Flamer Video

Flamer alpha effect

Added a color-change and alpha effect to the flame thrower, so it no longer looks like a stream of urine.

Graphics overhaul

I've begun a process of updating the graphics and making the sprites even more retro.

Lobby code completed

I have added the lobby so that any number of players can now join. Basically when a player hits their start button (or enter if using a keyboard) they get taken to the lobby and an entry is made for them automatically. Other players then hit start on their own controllers. Future versions will allow for a character selection here, but for now there's nothing else to do except hit start once more when ready, and when all players have done this the game loads.

Directional zombie animations added

Simon has created all the walk animations for the first zombie type with 8 x 5 individual sprites. It now looks great as they chase you around.

Video here.

Gamepad code added

Most of the gamepad code is finished now, so the game can be run with up to 5 players (4 with controllers, one on keyboard and mouse). There's no selection menu yet so yuo can't choose how many players can join a given game, but that's next.

I've used XInput controller code for XBox support.

Weapon Powerups Added

Our 8-bit hero just got a brand new armoury. At the beginning of the game the world is now littered with loads of juicy powerups - weapons and health kits.

Every type of weapon is now held in the player's inventory, which also models magazine ammo and total ammo, weapon reloading, and everything else you'd expect. The player can cycle through the weapons with the mouse wheel.

My personal favourite is the flame thrower, which in a future version will ignite the hapless zombies and turn them into harmless (relatively) carbon.

Debris

I've added a step to randomly add debris to our hitherto clean and tidy city. There's a small set of sprites for this at the moment, but you get the idea. Our city is now beginning to really look as though it's turning into hell.

Multiplayer code added

I've added some more code to support multiple players. Obviously until gamepad code is written the game won't be multiplayer, but I want to support several players from an early stage.

The screenshot shows what things might look like with three player characters. At the moment I'm controlling all of them with the keyboard and mouse.

You can also see a basic HUD that I've added in the top right.

Weapons System

I've done a little work modelling different weapon characteristics. Three weapons are implemented: pistol, rifle, and a plasma weapon. Each can have its own type of projectile, makes a unique sound, and I've also modelled different projectile speeds, fire rate, and damage.

Building layouts

I've altered the building generator to produce buildings with different patterns to the frontages, i.e. arrangements of windows. The patters are windowless, all windows, columnar, rows, and checks. Adds variety very easily.

Building transparency

I've added some code to make buildings become semi-transparent as the player approaches the back of it. That means that you won't get ambushed by zombies you can't see or miss any power-ups. At the moment it's either transparent or opaque, but I'd like to implement a graceful fade in/out at some point.

I think this is a nice alpha effect that doesn't compromise the retro feel of the game.

Tileset improvements

The images for the background tiles have now been brought together into a single spritesheet, making it easier to manage them and also quicker for the game to draw. I've already taken advantage of the new flexibility to add broken pavement segments. Ok so my drawing isn't the best but it's a decent placeholder.

Simon has added a shading effect to some of the buildings and produced new grass and tarmac textures.

Pixel Polishing

The smallest member of our team is JJ, whose job is to polish pixels. This is the important task of making our currently clean and tidy city look like it's been through a zombie apocalypse. That means drawing lots of tiny pieces of detritus for us to scatter about the city to make it more realistic. Everything from spilled bottles, broken glass and rubble to corpses, pools of vomit, and burned-out cars. These are a few of our favourite things...

Progress Video

Here's a new video showing the progress so far, including all the features mentioned in the posts since the last video. You can now see our working title screen, then our player character gets dropped into the middle of the city where he's attacked by zombies (well, sort of mobbed, since they can't do a lot yet). Don't fear though, our hero is armed with a machine gun of sorts to take the horde down.

The AI is a little improved with some pathfinding going on, though the zombies still get stuck on buildings sometimes, so a bit of a rewrite of the AI is probably in order.

Oh, this video also shows off David's sinister background music and a gunshot sound effect I found on the web some place - more audio treats to follow...

Pathfinding

I've begun the task of making the zombies a little smarter by implementing a pathfinding algorithm. This will allow the little blighters to find a way to the get to the players, so long as such a path exists.

I have implemented the popular A* algorithm using the MSDN code sample for Minotaur Pathfinder. With a few tweaks, I've got a basic version up and running that works with the map data in 8bit Zombies. Pretty sweet.

As you can see from the screenshot, this enables our zombies to work out a route to the player.

There are a few things to do though yet. At the moment, the zombies can still end up getting stuck on the corners of buildings when they see the player, and get stuck on one another for some stupid reason that needs debugging. The other problem is that it's too slow. Or at least, when lots of zombies are doing route calculations simultaneously, the game stutters badly. So, some optimisations are required.

Blood added

Our zombies now die in style. I've added two basic blood 'n' gore effects. Firstly, there's a "starburst" effect, which sprays a few red pixels randomly out from the zombie. Secondly, there are some green flesh chunks that can come flying off the zombie, which in turn trail blood. I think these will look great with a sort of gravity effect whereby they can bounce around for a few seconds before disappearing.

Bullets added

I've implemented some basic bullet code, allowing the player character to shoot. Basically, a click event is captured and a new bullet object is created at the player's position, with a velocity that will take it towards the click point.

As each bullet moves some collision detection takes place, and for the time being any zombie that gets in the way simply disappears (along with the bullet). Obviously this will be replaced with code to make the zombie take damage until it dies, whereupon it will fall over and persist for a few seconds until removed. Next up: blood effects!

Player character added

A rudimentary player character has been added. I'm using a little non-animated vicar sprite for the time being. He can be moved with the keyboard at present, and the zombies now follow him around.

Test Zombie Video

A quick sample video showing the project at a (very!) early phase. The city has been procedurally generated and our non-animated zombies are running around rather stupidly, able to avoid one another just about, but getting stuck on buildings.

First glimpse

So here's the first view of 8bit Zombies. This is an image mockup showing a few conceptual sprites on a pixel-city backdrop.