Zombie Grinder is the debut game of TwinDrills, an indie game development duo made up of Tim 'Infini' Leonard and Jordan 'Jordizzle' Chewning. It's a multi-platform (windows, mac, Linux!) (also Free!) cooperative multiplayer arcade game, reminiscent in style and gameplay of retro games like 'Zombies Ate My Neighbors' and 'Super Smash TV!', but with the added benefit of some newer game mechanics - achievements, ranking, player-customization, rpg style stats and so forth. The game sports a variety of different game modes, from co-operative 'campaign' style levels, to wave maps and even the classic 'pvp' style game modes - deathmatch, capture the 'bag' and so forth. All of these mods are bristling with a variety of weapons and items, all lovingly displayed in Jordan's classic quirky pixel-art style.

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[Wave] Tower Defense (Games : Zombie Grinder : Forum : Modding / Map Design : [Wave] Tower Defense) Locked
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Feb 11 2013 Anchor

Current Status: Complete (Feb 14, 2013)

Version 2: (Released Feb. 14, 2013)

Changelog:

  • I managed to make the game a lot easier by reducing the initial spawn rate of the zombies. Each door used to have an initial rate of 500, this is now reduced to 250
  • Infini showed me how the safe areas can easily be abused. So they are gone now.

With this, I'm saying that this map is officially complete. I'm no longer working on it, and I'll probably wait a bit before I start on the map request. Infini, if you play it and find it acceptable, may you please whitelist it? Thanks. :)



Version 1: (Released Feb. 11, 2013)
Map file: Mediafire.com
Script file: Mediafire.com

Concept:
-
Defend yourself while the only things you can arm yourself with are... turrets!
- Zombies walk down the lines and attack the barriers
- The players are stuck to a small area to ensure certain death if the zombies over-run the barriers too much
- Weapons are nulled to ensure that player is only allowed to use turrets
- The Uzi Turret on the far left is a free pickup turret - however, it takes 200000000+ ticks to respawn it - long story short, it's only meant to be a free turret for the beginning of the game.
- The turrets in the middle are the purchasable turrets. I do want to ensure that there is a delicate balance between the firepower of the turret vs the cost, which is why at the moment, the Uzi Turret costs 2000, Flame Turret costs 4000, and Rocket Turret 6000.
- There is a purchasable Medi-kit for 500 on the right. Okay, since it's very similar to wave_tiny, I don't mind.

Problems:
*
The size. People have complained that the area players run in is too small, even though I'm quite certain that the area of the middle is about the same as wave_tiny. I may have to take some look into this.
* The barriers. At the current moment, the barriers let too many zombies walk through without too many hindrance. I... honestly don't know what on earth I can do about that. I'm not even sure where on earth to start....
* The cost of the turrets. This is where the most complicated part of this map is - as this is what balances this map. At the current moment, the costs are most suitable for a lower number of players, but not as suitable for higher number of players. Yet, for obvious reasons, I can not put the costs too low. So... what should I put them at?
- The layout + design. I know - and I will say what we all think - this map is far too simple and too unimaginative. This map was meant to be a proof of concept map - nothing more. Because of this, I've skimped out on the design (that, and also because... I'm a horrible designer). This is why I'm sharing this map - if anyone wants to take this and make a better designed map, go right ahead.
- The poor accuracy of the Uzi Turret. Because the Uzi Turret (and the Rocket Turret) can only shoot in the 4 cardinal directions and the 4 diagonal directions, the turrets tend to shoot at walls in order to try and get an enemy they can't hit, wasting ammo. This is a non-issue for the Rocket Turret, since that will just blow up anyways and deal an obscene amount of AoE damage.

The first three points are of particular importance since they directly affect the difficulty of the map - which, at the moment, is a little high. If not outrageously or even ridiculously high. I had a group of 6 people, and we couldn't even pass wave 10. Myself soloing can't really go much further than wave 7.

If anyone has any comments, any suggestions..... just.... anything.... please feel free to write a reply or talk to me in game. Cause I feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall right now, and that is definitely not good.

Edited by: sudzzuds

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