Halloween in The Music Lounge
by Clint S. Brewer · 10/30/2006 (7:47 pm) · 11 comments
on the UnEarthed Games side of things:
not much news. I've been itching to do some artwork lately, so decided to practice with this building
It's time to get the whip out on myself and get back in gear with some regular milestones. I've fallen into basically not planning my progress at all with UnEarthed Gods, and the amount of progress I make is markedly less than when I planned out every week.
On the Doppelganger side of things....
Muahahahah,
We've had a fun few days lately over Halloween in The Music Lounge
Here's a video: The Funk of 40,000 Years!
I thought I had already posted that video here, guess I just emailed it, so time for a new full .plan post.
This was all relatively last minute. A few weeks ago we decided we should spend a day or so getting something special for halloween together. Well that day turned into a whole lot of effort put towards some Halloween fun which is always good!
We have
* Special Halloween DJ Sets (including some stuff I haven't heard in ages, like Nightmare on My Street )
* Zombie Infection game with various Zombie/ Ghost forms (TGE Cloaking ++ )
* Linda Blaire Head Spinning (custom animation blending code)
* Costumes
* Special Decorations we can turn on and off (show & hide everything in a simgroup)
* Bloody Footprints (dynamic tge footprints )
* Fan Chats with various Pussy Cat Dolls
* Multiple Dance Competitions with judge Kimberly
* Staff Dance Competitions (using alpha unreleased dance script maker)
* oh and sound effects, my personal favorite. You scream bloody murder every time you jump
** doors scream and howl, knives chop, squishy stuff squishes,
* lightning strike with various full screen color shifts
* and I'm sure other stuff I'm not thinking of.
** oh yes screaming severed heads you can throw that spews blood
** and a laughing pumpkin you can throw around ( <-- RigidShape )
all of this can be turned on and off while the server is running.
We've been running the zombie game on and off and collecting high score info for prizes.
Here's some pics over the weekend and today...
not much news. I've been itching to do some artwork lately, so decided to practice with this building
It's time to get the whip out on myself and get back in gear with some regular milestones. I've fallen into basically not planning my progress at all with UnEarthed Gods, and the amount of progress I make is markedly less than when I planned out every week.
On the Doppelganger side of things....
Muahahahah,
We've had a fun few days lately over Halloween in The Music Lounge
Here's a video: The Funk of 40,000 Years!
I thought I had already posted that video here, guess I just emailed it, so time for a new full .plan post.
This was all relatively last minute. A few weeks ago we decided we should spend a day or so getting something special for halloween together. Well that day turned into a whole lot of effort put towards some Halloween fun which is always good!
We have
* Special Halloween DJ Sets (including some stuff I haven't heard in ages, like Nightmare on My Street )
* Zombie Infection game with various Zombie/ Ghost forms (TGE Cloaking ++ )
* Linda Blaire Head Spinning (custom animation blending code)
* Costumes
* Special Decorations we can turn on and off (show & hide everything in a simgroup)
* Bloody Footprints (dynamic tge footprints )
* Fan Chats with various Pussy Cat Dolls
* Multiple Dance Competitions with judge Kimberly
* Staff Dance Competitions (using alpha unreleased dance script maker)
* oh and sound effects, my personal favorite. You scream bloody murder every time you jump
** doors scream and howl, knives chop, squishy stuff squishes,
* lightning strike with various full screen color shifts
* and I'm sure other stuff I'm not thinking of.
** oh yes screaming severed heads you can throw that spews blood
** and a laughing pumpkin you can throw around ( <-- RigidShape )
all of this can be turned on and off while the server is running.
We've been running the zombie game on and off and collecting high score info for prizes.
Here's some pics over the weekend and today...
#2
it stared out as: we have these cool render modes for Halloween.
Lets turn them on every time the lightning flashes.
And use a different random one.
That was great, then we though hey it would be very easy to make only one person become the ghost/zombie and then they can run around and turn everyone else into a ghost..
that was more fun.
Then we made it into a Rock Paper Scissors deal where each ghost mode could be certain other modes.
this was fun...but a bit confusing...
then it turned into this: full rules as they ended up
This is really fun...in retrospect I really wish I would have made it a humans vs zombie game instead of zombie vs all. I don't get any points for it, but I definitely have the most fun when I try to remain a human and get from one side of the world all the way into the top of the club without getting touched by a zombie, and without teleporting (read: cheating)
Aside: This also makes me wonder why there aren't any humans vs zombie Multiplayer games like this out. It would be super fun I think.
One rule tweak that I'd like to try:
- when the game starts, and while you are human, you accumulate points every 10 seconds or so. Without doing anything but remaining human
- if a zombie turns a human into a zombie they get to steal all of these accumulated points
so then there's some incentive to remain human and hide from the zombies
but also a pretty big incentive to steal all of the huge collections of points.
I would also have made it so that the humans could lock the door, but zombies could also break through the door if there were more than one of them :)
10/30/2006 (8:03 pm)
so the zombie game..this was sooo last minute and developed organically.it stared out as: we have these cool render modes for Halloween.
Lets turn them on every time the lightning flashes.
And use a different random one.
That was great, then we though hey it would be very easy to make only one person become the ghost/zombie and then they can run around and turn everyone else into a ghost..
that was more fun.
Then we made it into a Rock Paper Scissors deal where each ghost mode could be certain other modes.
this was fun...but a bit confusing...
then it turned into this: full rules as they ended up
This is really fun...in retrospect I really wish I would have made it a humans vs zombie game instead of zombie vs all. I don't get any points for it, but I definitely have the most fun when I try to remain a human and get from one side of the world all the way into the top of the club without getting touched by a zombie, and without teleporting (read: cheating)
Aside: This also makes me wonder why there aren't any humans vs zombie Multiplayer games like this out. It would be super fun I think.
One rule tweak that I'd like to try:
- when the game starts, and while you are human, you accumulate points every 10 seconds or so. Without doing anything but remaining human
- if a zombie turns a human into a zombie they get to steal all of these accumulated points
so then there's some incentive to remain human and hide from the zombies
but also a pretty big incentive to steal all of the huge collections of points.
I would also have made it so that the humans could lock the door, but zombies could also break through the door if there were more than one of them :)
#3
we do have a way to disable teleports, but I don't think a lot of people got that doing that would be a good thing so zombies don't teleport in and turn you into a zombie......although I guess it's a bit of a gamble when you teleport since you might lose the rock paper scissors battle
10/30/2006 (8:07 pm)
another good tweak would have been to make it so that zombies cannot teleport to their friends.we do have a way to disable teleports, but I don't think a lot of people got that doing that would be a good thing so zombies don't teleport in and turn you into a zombie......although I guess it's a bit of a gamble when you teleport since you might lose the rock paper scissors battle
#4
10/30/2006 (8:34 pm)
another tweak would have been to make use of the pumpkin/ severed head. Maybe you could throw it at a zombie in order to respawn them.. that could be used by the humans as a sort of last defense before getting tagged.
#5
applying the anti kitchen sink philosophy,
It'd be interesting to get rid of the various zombie ghost modes, and have it be just a single mode vs humans. Then give the humans some need to move about and incentive for staying human.
make the zombies be zombies until the end of the game. but give them good incentive for going after the humans.
how about something like this:
humans collect points every turn they remain human
when a zombie touches them, they remove x points / turn they are touching the human.
when the human gets down to 0 points they turn into a zombie.
this is to simulate the feeding of a zombie hoard on a human....so various zombies all have a chance to get some of the human player's points instead of one zombie getting them all in one shot...also lets the human run for a while before she is zombified.
now force the humans to move from space to space:
I guess once the zombies find them they would be forced to run anyway. But to force them to run, there could be defined "safe places" that use up their safeness the longer you stay there. Something like King of the Hill mode in Halo...I start the game as a human and run to find the safe place, while I am there I gain points every turn...until the place runs out of points.. then I run and find the next safe place.
Maybe the safe place runs out of points faster if more humans are in it, since the zombies smell the concentration of braaaaaiiiinnns...making the hoard of humans in the beginning run around a lot, giving the few zombies a good chance to find them.
10/30/2006 (9:58 pm)
just read Jay Barnson's recent blog on Kitchen Sink game design and I still have zombies on the brain!applying the anti kitchen sink philosophy,
It'd be interesting to get rid of the various zombie ghost modes, and have it be just a single mode vs humans. Then give the humans some need to move about and incentive for staying human.
make the zombies be zombies until the end of the game. but give them good incentive for going after the humans.
how about something like this:
humans collect points every turn they remain human
when a zombie touches them, they remove x points / turn they are touching the human.
when the human gets down to 0 points they turn into a zombie.
this is to simulate the feeding of a zombie hoard on a human....so various zombies all have a chance to get some of the human player's points instead of one zombie getting them all in one shot...also lets the human run for a while before she is zombified.
now force the humans to move from space to space:
I guess once the zombies find them they would be forced to run anyway. But to force them to run, there could be defined "safe places" that use up their safeness the longer you stay there. Something like King of the Hill mode in Halo...I start the game as a human and run to find the safe place, while I am there I gain points every turn...until the place runs out of points.. then I run and find the next safe place.
Maybe the safe place runs out of points faster if more humans are in it, since the zombies smell the concentration of braaaaaiiiinnns...making the hoard of humans in the beginning run around a lot, giving the few zombies a good chance to find them.
#6
I havent been around much but i have time to read your blogs :)
Lovely work , keep it up.
Billy
10/31/2006 (1:26 am)
Hi Clint I havent been around much but i have time to read your blogs :)
Lovely work , keep it up.
Billy
#7
just saw this posted:
a few of our users are making a movie ( Metal Doll Solid )
some impressive tricks there....custom textures...and we *don't* have a grappling hook in the game
we also had a secret video screen that we enabled in the world for this, and a premeir of the PCD Video they were filming when we had the last big event here. Krunal Patel, did the streaming video work for us using directshow underneath right now ( we need this for wmv for other reasons ) here's a pic
10/31/2006 (10:18 am)
thanks Billy, I'm still dying to see some new shots of your games! How are things going?just saw this posted:
a few of our users are making a movie ( Metal Doll Solid )
some impressive tricks there....custom textures...and we *don't* have a grappling hook in the game
we also had a secret video screen that we enabled in the world for this, and a premeir of the PCD Video they were filming when we had the last big event here. Krunal Patel, did the streaming video work for us using directshow underneath right now ( we need this for wmv for other reasons ) here's a pic
#8
10/31/2006 (2:13 pm)
Great stuff, keep up the good work. BTW, I've never seen so many posts from the original poster on their own... post.. heh ;)
#9
10/31/2006 (2:14 pm)
:) yes it was one of those nights..I suppose I could have just edited the main plan, but why? 
#10
10/31/2006 (5:04 pm)
Very cool Clint! Thanks for all the updates. :)
#11
10/31/2006 (6:49 pm)
So many different skins and animations, looks great. 
Torque Owner Clint S. Brewer