I made a few small tweaks to the game based on data collected from the prior update.
Changed the Kills Per Second achievement "Total Carnage!" to have a requirement of 30 Kps to reflect recent changes in difficulty.
Added support for 1280 x 1024 Monitor resolution as requested in the discussion forum. If you have a resolution you would like to see supported, feel free to just ask by making a post about it in the community discussion.
Slightly tweaked some values on weapons to make the steps of each tier more balanced and appropriate.
Fixed a graphical bug.
Lowered the range on basic zombie attacks by about 30%.
The update will feature several key changes. The first major change is the game now uses an unlock-based Weapon System, replacing the old item-drop based weapon system. Weapons are now organized into four categories featuring multiple tiers in which each tier is unlocked by killing a required amount of zombies with the lower tier of gun in that category. Pressing the " i " key in game will bring up a display of how the tiers are organized, or simply kill enough zombies to fill up the green progress bar on the bottom of the screen to see what gets unlocked!
The second major change is a fully redesigned HUD. The graphics have been upgraded and the information it presents is more organized and readily visible. As stated earlier, there is also a new visualization to show your progress towards unlocking the next weapon.
Another major change includes a blended Zombie Spawning system mixing elements of the older system and the new system to maximize the amount of chaos. This will increase the action and chaos significantly as well as the difficulty, as there will be more zombies on screen.
Since difficulty has been increased we have decided to reset the Leaderboards to make the competition fair for new players, so now is your chance to establish yourself as the top Zombie Slayer!
There have been a multitude of other smaller changes as well.
Summary:
New Unlock-Based Weapon System
New Heads Up Display and visualizations
Zombies Spawning System has been improved
Leaderboards have been reset
Various balancing changes to weapons based on their tier
Press " i " in game to access weapon organizational chart
Sniper rifle now has a 5 round magazine
Various graphical tweaks
Fixed a few bugs, including maps not resetting properly in Coop after a game over
Screen shake effects have been improved
Follow me on Twitter @LorenLemcke for the most recent information about updates and future plans! As always, feel free to post any feedback, bug reports, or questions that you may have on the games Discussion Board.
-Loren Lemcke
Made a cool map, want to win some games?
Since we launched the Map Editor, lots of people have already made some great maps so we thought it might be nice to award a great prize to one of the best.
The prize? A Steam key that will give access to all current and future Mastertronic releases.
To win, post an image of your map on Twitter using the hashtag #over9000zombies by the end of Saturday 8th November.
If you are not the twitter type, then please just post a link to your map on the Workshop in this announcement thread.
Happy creating and good luck!
Update - V0.1.6.0 - Workshop + Map Editor!
Over 9000 Zombies! now features a map editor with full workshop integration! Create, play and share custom made maps!
Custom maps work in every game mode: singe player, cooperative play, and multiplayer. Maps will automatically be transferred when joining a multiplayer game. To download a map from the workshop, subscribe to it and restart the game and the map will automatically download after a few moments. For more details, please check out the guide :)
There have been several other changes as well! Including bug fixes, balancing changes and some improvements here and there. If you are using an Intel based graphics card and experience some issues, try toggling the V-Sync option. Also don't hesitate to contact me on the discussion forum.
As with every release we expect to encounter a few bugs here and there, so if you find one, please post about it here: Over 9000 Zombies! Discussion and I will tackle issues as they appear. Thanks for your patience! :D
Once we have worked out all the kinks related to the map editor and the workshop, we plan to expand the existing content! Stay tuned for further updates and news. Good luck on your zombie killing expeditions this Halloween!
Steam trading cards for Over 9000 Zombies! are now live! Collect the entire set and earn yourself some rewards. We have some cool emoticons, including Zombie Dog Poo, and some awesome backgrounds and badges to show off on your Steam profile page.
Also, the map editor is coming along nicely and will feature in the next games update along with several other changes. If there is something you would like to see in the map editor please come to our discussion board and leave me some suggestions!
Over 9000 Zombies! is going to see a few fundamental changes in this patch as well as new content. The immediate changes players will see are those to the map. The world map is now much more concentrated and will focus on the player defending a particular structure. This leads to other design changes related to the mechanics of the map as well. For instance, given sufficient time, the structures themselves can now be completely torn down by the horde of zombies. The player will also find that it is their responsibility to create barricades to keep zombies from wreaking havoc on their gun positions and portions of the structure. Players will have to keep exits clear should the need arise to abandon their position, since player created structures now act as barriers for both the player and the zombies. The map is more focused and concentrated, so zombies now spawn outside the bounds of the compound as opposed to scattered around the players location.
In between the waves of zombies players will discover that they are allowed to upgrade one of four select attributes to aid them in their zombie slaying. The first is Durability, which will increase the player’s maximum hit points as well as regenerate a small amount of health points regularly over time. Durability is key to staying alive for as many days as possible and can be critical to recovering hit points when trapped by the zombie horde. The attribute Carnage, will increase the players damage as well as lower their reload time. Carnage’s effects will especially be noticeable on certain guns where the reload time is the main bottleneck to dishing out damage. Such is the case for the shotgun, M-16 and grenade launchers for example. Resourcefulness increases the players ability to salvage scrap metal, increases the hitpoints recovered from health packs and increase the number of grenades collected. This will allow the player to construct a fortified base much more quickly, receive a large cache of hit points from key health pickups and keep their grenade habit well fed. The final attribute is Engineering, which upgrades the player constructed turret’s rate of fire and their damage. As the zombie horde grows larger, players will become more reliant on their turrets to dish out more damage, so investing in engineering will prove useful to survival.
Players will also discover some new content as well as various other changes. They will find a new Damage Per Second and Kills Per Second visual meter on their screen as well as some associated Steam Achievements. To aid the player in their survival three new constructible turrets have been added, including a rail gun, a white phosphorous launcher and a plasma projector. Turrets also now emit their own source of light so they do not get misplaced and lost in the dark. There have also been various balancing related changes made across the board, some visual improvements and several bug fixes.
Full change log:
New attribute system!
4 new achievements
KPS / DPS Meter
New Turret: Rail gun turret!
New Turret: Plasma Projector Turret!
New Turret: White Phosphorous launcher!
Changed the stats on various weapons to adjust for balance
Turrets now act as their own light source
Players are no longer able to walk through player constructed turrets and walls.
Zombies now spawn off the map as opposed to randomly around the players
The maps starting environments walls are changed in design and size. They are also all now vulnerable to zombie attacks
Improved animations on Zombie Ravens.
Changed item indicator rings
Changed Fire spitting zombies to fire just 1 fireball at a time.
Adjust Zombie counts on various days and zombie hp to adjust for difficulty.
Flame throwers and Flame Turrets now have increased base damage and slightly increased rate of fire.
The save/load game feature has been phased out.
Ambient objects are no longer just randomly spread about the map
A new smaller, but more focused and dynamic map has been implemented.
Floating combat text has changed in scale and color to make damage more visible.
Some minor changes in sound design
Turrets have improved Line of Sight detection
Various bug fixes, including collecting items after death, broken counters, etc
Map editor coming soon!
If you discover any new bugs please make a post about it in the game's discussion forum. Also feel free to share your thoughts on the new update!
<*>4 Player Local cooperative play has been added! Features a new build interface and more.
<*>Globably lowered volumes and adjusted levels to make sound more controllable for varying audio set ups.
<*>Fixed some sound effect issues where volumes on certain sounds weren't being properly adjusted according to the options.
<*>Fixed an issue where quitting to the main menu immediately started a new game
<*>Fixed some other miscellaneous issues with menus
<*>Improved some network performance issues
Local cooperative play now allows you and up to 3 other friends (4 players total) to play Over 9000 Zombies! using Xbox game-pads. The game plays similarly to a multiplayer game. Players respawn after a given amount of time after dying and if all players are simultaneously dead, then it is officially game over and a new game will start. Resources are shared among players, otherwise it would be optimal for a single player to do all the collecting of scrap metal. This way all players that seize an opportunity to collect items benefit each other. Weapon unlocks are still individually acquired. Power-ups when collected, power up your entire squad.
If you encounter any issues or bugs please feel free to post them in the game's discussion forum! All suggestions are welcome as well:
new Sound Options menu. You can now adjust the levels of the music and sound effects.
Fixed a font issue where certain characters were causing the game to crash.
Fixed an issue where Turret related Achievements were not being properly unlocked.
Fixed some typos here and there.
Fixed an issue with the build menu not displaying the proper text when using the gamepad.
Day Timer no longer continues to count while player is dead to prevent abuse.
Fixed a bug where the player pointing arrow in multiplayer would appear in single player.
Increased weapon Drop rate by about double.
Weapons already obtained will no longer drop in single player. They will continue to drop in multiplayer because the other player may not have acquired the weapon. Weapons already acquired cannot be picked up.
If you feel any of these fixes did not go through properly please feel free to post here on the discussion forum:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/273500/discussions/
Over 9000 Zombies! Day 1 Complete!
The Early Access launch appears to have gone quite well and I have received some great feedback from the community. If you haven't had a chance to, I invite you to give me your thoughts and suggestions on the community discussion forum:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/273500/discussions/
I also appreciate every one who has taken time to post bug reports. If a bug has already been posted, please DO post about it to say that you also experienced the bug and add any additional information you might be able to offer. This helps me get a sense of how many people are experiencing a particular bug and gauge its severity. It also allows me to gather more information and examine which elements of the game need more work and require some polishing.
Based on the current feedback, I have decided to focus on implementing local-multiplayer and on fixing all known current issues, as well as including some other necessary features here and there (like volume sliders among other things :D). I would like to wait to get some more feedback on how to deal with player progression elements, e.g. a leveling system or attribute system. If you have any ideas you would like to offer, please post them in the discussion forum and I will gladly take them into consideration. Balancing the game correctly will be an ongoing process, but I think one element that is key to that is having the player progress as the days progress and the difficulty increases.
I hope everyone has a great time playing the game and I look forward to reading your feedback/suggestions on the discussion forum! Also a special shoutout to the folks at Mastertronic for being incredibly supportive and helpful throughout the development process.
Over 9000 Zombies! Early Access available July 2nd!
Over 9000 Zombies! will be available for Steam Early Access on July 2nd!
The price will be $7.99, £5.59, 6,99€.
Several major content patches are planned as we collect feedback from the gaming community! We are looking for some good feedback early to help us steer the direction of the game and so we can squash all possible bugs and make your zombie slaying experience as satisfying as possible.
In its current state, it will feature a never ending single player mode that is already quite polished and a 2-Player cooperative multiplayer mode that allows you to join forces against the hordes of zombies. There is already several leaderboards so you can see how you compare against the rest of the community and see who can kill the most zombies!
We have many features planned for the future which include alternative game modes both single player and multiplayer, vehicles, RPG style game elements, more weapons, more zombies, more levels, and much more!
I invite everyone to play the game on July 2nd and offer their feedback. As an Early Access game there will be plenty of room for growth and additional content! We have a philosophy that the gamers know best, so we are looking for the community to give their opinions on various aspects of the game in order to help steer the ship. All comments and criticism are welcomed!
