Story plot?
How about something a little different? How about a variation on the "gene therapy" theory?
Let's admit there is some lab, up in New York State, where people develop those "alicaments" (you know these yogurts which help recude cholesterol and other nonsensical foods) which has found something extremely disturbing, like a protein which, instead of reinforcing something, in fact disolves Myelin (which is the nerves and muscles essential conduction element) in very specialized areas?
What if said protein disolved speech areas in the brain, and equilibrium, satiety sensation area, drooling, pain sensation, movement coordination, rational and coherent thought areas too. Basically, what you have after said areas are destroyed, is someone who tends to stutter, drool, be unable to focus or to speak, merely groans, insensible to pain, insatiable, and mostly, someone with a lot of empty space under the skull, which explains why they are so damn hard to kill with a bullet in the head, ie a zombie. What if saidf protein was only activated after being exposed to some magnetism and/or radiations? (keep that in mind, it will make sense in a few lines...)
Said protein is just a side product, and in fact a stupid mistake, from original researches in food improvement. Only you find in any lab inducing some high end research someone who is ready to sell both his parents for a few bucks, giving away his great aunt as a free gift. This guy has spotted the dangerous protein, and decided it could make him rich, instead of making the lab close because of unwanted results from Coca-Cola Corp. So the guy steals some vials of leftover protein, and decides he will sell them to someone for big profits. He goes away at night. But he is tired, and falls in New York's state reservoir, in teh Catskills Mounts, and pollutes all the drinking water, which means that everyone who will be drinking water in the next few days will be contaminated.
But your basic girly researcher did not drink water, because she had sunk in alcohol because of a sad love affair ending. And when one of the searchers showed signs of becoming a zombier everyone in the lab reached for their cellphones and started calling for exterior help, which exposed themselves to some close-up radiations and magnetism, turning them into zombies too. Now only the boozers and the homeless who don't drink much water anyway won't have turned into zombies, including those who are dangerously allergic to cellphone technology or pathologically paranoid and who refuse to use something which can be pirated.
Which leave splenty of leeway to adapt the storyline and how it unfolds for your gamers.
Have fun!!
Lets talk about my game design
Author
yapposai, Fournicolas:
I really appreciate you guys taking out the time to type up all these thoughts. I really like where this is going. You've really got me thinking.
Lately I've been thinking the zombie thing could be the result of a natural phenomenon. An exploding meteor or the ozone pulls away for a few seconds over the city and blasts it with solar radiation.
Now I'm thinking it could be a combination of using these gene related products along with the natural phenomenon that triggers this change. Perhaps this girl works for a company that makes these gene products, but is against using them. As she fights her way through the zombies in the office, perhaps she picks up little clues about test information related to using these gene products. Somewhere along the route she discovers a report about unusual side effects of using the product if exposed to ... because of a freak accident in the lab. After that, they were not able to reproduce the same results under controlled tests and the reason for what happened by accident is all theory.
Although I like the idea that the female character can kick but because her brother is some type of special opps or something, what I want to do is keep her an average female. Nothing special. I'm really attracted to the weak hero idea. The weak and frail female over time rising up to meet the challenges. The underdog.
As far as how people become zombies, I'm more attracted to some type of unknown accident, result of two unknown events converging. The mad scientist, government conspiracy or foreign attack have already been over done. I want to see if this can be done without having some type of bad guy or evil entity.
I really appreciate you guys taking out the time to type up all these thoughts. I really like where this is going. You've really got me thinking.
Lately I've been thinking the zombie thing could be the result of a natural phenomenon. An exploding meteor or the ozone pulls away for a few seconds over the city and blasts it with solar radiation.
Now I'm thinking it could be a combination of using these gene related products along with the natural phenomenon that triggers this change. Perhaps this girl works for a company that makes these gene products, but is against using them. As she fights her way through the zombies in the office, perhaps she picks up little clues about test information related to using these gene products. Somewhere along the route she discovers a report about unusual side effects of using the product if exposed to ... because of a freak accident in the lab. After that, they were not able to reproduce the same results under controlled tests and the reason for what happened by accident is all theory.
Although I like the idea that the female character can kick but because her brother is some type of special opps or something, what I want to do is keep her an average female. Nothing special. I'm really attracted to the weak hero idea. The weak and frail female over time rising up to meet the challenges. The underdog.
As far as how people become zombies, I'm more attracted to some type of unknown accident, result of two unknown events converging. The mad scientist, government conspiracy or foreign attack have already been over done. I want to see if this can be done without having some type of bad guy or evil entity.
In my opinion, relying entirely on pure hazard to transform people into zombies leaves to many unanswered questions, the first one being "why?". I personnaly like evreything to be completely rationalized and all questions to have answers before I can start to believe something. On the other hand, Americans believe their politics every day, so it shouldn't be a problem anyway...
And I particularly like it when the answers are both logical and completely plausible within the context. Given that, here, the context is Earth, Nowadays, I'd like a little more plausibility for everything. Zombies are creepy, and I love to believe what I know isn't possible. But to be able to find a reasonnable approximation of the effects of being zombified, and being to reverse engineer whatever happened is always a great joy to me. SO I think it could be nice to have all the story being reverse engineered by the main protagonist while the player is playing it through.
As for my story proposition, I found it nice because the reason for everyone in the lab having turned into a zombie can only be made plain after the main character walks out of the center and witnesses the zombification of someone with a cellphone on his ear. Every piece of the puzzle falls gently into place at that moment, which allows for a great moment of loneliness when the character realizes he is probably alone in a state entirely made of zombies, and that what the player went through is absolutely nothing in comparison to whatever the character will have to accomplish to live through another day.
The nuclear accident and the ozone retiring are just a little too "mid-60s comic book-ish" to me, whereas the evil guy and his voodoo whims are completely too far fetched. And freak accidents only happened to Spiderman and the Hulk. Maybe for Cronenberg's the Fly too. But that's about it. This is about making that horror story as believable as possible, making the player want to disbelief it as much as he wants to believe it possible and plausible. So I think plausibility is the way to go, instead of having nature play random changes at just the right moment for a skirt-wearing scientist to discover her ability to ape her Spec-Ops-member older brother when he dislocates elbows with a shudder and shoots bullets through the eyesocket of a bird sitting on a branch two hundred meters away.
And I particularly like it when the answers are both logical and completely plausible within the context. Given that, here, the context is Earth, Nowadays, I'd like a little more plausibility for everything. Zombies are creepy, and I love to believe what I know isn't possible. But to be able to find a reasonnable approximation of the effects of being zombified, and being to reverse engineer whatever happened is always a great joy to me. SO I think it could be nice to have all the story being reverse engineered by the main protagonist while the player is playing it through.
As for my story proposition, I found it nice because the reason for everyone in the lab having turned into a zombie can only be made plain after the main character walks out of the center and witnesses the zombification of someone with a cellphone on his ear. Every piece of the puzzle falls gently into place at that moment, which allows for a great moment of loneliness when the character realizes he is probably alone in a state entirely made of zombies, and that what the player went through is absolutely nothing in comparison to whatever the character will have to accomplish to live through another day.
The nuclear accident and the ozone retiring are just a little too "mid-60s comic book-ish" to me, whereas the evil guy and his voodoo whims are completely too far fetched. And freak accidents only happened to Spiderman and the Hulk. Maybe for Cronenberg's the Fly too. But that's about it. This is about making that horror story as believable as possible, making the player want to disbelief it as much as he wants to believe it possible and plausible. So I think plausibility is the way to go, instead of having nature play random changes at just the right moment for a skirt-wearing scientist to discover her ability to ape her Spec-Ops-member older brother when he dislocates elbows with a shudder and shoots bullets through the eyesocket of a bird sitting on a branch two hundred meters away.
Maybe the zombie formula looked like ground coffie and was in a similar bag but she made her own decaf coffie...
how about adrenalin or making the character "snap" at some point. perhaps if the player gets cornered very often, the character's mental fortitude drops and all hell breaks loose. The character screams and is able to push, hit zombies around for a short while then gets weak from shock for a few mins after. kinda like the limit break on Final Fantasy VII but only happens maybe once, just for kicks.
let's just say I had a previous experience where a female friend of mine who is usually quiet got teased past a certain point and proceded to throw punches (good ones too [grin]) and kicks all over the place.
about the GUI, if you are going to continue with the 1st person no HUD gui, may I suggest a hotkey thar makes the character looks at herself and assess damage to give the player status feedback. something like
"hmm... my hair is dry, 1 shoe chewed up, bruises on the arms... and 4 broken nails... definitely not a good day"
later :
"I've got a bleeding arm, and the blood does not match my skirt... luckly I got something to use as a bandage that absorbs blood REALLY well" [embarrass]
still later:
"argh... intestines, hanging out.... makes me look fat.... must find or doctor.....preferably single...." [grin]
some more story ideas:
The character has genetic schizophrenia which is the reason she is not a zombie. In most people, the brain/main personality shut off during zombification. The same thing happned to the main character but her other personality manifested itself when the virus/gene product activated. The genedic disorder also prevented most of the other symptoms of zombification. A bit of a long shot, but still somewhat palatable, I would think.
Then have the journey to the first floor also a journey to collect and hopefully revive her lost personality. photographs, coworkers, settings, etc may slowly provide clues to the player and where to go next and reveal more about the character.
I feel that a game should have at least some closure at the end. If the city is still zombified after getting to the first floor, at least the player may have some fullfilment by making the character whole rather than just surviving a building of zombies (she is still in a city of zombies, afterall).
haiku:
ordinary girl,
trapped with zombies - must get out!
zombies 101.
Good Luck!
let's just say I had a previous experience where a female friend of mine who is usually quiet got teased past a certain point and proceded to throw punches (good ones too [grin]) and kicks all over the place.
about the GUI, if you are going to continue with the 1st person no HUD gui, may I suggest a hotkey thar makes the character looks at herself and assess damage to give the player status feedback. something like
"hmm... my hair is dry, 1 shoe chewed up, bruises on the arms... and 4 broken nails... definitely not a good day"
later :
"I've got a bleeding arm, and the blood does not match my skirt... luckly I got something to use as a bandage that absorbs blood REALLY well" [embarrass]
still later:
"argh... intestines, hanging out.... makes me look fat.... must find or doctor.....preferably single...." [grin]
some more story ideas:
The character has genetic schizophrenia which is the reason she is not a zombie. In most people, the brain/main personality shut off during zombification. The same thing happned to the main character but her other personality manifested itself when the virus/gene product activated. The genedic disorder also prevented most of the other symptoms of zombification. A bit of a long shot, but still somewhat palatable, I would think.
Then have the journey to the first floor also a journey to collect and hopefully revive her lost personality. photographs, coworkers, settings, etc may slowly provide clues to the player and where to go next and reveal more about the character.
I feel that a game should have at least some closure at the end. If the city is still zombified after getting to the first floor, at least the player may have some fullfilment by making the character whole rather than just surviving a building of zombies (she is still in a city of zombies, afterall).
haiku:
ordinary girl,
trapped with zombies - must get out!
zombies 101.
Good Luck!
Bah, giant government/corperate conspiracies involving "good worker" drugs in coffee is much better than meteors.
So The Secretary starts out gun-incompetent. Instead of the usual cross-hairs interface, you have a mouse pointer which you use to select a target, then you click to attack it.
The gun can be handed to her by the security worker. When she first tries to shoot, it is very inaccurate (it takes a clip to take out a single zombie).
By the end of the game, she has been turned into an office-supply killing machine. She throws pens like daggers, tears heads off with paper-clip flails, and is generally a bad ass.
Steal something from "System Shock" -- your character occasionally gets hints that other people are still alive, but just before she gets to them they get overwealmed and killed by zombies.
A cross between "the office" and "lara croft". =)
So The Secretary starts out gun-incompetent. Instead of the usual cross-hairs interface, you have a mouse pointer which you use to select a target, then you click to attack it.
The gun can be handed to her by the security worker. When she first tries to shoot, it is very inaccurate (it takes a clip to take out a single zombie).
By the end of the game, she has been turned into an office-supply killing machine. She throws pens like daggers, tears heads off with paper-clip flails, and is generally a bad ass.
Steal something from "System Shock" -- your character occasionally gets hints that other people are still alive, but just before she gets to them they get overwealmed and killed by zombies.
A cross between "the office" and "lara croft". =)
I like this idea... although I think the office setting can be used to great comedy effect. Say for example, the office manager has one of those putting (golf) sets in his private office - there's a weapon for you. And for some reason I can't shake the idea of using photocopiers as barricades...
Quote:Original post by _winterdyne_
I like this idea... although I think the office setting can be used to great comedy effect. Say for example, the office manager has one of those putting (golf) sets in his private office - there's a weapon for you. And for some reason I can't shake the idea of using photocopiers as barricades...
Have you seen any videos for Dead Rising on Xbox 360? All you need to know about that game is that you can pick up anything in the mall and use it on the zombies; including stuffing traffic cones on their heads.
Very, interesting game. I really like all the ideas and got me thinking about what would make the game unique and ultimately mind bogling.
IMHO Howie_007, you shouldn't use a serious reason for the employees being zombies it would be way too much like all the other zombie or mutant FPS's/Adventures out there on the market right now. I propose a little more of a twist.
The character is working on something feeling very tired and starts to nod off a little in your introscene then bam just as you said, <your intro stuff>.
The idea of actually having an immense amount of guns in the building is kind of non realistic but I like the idea about having your character show adverse affects to firing and using a gun. When she comes to you could have her be able to get the gun from the security gaurd in order to protect herself. Perhaps sometimes when she fires she'll fire twice a kind of ooops, until she collects her senses a little more. There should be enough security gaurds with side arms to let her be able to use a gun every NOW AND THEN but not all the time. So once a gun stops working she'll automatically through it at a Zombie or just drop it if there are none in the room. Also make it so that the camera does automatic things to react to say scary noises or pounding on doors or some glass being broken. So if sound is coming from the stairwell have the camera automatically zoom in on it.
I also think the coffee idea is quiet ineresting but I would push it a step further and make them all smokers as well. Something to do with smoking and coffee. And also make it so that a few bites from a zombie or getting bitten by at least two zombies makes you turn into one. So that would explain the rest of the non smokers and non coffee drinkers. Your character doesn't drink coffee but drinks mountain dew or coke or pepsi I'd suggest getting them to sponsor the game.
And remember this is a frightened woman in a totally abnormal situation so she's probably not going to want to inveistgate why things are happening but only react to the things that are happening. Plus even if you stuck the truth right in her face she's not gonna care unless she actually believes it's possible for people to become diseased mutant zombies.
Also as a possible ending after countless sequals of her finding out that the whole world has turned into zombies and only finding people who don't drink or smoke or do whatever to be not zombies. So she spends years fighting these zombies and then unavoidably she starts to look in the mirror and she is turning into a zombies so by the last game the last level she looks like a zombie. Then the exiting movie after she becomes a zombie and turns on someone SHE WAKES UP at her desk doing what she was doing from the beginning of the series. It would be an overwhelming feeling of irony for the player and leave them with a huge smile on their face.
IMHO Howie_007, you shouldn't use a serious reason for the employees being zombies it would be way too much like all the other zombie or mutant FPS's/Adventures out there on the market right now. I propose a little more of a twist.
The character is working on something feeling very tired and starts to nod off a little in your introscene then bam just as you said, <your intro stuff>.
The idea of actually having an immense amount of guns in the building is kind of non realistic but I like the idea about having your character show adverse affects to firing and using a gun. When she comes to you could have her be able to get the gun from the security gaurd in order to protect herself. Perhaps sometimes when she fires she'll fire twice a kind of ooops, until she collects her senses a little more. There should be enough security gaurds with side arms to let her be able to use a gun every NOW AND THEN but not all the time. So once a gun stops working she'll automatically through it at a Zombie or just drop it if there are none in the room. Also make it so that the camera does automatic things to react to say scary noises or pounding on doors or some glass being broken. So if sound is coming from the stairwell have the camera automatically zoom in on it.
I also think the coffee idea is quiet ineresting but I would push it a step further and make them all smokers as well. Something to do with smoking and coffee. And also make it so that a few bites from a zombie or getting bitten by at least two zombies makes you turn into one. So that would explain the rest of the non smokers and non coffee drinkers. Your character doesn't drink coffee but drinks mountain dew or coke or pepsi I'd suggest getting them to sponsor the game.
And remember this is a frightened woman in a totally abnormal situation so she's probably not going to want to inveistgate why things are happening but only react to the things that are happening. Plus even if you stuck the truth right in her face she's not gonna care unless she actually believes it's possible for people to become diseased mutant zombies.
Also as a possible ending after countless sequals of her finding out that the whole world has turned into zombies and only finding people who don't drink or smoke or do whatever to be not zombies. So she spends years fighting these zombies and then unavoidably she starts to look in the mirror and she is turning into a zombies so by the last game the last level she looks like a zombie. Then the exiting movie after she becomes a zombie and turns on someone SHE WAKES UP at her desk doing what she was doing from the beginning of the series. It would be an overwhelming feeling of irony for the player and leave them with a huge smile on their face.
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