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.