Scrolling, Shooting and powerups!

Today I have been churning through making my level, first of all I added the scrolling background of my game, this makes it alot more fluid and feel a 'huge' amount more like a game;


After first of all making the background then makling sure it scrolls correctly I continued onto the shooting. The character now shoots one round of ammunition every 30 frames, keeping the game difficult due to having to time your shots correctly. After I had created the shooting I added the zombies to spawn at a quick time increasing the difficulty before adding code so as they come in contact with the protagonist they do damage. Once you take all damage you can the game stops and brings up a Game Over Menu which restarts the game. The zombies however do not fire anything towards you however only damage you on touch. I have added the only powerup within Dead End which is the first aid kit, uponc ollecting one of these sparse items they restore your HP to 100%.
My next changes it to add a mini-boss character who is a larger zombie than the rest these zombies have a large health bar instead of taking one shot however only take the same amount of damage off s to not make it to difficult. Along with that I intend to add a start menu aswell as a few sound effects, I also need to animated the characters to begin the animation when walking.

Running Smoothly

After restarting my flash game things are running smoothly. I have recreated a side version of Cody and am near completion of the zombie from the side, I will be creating several more zombie types after alpha testing is complete. I have yet to set the stage ut they first stage should be simple enough giving a 3D element using foreground and background objects which the main character will pass between giving the effect there are multiple layers to the actual game. I must now create the animation of the main character aising his gun and firing, walking and the zombie itself shambaling towards Cody. The game should be ready for alpha by the 19th of May and should begin testing on the 21st. I have handed in my intro scenes for marking which is a weight off my shoulders which should aid my concentration on the art work and programming of the actual characters. I'm yet to hear from my contractor since my restarting of the project but I hope he is going to be happy with the current state of my work

Redirection

After huge problems when programming my orginal top down Idea I felt it would be easyer if I changed my game idea to a side scrolling shooter. The game still includes the orginals toryline and characters including tyhe ever favorite zombies and Officer Cody Slade however instead of only being able to see the top og his head, you are now controling him from the side as he wanders the street taking down the dead. With this it will now be alot easyer for me to code the 2 axis rather than the 4 and the simple AI rather than the somewhat complicated 4 axis AI. I have so far designed the all new Cody Slade (Right) however the list of what I need to create is now as long as my arm I must;

• Create Zombies


• Create Background


• Create Forground


• Animate Character


• Create AI


• Create Bullets


• Create Ammo Count


• Create Score


• Create Life Bar

I have had the idea of two main types of zombies, your average, slow bimbling idoit zombies (Common) and hungery zombies which run towards the player making him haft tor eact quickly and putting him on edge on when he needs to reload. Hopefully doing this new game plan will increase my productivity ten fold as I now have a firm grip on what I need to do.

Finished the first Level

Today I completed my first level and began coding my character, including his walking, where he can and cannot access and the models of the undead characters, I'm having a little trouble coding how the zombies will know to approach the character and how to get the character to fire where he is pointing. My primary idea is have two sets of controls one on the mouse the other on the keyboard,. the WASD keys will control where he'll walk, and the mouse will control where he'll shoot.


My First level.

Finished Animation

Finally completed my animations, showing both the introduction news flashes along with the intro animation showing how the main protagonist gets into the trouble he is. The animation however needs fine tuning and time adjustments. I will begin work on the promgramming next week adding it all together and heopfully working towards the alpha, I'm fairly worried about this stage as I'm a little stuck on how to go about programming it, I will however use several tutorials to make sure it is up to the correct standards.

Flash Update!

REcent I've been forgetting my blog however I have a 'huge' download for it! I've began work lately on my alpha for my level and that is going well, 80% of the sprits are complete including the main character Cody!

A simple be effective sprite his legs and shoulders swing to give the feeling of movment and a slightly cocky walk. 90% of my time which Ive dedicated to flash has gone wholey on the completion of my Introduction of which there are 3 chapters, 2 are now complete. They include small hints towards the storyline and the overall goal however not enough to make the storyline boring straight away, it incorperates a news flash style game throwing you into it by the scruff of the neck.

This is chapter one, as you can tell there are a few things to be added such as the AI News logo (American Idoits News) along with working out flowing static which seems to abruptly stall at the end of this video.

Intro Animation

I've began work on my introduction animation however have hit a wall in terms of my flash skills finding, I know what I want to do, and I vaugly know how to obtain this goal, but every now and then and destroys my motivation however I am perservearing and getting them done, so far my introduction flashes up 'One Month Before Outbreak' before dissapearing, this is then followed by 'Breaking News' and a picture in picture view of an empty grave. I am now running behind schedual because of this unfortunatly however I should be done three weeks today easily and have already started on my alpha.

Level Maps

I've began work on my level maps beginning with a simple draft sketch. I've worked out that I want the map to branch off in different ways however only one path leads to the level end however the other paths will lead to a dead end allowing the zombies to catch up with you this is much like a concept of a maze, here is the beginning of my first level map.

As you can see I have used two of my earlyer car concepts to block off the inncorrect path by colliding them and adding some fire. I will continue adding buildings either side of the street along with some random pools of blood and other ambiant sceneary and a supermarket on the far right of the screen, I will begin the next level in a thin ally way at the back of the super market as if you have taken the choice to pass through and heal yourself.

Sent Propsal

I have finally sent of my final games proposal explaining the ins and outs of my entire game. Including cutscenes and choices. I have slo finished detailing my storyboards and now must send them to my contact. At the same time I have managed to detail my main character Coby and the descriptions of the zombies. I still however need to begin work on the intro cut scene which I will begin a week today within Flash I'll begin with the starting cut-scene so I will always have that ready to put in.

Storyline Development

I've began to compile the overall storyline of my game, including how the levels will flow into one an other such as moving from your car wreck to a supermarket for medical supplies before leaving out the rear exit and searching for a gun store for ammunition. I've also finalised the details on just whats causing the zombies to begin wandering about along with the details of how the story is introduced using New Reports. I've felt that keeping the main character a mystery for the first few levels may act in my favor, creating another reason for people to continue to play, to find out more about the character and the overall storyline. I thought about putting some sort of timed aspect into the game, but I felt that if I had included that it would become tedious for some, making there way past a hard part just to find out they wont have enough time to actually finish the game. I'm still working on a good leveling for the character as I wanted to have some of currency but feel that for each kill you gain 1 XP point, to begin with it takes 5 points to upgrade one skill, 10 to upgrade it to level 2, 20 to level 3 and so on, and perhaps people could take a leveled character back to the beginning to continue to level it rather than tarting from the beginning with a new character each time actually give them something they can actually improve.