Krooked Gaming

So I wanted to add a connection bar to the scoreboard that players can pull up while the game is running. Unfortunately it’s a bit more of a pain to do than I hoped due to the nature of how online games on Xbox Indie Games works.

While all communication goes through Microsoft, it is essentially a peer to peer connection with no central server we can control. We could have chosen to make one player the Host that runs everything but in AOTZH 2 I wanted to share the work CPU and bandwidth wise amongst all the players. Doing this allows us to have more players and most importantly bigger hordes of zombies

The problem is, when showing on the scoreboard how good each player’s connection is we can’t just have our user ping every other user and display that result. If we did this, when our connection is bad, it’ll show every players’ connection as bad. Because there is no central independent server for each player to check their connection against, the only solution I can think of at the moment is to have every player test their connection against every other player and then report back an average (or median) connection quality to everyone. This is unfortunately starting to become a rather messy process and is making me think if I should bother with it at all, there may be more important jobs to put time into.

Just another one of the mini hurdles that seem to crop up that I thought I’d share.

So I was considering what I should display in the scoreboard you can pull up while playing by holding (or pressing) the back button on the controller.

I decided it’d be a good idea to boot up a few Xbox classics and see what users will likely expect to be in there. I pulled a few games out of the drawer:

* Modern Warefare 2

* Left 4 Dead 2

* Halo 3

* Gears of War 2

Some old games in there I know but they were handy and it’s interesting to see what survives after a little time has passed.

I found Modern Warefare 2 to be pretty good. Have to admit I’ve played quite a bit of Black Ops and they do a good job of things. Halo 3 was a bit of a waste of time (way too old).  GoW was OK, but quite hard to get an online game going, most servers it seemed I needed DLC, so I just played vs bots (only wanted to see the display anyway).

Then came L4D. This is a game I played a fair bit of on the PC and when it came out quite a bit on the Xbox too. Unfortunately it seems either I’ve gotten really rusty or L4D players kick you out in a heartbeat. No sooner was I on a server would I see a vote coming up to kick me within 60 seconds… harsh I thought but then again I may have fallen off a cliff once within 5 seconds… *cough* … You know some times it’s hard being a game developer!

So anyway, here is what I’ve settled on for now

Things are going well on AOTZH2. While some developments are a little difficult to show, this one is perfect:

We plan on letting users define four phrases they can say during the game in a little speech bubble. Start thinking up your new catchphrase!

So after a lot of adjustments, I think I’m finally happy with the new HUD:

While I have a few concerns about how complicated it may look to new users, it does contain a lot of useful information. Starting from the top down:

- Power up abilities (black circle with icon)

- Health (green bar)

- Stamina (blue bar)

- Ammo (white bar)

- Special ability ready (icon left of health bar)

Player names will appear below the player when the B button is held down and there will be an additional graphic displaying under the player when they change weapon, disappearing a few moments later.

Not sure it’s absolutely perfect, but I’m quite happy with it, especially given no additional HUD display elements are required in the corners of the screen

For quite some time we have been playing with different layouts for the HUD (the part of the screen showing your score, health, ammo etc.) and it is a rather tricky one. Too little information and it loses value and forces players to make less well informed decisions. Too much information and it becomes too complex leaving the important information lost in a sea of numbers, icons and bars…

There is quite a few things we could potentially show in our HUD but ultimately we’ve gone for:

- Name

- Score

- Health

- Special Weapons Available

- Ammo remaining in clip (not entirely crucial but very helpful due to reloads)

- Power-ups

The player’s name is obviously vital. While in AOTZH we used the avatar, for AOTZH2 I’m planning on using the user name as it takes up less screen space and players can see through it more easily so doesn’t get in the way as much. I’m still not overly happy about the having to display it in 2 places however.

When it comes to the score, I really want AOTZH2 to focus on co-operative team play so we’ll have one unified score for all players. As there is no need to repeat the same score in each corner for every player, it makes sense to have one central place for it.

While in AOTZH we put a health bar in the HUD, I’ve decided against it for AOTZH 2. I find when I’m playing, the times I need to look at my health the most (when I’m in trouble) are the very times I can least afford to take my eyes off the player. As such I think it makes sense to keep the health bar directly under the player so you don’t have to take your eyes off him at the most crucial times to see how much health you have.

Special Weapons are simply something that needs to be displayed, otherwise players just won’t know what’s available to them . While it takes up valuable real estate, it’s hard to avoid including it.

Bullets remaining in your clip is something that is not completely vital to show. We showed it in Santa and the Zombie Encounter but left it out in AOTZH. I do like displaying it however as it makes for a more tactical decision on when to reload and I think that gives it just enough importance to justify the space it takes up.

AOTZH 2 will feature temporary power-ups you can pick up as you play (lasting 12 seconds or so). These power-ups will increase your reload speed, increase your walk speed, etc. While ideally these wouldn’t take up any HUD space and maybe instead have an aura around the player, it’s proven quite difficult to come up with suitable graphics for them without things descending into a bit of a mess. The cleanest solution seems to be to have an icon that appears when you are under one of the effects. I’ve yet to decide if the icon should be under the player themselves or in the corner of the screen with the rest of the HUD data, I think under the player is a little more useful.

So there you have it, the new layout of the HUD and some of the reasons behind it in AOTZH 2.

The final game will of course use nicer HUD graphics and font

For development updates: Follow @dtkrooked

I thought it might be a good idea to make a quick post about Attack of the Zombie Horde 2 (AOTZH 2) and its development. We’ve had a lot of questions about it and I’d just like to give those interested a quick(ish) idea of how we’re getting on with it.

Overall AOTZH 2 development is going very well. I can confirm that it will include XBox LIVE multi player so you can play online with your friends and others. This was probably the most requested feature from all the contact we had with fans and something we too always wanted to add. The network end of things needed to make that possible was quite a sizable job, particularly for a game like AOTZH 2 where there can be 200+ enemies alive at any one time. I might make a more detailed post about it at some point but the good news is that all the major network/online problems have been solved and it is now working beautifully

Other changes include:

-  Player loadout (equipment): interesting selection of weapons and equipment to suit the way you want to play and complement your friends.

- Control Changes: new control system to go with the new player loadout that should be easier to use.

- Monster AI: overhauled, adding a very quick and efficient path finding system.

- Destructible Walls, Buildings and Barricades: Currently experimenting with a way to make use of it that’s fun and has replay value.

- Environment and Monsters Graphics: AOTZH 2 will be taking place in a new location, so all monster and environmental had an overhaul.

- A host of other misc. changes to make the whole experience more engaging and interesting.

So how long until you can get your hands on AOTZH 2? We’ve not set a release date just yet, but you can follow the progress as it happens right here: Follow @dtkrooked

If you have any comments, suggestions or other feedback feel free to catch me on twitter or drop us a mail (enquiries@krookedgaming.com), we love hearing feedback big or small and you could make the difference in having a feature you’d love to see in AOTZH 2 a reality

With VIP Jets at last completed and live on the Apple marketplace, we’re delighted that we can now dedicate our efforts to finishing our long awaited sequel to Attack Of The Zombie Horde.

We’ve received some really great feedback from our fans over the last year and if you happen to be one of them, you’ll be pleased to know that we’re throwing some wild stuff into this one. Yes indeed… we’re looking forward to delivering something truly special for you.