uDeadGame by iGame3D

[igame3d]

uDeadGame by iGame3D


We've just finished a two month marathon making a game for a Mac game contest held at http://www.udevgames.com
Voting runs March 5th through 12th and there are 19 other free games for your Mac to play.
We appreciate feedback and votes, I'll even forward feedback to the other game devs if you want.

uDeadGame is GPL and 100% moddable with Lua scripting, the game editors are hidden away in the download, I can
tell you how to activate my primitive IDE when the time comes, and we have an I/O plugin for low cost AC3D.

I might even hold a contest for a few copies of that app if there's an interest in modding uDeadGame.
That Would involve using the demo to make a few maps using the materials available or whatever's on your HD,
so if that would interest you let me know and I'll pull some kind of magic rabbit out of my brain pan.

Downloads here:
uDeadGame For Mac
System Requirements: Intel Core Duo, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or 10.5.x
Hardware Requirements: 1GHZ CPU 1GB RAM 128MB VRAM 200MB HD

Here's the zombie call to action!

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will go to the arcade!

uDeadGame is a 3D action horror first person real time strategy adventure.

You play as the uncanny intelligence for hordes of hungry living dead.
Your goal in the game is to devour all the living on each of the 32 levels.

Battle a cast of characters including thugs, prostitutes, office workers, police,
military, strangely suited guys, and mad scientists.

Revisit good times with surprise guests from previous iGame3D uDevGames entries.

Modulate play between aggresive romps of flesh rending horror and strategic
stalking to minimise casualities from the unbeatable human karate style,
the never ending rain of bullets and those spectacularly lethal grenades.

Slip into zombie time slow motion to better target your dinner and
enjoy your crushing assaults with a cinematic style.

This is a game every zombie in your family will love.

What are you waiting for zombies?
Get out there and shred some flesh!

Feedback is very much welcome!

[TaxiService]

will test it when i get back on my mac... on iphone currently >_>

[Devious]

this is interesting, I will look into it.

[Hostbot]

uDeadGame by iGame3D


We've just finished a two month marathon making a game for a Mac game contest held at http://www.udevgames.com
Voting runs March 5th through 12th and there are 19 other free games for your Mac to play.
We appreciate feedback and votes, I'll even forward feedback to the other game devs if you want.

uDeadGame is GPL and 100% moddable with Lua scripting, the game editors are hidden away in the download, I can
tell you how to activate my primitive IDE when the time comes, and we have an I/O plugin for low cost AC3D.

I might even hold a contest for a few copies of that app if there's an interest in modding uDeadGame.
That Would involve using the demo to make a few maps using the materials available or whatever's on your HD,
so if that would interest you let me know and I'll pull some kind of magic rabbit out of my brain pan.

Downloads here:
uDeadGame For Mac
System Requirements: Intel Core Duo, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or 10.5.x
Hardware Requirements: 1GHZ CPU 1GB RAM 128MB VRAM 200MB HD

Here's the zombie call to action!

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will go to the arcade!

uDeadGame is a 3D action horror first person real time strategy adventure.

You play as the uncanny intelligence for hordes of hungry living dead.
Your goal in the game is to devour all the living on each of the 32 levels.

Battle a cast of characters including thugs, prostitutes, office workers, police,
military, strangely suited guys, and mad scientists.

Revisit good times with surprise guests from previous iGame3D uDevGames entries.

Modulate play between aggresive romps of flesh rending horror and strategic
stalking to minimise casualities from the unbeatable human karate style,
the never ending rain of bullets and those spectacularly lethal grenades.

Slip into zombie time slow motion to better target your dinner and
enjoy your crushing assaults with a cinematic style.

This is a game every zombie in your family will love.

What are you waiting for zombies?
Get out there and shred some flesh!

Feedback is very much welcome!

Welcome to MGM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[draconic74]

Will look into it and if I can find the time to see about modding it.

For me, things like this tend to be more evil to those who do not know what I changed...Meh.

[igame3d]

Thanks folks.
Could turn it into an FPS shooter with a little bit of work.
We'll probably get around to flipping those magic switches sooner or later.

[draconic74]

Hmm... There are a few things I have to say about the game. The best things that can be updated would be quality of textures and models. Its not a massive problem, as it doesn't effect gameplay. Sounds as well (Left 4 Dead might have some neat sounds to rip for a mod...) The other few problems were more to do with how the game plays out. For one thing, your player can interact with objects and people, yet they do not notice you. I think that you should be able to go through physics objects and your fellow zombies, yet still hit people and doors. Or better yet, a topdown view that has a "fog of war" for closed doors but lets you see rooms your zombies are in.

Also, I might add that this little game could be done very professionally and a lot easier if you used the Source Engine and Gmod. They high quality models and textures are there. You would just need to add animations and scripting, and it would be a fairly incredible piece of work. Its unfortunate that Mac hasn't had the opportunity to have Source ported over in any usable way.

One of the most major things that needs changing is the controls. They should be mappable and the mouse sensitivity should be able to be set. That and the title screen textures. They are quite pixelated and low quality. Perhaps someone could redesign them in a bit better quality.


I really must get to sleep now...

[igame3d]

Thanks for the feedback but I feel you need some perspective.

uDeadGame was put together in two months by a two man team for well under a
$1,500 including models, software, hosting, rent and utilities.

I doubt there is a single game on this discussed on this site that involved less than
100 people, 2 to 5 years, and well over a million dollars to develop.

uDeadGame is free and GPL and for a contest, so ripping anything off from
any commercial titles would be out of the question as that would be instant disqualification
and automatically cancel out any chance of grabbing the $30,000 in prizes.
Not to mention legal issues.

Then there is the large download size as is with the quality of models and textures,
bumping up any quality equals a larger download size which in turn equals
less downloads per month we can maintain before getting hit with server overcharges.
Same story with sounds, already the music alone is the largest load time lag and
with 19 other games to compete with, we can't make people wait any more than the 20
seconds it already takes to unzip and start a game.

Another factor playing into the model quality is the more polys the less number of machines it can run well on.
Lets put it into perspective, Halo came to the Mac in 2005, four years ago, on a 2Ghz Machine I still
have to play Blood Gulch at super low quality to get lagless play.
To further illustrate, our game runs at a constant rate at or over 60FPS on the new Mac Mini, Quake 4 runs at 25fps.
Thats unacceptable even for a free game.

Same goes for textures, larger texture files means some video cards or shared memory processors will flunk.
We've got people playing this game on five year old laptop PC's with crapola 64MB video cards.

As for the physics, if you pass through objects you lose any sense of being there.
Being bumped around by the zombies is a lot of fun, its a bit like a mosh pit.

If we have people notice you and effect you then we need you to effect people,
which in turn creates play balance issues and the fact that most people would go
gung ho solo and not play the zombie action, and it would be just another FPS.

If you pass through people and objects but not doors that would be 100% irrational.
Totally confusing the large majority of players who would complain about it, most
people are confused already, as its not a 'god in the sky' RTS and its not a run and gun FPS,
and its not another "shoot the zombies" clone. People already play the game
and click on zombies, I don't know what they expect them to do, but they try anyway.

We had an Top Down RTS in the works over the summer for the whole "god in the sky" effect, but
since our stuff is GPL on sourceforge and contest rules state no public exhibition
of the game prior to contest start, we started from scratch and made this in two months.

Source engine...no point in using that since it doesn't work on the Mac making the whole Mac contest idea moot.
The second point of mootness to that is the programmer won't learn jack diddly squat about programming
from just picking up someone else's hundred and twenty thousand lines of code and making some script changes.
Not to mention license fees. Again Source engine was developed over five years at an enormous
cost by a large group of individuals including John Carmack.
The people that made Source engine didn't make Havok, they just bought it and rolled it into the engine.
Again, thats an additional large team, five years and another couple million dollars.

I agree on mappable controls, that was pulled out minutes before the deadline,
since features using controls were being pushed in right up to the deadline.

I agree with you on quality, would love to have a team of artists to do all the work,
another team of level designers to deal with that, and then an entire other team
to deal with the six hours of play testing it takes to complete each run of the game,
which has to be done with every little physics, AI, or content tweak.

Plus a nice large focus group to explain to me whats good and bad about the game experience,
with five years and several million dollars to make a perfect little game that
people would probably still complain is missing just one more thing.

I appreciate the feedback and a chance to talk about the realities of developing game software.

[draconic74]

I actually do understand pretty much all of the above. I know its a small team working with a limited budget with a deadline. I do know that using sounds, models, or skins from Left 4 Dead, HL2 or other games could not be put into the game (unless its via a mod, and then it still is not quite right). And I do know that Source doesnt work on Mac, I was simply implying it would be useful (one more thing to hate Valve for, despite my love for their games). And, if you have Gmod, it eliminates the need for a license. Anyway, thats not the point.

I do understand your views on quality, and it is true, it takes far more time. And about the FPS on computers, I have pretty much what I need, but experience some lag while looking at more than 7 zombies in one area. Its probably my computer, since its screwed up enough that it slows down most other actions as well.

I do have to say that I enjoyed the game. I got absolutely shredded on the second level with the grenade-throwers. I had to rethink my strategy of mostly rush tactics after that. As of right now, the only complaint of the game (the other comments were more of suggestions) is that you cannot know where your zombies are unless you specifically placed them all in one spot on the map and held them there till further use. Sometimes they are spread out, and I think I have them all near me when I hear gunshots and I cant tell who is going down. Its not completely gamebreaking, but it does take a while when planning some assault on multiple people.

[igame3d]

Aha now you have discovered the challenge!
The first levels are child's play, it gets worse!
The trick is in using clicks, rush, holding position and retreats.
Not knowing where all the zombies are is part of the fun and fear.
Herding them towards victory and not to destruction is the goal.

The levels are pretty linear, but rushing too often will send your horde after the
closest targets they detect and spread them all over the place, as once
a bunch of have eaten one guy, the rest try to find food.
All kinds of mayhem occurs and you only have gun shots and screams to tell you that chaos is rampant.
That increases the tension which keeps it from being boring, but at a risk.

Generally if you hear gunshots rush, follow the zombies, if someone can see you to shoot, the zombies can
see them to chew, as soon as you see that person click 'em alot and send all zombies to that location.
That way you can regroup at the fresh zombie you are about to make.
Clicking a spot on the floor works the same, but its better to get a spread, or line them up on a wall.

Use your freedom to move around to your advantage, leave your zombies someplace
relatively safe, if you see a human, give him a click or three. If its a soldier, time the clicks
so you don't have three zombies grouped when he sees them and tosses grenades.
Sometimes you'll get lucky and your zombie will outrun the blast.

On the third level, Snipers Alley you can scope out the level while your horde stays put.
You can find all the people and then devise a strategy for attack.

On the fourth, The Gauntlet, doors block the way, so you have to take it slower, make sure you grow your horde
large enough and spread the zombies out enough that a grenade doesn't wipe them all out.
I stuck the soldiers deep into the level so you have a chance to build your army.
Unless you take a direct path straight through the level, then you'll meet them quick!

On the fifth, Village, it gets really tough! You want to take out as many people on the street as possible
because whats inside buildings is Death! Try to use one to three zombies at a time to get
soldiers to unload their grenades and rush away from the people they protect.
People are grouped, so if they are armed, its two to four times the firepower against you.

On the sixth, Neighborhood, linearity gives way to a maze of buildings and alleys, danger lurks everywhere.
The seventh, Arcade, is a bonus slaughter, pretty winnable while rushing and all about insane chaos.
The eighth, Cargo, is another open maze of twists , turns and danger.
After that you go backwards through the levels, only there's more guns and more soldiers.
Then you reach a second Arcade.

Levels 16 through 32 is the whole game again, only now the humans are pissed off and they
are out to get you, they essentially have learned that the only chance they have of survival is to "Rush"!

I can get through the first eight levels in under forty minutes now, sometimes.
Weapons are randomly passed out every time you play, so there is no real flawless strategy as the guy you swamped with
zombies at the start of the level one time might have a machine gun that turns a batch of your fleet footed undead into a
bunch of handicapped shufflers the next.

Don't forget to HIt Z key every now and then when attacking.
The slow mo gives you some breathing and thinking time while you enjoy the cinematic destruction.
Use that in open areas to get a chance to make sure the guy you are killing isn't the bait for a bomb throwing soldier.
If thats the case, you can pretty much click all over the place, and your zombies will get
the command to spread out before the grenade actually lands.
At least they'll be moving somewhere besides into an explosion before the second grenade comes.
Also exploding zombies are best viewed in slow motion or a slow-fast-slow-fast combo...fun stuff!

Ok hope that helps without spoiling any of the mystery.

I think the lag is caused by the AI recalculating paths.
Not sure, I get 'twitches' too from time to time but it passes and I haven't been able to pin it on just one thing.

I'm tempted to do the whole game like Darwinia, I can get about 1,000 zombies on the
screen for everyon one zombie I have now that way. Zombinia Now thats a mod waiting to happen!

[draconic74]

That would be interesting...

Although, I wish that game could have been better to me on my first playthrough. There was something that went wrong that prevented me from finishing one of the first levels, and I got annoyed after having spent two hours meticulously moving characters that I decided not to bother finishing the demo. Now, Uplink. Thats an awesome game. Almost anything is possible, and is limited only by your creativity, reflexes, and in-game hardware. I pretty much demolished the game after I traced a bank transaction for a mission (around the sum of 400k) and then routed the money into my account. Fun stuff. Now I have to figure out how to get the story mission's LAN system to work and wait for mods to come to the Mac version so I can hack Microsoft and Nintendo (two of the bigger player-made LAN systems).

[igame3d]

There was something that went wrong that prevented me from finishing one of the first levels, and I got annoyed after having spent two hours meticulously moving characters that I decided not to bother finishing the demo.

Say what?
No level takes more than 12 minutes to complete, fifteen if you go make coffee and take some power bong hits.

[igame3d]

Winners of the uDevGames competition were announced today at udevgames.com.

uDeadGame pulled a third place win for Best Overall Game thanks to your support.

Now that UDG 2008 is over and its back to the drawing board I can reveal some cheats and hacks.

First to reveal the cheat keys of the game.

Caps Lock = permanent rush, zombies win about 98% of the time

"+" on the keypad throws grenades
Just stretch a thumb from your mouse and nuke the level as much as you want.
You can make more zombies by blasting people or just blow things up.

Cheat Keys are probably disabled on Windows.
/uDeadGame/Data/Scripts/UDG_Functions/UDG_Game.lua
and
/uDeadGame/Data/Scripts/UDG_Functions/UDG_Keyboard.lua
can be modified to create new key bindings or activate these cheats.

default/loadscript.lua
Replacing the text inside the file: uDeadGame/Data/Levels/default/load script.lua with this:

Code: Select all

-- Begin of auto-script
LockScript = true
-- End of auto-script
if UIMainTools then UIMainTools:hide() end
gameroot=getSceneInfo(IG3D_ROOT)
dofile(gameroot.."Data/Levels/default/default_Globals.lua")
dofile(gameroot.."Data/Fluid/UI_MAIN_TOOLS/UI_MAIN_TOOLS.fl")
TextBox_Levels_Menu() 

Will give you the full fledged undocumented buggy no undo iGame3D editor. That will look something like this



Clicking on the little zombie face will give you the "UDG_Options" window.
You'll be able to choose any level in the game from there.
The rest of the options don't do anything at all.
They were planned and never actually implemented.

The rest of the editor? I don't even know where to start.
As usual a ton of stuff works, a ton of stuff doesn't.
The game contains maybe 1% of the content I'm hoarding at sourceforge.

For now cheats and level skips might give you a new perspective of the game.
If you haven't made it to the Arcades this is the way to go.
If you want to see hordes of humans that rush the zombies its the level names ending with 'hard'.

I had plans for revealing this after everyone had a chance
for an initial test run before deadline, but never got another build out until the deadline!

Didn't want to let people cheat on the outset and not be able to tell me what levels were actually
too difficult or get bored because they only saw the "zombie movie" side of the game.

Thanks to everyone who did their part.
More uDeadGame come!