Survival of the Hobo: Zombies

Zaphire

Third person shooting Hobo that kills Zombies, taking their cash, eating food from dumpsters and collecting scrap to buy better weapons and equipment. That's basically what we are busy working on at Obsessive Notion.

Latest Devlog - http://obsessivenotion.com/viewblog/devlog-4-waves-of-zombies

The game starts off with a Hobo waking up to discover that he is the last hope for humanity. His bad living conditions cause him to be immune to the virus that turned everyone into Zombies. The player will be controlling the Hobo to fight of waves of zombies and continue his path to finding a cure for the Zombies so that he can go back to his days of begging.

What we aim to do with the game

• The player will be able to find/buy better weapons and armor throughout the game
  
• There will be zombies with different behaviors. (Basic, spitting, exploding etc)
  
• The game will have a story-line that the player will follow with quests, cut scenes, events and more. It won't be open world.
  
• There will be vending machines where the player can sell scrap, buy weapons and armor from etc.
  
• The player will eventually own a piece of land (separate stage) where he can keep coming back to and upgrade it. This will be similar to Plants vs Zombies where you had a garden that you could plant flowers and water them. The hobo will be able to upgrade his "house" from things like cardboard box to a tent and do farming which will be used to make more money with.
  

(Garbage Bin that can be looted)

(Garbage Bin that has been looted)

We will soon start having a playable build that we would like everyone to test and give feedback on.

roguecode

I may be completely wrong, but was this originally a top-down?

...
Ah, yes, http://makegamessa.com/discussion/3847/pre-alpha-playable-version-of-survival-of-the-hobo-zombies-available
I remember enjoying the top-down one. But I am a big top-down fan so that may effect my judgement :P

Zaphire

roguecode said:

I may be completely wrong, but was this originally a top-down?

Yes but then we saw there was already another top down in SA that was being made that was awesome :P Think you kill Lamas in there hehe. Ye we found people enjoyed a 3rd person more than the top down and for what we have visioned for the game would work better as a 3rd person game.

Once we have a build ready we hope you will test it and become a 3rd person shooter fan :P

Elyaradine

I like that you're keeping the art simple and manageable. I like the weird angles in the shape of that car. It looks like you're using humour as an angle? In which case it might be worth pushing to be fairly tongue-in-cheek and over the top with how you theme/design other things too. Looking forward to a build!

Zaphire

@Elyradine Yes the previous version of the game we wasted too much time trying to make complex models for our small team so we decided to rather try and make "decent" models that would take us a fraction of the time so that we can at least have a playable game instead of wasting hours and hours just to have 1 character finished.

n which case it might be worth pushing to be fairly tongue-in-cheek and over the top with how you theme/design other things too.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean with that. Would you mind explaining it and also maybe give us a hint on how you think we should be focused on getting that humour feel to it?

Tuism

Yep, cheap quick and dirty assets are definitely the way to go if you want some gameplay to evaluate first :)

The homeless angle is pretty cool, though possibly sensitive, but seems like you're sidestepping that sensitivity with humour, so like @Elyaradine says, push that more! It could be a good direction :) The simplicity of the models as early assets aside, that they're humourously proportioned (big head etc) drives home the light-heartedness. Maybe even look at even funnier ways of engaging with the theme - like in Theme Hospital where you pop people's heads instead of doing some grueling and visual medical procedure, maybe you can go that way with the weapons, attach balloons to zombies to send them flying, or pop their heads (non-graphically), or whatever.

The future scope seems pretty rad, but I'd say get the core settled before deciding stuff like having a homebase, or whatever. Those does of course sound ilke fun :)

Elyaradine

Yeah, what @Tuism described. :) Also, if they're low poly zombies, maybe you could do their models as just pieces jammed together so you can shoot bits off. Shoot a zombie head off... and it starts running straight, arms flailing. It just keeps running forward until it hits a wall, and then falls over, because it couldn't see. I dunno, dumb, funny interactions like that that "make sense", but only in this ridiculous fiction. :P

Or how in something like Plants vs Zombies the zombies wear found objects as various bits of armour, like traffic cones. It's silly, but funny, and gives your zombies some personality.

--
And yeah, something in your copy kind of put me off, in terms of being a hobo who wants to eliminate the zombies so that he could get back to "his days of begging". That felt kind of douchey. I know it's "just a game", but it might be helpful not to be framing suffering as a choice.

People don't choose to be hobos. In the US, it's often because somebody got screwed over by their medical system and lost their property to pay for insanely high medical bills. I'd certainly push the humour (in ways like @Tuism describes), but I'd be very careful about making fun of hobos themselves, because they go through a lot as it is. <_<

And crap, if I were a hobo, and capitalism had totally screwed me over, I'd totally tell humanity to go and screw itself. :P

Zaphire

@Tuism Thanks for the feedback. We will definitely be chasing the humour part. The plan for now is to get stage 1 100% before we even start working on extra stages or the homebase.

@Elyradine Will keep in mind shooting heads off but will have to experiment with it first to see how difficult it would be to get certain parts to fall off.

Regarding the PvZ traffic cones etc we have already done the coding to allow us to attach any model to their body so will see if we can get some humour out of that.

I agree with the getting back to his begging days part, we have an idea in mind on how to end that.

Thanks again for all the feedback!

Jay

I love the story line especially when he is trying to kill all the zombies so that he can go back to his begging days..thats funny :)

Zaphire

Our second devlog! We want to try and post our updates every friday.

http://obsessivenotion.com/viewblog/devlog-2-progress-is-in-order


Items that can be picked up are now drawn like a magnet to the Hobo and picked up automatically once close enough.


Busy adding a baby zombie

Zaphire

Devlog 3 - Explosions and Limited Ammo


Overview of changes
* Added new buildings
* Guns no longer have infinite ammo
* Added explosions and explosive barrels
* Resized character heads

Zaphire

Check out our 4th devlog! We have included a video of our presentation at the MGSA JHB Meetup.
http://obsessivenotion.com/viewblog/devlog-4-waves-of-zombies