Tranquility Park (discussion): Exclusive to RMXPU

[Enigma 10]

Tranquility park is a single player first person action-adventure survival game that I plan to develop using either the Crytek 3 engine or Unreal Engine 3, when I am able to acquire the resources and the know how to do so. This topic is a dicussion to help me brainstorm ideas. Rest assured these ideas if used will be credited on request. I simply want to gauge how good my idea might seem to people other than myself who believe this is the best thing since slice bread. That is because I love criticism and I am party insane.

 

The game is set up similar to the games Mirror's Edge, Left for Dead, and Minecraft in the following ways I will out line.

 

Mirror's Edge

*The main character you play as has the knowledge of parkour and uses it to survive in a zombie infested city.

*Weapons are a secondary focus, in order to use guns you have to find them and supply them with ammo yourself.

 

Left 4 Dead

*Their is a Coop version of the game which entails zombie survival but is seperate from the main storyline.

*Zombie dynamics are quite similar

*while there are no super zombies/special infected noises will attract zombies, gun shots will also attract zombies

 

Minecraft

*Not everything is craftable but a lot of things are

*players have to deal with not only starvation, but infection (for which there is a temporary vaccine), thirst, sleep, exhaustions and even weather conditions.

 

special note on status:

infection occurs when scratched and or bitten by a zombie; or when infected fluids come in contact with open wounds.

an infection is cured with a "vaccine" actually just a treatment that can be obtained or later created if you find the scientist. The cure only eliminates the instance of infection, if infected again the player will have a limited time before they die and become a zombie in which came the game ends

exhastion will affect your sprinting which is usually very long and your strength which determines how good you are at grappling things ,balance, and melee combat

exhaustion is affected by sleep, hunger, thirst, and infection

overexhaustion will lead to passing out which usually leads to immediate death (depends on if their are other people around; or if there is a medic etc.)

weather will also affect you: lower balance when raining do to slipping, which can make u slip and fall when on the edges of buildings or walking across pipes. higher thirst and exhaustion when thirsty. Windy conditions muffle sound as does rain wind lowers balance slightly, zombies can't smell dont worry about it. Zombies tend to be inside when in is rainy or windy however

 

Unlike minecraft, TP is restricted to a city, the objective of the game is to find some way to escape with enough resources to be sustainable with your group of people. In coop survival or normal survival you also have to build this sustainable area and later defend it from zombie onsalughts.

 

Simliar to Skyrim, every choice has a consequence, however everyone can be killed, not only that but the player will have to answer to their decision.

 

There are only 10 survivors in the city, a few of which must be found, each with intricate background and relationships between you and each other.

 

If you cause someone to get infected and die, the other people will remember it and treat you differently for it.

 

Lastly the game is 100% in first person.

There are no in game menus, not even a splash screen, all if it is incorperated into the eyes of the main character

 

The main chracter is completly customizable to the player as well.

 

the pause menu will be achieved through the main character's phone. Which will slow down and "freeze time" so to speak as the menu is displayed.

when a selection is made the menu will momentarilly resume normal time

this is because the menu is not actually freezing time; rather than having a real time menu in story mode, which could lead to disaster the freezing effect is because its capturing the instance at which the character is staring at the screen

 

this does not apply in survival or coop survival mode.

 

And well thats as much as I've got so far that I have typed here so if anyone cares to read this block of highly offensive appearing unformatted block of text ("cause it is quite ugly to look at") i would appreciate a response

[Foxkit 4]

It sounds awesome... it also sounds a lot like the Day Z mod for ArmA II http://dayzmod.com/

though the infection mechanic/ the mirrors edge hybrid sounds interesting.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Foxkit

[Jon Bon 43]

Sounds like a solid base. May I suggest playing Dead Island (PS3) and looking into Resident Evil Outbreak (PS2) for some inspirational creativity. Both of those games are four players but had really good zombie game dynamics that I hadn't seen in other games before.

 

Dead Island

Has a pretty neat crafting system, and has the player picking up duct tape, turpintine, etc to craft the many gun mods and and melee mods, it's mostly all modification stuff, but neat non the less. I assume you would want to be able to craft weapons themselves out of like lumber and nails for like spike board etc. Which leads in the other game

 

Resident Evil Outbreak

Here you were able to also combine stuff in a crude crafting sense. But the neatest part was you were actually able to interact with the environment in a crafting sense. You could use your boards to block a door, or fix broken step, or move boxes to climb up, etc. A system like this would rock.

 

In general if you could have a crafting system that used the same resources to; craft items/weapons, modify weapons, and modify your environment, it would be really well rounded and have multi purpose for each crafting material. I really want to see the ability to setup a rigged shotgun on a table in front of a door so the first zombie to bust in has it's head blown off for free (like in fallout how you have to disarm them). The ability to make a noise perimeter system with tin cans and fishing line so you can hear when zombies are breaching certain areas for different mission types. Use plywood to board up and secure a door/wall to make a room more safe, or craft it into a riot shield to fight zombies. I think a crafting system that multi purposed the materials into stuff you could craft into the environment would be awesome for a first person zombie game and would truly allow the player to feel like they are in control of their fate.

[shakey2 0]

It'd be cool to have a home base where you had to keep repairing it and arming it with traps. Also getting all your base supplies from the outside world and avoiding zombies parkour style, if you had other survivors in your base your base could be attacked which is all the more reason to get supplies and have traps. I would make zombies climb over stuff and have better than normal mobility so the player feels that parkour skill is necessary. Jumping zombies would be awesome too :D can you imagine doing roof running with zombies jumping roof to roof to get at you lol

 

Just some ideas for you :)

[Jon Bon 43]

I like shakey2's idea, it plays into mine mentioned above as well. I also think it would be cool if there were different types of zombies but still make it 'realistic'. So like the fast jumping and climbing zombies can be the 'Freshly Infected' as the 'fever' makes them faster stronger etc. Then you can have 'old zombies' which would be degrading and less powerful and fast then a fresh zombie. Then you could have starving zombies which would be even slower, but get aggressive and strong and fast when you are near them. Just a thought but it would be a way to make types of zombies and have fast zombies and still make it more real then magical.

[Enigma 10]

Awesome, thanks for your input. I think that it might be good to allow players to build armaments and defenses to defend there area. The amount of zombies in an area are limited but I will purposely limit the amount of material that could be used to kill them. Since weapons will wear down. Also due to weight they will weigh you down so getting resources might be dangerous as you are moving from one location to another.

 

One thing I am unsure of is how the protagonist will work. As I stated previously, how you interact with other survivors will be a major aspect in the game play, therefore control of of the protagonist is critical. Therefore, you can also change the main character's name and physical features.

 

I'm debating is choosing between a silent protagonist, and having a protagonist that talks and uses dialogue choices. The issue with choosing dialogue lies in the lack of a HUD, I'm aiming for hyper realistic First person so I'm unsure how I would even show the choices.

[Bob423 52]

interesting, not usually into this kinda of stuff, but i guess i could try it out