Zombie Stress 2 Mapping Theory feature

With Zombie Stress having a relative success but getting some bad reviews in a gaming magazine I thought that, on starting to approach Zombie Stress 2 development there had to be a lot more work going into the creation of the Zombie Stress 2 mod/maps.

So I decided to have a ponder and I came up with some points about the game play that separated it from other modifications that are more commonly produced, especially zombie mods.

1. No Story. I didn’t want a mod that was filled with some cliché story about some virus that had escaped or something and had swept the population. Zombie Stress is about relieving stress in as many ways as possible.
2. No puzzles. This is something that I think failed about Zombie Stress 1, the second and third maps had puzzles and objectives to complete. Thus meaning that they were stressful to play. The player should be given loads of zombies and as many amusing ways to kill them as possible. Ranging from crowbar mutilation to extremely powerful weapons.
3. Adaptive Maps. The maps in Zombie Stress 2 need to be adjustable for each player. So there are options of how a player can play them. The player can call in re-enforcements, use turrets, run out and take down the zombies using a crowbar or just constant gun to head crab devastation.

Now with the main points of the maps down I wanted to think more about the actual mod in the way of a community. I wanted people to be able to add maps to Zombie Stress 2 so that there could be map packs for it so that the number of stress relieving maps could be increased as people submitted their maps. So instead of the linear map listing found in normal mods and Half Life 2 games, I wanted it to just be a big list with screenshots of the maps like in Garry’s mod meaning that they can change the map at any time.

As well as that I also want the mod to be playable to everyone who owns a Half Life game. So I didn’t want the mod to use an Episode 1 or 2 (or eventually 3) source engine. I wanted it to be a Half Life 2 engine so that anyone owning a copy of Half Life 2 and its Episodes could play the mod. Meaning that we do not cut down on our possible audience.

The Maps

With the above points considered I decided on some ideas for what possible map types could be. With the player being able to select how they played the maps I wanted a range of different ways to get some serious zombie killing done.

So I came up with

1. Tunnelling. Essentially there is a tunnel with the zombies at one end and the player at the other. Easy and constant battle meaning that the player can keep up a stream of constant gun fire and not be surrounded by the zombies.
2. All Around You. For those who enjoy a massive street like battle I considered having the player start on a raised platform in the middle of an area where they could see all around them and shoot in all different directions, along with a higher platform on that from which to hurl all sorts of things onto the heads of the zombies below.
3. Battlefield. This was for those people who like to run screaming into a mosh pit of zombies and fight like the used to do in medieval times (but with more advanced weaponry). This map could encompass a type of kill one get a team mate on your side type style. So if the player kills a zombie he gets a team mate and if a zombie kills a Non Player Character (NPC) they get another zombie. So that in the end they overwhelm one side and onto victory.
4. Vehicle Mania. The vehicle part of Half Life 2 episodes is an enjoyable part of the game. So why not give the player the vehicles and let them ride around the track running over zombies?

They were the main four ideas for map styles which can be adjusted and changed and even added in prior to its final release.

Each map would also have a certain area which the player could continuously return to, meaning that they could get out some turrets, get some ammunition back or make some changes to the map. This would be known as the “ship” area until a better name could be selected. The door to it would be part of a wall making it a bit secretive as well as meaning that there could be multiple places in a map that a player could enter to get back to their base should they be a long way from it and be out of ammo.

Weaponry

The Half Life 2 weapons are fun to play with, but their ammo stock is low or their reload time is too long. I would adapt the weapons, like I did in Zombie Stress 1 so that the player could have more ammo and do more and more damage. Hopefully a coder would be able to sort out some reloading times so that it wouldn’t take so long to reload your weapons.
Along with this I also wanted to get some more weapons in the game, some more custom ones. Adding more firepower and fun to the game play level.