way, this zombie will have a unique mechanic which is when they hit the player that zombie will turn invisible for a certain amount of time making it to be a big threat.

The randomized spawn will keep the players on their toes because they might predict where the zombies will come from, but they won’t be able to predict when they’ll be spawning there making the game more unpredictable.

The approach that I wanted to have in making this map was to create a sinister feeling of an abandoned farm and I used elements such as dark colours, dead bodies, a horror movie-like soundtrack and they will be a thunderstorm happening throughout the playthrough to make the experience be more immersive.

The inspirations that I had when making this map were the Black Ops 2 Zombies map, Farm which does a really good job at creating a sense of fear due to its atmosphere which I believe is very important when making a zombie survival game which is why I focused a lot on how the map design and atmosphere of the game would make the player feel and I also took inspiration from the cartoon show Courage the Cowardly Dog because of its iconic farm style house and how the show makes its viewers have an uneasy feeling.

I believe my game would be entertaining to players because I kept it simple by making waves of zombies survival but at the same time I added some interesting mechanics like e healing as time goes by but not making it too overpowered, implementing a different type of zombie that would shoot the player and turn invisible for a couple of seconds and I’ve also attempted to create an immersive atmosphere to retain the attention of the player for longer.

While I’m happy with the result I feel like I had a lot of limitations as I wanted to have a more ambitious approach for example, I would’ve added a leaderboard so that players could keep a record of their games and therefore compete with other friends as to how would get the highest score but the research I did conclude in not wanting to add it

because it wouldn’t have looked like I wanted it to look, also I would’ve added items to pick up like different weapons or power-ups but I feel that it would’ve created problems with the animations as I've already had problems with character and zombies animations which I didn’t manage to solve, lastly I would’ve liked adding better artwork to the game, for example, the starting and game over screen as the ones I have come out pixelated only on construct 3 for some reason but in the end the aim of the game is clear and it features and difficult make the game enjoyable.