Game Features - Fall of the Living: First Outbreak

Concepts and small ideas.
The story to this game is still being worked on so I will just give you an idea
The game no longer takes place where zombies completely rule the world, but the world is in deep trouble.
The game will now take place few weeks after the dead have first rose.
The first "safe haven" you start off in is an office building with the staircase destroyed with roof access.
The dead have been walking for about 5 weeks already.
You are in the building with a few other people, and you can save other people from outside to bring back to the building.
You can do diffrent missions for all the main characters, then leads to you leaving the city (main storyline mission) once it gets too filled with zombies. Doing missions other than the main one will be rewarding, but its a risk you have to take.
You don't have to do missions the whole time however.
You could just leave the building on your own and go out and kill zombies and explore.
I want to game to have choices that will affect the way the story goes, but nothing too deep.

Quick ideas of areas I want to make.
All areas will be accessable by highway/freeway.
You will be able to either chose to drive on the highway yourself, or "quicktrip" once you have found that location.
Quicktrip will teleport you to your selected area. Not magiclly, what really happens is it skips the trip and makes it so one of the survivors drove.
I don't want hours of aimlessness, it will have signs of how to get where you are going.
You will also have a roadmap to look at.
However, driving yourself will sometimes let you find extra items and weapons.
Such as maybe you will run into a police car with a new gun inside it.
Or catch a new survivor that can help you.
Becareful, some will lie about being infected or simply not tell you. So keep a close on everyones behavior. (throw up blood, wounds or bitemarks)
If you don't keep an eye on them and you bring them back to your hideout, they could zombify and attack.
When someone gets infected, shoot them.
Not everyone will agree on your decision too though.
Keep in mind, you cant make everyone happy all the time. But it is good to keep your "trust/approval" stats up.

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Characters
Ok so lets go into a little more detail about the main characters. Please bare with me it's still kind of bare.
I will be posting the sprites as they finish so yeah.

Arnold Lilestone

(The sprite on the left is the new body type for him. The one on the right is the costume he will be wearing)

Arnold is the muscle of the main 3 characters. He is more of an act before thinking type of person. Although is decent at stealth, he rather do things his way. Shooting anything that moves from the start to finish. Not your average "dumb muscle" but lacks making complex plans. He is often corrected by Kelsey, who is the brains of the operation. Can be a sarcastic prick but it's all for laughs for his satire style sense of humor. Has a taste for cheap cigars.

Kelsey Merit

Barely any battle expirience and doesn't really know how to use a firearm. She much rather have the boys carry out the dirty work. But without her brains the team would have possibly been killed long ago. She is usually the one they can rely on for the best course of action and how to approach the situations they have been handed. An excellent sense of navigation and a pro at electronics. Don't be mistaken by her looks though, she is strong minded and knows how to stick up for herself.

James Ridict

A young teen saved by Johnny on the first day of the outbreak. James rather run that stay and fight. Although cannot contribute much towards the fighting aspect, he has a decent ammount of knowledge cooking from classes he took before everything changed. Is often joked apon by the team for his deep interest in conspiracy theories. Although confused from all that's going on, his heart is in the right place. Will help the team with whatever he can.

Johnny Curfield

(Left is the main clothes, right is without the jacket and shoes)
A young man in his mid 20's. Always tries to look towards the bright side of things and help people in their time of need. Even if it means getting into trouble in the process. A "believer" simply put. Basic knowledge in firearms and hand to hand combat. While not the leader of the group, puts in his share just as everyone does.

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Features:
Advanced Weapons System:
You will have a large amount of weapons to choose from, as well as variants of these weapons. You can hold up to 4 weapons at a time: a Primary weapon, a secondary weapon, a support weapon, a melee weapon, and your fist.
All these weapons will be able to be upgraded and customized. You will be able to use attachments such as extended magazines, grenade launchers, suppressors, flashlights, scopes, LAM's, ect.

Headshot system:
The headshot system will rely on a number of things. 1) the accuracy stats of the weapon you are using. 2) Your level up stats of the weapon you are using. 3) The actions you are doing while firing. For example, if you walk while shooting, the headshot chances will go decrease. But standing still and shooting, it will make it easier to get a headshot. But ducking and shooting, will have more of a chance than the previous two. Stronger weapons such as the desert eagle, will make zombies head explode when you recieve that headshot.

Lock facing:
This is simply for strafing or locking your hero in one direction while you move making it easier to hit your target.

Firearms and stats:
Weapons will be available to buy at the gun shops in the safe city, stolen from destroyed cities, or found off dead enemies. You can use a "RENT" option were you can use one weapon for half price, but only on one mission.Headshots can be achieved, but the chance of getting on depends on a few things. Moving while firing makes less a chance to score a headshot. Secondly, the type of weapon you are using as well as the amount of skill/stats you have with that weapon. For example, you would have a better chance of getting a headshot with a bolt action rifle than a handgun.

Player Stats:

-Stamina:
By upgrading your Stamina (which can be done by walking rather than using vehicles) you will be able to run for longer before getting tired and do more damage with melee attacks. You will also be able to escape from Zombie Grapples much easier, your health bar will grow larger when you level, and it will take few more bites to be infected.

-Firearms Skill:
If you use a weapon for a certain amount of time you will level up and get better with it. This will mean you can get headshots easier with it from being used to the way it "handles". and reloading it will take less time as well as you will be able to draw your weapon quicker.

-Trust/Reputation:
Trust determines your chances of recruiting new people. If you do bad things like killing innocent people and not keeping promises, it will go down. Do enough bad things and survivors in other cities will hear about it and not trust you.

Infection:
There will be an infection percentage each time you get bitten. Depending oh how bad the zombie wounds you the more the percentage will go up. Once the percent reachers 100, you will die, and reanimate as a zombie.
.You can’t do missions while you are a zombie, but you can play as one just for fun. The game will automatically save on every map you enter (unless you’re a zombie) so you can easily reload from where you messed up.

Voice Acting:
Voice acting will be made only for the main cutscenes. I already have a few voice actors recording.

Original Soundtrack.
The music to the game is almost complete.

Battle mode:
Battle mode will be mostly a 2-player feature. In Battle Mode, you can do one of three things. One is Survival mode in which you kill as many zombies as you can before the time runs out. Another is Co-op mode which allows you to play through small missions with objectives with a friend. Finally, there is Brawl Mode. In Brawl mode you go up against another player while fighting off zombies.

Driving system:
In this game, you can drive vehicles that have managed to survive the chaos. Such as jeeps mounted machine guns on the rear that you will be able to use, and if you run out of ammo, you can always just mow’ em down by running them over!

Safehouse System:
With this system, you will be able to take any empty building and convert it into your own, personal fortress. You can barricade the doors and windows with anything you happen to find, but be prepared – Zombies will never give up if there is food inside. You will also be able to set traps. You can also sleep in your safehouse. Sleeping will refill your stanima gauge. However be sure to eliminate zombies that make their way in. Even if they are on a lower level and cant reach you, your sleep will be disturbed and you wont gain as much stanima as you would regulary.

Food:
Food is just used to refill your health.

"Left 2 Die" mode:
A minigame mode parodying the game Left 4 Dead. It will feature 2 characters to choose from, running zombies, lots of ammo to go around, and a few maps to play through.

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Locations:
Generic large united states urban city
-Miami type city
-Small rural towns
-Forest and cabin area
-Plenty of houses, stores, and apartments to go inside of.

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Eliminating Lag
Rpg Maker Xp games are known to have their limits. We are pushing the limit with keeping the game as smooth as possible by careful complex coding. One of the main features to do so is our enemy spawn system. The way it works is instead of randomly placing a large amount of enemy events on screen causing lagtastic gameplay, it is done in a much simpler way of simulating a never ending swarm of hungry zombies. Here are the steps that it does

This system is already completed and I while it is very simple, i feel very accomplished because it feels very fluid.