Hello HBGames. Long time no see. For those of you who remember me, I’ve been off doing my own thing for a while now, and had left game making for a while. I never really stopped at it though. So now I’m back, with a project I’ve been working on in my spare time, mainly coming up with systems and ideas, but, more recently graphics and coding too. I’ve come on quite a way since Last Man’s Stand, and I want to get back into the community and start getting involved again. So, thank you for reading this topic, and I hope to be around more from now on and actually make a game that I can finish for once.
‘One Man Army – Survive in Style’ can best be described as a third-person survival RPG tower defence game. Following on from the somewhat cliché storyline of Last Man’s Stand, One Man Army (and yes, at this point I realise how stupidly similar the names are, working title) places you as the last person on a zombie-infected island. However, unlike most other titles along this line, One Man Army does not take itself too seriously, and puts gameplay and having fun before a serious plot or characters. Imagine it as a sort of built-up flash game, where you can just dip in and out of gameplay when you feel like it. Let me explain a bit more about it:
You begin play as an unnamed character (customisable from the start), who is left for dead (oops sorry, another game name there) on an infected island. His aim is to survive the mass of undead for as long as possible. Your character, however, being a veteran of war and just generally cool, has experience in all sort of weaponry and the art of building your own weapons. And this is where the unique and important feature of the game comes in. How you kill the zombies (after reaching a certain point) is up to you – whatever you can find, make, adapt or merge can be a weapon – and the more imaginative you are, the more interesting the game will become for you, and the more points you will stack up for killing them. Points can then be spent on upgrading your weapons, armour, character and your defences. And this is where the RPG and tower defence aspects of the gameplay come in. It’s all very well standing behind your defences shooting at zombies, but that’s not as much fun as collecting points to add massive turret guns to your defences and a pit of spikes before it. Or using points to edit your favourite gun so that it can shoot lasers. Much more interesting.
There will be lots of different weapons in One Man Army, ranging from real firearms, to random everyday objects, to custom-built weapons. The weapons you are currently using are selected at the beginning of each level, and set to a different place on your character:
Weapons are classified by 1 Handed (secondary weapon or 1 handed tool) and 2 handed (primary weapon or 2 handed tool), so that your character can not be overweighed with what he is carrying. Because of this, you have to be careful with what weapons you pick to get each level done.
2. Weapon Building/Customization
As you explore the city (something that will be handled through a navigation map rather than actually walking), you will find resources to build new weapons with. Sometimes these resources could be weapons on their own, or just something that can be helpful. You will get rare and common resources, and all of these can then be added on to current weapons, or combined to make brand new weapons for you player. You can find plans for designs all over the city, and other secret designs for weapons can be unlocked. You can, however, just try your luck or your inspiration to make a weapon. The more imaginative your combinations, the more points you will be awarded when used in-game.
3. Weapon Combos and Points
And Points mean prizes. Or more accurately, massive machine guns, traps and explosives. As you combine weapons, you’ll find that certain combinations of weapons get you more points. For example:
Whip + Pistol = whip to pull zombie in to you, then pistol to the face +200pts
This then means that the player is encouraged to keep playing to find all the combos that can be pulled off. Each combo is stored in your Survival Guide. All data for the game will be stored in a survival guide which can be accessed as a menu screen. From here, you will be able to customise your character, guns, find your weapon customisation guides, resources, inventory and all other data.
4. Screen Layout
Ok, not quite a screenshot, but this is everything I have working so far, and a quick example of the game's graphics.
• Please give me any sort of feedback you feel is necessary.
• I plan to have screenshot’s up soon, as soon as I get more systems complete.
• I’m making this in Game Maker 8.0, possibly 8.1 when it’s released, in GML.
• I’m working on this on my own in my spare time, so please bear with me if I’m a bit slow on updating.
• I plan to have this as a project that’s constantly updated with more weapons each version.
Thanks for reading this topic, and any questions, please ask.
Fox
