Project Zomboid

[Malakili]

Didn't see a thread for this yet:

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/

Project Zomboid is a Zombie Survival RPG. Here are some of its planned features:

Retro-isometric style with plenty of zombie insides thrown in for good measure.

A massive city and the surrounding areas to traverse, explore and loot.

Open-ended sandbox world – survival is your only goal, and we’re sorry to tell you… you WILL die eventually.

Get infected. How will you spend your final days? Will you have a heroic moment of self-sacrifice, or end up chewing your best friend’s throat out?

Meet other survivors who you can join forces with, trade with, undertake missions for, or fight with for resources.

Loot, salvage, and build what you need to survive the apocalypse, from food and medical supplies, to weapons, even just booze to help get you through the nights.

Advanced item crafting allows you to use looted items to build weapons, traps, defenses, and many other things to help you survive.

Character progression. Learn skills and perks to help your character face the challenges of survival.

Starvation, illness, loneliness, depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, insanity, trust issues. There’s more to zombie survival than shooting zombie heads off.

Join your friends and survive the apocalypse together in co-op multiplayer.

The world changes the longer you survive; power plants fail, plunging the city into darkness and making batteries and tinned food prized commodities. The army rolls into the streets to perform ‘clean up operations’ and other gamechanging events occur the longer you survive.

Play in your browser, or stand-alone, on PC, Mac and Linux.

Looks like they are doing a Minecraft style alpha release, buy now gets you access + full version eventually thing.  I might just go in on this depending on how badly my wallet is hit by the Steam sale.  Looks really cool as a concept, I hope the execution is decent.

Edit: You can download a pre-alpha/tech demo here http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/06/free-public-demo-released/

[Mrbloodworth]

Demo is promising. Especially if it has a server like minecraft at some point.


EDIT: Fucking A,  I burned down the house!

[Malakili]

I played the demo a bit as well and I thought it was pretty good.  The crafting menu was buggy for me, were you able to craft things properly?    I managed to board up my windows and pilfer some food from the neighbors, but I could manage to actually cook it.  I think it will be fun single player, but co-op is obviously where the game will shine if they pull it off.   Anyway, definitely promising enough to keep an eye on.  I'm going to keep an eye out for when they release the not-free client again (apparently there was some issue with updating, and they've taken it down until further notice).  For 8 bucks its probably already worth it.

[Mrbloodworth]

I played the demo a bit as well and I thought it was pretty good.  The crafting menu was buggy for me, were you able to craft things properly?    I managed to board up my windows and pilfer some food from the neighbors, but I could manage to actually cook it.  I think it will be fun single player, but co-op is obviously where the game will shine if they pull it off.   Anyway, definitely promising enough to keep an eye on.  I'm going to keep an eye out for when they release the not-free client again (apparently there was some issue with updating, and they've taken it down until further notice).  For 8 bucks its probably already worth it.

Working so far. However, cooking is where I burned down the house!

[Malakili]

However, cooking is where I burned down the house!

I tried to make my dying wife more comfortable by giving her a pillow.  She died of uh...chronic...suffocation 

[Mrbloodworth]

Am I just not supposed to get past cooking? ( Demo )

[Malakili]

Am I just not supposed to get past cooking? ( Demo )

Turn off the stove before you go upstairs.

[Mrbloodworth]

Am I just not supposed to get past cooking? ( Demo )

Turn off the stove before you go upstairs.

Yeah just figured that out, I was leaving it on as I did not know when it was "Done".

Also:

[Malakili]

Am I just not supposed to get past cooking? ( Demo )

Turn off the stove before you go upstairs.

Yeah just figured that out, I was leaving it on as I did not know when it was "Done".

Also:

Yeah, I made it all the way through the tutorial without dying on my 4th try or so ( ).  Now I'm going to try and explore a bit.

[Threash]

Wait, i wasn't supposed to smother my girlfriend to death with the pillow?

[Malakili]

After the tutorial ends things get bad fast.  During my last attempt I holed up in the diner just south of the safe house, but I took a bite to my shoulder on the way there.  I tried bandaged it and scavanged some food from the fridge, but there were so many fucking windows in that place that the zombies could easily see me from outside, so I couldn't hide.  Evenetually they broke in and I died, backed into the pantry flailing wildly with my hammer, I took a couple with me, but there were too many of them.  Time survived: 2 days, 9 hours.

[Xanthippe]

I downloaded it, made sure I have Java 6, made sure my drivers are up to date and clicked on the bat file (ProjectZomboid).  I get a little cmd screen, and then a big screen that has some text with 'Your journey starts here' at the end and then it hangs.  I can't get past this point.

[Vaiti]

Just takes awhile. I thought it was frozen the first time as well. Just go make a sandwich or something. 

[NiX]

Can't get the damn tech demo to download. Bah!

[UnSub]

Can't get the damn tech demo to download. Bah!

Same.

I'm interested, so someone tell me when it works again.

[Malakili]

It seems to be working for me at the moment.  On another note, it looks like they are going to be working on Steam with their paid version at least (reminds me of what natural selection 2 is doing).   Hopefully the pricing stays the same and I will definitely pick it up.

[Xanthippe]

Just takes awhile. I thought it was frozen the first time as well. Just go make a sandwich or something. 

I went and got a beer, got into a discussion with my spouse, and came back to the same thing - a nonresponsive window that looks like it's stuck on loading.  Probably 10 minutes or so later.  It doesn't like my system, I guess.

I really want a good zombie game.  Or any game that isn't some buggy piece of crap that sucks me in for several hours and then breaks.  (Wah!)

[Mrbloodworth]

Make sure your java is upto date. You could open the java console and see where it got stuck.

[UnSub]

I've got it working.

I'm never quite sure what the controls are - to bandage myself, do I click on the bandages, have the bandages in the icon then myself, double click, etc?

Also I found that if I played on full screen mode the crafting window wouldn't open, so windowed mode it is.

[NiX]

I've got it working.

I'm never quite sure what the controls are - to bandage myself, do I click on the bandages, have the bandages in the icon then myself, double click, etc?

Also I found that if I played on full screen mode the crafting window wouldn't open, so windowed mode it is.

A lot isn't explained. Took me forever to figure out how to board up windows or that I could bust doors down with my hammer. I also learned that breaking doors attracts zombies.

[Cadaverine]

You can find some information at http://www.pzwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page.   

[Mrbloodworth]

This looks promising:

[Threash]

Jesus christ, its amazing how easy i turn into "retarded horror movie guy" when playing this.  See a bunch of zombies milling about as soon as you step outside? run back in and board yourself in! ok, now they are beating at the door and i have no way out and no food...

[Malakili]

Jesus christ, its amazing how easy i turn into "retarded horror movie guy" when playing this.  See a bunch of zombies milling about as soon as you step outside? run back in and board yourself in! ok, now they are beating at the door and i have no way out and no food...

Yeah who knew those movies were so realistic.

[schpain]

want to buy leap out a window function!!!

also the psycho in the supermarket is an asshole!!  I spent the better part of a day tooling around hitting zombies, when i finally found a supermarket i walked in, boarded up the door behind me then caught a shotgun shell in the back of the head.  bastard!

This game will be hilarious when multi is implemented.

[UnSub]

Managed to last 4 days before getting boxed up and trying to fight my way out. Perhaps I should have run through the zombies, but I wasn't sure if that was possible.

An 'escape through the window' option could have saved me.

In a number of ways I think this is a bad demo for the game. If I hadn't heard that things got better once you learned to play, I probably would have scrubbed it off my hard drive for not explaining to me how to do the basics.

Dealing with the demo:

[Threash]

There is some truly scary moments in this game sometimes.  Like forgetting to check for a backdoor and waking up to find that the sound you heard was hundreds of zombies in the living room trying to get OUT of the house, not your defenses holding them at bay outside as you thought.

[Malakili]

Managed to last 4 days before getting boxed up and trying to fight my way out. Perhaps I should have run through the zombies, but I wasn't sure if that was possible.

An 'escape through the window' option could have saved me.

In a number of ways I think this is a bad demo for the game. If I hadn't heard that things got better once you learned to play, I probably would have scrubbed it off my hard drive for not explaining to me how to do the basics.

Dealing with the demo:

On the one hand, it isn't really intuitive without the wiki sometimes, but neither was Minecraft and it shot off.  This version we are playing is the very first publicly released tech demo (they aren't even calling it a demo of the game officially, just a pre-alpha tech demo) and I think it serves as that.  Its as much proof of concept as anything, they want the people who are interested in their game to have it to try so they will spend the 5 pounds and get paid version to help along development.  Convinced me (though I'm waiting until they release the paid version again).

[Malakili]

Lots of new info today:

Modding: http://theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2693 (Technical info, for potential mod makers more than mod users)


Cooking: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/07/cooking-plans/

The other obvious benefit is to morale and a sense of normalcy. The feeling of having a treat will do wonders for your group’s morale. When looting a building you may be as excited to find a spice rack as you are to find shotgun shells.

Cooking skills will allow characters to get more portions from less ingredients, and may also allow for more ingredients to be used, or more unorthodox combinations to be combined without it tasting revolting.

Sanbox  v. Story modes: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/07/adventures-of-kate-and-baldspot-scripted-vs-emergent/

At its heart Project Zomboid is a sandbox game, and as such having random and unscripted game-play experiences is paramount to its ethos.

HOWEVER.

We can’t ignore the fact that clearly our method of story-telling in Project Zomboid has gone down extremely well, and we’d be fools not to explore it further.

...

So… our plan is to expand Kate and Baldspot’s story into a more meaty tutorial come story mode. Project Zomboid Stories, if you will.

This will be an alternate game mode selected from the main menu, which will remove the random start position and character creation elements and thrust you into the role of Baldspot (and maybe one day Kate, who knows? Even co-op 2 player?) The tutorial as it stands now will be expanded into a more substantial story, introducing other characters and quests to give these two the adventure they deserve.

Looking good.  There was also a suggestion that we might see the game back up for purchase within a week or two - with the big update done, and with redeemable steam codes.   Everything seems to be shaping up nicely!

[Xuri]

Have played the demo once, and this looks very promising indeed. Thoughts about my first attempt:

[Malakili]

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/07/demo-compatible-map-editing-tools-released/

Map editing tools released for the modding community, compatible with the tech demo.  Apparently this is a peace offering because the patch is taking so much longer than they original said it would.  To be fair though, its taking so long because they are making the final arrangements with Valve for getting it up on Steam, so I'm willing to wait for that either way!


Edit:

[Xanthippe]

Make sure your java is upto date. You could open the java console and see where it got stuck.

Whoops - I thought I actually posted my problem here.

No, it didn't help.  I don't even get to where the java console loads.  I suspect that I might have a device driver that isn't recognized or something? I don't know.  My video driver is up to date, and java is up to date (and I don't have a problem with Minecraft or seeing the java console there).  Puzzling.

[Mrbloodworth]

Guess that worked for you then?

[Malakili]

Oh, seeing this thread up here reminds me.  The modding tools have been released now.  Mapping for an isometric game is a new challenge for me, it makes my brain hurt a bit I must admit.

[Malakili]

My best try yet.  I haven't been playing too much, but I was real close to being able to take it the long haul.  On my second day out to find supplies though I took some bites that eventually caught up with me.  In the end I just decided to hit the streets with a shotgun, a bunch of ammo, and took as many of them as I could with me!

Good times.