Solanum (Turrets and Taser!)

In a nutshell, today I've added the taser and mounted turrets. There's also a secret enemy added into the level from my Yoyogame Community Game Project as a sneak peek! See if you can find it! (Hint: it is heavily tied into one of the achievements) The taser can be found on the first level and should be fully functional (unlike the knife, if actually has a radius that it hits in from the player, albeit a small one). The mounted turrets are, in my opinion, totally awesome. I have made them so when you get in them, they float up in the air and aim at the mouse with a set rotation speed, rather than instant lock on. They fire six shots at a time out of the six slots, and pack quite the punch. I've put two in the game near the end with a respawn point nearby each one. There are two types, on that can shoot in any direction, and one that can only shoot in a 90 degree arc to the left. Try them out and tell me what you think!

The red lines coming off of the turret signify its arc that it can shoot.

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Solanum (Flamethrower!)

With the help of FGS_HURRICANE from Yoyogames, I've been able to get a little help working on level design and such. While he works out levels and such and gives me ideas, I've been running off with developing new weapons for the game. FGS had a couple of great ideas for future weapons including a taser, dart gun (tranquilizer), turret, and of course, a flamethrower.

I decided to start all of this off with making the flamethrower because it fits into the game thus far much better than the others, and I like fire. A few properties of the flamethrower are:

• It can overheat. If you shoot and shoot and it gets down to zero ammo (from 100), you will have to wait until it reaches 100 to shoot again.
• It gains distance. The longer you shoot, the further out the flame gets until it reaches it's full distance (which, for those of you who care, is 96 pixels).
• It's totally awesome.

I put it in a fairly early level for now so you guys don't have to fight through the usual monotonous 15+ levels until you find it. Below is a screenshot of it in use:

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P.S. I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently, I've had a lot of work and summer homework to get to for my A.P. class, so I haven't had a whole lot of time for Game Maker.

8-Bit Project

I've wanted to make an 8-bit type of game for some time now, you know, with those cute little pixellized characters and such. I decided I'd finally get down to making one today where I put in a little demon/devil type of creature as the main character and the player can take over enemies (you blast out some red tendrils and then become them) and also you can put out these small white balls that float around you (yet to figure out what those are for...)

Anyways, here's a screenshot:

Also, the reason for the lack of any type of update on the site was because I was hard at work finishing a soon-to-be-released project for the Yoyogames Community Game Project. I've finished it up, and when the game is released, I'll put up more information.

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Solanum (Help Needed!)

This will be my first post without a download or screenshot (sad, I know) but I have written up the Solanum storyline from what Draco and I have pieced together and I'm looking for a littler help with what should be added, changed, deleted, or what holes or issues you find in it. Also, I'm looking for someone who can help me with the game design aspect by telling me what each of the 50 levels this game will have should look like, what the people will say to you (exact text), and other odds-and-ends issues (such as where to place guns, upgrades, etc.)

Here we go!

(Quoted from my post on the Yoyogames Forums)

You were once just a normal person living in a large city. You would go around and do normal things like normal people, and you got sick like a normal person. You had the sniffles and stayed home one day from work. As you were [insert moderately dangerous household task here] you cut yourself badly (can be changed to something more easily noticeable, as the graphics are a bit small to see a cut on the player). You watch as your bloody gash closes up, turns into a scar, then recedes away into fresh skin. Immediately, you jump in your car and fly off to the hospital.

At the hospital, you meet a doctor and tell him what happened. He doesn't believe you, so you cut yourself on one of his instruments and both of you watch it heal back up. The doctor gets up and grabs the phone to tell the dean of medicine about what had happened. You get sent home, considering the fact that there isn't really anything wrong with you. Days later, government officials arrive at the door asking if you'd like to "help them out." You decline, and close the door, but then you are carried off by a Swat team due to "national security" reasons minutes later.

You are taken to a testing facility, where you are tested on by many scientists where they find that you have a mild case of a disease that decays flesh when fully infected. For you, it enables you to heal miraculously. As you are imprisoned in the testing facility, you meet a scientist who has some sympathy for you. For this reason, she helps you escape from the facility and you run away into the wild to live as a hermit.

While you are out living as a hermit, the disease is bought by a private company (what type would it be?) that says they are going to create a cure for the disease. They work on this cure for a long time until they believe they have perfected it. As long as the person being treated isn't completely infected, the cure will be able to return them to normal. After the company finishes developing this cure, they see that the disease has not infected anyone, and so they set it loose in the hopes of making great profits with their cure that only they have. All of the people who are sick will come to them to be cured, and they will make a lot of money in the process. Sadly, the company waits too long after putting out the disease to begin releasing a cure, and the disease had mutated to the point where their cure was useless. The people at the company quickly ran away, along with many of the people who had tested on you, because they knew what would happen after the infection took over.

You, of course, are sitting off in a shack in the woods completely oblivious, until you find a radio and receive an ominous message. The city had been completely overrun and very few were still alive. You had grown tired of your time as an infected mutant and wished to return yourself and all the others to normal, but you needed to find a new cure that could fix the disease as it is now. You head off into the city in search of the woman who had set you loose from the testing facility.

On the way, you meet 3 people who help you get to the woman. First, you play ten levels until you find a man who has just been infected a day before. The disease hasn't caught hold of his nervous system and brain quite yet, but it is obviously close. You cautiously approach, ready to kill him, when he speaks out. He tells you about what the virus is, what it's called, and what it does. After he is about to finish, he transforms fully into a member of the infected, and you must kill him before he kills you. You continue on until you get to the city and go to the facility you were tested at where you find a second person who tells you something important (where the woman is? But when you get there she isn't there and that's where the third person comes in?). You find the third person who tells you exactly where to find the woman, you get there, and have to protect her while she creates a cure. Then you become cured and give the cure to a higher authority who finally do the right thing and start sending out soldiers to inject the infected with the drug until they are cured.

Solanum (Starting the Storyline!)

I finally got to work on the storyline for Solanum today, which has been going very well. I've put together a pretty nice text system so that now the player and other people can talk to each other. The first NPC that you can talk to has been added today. I'm not going to release the storyline just yet, but there will be 4 people you interact with who are not zombies and will help to explain what is happening throughout the game to you and around you.

Overall, there has been very little gameplay change other than that I made it so that each gun has its own ammo, and each ammo packet gives you different amounts of ammo depending on the gun equipped. Also, whatever gun you are holding while picking up the ammo determines which type of ammo it is, slightly preserving my previous "all-purpose" ammo idea. This has made it so I have removed the "Ran out of ammunition" achievement and replaced it with a new one.

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Solanum (Zombie Shooter's Official Name)

I've finally named the zombie shooter "Solanum" after the disease mentioned in the Zombie Survival Guide which will fit nicely with the storyline that Draco put together for me. I'll begin working on implementing the storyline shortly, but right now I have a small update with a new addition of a knife (in case you run out of ammo), new zombie graphics, and a cursor that changes depending on whether you can hit a zombie or not. Here's a screenshot of me stabbing a zombie with some of the new skins:

Try it out and also remember to read the opening comment from the zombie for a little more explanation into things. Thanks!

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Also, please check out the review of Solanum by DeathandGrim on the Grimcast here (parts 1 and 2):

Episode 4: Part I

Episode 4: Part II

Zombie Shooter (Missile Launcher!)

Following the advice of Draco, I've made various updates to the Zombie Shooter including the addition of a missile launcher weapon, flying enemies, a new spawn place for zombies, and a new outfit for the player (zombie priest). I was hoping to make a gameplay video tonight, but due to time constraints (I have to be rested for my interview tomorrow) I don't think I'll be able to make one. Hopefully I'll have time for the next update! (Also, press [H] to open the help at any time during play).

Flying zombie crows and missile launchers in a white zombie outfit.

Oh yeah.

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Zombie Shooter (Inventory!)

Celebrating the one month anniversary of the website with version 2.0 of the Zombie Shooter!

I've decided to expand upon my armor upgrade from the last update by adding many different types of upgrades, consisting of 5 sets of outfits each with gloves, a body piece, and a hat. These can all be found throughout the game as pick-ups. They have different effects on your health through how much they upgrade, but they are more for graphical effect than anything. The enemies also have a small update which allows them to jump after you at a much faster speed, which helps to make the game more challenging. I hope you enjoy the update!

If you think this looks oddly familiar to my Blast inventory, you're right.

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I just added a gameplay video on youtube for this update (sorry for the quality, it's a little lacking due to some .avi issues)

Zombie Shooter (Armor!)

After finishing camp this Friday, I had an entire Saturday to crack down on the Zombie Shooter to deliver yet more functionality! I've added three more levels, one of which is inside a post office building. This is the first level in the next setting: the city. I have so far added a few graphics including a crowded skyline with many buildings, but I feel that I need more, but just what is eluding me at the moment. Any ideas for what you think should be added to make it more city-like would be very helpful! Anyways, I'll provide a list of updates:

• Helm: This will increase your health by 50 and also give you a pretty awesome new look.
• Body Armor: Also increases your health by 50 and changes your body.
• Armored Gloves: Increases your health by 50 as well, and covers your hands in a red metal. Pretty awesome.
• New Sewer Level: The last sewer level just dropped off to the right, but now I've connected it to a new sewer level stacked with explosives that leads to an uncovered manhole in the city.
• New City Environment: I've added a new city setting with buildings on the skyline and a post office level.
• Post Office: Inside the post office there's a wonderful corkboard with important papers, a computer, a coffee mug... Oh yeah, almost forgot about the helm!
• Increased Priest Zombie Health: The priest zombies now have twice as much health as before.
• Opening Logo: The game now starts of with my new Nintendo-esque logo!
• Shotgun: The shotgun now can not shoot through enemies any more.

Another day at the office.

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