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ZOMG! Survive the Zombie Takeover!

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ZOMG! Survive the Zombie Takeover! LilNeL
This is one of the better zombie survival levels you will find out there. Starts out slow, but the difficulty quickly increases and you will have to make full use of the tools you are given (Paintinators with 20 ammo each, airstrikes, miniguns) in order to hold the zombies back.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3849/lbpzombiez1.jpg

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/600/lbpzombiez2.jpg

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/538/lbpzombiez3.jpg

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/937/lbpzombiez4.jpg

Given the criticism so far, I have made a few changes. Thanks to all who chip in!		2010-05-27 03:21:00

Author:
LilNeL
Posts: 34

this level doesn't look half bad 2010-05-27 03:53:00

Author:
Arnald23
Posts: 1843

Hey I played this earlier. I think the "zombies" look more like dinosaurs! The tail must be for balance? Anyhow that's not really an issue, I know it's not easy to animate them. I personally used pistons and stuff so the zombies have less self propulsion but it's more reliable. I did find a few zombies falling over in your level. The house seemed a bit plain, it wasn't very homely and had one material basically. I understand thermo is pretty full though so not much can be done. The stairs seemed a bit awkward to me, did you use the grid? The steps didn't seem uniform. Try using small grid if you didn't and line them up. Secondly I thought the position of them made the bottom left zombies very awkward when they got close. I didn't see the use of all 3 layers so if you can push the stairs back a layer and make it so players can shoot past the stairs. There might be bits up near the high points of the roof you can delete, you can't see up that far. I didn't really get the way the zombie metre thing went up. If there was a few zombies like 1 or 2 in the house it seemed to raise pretty quickly, what's the criteria for that? Maybe better if you get 1 or 2 lights per zombie otherwise it raises very quickly. It was an alright level but needs some work to warrant 4 or 5 stars I think. Visuals and gameplay need to be balanced, you could maybe simplify zombies a bit more to reduce thermo also make sure to have max emitted at onece low, 3 tops. Perhaps tweaking the emitters will lower thermo for you, I used brains and 3 layers, that's one each side standing at 6 spawn points. You've got 4 here so something has got to give. Hopefully you take these criticisms and try improving your level. I think this one could be a lot better with some work 2010-05-28 00:42:00

Author:
OneEyedBanshee
Posts: 1370

Hey I played this earlier. I think the "zombies" look more like dinosaurs! The tail must be for balance? Anyhow that's not really an issue, I know it's not easy to animate them. I personally used pistons and stuff so the zombies have less self propulsion but it's more reliable. I did find a few zombies falling over in your level. The house seemed a bit plain, it wasn't very homely and had one material basically. I understand thermo is pretty full though so not much can be done. The stairs seemed a bit awkward to me, did you use the grid? The steps didn't seem uniform. Try using small grid if you didn't and line them up. Secondly I thought the position of them made the bottom left zombies very awkward when they got close. I didn't see the use of all 3 layers so if you can push the stairs back a layer and make it so players can shoot past the stairs. There might be bits up near the high points of the roof you can delete, you can't see up that far. I didn't really get the way the zombie metre thing went up. If there was a few zombies like 1 or 2 in the house it seemed to raise pretty quickly, what's the criteria for that? Maybe better if you get 1 or 2 lights per zombie otherwise it raises very quickly. It was an alright level but needs some work to warrant 4 or 5 stars I think. Visuals and gameplay need to be balanced, you could maybe simplify zombies a bit more to reduce thermo also make sure to have max emitted at onece low, 3 tops. Perhaps tweaking the emitters will lower thermo for you, I used brains and 3 layers, that's one each side standing at 6 spawn points. You've got 4 here so something has got to give. Hopefully you take these criticisms and try improving your level. I think this one could be a lot better with some work

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I actually can make some changes, as removing the creature brain seemed to optimize the thermo significantly; no matter how much I add, the thermo stays pretty low. It was an intentional decision to make the battle area 1 layer, as I personally can't stand shooting between 3 layers.
But haha I know what you mean about the zombies' appearance. The "tail" is meant to be an arm where the flesh came loose and slid down the bone, and now drags on the ground. But its real purpose is stabilization, you're right.
No, I didn't use grid. The entire house is made to seem foreboding and dilapidated, but I understand that visually it's quite boring and some of the jagged angles can make the house hard to traverse. I guess I will go back and corner edit the stairs to make them easier to climb, and make the bottom of the stairs higher so players can shoot under them. Maybe I should punch some holes in the back wall to make it more interesting...
The detail in the roof is just leftover from the original version where the player can escape up the ladder if he survives long enough, but like I said it's not worth deleting because the thermo is in good shape.
The zombie meter! Yeah I was expecting it to confuse somebody... but anyway the idea is that whenever there is a zombie inside the house, no matter how many, the meter goes up at the same rate. Not sure why, but it always seems to start off slow. If you read this and have any ideas, what do you think I should do to make that more obvious?		2010-05-28 02:51:00

Author:
LilNeL
Posts: 34

Well you state if zombies take over the house that the metre will fill and game over. I hardly call 1 zombie taking over the house! My suggestion would be to make it so each zombie adds 1 light. I'm sure it can be done with mag keys. I didn't last that long though so I'm not sure if there's a point when that many are in the house at once. You could give the house more of a health bar like the red bar that fills as you shoot paint. But it goes down over time as zombies are in the house. I read your edit in OP, is it supposed to be thunder and lightning? I didn't get that if it was. I think that will add some more interest visually, make sure to add lights that flash on and off in sync with lightning, perhaps make the level darker and make the lights in the house more purposeful, right now they don't have much function since it's very bright already. That there will add more flare to it. I say yes add more cracks and such, maybe make the sides more ruin like and have blocks in step effect like a part of the walls broke away.2010-05-28 04:25:00

Author:
OneEyedBanshee
Posts: 1370

- On your opening title, there is some visible cardboard material down the bottom sometimes (probably due to sticker glitch), I would just change the cardboard to rubber so you don't need to sticker it, if possible. Font looks great. Not a fan of teleport dying, but I guess it doesn't matter because you have no points and only one life. Maybe change the cardboard font to a different material as it doesn't match the rest of the level.
- Starts off kinda slow, maybe spawn the first zombie a little quicker? There is a visible piece of square dissolve or something in the top right tree.
- If you don't shoot the first zombie, nothing happens. You don't die, the meter doesn't raise, then it disappears. Same for second zombie I think.
- I would cover up the scoreboard base, looks bad compared to the rest of the level.

I got to the rocket, but missed the magic mouth as I was more concerned about getting the score combo. There was no way to replay it.
I found the most challenging part was climbing the stairs (specifically the one with an extra corner, first step going down). Fix that and it will be much more enjoyable.

Everything else was great, zombies looked/sounded cool, atmosphere was nice, fitting music etc.

EDIT: I played the wrong level. You get two for the price of one you lucky duck.

Most of my comments still stand though.
New version:
- Guns + bombs + meters look nice. I would have preferred the paint gun machines to tilt up further than they were (most of the time they hit the wheel of the zombies due to my speed)
- Much harder than the pervious version. Didn't like that aspect too much, is there a bonus ending different to the first?
- Can see your logic when you die, not sure if that was intentional or not.
- Make the house more...housey. Like having a door/window/crack sticker or something.
- Weather effects are great.

One of the better survivals I have played, but I don't play surivals at all really.
But it is definitely better than bombs.
I rated 4 stars, which is good for a survival. 		2010-05-28 10:28:00

Author:
midnight_heist
Posts: 2513

Well, guys, I just made a lot of changes. But the biggest one by far is that the meter now goes 1 zombie = 1 light. And the zombies are randomized now.2010-06-01 04:22:00

Author:
LilNeL
Posts: 34

Hey man. thanks for your extensive F4F on my Troy level. really appreciate your feedback! I got around to playing your level, so here's your F4F!

Gotta be honest lol, not a fan of zombie survivals from the start. Probably due to the fact that I'm not a fan of the paintinator, but that can't be helped lol. This one was fun, but still just a zombie survival to me lol. Gameplay wise the level was good. I liked the additions of the air strikes and the miniguns, they were neat ideas. I thought it would be cool if you could aim the miniguns. The zombies seemed to appear at a good rate and didn't increase in numbers too quickly or slowly. In 1P it starts getting really hard to keep em back lol but that's the point of the level, can't complain! There is a lot of space between the four entrance points, a more central position would be nice so you didn't have to spend so much time running back and forth.

Graphically the level was ok, but could use some tweaking. The atmosphere is nice and gloomy, which is good. the lightning was fine, but the zombies didn't really look like zombies lol. I gotta agree with Oneeyedbanshee lol, I really thought they looked like dinosaurs. The house you're defending didn't really look like it was worth defending lol. A few more decorations and maybe some props would make it much better looking. instead of having the house life bar, you could really bring it up a notch if, when the zombies reached the house, stuff started breaking up, falling over, and the house actually looked like it was being over run. It would take some doing but it would add a lot, I think.

Overall, the level was a fun zombie survival level. With a little more attention to the visuals, and a few tweaks to the gameplay you could really make it stand out in the endless field of zombie survival levels lol. I gave it 3 stars for now though. thanks again!		2010-06-23 00:06:00

Author:
Duffluc
Posts: 402


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