Zombie Deathrace Feeding Frenzy
Frenzy Update #1
More updates will be coming soon as work on the game has resumed, including the second and third episodes.
Released!
Release date!
Episode 1: The Ballad Of Hillbilly Willy will include 10 official levels, 4 player characters with a number of customization options to each. Multiplayer is enabled and working, and most importantly, full support for Oculus Rift! There is a built-in map editor, and full Steam Workshop support. Making levels is super easy and fun! At the moment the map making is limited to the included game assets, but subsequent releases will expand to allow user created assets to be used.
I have published a guide on the community hub, and there is a README.txt file that gets installed with the game that explains game play and controls. Please review the guide or README.txt file before playing.
I highly recommend playing this game using the Oculus Rift, however the PC experience is also very rich, immersive, and fun as well.
If anyone wishes to run dedicated servers, there is a server.exe file included and you can edit the settings.ini file in the installed game folder to customize your server name. There will be new options to customize the servers soon, as well as an external application to manage them.
May development updates, and more
Some really important items and bugfixes have been addressed, including more Oculus support(you can now adjust your eye settings from the controllers). A save/load game feature has been added, though for now it's limited to 1 slot. New Electro skins added! They are really cool!
I won't go into to much here, time is limited for me, but I'll leave you with the info that I'm still on schedule for a mid-June release, as well as a couple of juicy new screenshots!
April development updates
This isn't to say that new ideas and features haven't been percolating! The major new feature is something internally called "psycho time". During a round(in Arcade mode), radioactive waste gets dumped into the water and an air raid siren sounds. The fish suddenly change appearance into bloodthirsty little nightmares and turn in on the player, chasing you relentlessly. They are still smart enough to eat zombie parts as they pass them, but their primary focus becomes you.....
This is Hill Billy Willy in psycho mode, and a zombified state. Players can also choose to use the Psycho skins in multiplayer, and there will be an Electro skin coming soon that will also be available, but will also be used in Arcade mode for when a fish is stunned, or maybe if in Psycho Time fish try to stun you.
Another development is the addition of .png loading, so the size of the game on disk has dropped considerably. This will certainly help when the mobile version is completed.
Work on the VR side continues - and there will be some changes coming to make it more intuitive as well as allow the player to make ocular adjustments from within the game, and save the settings. This will allow for perfect visual alignment to account for differences in people's vision. I will also be exploring the possibility of adding Steam VR support.
All else is right on schedule, and I will be spending time over the next two months adding a variety of Steam awards and achievements. Hoping to have around 50 for the first release. Feature-wise, I plan on saving the other game modes for a later update, as I am going to dedicate the next two months on polish.
March development updates
One item that is new, and this is pretty big news, is that I decided to expand up the idea of player skins, and add player models as well! This of course created a bit of work for me, but I had some pretty good ideas of the models I wanted to do, and now the game actually has a school of piranhas of varying character. After completing this, I also realized that the main character, Hillbilly Willy was going to need an overhaul considering my "fish building" skill had improved! Without further ado....the Piranha Clan:
Top Left - Hillbilly Willy. Willy is a good natured, wide eyed youngster who leads his friends into ocean in search of food. His punky style and crooked teeth make him an endearing friend to all those he encounters.
Top Right - Razertooth Timmy. Timmy is a little crazy, but he's a pretty nice guy, well, for a piranha. He mentored Willy as a youth, and taught him the value of wearing strong armor.
Bottom Left - Jawbreaker Joe. Brother of Timmy, Joe is the polar opposite...he is the Yang to Timmy's Yin. He is temperamental and nasty, and will fight(or bite) anyone. Beware.
Bottom Right - Bucktooth Bob. Bob is an idiot. Seriously, he's quite literally the stupidest organism on the planet. He is a peace loving hippie at heart, though he has no idea what it means. He eats by accident.
Each of these new players will have multiple skins to choose from, and you can of course customize their colors. I should note that the Bob skin is still a WIP, so the picture below isn't fully how he will look in the end.
I'm going to keep this update brief, but I will follow up with some more info at a later time. There is a lot to talk about here, just can't fit it all in one post.
It's official - Frenzy has Oculus Rift support!
Over the past week I've been working on adding Oculus Rift support to the Frenzy engine and game. This part of the development concerned me, because while the technology and theory is well proven and not very difficult to integrate, the actual practicality of VR in certain types of games is an entirely different story. Would movement have to be restricted or changed to make it a great experience(read, non-nauseating)? Would there be advantages or disadvantages to players using VR as opposed to screen output? How much would performance suffer as a result?
Truly there was only one way to find out, and since the goal from the start with this game was to expand upon the typical pc platform, I plunked down the cash and rolled up my sleeves and got started. After a weekend of what was at times a bit trial and error, I had Frenzy working flawlessly in the Oculus Rift!
So how did Frenzy fit in with VR? I can say, without doubt, it was spectacularly fun and frighteningly immersive! The issues I worried about most(movement) were non-issues. I was able to create a system in which the player has his eye orientation and body position factored seemlessly. The player controls his body angle with the mouse, and he has the freedom to look around in any direction from that position. You move according to that body angle. There were no limitations, other than how much, or I should say, how fast can you go and your senses handle it - totally up to the player. I played a number of rounds without ill effect at all. Using the mouse and keyboard of the base game, it was a breeze to move around and play. I will say that the experience was so incredible, that I'd probably never want to play on a monitor output again!
Advantages, disadvantages? I'd say that having that extra freedom of being able to look around in relation to your body angle is a distinct advantage, and I'd say that advantage is somewhat negated given the FOV is considerable less in VR than a widescreen monitor. Aiming, etc, seems to be about the same, though in VR you've got the added dimension of depth which takes a little getting used to, but is definitely an advantage. I'd venture to say that the VR player will likely want to slow his mouse output to prevent sudden, nauseating body angle changes, which could be a disadvantage, nor maybe not. Overall I'd say that having played in both venues, that with VR you have a slight advantage overall - but probably not enough to override skill factors.
Next will be adding HUD and menu layers, and controller support. I'm sure many will opt to use controllers, though for my money, as an old-school FPS player, nothing can beat the keyboard/mouse combo. Stay tuned....
February Development Updates
January was a very heavy development period for Frenzy, in fact it may have been one of the most productive periods in the game's history which now spans about a year and a half. The single player arcade mode was fully hammered out and completed, with all content and levels present. This process led to a vast number of improvements in the enemy AI, physics, GUI, and structure of the game. The GUI has been switched from the clunky GLUI library to now use the much nicer AntTweakBar, which allowed me to very easily add a variety of new items, including the in-game map editor which is now completed other than adding in the planned asset manager. it is very easy to make custom maps for Frenzy, and soon it will be very easy to add your own custom content for maps using Blender and our tools.
A big area of focus was also in the multiplayer netcode, and many issues were worked out and now I'm happy to report that the servers work both on remote and LAN connections. A good bit of things got streamlined and refactored code-wise to keep it simple and organized. With that focus in mind, I also added the ability to choose different player skins as show here:
Players can also still customize their eye, fin, and belly colors with each of these new skins.
I also began to formulate some different game modes/rules, with an emphasis on multiplayer. A form of "deathmatch" common to Arena FPS games has been devised called LifeEater. The rules are changed in that scoring is based on how many other fish you kill, and that eating meat regenerates your health. The weapons and powerups remain the same as in Arcade mode. There will also be a team version of this mode, with up to three teams.
More big news is that Steamworks is now fully integrated in the game, and you can access the leaderboards from the game, as well as upload to the Workshop your map creations. I will be adding over 50 achievements over the coming months.
VR support will begin this month, and the Android version is partially completed. Everything is on schedule for the June initial release, which I'm starting to lean on as being an Early Access release, and then releasing the full version which will contain two more Arcade mode episodes, four more player skins, and quite a few more goodies.
Development updates for January 2019
The entire GUI has been replaced with AntTweakBar, which is something that was desperately needed as GLUI is just horrible to work with, and very dated. During this process I fixed a variety of GUI issues and I'm happy to say that it's working very well and bug free!
Leading from this, I jumped quickly on the in-game map editor, something I felt was extremely important for players to have access to, and will hopefully create a community of map editors when the game is launched. Making maps in Frenzy is incredibly easy, and this editor will make that process foolproof and seamless. As of now, it's about 90% completed, but who knows, maybe more things will come into focus as I go on with it. At some point there will be an asset manager section added, and tutorials(perhaps even in-game as well). It should be noted that creating custom assets is as simple as making them in Blender and exporting them to the model format(IQM).
The game itself is progressing nicely. Multiplayer got a fairly decent amount of love, with some netcode improvements. The single player game is close to completion, and I added boss intros, an end scene, and have 7 of the 10 planned levels completed thus far. Now with a proper level editor, I'm starting to crank out more maps. Some pics of the latest one are included in this post.
I've begun Steamworks integration, which will take some time with all of the awards and what not that I've planned on. This game will have at least 100 different awards for sure.
Following this, I will begin with VR support, and then Android. The Android port was completed last year, on a very early version of the game, so that will need to be implemented in the same fashion on the current version. There are still a lot of things to think about in regards to functionality and controls for that, but I've got it at least worked out in my head as to how it should be.
Introducing Zombie Deathrace Feeding Frenzy!
I will continually update the public development forum with progress on the game and it's development, as well as any diversions or additions in concept and plan. The game is currently in a very playable state, but there is still much to do before launching.
This game is a little different, and I hope people will have fun. I've personally found it very addicting!