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« on: January 27, 2007, 10:51:51 am »
I would want a, wait for it, zombie-apocalypse-styled video game. Yeah, real original, but hear me out.
However, instead of being a single or group of ragtag survivors holding off the undead hordes with a large cache of guns and an inexplicable knowledge of agricultural sciences, I want to be a single or horde of zombies that's trying to kill any survivors.
You start the game with an interface that looks roughly like the map of the US or North America. On this map is a set of different icons spaced across the country/continent that represents cities. You can choose which city you start out in, which affects both the starting difficulty and the future difficulty of conquering other cities. There might be a little subrural town in California that features lots of happy, weak, and, since you're just starting, oblivious people. Or you could start in a NYC-esque city where 7 out of 10 people own a gun and the cops are all experienced and street-smart. Maybe you can start out in a fort in Washington, where (obviously) you will face a large amounts of armed soldiers, but taking down the fort now will lower the chances and amounts of reinforcements sent to other cities.
Regardless of which city you choose, one of its inhabitants (which are all generated and being processed to some degree) randomly falls ill with a strange disease. This person will die, and later rise from the dead as a zombie, which you will control. Every human in the game has a set of more-or-less basic stats, including strength, speed, health, endurance etc. and the stats of the original human will determine your own stats. There are even "special" humans that radically alter your stats. An obese human would decimate your moving speed, but would give you a massive health boost, or maybe a bodybuilder that increases your attack, or some sort of super-genius that lets you open doors and climb ladders etc.
You will have an in-game radar of sorts that gives you basic information in a small area. Blue dots represent uninfected, non-hostile, oblivious humans. As they take damage, their dot starts to turn black, starting at the circumference. As they become more infected with the zombie virus, their dot starts to turn green, starting at the center. A person's health at the time he is fully infected determines the percentage of health the zombie will have. Green dots represent zombies, with their damage being represented the same way as humans. Yellow dots represent panicking or cautious humans; they are aware of the existance of zombies but are not hostile yet. Red dots represent hostile humans; they will attack you or other zombies and have an awareness equivalent to yellow humans. The radar also contains lines to represent walls.
Oblivious humans are unable to identify zombies from any significant distance or in moderate dark. They might look like drunkards or sick people until they are close in clear light. Panicking/cautious humans can identify zombies from a distance in light and close zombies in light darkness.
When you start, all humans are automatically oblivious and will be blue on your radar. Humans go about their regular schedule in the city when you haven't caused any sort of panic. If you don't attack anyone, people will go to their jobs, go shopping for food, commute to various locations around the area etc. You can attack or infect a person without witnesses and let them go on about their normal daily routine while slowly becoming more infected. Each city is divided into sections in a grid-like formation, and all humans and zombies are in a low-information state until you reach their area, so that the game would have more reasonable sys-reqs. Zombies and humans will move throughout different sections on their own. Zombies may go across town and start infecting people while you're still clearing out an apartment. As the zombie:human ratio grows in a certain section, noticeable changes start taking place, some of which won't take place until you leave and re-enter. The sky might be obscured by a green fog, fires start, rooms start collapsing, cars are crashed into buildings and trees, lights go off as the power lines go down etc. If a building is filled with zombies and you back up some survivors up against said building's entrances, zombies just might burst out and grab the humans by suprise. Or if you lead some zombies to a barricaded building, they'll start smashing themselves against the windows and doors in the hopes of getting a good meal inside.
When a city is more-or-less infected, you may leave and go to anotherr city. There are differences between your first city and ones you travel to. Most likely, news of your attack will have spread, and most, if not all, people will be yellow or red on your radar. Soldiers from nearby forts have been sent to various cities in order to help defend them from any zombies that would come visiting. Instead of starting in a random spot inside of the city, you start outside of it near a way that leads into it. More regular civilians (not cops, soldiers, or criminals of various kinds) will have armed themselves in some way, and taking this city will be (quite deliberately) more difficult. However, you may take a small amount of zombies from the previous city with you, so you have some back-up going in. The last city that you would conquer becomes the sort of "boss fight". All remaining soldiers in the game have gone to help defend the city, people have actually been receiving basic firearms training, all roads into the city have either been destroyed or blocked by make-shift walls and gates. When you get to the city, you will notice that zombies are shambling towards the city in every direction out of the horizon, and a true siege starts taking place.
Your zombie is different from the rest of the horde in that you contained the original virus. The others are infected with a mutated version and are weaker, slower, and dumber than you are. You can also command some zombies with basic commands, such as Go There, Follow, Stay, and Attack, thus allowing for some organization. You have a fast and weak claw attack, a slow and strong bite attack, and possibly some other powerful abilities.
In essence, this game takes the "play-as-a-zombie" idea from Stubbs, adds in some etxremely basic squad-like tactics, and has zone-control like Dynasty Warriors Empires.