RIZN takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the R1Z-N virus has turned the entire population into the walking dead. You'll take control of a character recently bitten and infected with this plague and must shoot your way through large hordes of the undead in an effort to survive.
Along the way, you'll need to craft injections to stave off infection long enough to locate and use research stations to find a cure. With a heavy focus on cartoon gore and a thin veil of comic relief, RIZN relies heavily on the physics engine to create crazy and exaggerated results for headshots, explosions, and more.
First up is the save/load system, which is about 95% complete at the moment. I've gone through and ensured that absolutely everything is being included in the save file data and that quarantine zones that have been spawned already are recreated exactly the way they were at the time the game was saved. I also have the type, position, and other important data stored for each and every zombie, the only current exception being corpses - for the alpha release I will likely leave that as is since it is not anything that needs to be in place for the first round of public testing.
It's pretty straightforward and I've done my best to tie the layout of the save/load UI panels into the graphic novel theme of the game's UI. One thing to note is that the save game data is actually contained within the screenshot that is used for each cell of the panel, so there are no .dat or .json files to speak of. I do this by taking a screenshot at the time the save file is created and then embedding JSON data directly into the screenshot file itself; this JSON data is then extracted from the image file when the game is loaded, then parsed as any other save data would be. If you had a copy of the game now, you could load a saved game directly from the image file below by simply moving it to the appropriate folder and opening the load panel as you would normally; all the data is packed in there and ready to yanked out to recreate the game. Not only is this convenient, but I am quite happy with the panel's layout and the way in which the screenshots combine to construct a graphic novel page.
I've also added the biohazard zombie's vomit attack to gameplay, which up until now was only a proven concept tested in an alternate scene. I ran into an issue while putting this in place due to the fact that the particle system was already set to collide with the ground in order to have it collect in pools that the player may accidentally walk over and receive damage from. Simply enabling collisions between mid-air vomit particles and the player would result in the same pooling effect occurring on the player in a very unnatural way, so I had to find a way around this. I ultimately decided to split the vomit particle system into two separate prefabs; the first controls the bulk of the particles, all of which collide with the ground same as before; the second controls only a small fraction of that which cause damage to the player on contact and its particles are destroyed on impact; since both systems look exactly the same to the player, they won't notice any difference during gameplay but the end result is that I get both the pooling effect and player damage with very little work required to pull it off. So now the player will take damage anytime they touch the radioactive vomit, regardless of whether it is in the air or pooled on the ground. The video below shows the radioactive vomit working in a recent playthrough as well as a demonstration of the separate particle systems being used, one system changed to a different color to emphasize the difference.
I was honestly a bit worried that the vomit attack wouldn't pose much of a threat to the player and would therefore feel irrelevant but score one for playtesting because all it takes is a momentary lapse of positioning or awareness for you to pay a heavy price. It is especially lethal when one of these guys sneaks up from behind you or if there is more than one within attack range, and the fact that walking over any green particles on the ground causes even more damage, it makes the mechanic feel very similar to Torbjorn's ultimate in Overwatch. It can not only kill you quickly but is also very effective at cutting off your exits, even after killing the source. This worked out even better than I was hoping and has added a new sense of urgency to gameplay.
I am almost completely done with incorporating melee weapons into the gameplay loop which will be a major milestone once finished. This article covers...
The new year has not been kind to me but I am finally back to work in the home office and have a round of updates to share with everyone. Progress with...
Updates on the release date for Alpha, improvements to zombie spawning, and a slick new ability to go with your melee weapons.
I've finally added the first melee weapon to my zombie shooter, more will follow soon. On top of that I've put together the largest propane tank yet which...
I really hope you are still working on this game of yours,
it has so much potential. Please tell me all is well?
Leon
Happy New Year!
And much success with Rizn!
Leon
Happy (belated) New Year! Sorry it took me so long to respond, I was incredibly sick for the first few months of 2023, this last week or so has been my first chance to catch up to online communications. Hope your year is going well!
How sad! I too have some health issues that play up from time to time that make modding/mapping (in my case) not possible. Glad to see your back, and please take it slow.
Leon
I like the whole photo-missing person thing, gives a nice personal touche to it all!
Leon
Great new article and updates! I love the part of that the zombies now can crab the player on the run without having to stand still. Because as is clearly shown in the small video about this, will it otherwise be too easy for the player I assume? Especially when he plays the game for quite some time, then it will get too easy to get around them. And I understand what you say about the doors/gates, people should not be aware of when what is spawned. And I can imagine that the pool system will save time and make it easier for a computer to work with this game.
Leon
Thank you! There are two types of attacks for rizn; the generic attacks which are just a quick melee that does a bit of damage to the player with each strike, and the grapple attack that will always kill the player unless they break out in time. I've been debating on whether only certain zombies should be capable of grapple attacks though, since even with a timer that ensures they only happen so often, it can get annoying to be grappled repeatedly and I'd rather it be more of a shock due to it happening infrequently. It could also add a bit fear to the player if they know that a footballer rizn grapples and is charging at them with head armor on; that recognition could really add to the experience, but only testing and playing around with ideas will help me figure out what's best. Funny thing is that I kept getting killed when recording my most recent video because even a handful of zombies around means you end up taking quite a bit of damage pretty quickly due to so many generic attacks, so there is definitely a lot of balancing to work out, especially when considering the reductions that player armor offers. Really excited to be nearly past the point of building all the mechanics and being able to focus on balance, though. The next few months are going to be a lot of fun.
Love love love the look of this game! Great animation! And who doesnt love a good zombie game?? I'm wondering if you have any audio implementation up to this point?
Thanks so much! I'm covered in the audio department for now, I've recently implemented a lot more sound effects for both the game world and the UI. I'm drowning in music files at this point but for some reason always end up grabbing the same 3 songs for videos.
Well hey, thats not the worst problem to have! Lol. Better to have too many than not enough. Keep up the great work, really excited to see where this one goes! Always open to beta test too! 😁