Game Concept

Zombie Forager » Devlog

2 years ago by Soos92s

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The forest the player will explore

The house the player is defending

Possible zombie sprites

Possible zombie Sprites

Working Title: Zombie Forager

Overview

Concept Statement:

Zombie Forager is a top-down, pixel art, survival game all about finding supplies in the forest to protect your house from zombies at night. The zombies are attracted to the light from your house when the sun goes down, but you can also collect glowing plants and place them strategically to lead them away or kill zombies out in the forest to reduce their numbers. The aim of the game is to see how many nights you can survive as it becomes progressively harder to fend off the hoards. Featuring cool enemy AI, bow-and-arrow combat mechanics, and an exciting artistic experience, this game will be easy to learn but difficult to master.

Genre:

Zombie Forager is a kind of mix between Plants vs Zombies and foraging games like Minecraft and Terraria, so I would call it an apocalypse themed survival and tower defence game. (PopCap Games, 2009. Mojang, 2011. Re-Logic, 2011)

Concept Creation Process:

The original idea for this game came from a genre mashup between a zombie apocalypse game like The Last of Us or Dying Light (two of my favourites) and a farming simulator like Stardew Valley or Minecraft. In the end it turned into a bit of a tower defence game like Plants vs Zombies, which I also loved as a kid. (ConcernedApe, 2016. Mojang, 2011. Naughty Dog, 2013. PopCap Games, 2009. Techland, 2015)

I had the idea of the farmer player protecting their farm from zombies while also going out to forage for new plants to grow which would give them new power-ups when eaten, but it was all too complicated and too much information to dump on a player for a short game.

One thing that did stick was the idea of some plants that attracted zombies to keep them away from the farm – and I thought of using plants that emit light to attract them – The inverse of Minecraft or Dying Light zombie mechanics! (Mojang, 2011. Techland, 2015)

After that I stripped everything back using subtractive design to come up with the current concept. I planned to focus on the most exciting mechanics I came up with, each to do with how the player is controlled.

For the shooting mechanic, the player’s only job is to collect sticks and zombie bones to create arrows for their bow. For the light mechanic, players will have to fight off a few extra zombies in specific areas to be able to get the glowing plant they are attracted to. For food gathering, the player will become slow if they have not eaten recently and their health will go down if their hunger bar was at zero – just like in Minecraft. (Mojang, 2011)

I was particularly interested in a streamlined learning experience, so I decided crafting would occur automatically when the correct resources were gathered.

Audience and Competitive Analysis:

My demographic is somewhat specific, being aimed at serious apocalypse and survival game lovers who want something light-hearted to play on a lazy afternoon. I can see this game also attracting casual gamers who want a dip into an apocalypse world but do not want the time investment. It might also be a fun zombie game for kids, like Plants vs Zombies; it will not be overly graphic or complex but could be an introduction to the survival genre. (PopCap Games, 2009)

The first successful games that came to mind when looking for similarities to mine were Don’t Starve by Klei Entertainment and One Hour, One Life by Jason Rohrer. They are both based on survival in a short, art-oriented format. They have more complex crafting systems than mine, and, although Don’t Starve has a day/night cycle, its monsters are attracted to darkness, whereas mine are attracted to light. The two games are a few years old now, but they were very successful when they came out, with One Hour, One Life earning $700,000 in its first four months, and Don’t Starve having sold 1 million copies before the end of its release year. (Klei Entertainment, 2013. Rohrer, 2018. Wawro, 2019. Wawro, 2014)

More recent, similar, successful games were hard to think of. Searching on Steam revealed a game called Vampire Survivors released in December 2021. Still in early access, it reached 70,000 concurrent players on Steam in February. Its style is more ‘bullet hell’ than my game, with extra features like abilities and powerups. I would not consider my game better than other popular games like Vampire Survivors, due to my inexperience, and simpler game design. It may be beneficial for me to add more powerups, time allowing. However, I do feel my unique light mechanic will draw attention while my simpler art and orchestral music style will give it more universal appeal. (Just, 2022. Poncle, 2021)

There are many reasons why a game could fail, sometimes just bad luck, and it is not always clear what designates success in the eyes of the developer. A similar game that was not successful on Steam is ZombWave. The game had a lack of sprite animation, and the User Interface (UI) design is oriented toward function over visual appeal. There are major grammatical errors in the Steam description, showing lack of marketing effort. I feel as though my game will have a more appealing art-style and UI design, and I plan to pay more attention to grammar, although I do not aim for financial success. (Kaceriak, 2022)

Game Treatment

Backstory

Having left the crowded city to escape the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse, you have decided to live your life foraging in the woods to provide for your family. Unfortunately, the zombies have spread farther than you thought, and you have put it upon yourself to protect your family at any cost for as long as you can.

Gameplay

In Zombie Forager, you have decided to protect and provide for your family because you have experience with a bow and arrow to kill zombies with. You can set up plant lamps to lure zombies away from your home at night, and you can shoot zombies with your bow and arrow too! You had better keep collecting resources or you will starve, run out of arrows, and die. See how long you can survive.

Base features:

- 8 direction player movement

- Fun bow-and-arrow shooting mechanics

- Basic Zombie AI

- Mostly custom art, music, and sound effects

- Automatic crafting system

- Infinite inventory

- Lights that Zombies are attracted to

Possible additional features

- Basic procedural generation

- Complex Zombie AI using ray-casting

- Auto-lock bow-and-arrow feature: shoot the closest zombie you can see in the direction you are facing

- Particle Systems

- Additional environment animations

- More story-based content

- A happiness system for the player character’s famil

Concept art

I have already started working on some of the art, which I have attached in the image below. It is currently only a rough outline, as the final product will be in darker tones to better set the mood. I do not plan on animating anything myself. I have hired an artist online to design and animate the main character, and I will use zombie sprites from online sources such as itch.io. (Penusbmic, 2020. Elthen, 2022)

Characters are currently represented by stick-men - green for zombies and black and white for the protagonist. The UI elements are not finished, but their general locations are apparent. There is a health bar (red) and hunger bar (yellow) at the top left, a time-of-day indicator at the top right, and the inventory down the right-hand side. The player may end up being a little more central to the camera, and I will also add a “days survived” counter, likely in the bottom-left (in the current layout) or top-middle (if I decide to move the inventory to be along the bottom). The forest will be small and hopefully procedurally generated, with new spawns and everything re-generated at the end of the night. This spawn process will mean that the player killing zombies in the day will have an impact on their safety at night and will be reset ready for the next day.

Image 1 Here

This is the screen players will usually be seeing at night when the player is supposed to be at their house, defending it.

Image 2 Here

Below are screenshots of the zombie sprites I have my eye on, both are from Itch.io. the first is from Elthen and the second is from Penusbmic. The main character artwork will come later, as will the main character’s family depending on whether I have time to add story elements. (Penusbmic, 2020. Elthen, 2022)

Images 3 and 4 here

References

ConcernedApe. 2016. “Stardew Valley.” Chucklefish, February 26, 2016.

https://www.stardewvalley.net/

Elthen. 2022. “2D Pixel Art Zombie Sprites.” Itch.io, February 25, 2022.

https://elthen.itch.io/2d-pixel-art-zombie-sprites

Just, Christian. 2022. “Vampire Survivors: Steam Phenomenon is Becoming a Heavyweight.”

Accessed August 25, 2022. https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/vampire-survivors-steam-phaenomen,3378046.html.

Kaceriak, Matus. 2022. “ZombWave.” Steam, July 8, 2022.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2050890/ZombWave/

Klei Entertainment. 2013. “Don’t Starve.” Klei Entertainment, April 23, 2013.

https://www.klei.com/games/dont-starve