15 Days (Zombie game idea)

Main character: Harold "Harry" Richards

Story: A cellphone, an old man, a car crash, the warm memory of a woman on a park bench. these were all that were left of Harry's memories. Nothing, nothing was left when he woke up. All he saw was body bag after body bag. He had woken up in a morgue, presumed dead, on a table with three chewed up carcasses around him donning surgical scrubs. In fact, the only way he knew his own name was the toe tag he had been given. No weapons, no memories, nothing. As he walked out of the hospital, he saw the blood soaked streets of his hometown. Ca_n______ry. The sign was torn apart. As he walked the streets, he saw body, after body, riddled with chewed bones and flesh. Strangely, there were no flies or crows. just dead flesh. Can you hear them? They come closer with each passing moment. Stay quiet and you may just live to see another minute in this cursed city.

Premise Part 1: You are Harry, you are alone, and when you start out, you have naught but your fists. You have two choices, destroy the infected or Escape the city.The first day is Tutorial day, or "Day Zer0" This is where you will encounter the infected. The infected come in three types, Crippled, healthy, and Mutated.

Basic Enemy Types:
Crippled ones can only stumble slowly to you and are easy to dispatch with traditional means.

Healthy ones can run and pursue you. They are faster and more determined than you. their weakness, however, is their body. They can be taken out with paralyzing shots, blunt force trauma, dismemberment, and of course, a shot to the head.

Mutated are the worst of the bunch. They are the most infectious and the most ferocious. They are usually much more powerful than a Healthy infected, but can still be dispatched with headshot(s) or dismemberment.

Premise Part 2: As Day 1 begins, you are given one item. The defense item. Defense items allow you to retaliate to a zombie who has grabbed you. If you shake free the zombie and press the action button, you will retaliate with a killing move. Fail to press the button however, and you will not do anything to the zombie but shake it off. Warning, Some D. Items cannot be used more than once.

D. Items

Combat knife: {Infinite uses} Press the action button when prompted to deliver a skull-piercing blow to the zombie's head. (Must be near zombie's head to trigger)

Tazer: {One Time use} Stun the zombie for a few seconds to deliver a killing blow (Works on Mutated)

Obsidian Block {Three time use} Trigger to implant a shard of obsidian into the zombie's head. (Can break at random)

Premise Part 3: Believe me when I say this, weapons are a commodity. There is a tactial advantage to all weapons, but choose wisely, the wrong one will get you killed here.

-More to come-

Sounds good, but there's one problem:

Tazers don't work on any zombie. Their neural and nervous systems have long since become useless to them and therefore electricity of almost any sort has no effect. Only voltage of extremely high intensity, to the point that it would instantly fry them, is effective.

Does Harry meet anybody else, or is it just going to be him?

Cool. I'd play. But are you sure you can make it as a game? Even I don't know how to program.

Drag3ndz wrote:

Cool. I'd play. But are you sure you can make it as a game? Even I don't know how to program.

Let's buy a $600 program called Flash. I heard it's easy to use.

.sickling. wrote:

Sounds good, but there's one problem:

Tazers don't work on any zombie. Their neural and nervous systems have long since become useless to them and therefore electricity of almost any sort has no effect. Only voltage of extremely high intensity, to the point that it would instantly fry them, is effective.

Does Harry meet anybody else, or is it just going to be him?

The tazer causes the muscles to contract, forcing the zombie to let go. However, because the amount of electricity needed for it, it uses up one battery. The tazer does no real damage, just makes the zombie let go. The follow up command is what kills it.

Yes, Harry meets 3 other people.

Sarah Wales (Holed up in a Hardware store)

Jim Honda (Gun Shop owner)

Roland Glassman (Holed up in the Mall along with several unnamed survivors)

Whether they live or die is up to you.

Premise Part 3: Believe me when I say this, weapons are a commodity. There is a tactial advantage to all weapons, but choose wisely, the wrong one will get you killed here.

Weapons are Categorized in 4 main groups
Main Groups:

Melee: Axes, Baseball bats, Hammers

Small Arms: Pistols, Shotguns, Rifles

Explosives : Grenades, C4, Molotovs


Think hard about the weapons. You aren't going to find a Grenade in a shoebox in the white-collar region of the city. The weapons will be where it is logically supposed to be. What? You think you can just search a pile of fruit for some pistol rounds, or crack open a barrel and find a first aid kit there? Hardly....


Premise Par 4: Location, location, location. When you are in dire need of medical assistance, where do you go? Searching piles of fruit again? Haven't you learned anything? Why, you go to the hospital, search cars, look in the Bar Bathroom. But, good luck finding sutures, gauze, or antiseptic.

-More to come-

Cram wrote:

.sickling. wrote:

Sounds good, but there's one problem:

Tazers don't work on any zombie. Their neural and nervous systems have long since become useless to them and therefore electricity of almost any sort has no effect. Only voltage of extremely high intensity, to the point that it would instantly fry them, is effective.

Does Harry meet anybody else, or is it just going to be him?

The tazer causes the muscles to contract, forcing the zombie to let go. However, because the amount of electricity needed for it, it uses up one battery. The tazer does no real damage, just makes the zombie let go. The follow up command is what kills it.

Uh... to contract means to tighten? In the case you're arguing, the tazer would force the zombie to squeeze Harry even tighter (possibly to the point that it might kill him).

Again, this might actually be better as a true-true text RPG (not a story RP, an actual RPG).

Uhg, see, here's how i was implying it would work, the back muscles contract, causing the zombie to bend backwards, the arm muscles contract, causing its arms to be brought to its body, the hand muscles contract, causing it to hyper extend its fingers, letting go of Harry. Just because I have tazers, doesn't mean the game has to be super real. Its a TPS Survival Horror, you can run forever, and you can carry two main weapons (Like a pistol and a rifle, or two gatling guns.) Its videogame magic at work buddy.

Cram wrote:

Uhg, see, here's how i was implying it would work, the back muscles contract, causing the zombie to bend backwards, the arm muscles contract, causing its arms to be brought to its body, the hand muscles contract, causing it to hyper extend its fingers, letting go of Harry. Just because I have tazers, doesn't mean the game has to be super real. Its a TPS Survival Horror, you can run forever, and you can carry two main weapons (Like a pistol and a rifle, or two gatling guns.) Its videogame magic at work buddy.

Even if the back muscles contracted, the arms would still squeeze you. When your arms contract they close in on something, squeezing it, so.... ._.

Ah, well, I can't change your mind.

The words, Video. Game. Magic.

'Nuff said

Cram wrote:

The words, Video. Game. Magic.

'Nuff said

I don't think it's magic...

And why not add radioactive zombies while you're at it? They can reduce your HP if you get too close.

And it's trite when he just receives a tutorial from floating text boxes. He can get his information from random flyers floating around the town.

.sickling. wrote:

Drag3ndz wrote:

Cool. I'd play. But are you sure you can make it as a game? Even I don't know how to program.

Let's buy a $600 program called Flash. I heard it's easy to use.

You bet your ass it's easy to use. Once I took a flash gaming class. Learned how coding worked. Number goes from 1 2 3 4 5 A B C D 6 7... (wtf?) Couldn't do it. Kind of a waste of time for me.

FREAKING DIFFICULT unless you know how flash works.

The "Video Game Magic" Thing is just to cover up discrepancies. Like in Resident Evil 4 why Leon can make heads explode with his legs. It just works that way! Just leave it be. it's not harming anything.

These are excerpts from the instruction manual. I forgot to tell you all that. To be honest, I was originally planning that he pick up Manuals around the hospital on Day Zer0 to teach him that stuff. the fliers are a good idea, but there needs to be a cut scene trigger if the player is supposed to find them and it could get tedious. The Manuals thing just works better IMO.

Stop getting ahead of the Premise posts! seriously! You are revealing many of the mechanics I'm going to use right off the bat!

Premise 4: Location, location, location...

There are many useful locations in the city. but first let's go over the Basic areas
Industrial District, Residential District, Red-Light District, Military Base, and Downtown

Each area is a shell of what it used to be and depending on its inhabitants, the more concentrated, or thinned the zombie population as well.

In order of LOWEST Zombie concentration,

Military Base: Initially, this base is locked, but as more zombies attack the gates, they get weaker. Perhaps it will open soon?

Industrial: The first area available. Its expansive and if you know where to look, you can find weapons and first-aid.

Red-Light: The vice area of town. The remnants of pimps and strip clubs litter the streets. This area is treacherous and full of locked doors, best to move on.

Downtown: Gangs and shoddy apartment complexes lie in ruins. Broken glass litters the streets and the blood of rioters and looters cover the streets. Perhaps you can find some weapons among the clutter?

Residential: A fine area of town. Large houses, fine cars, and plenty of zombies. The people here refused to leave their homes, and died protecting their "toys." Tread carefully here, this is the home of the horde. But although zombies are everywhere, if you can find a fortified house, you can rest easy.

Premise 5: The Infection Spreads

These zombies hold a disease, and your immune system can only take so much! The infection gauge shows how much your immune system can take before its too late.

In addition to taking damage from the environment and zombie attacks, there is also the Infection Gauge. The infection Gauge is the Biohazard symbol to the Left of your screen in White. There are several stages.

White- 0-19%
Yellow 20-39%
Orange 40-59%
Red 60-80%
Black 80-100%
(Don't worry, with each increase or decrease, a numerical display will appear.)

As your infection increases, you begin to suffer from headaches, muscular weakness, bleeding and blurred vision. At 100%, you will not die just yet, but your HP will decrease at a steady rate until you either get some Antibiotics, Anti-Viral Medication, or you administer some Viral Coolant.

Actually, tazers cause the muscles to lose all control and spasm so it should work on a zombie depending on how you want the physiology of the aombies to work.

I should add, are the zombies going to end up being harder to kill as you progress? Or, is it going to end up like playing "boxhead 2 player," using a rocket launcher, with friendly fire turned off, and with no devils... (try it... you'll know what i mean)

The zombies stay pretty constant, but there are no regenerating ammo spots, no random weapon spawns, so really, you have to get out of there before you run out of supplies. i'm thinking of adding a food and fatigue system in too so that instead of having to worry only about ammo, you have to worry about your character's well being.

Cram wrote:

Premise 5: The Infection Spreads

These zombies hold a disease, and your immune system can only take so much! The infection gauge shows how much your immune system can take before its too late.

In addition to taking damage from the environment and zombie attacks, there is also the Infection Gauge. The infection Gauge is the Biohazard symbol to the Left of your screen in White. There are several stages.

White- 0-19%
Yellow 20-39%
Orange 40-59%
Red 60-80%
Black 80-100%
(Don't worry, with each increase or decrease, a numerical display will appear.)

As your infection increases, you begin to suffer from headaches, muscular weakness, bleeding and blurred vision. At 100%, you will not die just yet, but your HP will decrease at a steady rate until you either get some Antibiotics, Anti-Viral Medication, or you administer some Viral Coolant.

Although it's by no means realistic (by zombie universe laws), it's an alright way to monitor infection. Normally you can't take any bites. One zombie-induced injury and you will succumb in 23 hours.

Although, there should really only be 3 levels of infection. One attack from a zombie should send you already spiraling towards the 20-40% range. A bite will probably deal around 60-70%. If you reach 100% your HP should not decrease steadily, but deplete so rapidly that you have very little time to react. Say, in about 2 seconds your HP will reach 0 and you will become a zombie.

Wow already assisting? Let Cram work his ideas first.

Drag3ndz wrote:

Wow already assisting? Let Cram work his ideas first.

ASSIST! I WON THE GAME.

Premise 6: Medical Assistance.

Luckily, the disease took care of most of the people so your competition for medical supplies won't be fierce, but, scouring for medical supplied will be difficult. the virus operates like any known viruse, it reacts to your body's chemistry and all that what not. But another good thing it has is that it is weak to antibiotics, antiseptic, First aid Kits, and Viral Coolant.

Antibiotics can be found in almost any home or hospital supply cabinet, administering the antibiotics is a bit harder. Though you can just slam the whole bottle, You will sometimes experience side effects: Blurred vision, headaches, muscle weakness and others. Remember to moderate your medication before you OD or even worse, succumb to drowsiness! Taking more than 5 times the medicated dose in one ingame hour, will result in an Over Dose

Antiseptic: you can clean out zombie bites before the infection is fully absorbed into your body. Cleaning wounds will let you heal faster and slightly drop your infection Gauge! remeber to dress the wound accordingly. Antiseptic can be used on scratches without having to be coupled with bandages.

First aid Kits: these can be found in ambulances, cars, and schools. The give you the necessary items to fully dress the wounds you have encountered. these also contain splints for Sprained Body parts and Muscle Relaxant for Strained Muscles. Ambulance kits will provide for two uses instead of the normal one. Using a first aid kit will also reset the OD counter.

Premise 7: Meet Mr. Jim Honda

Guns are everywhere in the town if you know where to look, Its bullets you will have a hard time finding. Luckily, there is a nice man in a Gun Shop in Downtown that will happily sell you bullets in exchange for some choice items. You can give him Meds, Food, Guns even, or Cold, Hard cash. He will happily sell you bullets from his bullet press in the back of his store. Careful though, if you attract any zombies in his store, they won't be the only thing he'll shoot at. (If you track zombies to his door, they will come in and hill him. If they fail, he will start to shoot at you.)