A few things, though:

1) It’s a demo! There’s probably 10 minutes of gameplay in this thing, tops. It’s just a taster, a sample. It’s not meant to be a whole game. I desperately wanted to let people know that yes, the game is still in development. The demo is also a platform to deliver feedback on the general feel and direction. Try not to nitpick, but don’t hesitate to offer a comment or two.

2) Read the readme! It contains a list of requirements. Before you start posting that you can’t get it working, make sure you’ve installed all the necessary software and are running the correct operating system. It should go without saying I can’t provide support for anyone running the game under emulation (WINE, VMWare, Mono, etc).

3) Speaking of reading, look at the demo tutorial! If you just jump into the game and are completely lost, be it on your own head. If you read the tutorial and still can’t make heads or tails of things, go ahead and fire some questions.

4) The download is around 8.5MB… just in case that’s going to bust your download limit for the month.

5) Performance. It’s not as fast as it could be, especially when you have a lot of overlapping awareness arcs. Optimising comes much later when the rest of the game is solid.

All I can think of for now. Will probably update this post as I remember stuff.

Download: Zafehouse 2 combat demo

FAQ

When I run Zafehouse 2.exe I get an error about reading game values
Download this replacement executable: http://downloads.zafehouse.com/zafehouse2/z2fix.zip. It should fix the problem.

When I run the game, I get an error about the audio subsystem
To fix this, you’ll need to install the following files:

SlimDX runtime
The latest DirectX 9.0c runtime (note that Windows Vista and Windows 7 do not come with DX9 by default, and having DX10 is not enough!). You can also try the end-user runtime
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 runtime
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 runtime

I’m still getting errors!
We can track down the exact problem using Dependency Walker. If you’re not afraid of a little techiness, download DW, run it and then drag the SlimDX.dll in the Zafehouse 2 directory into the program’s open window. It’ll tell you straight away what’s missing!

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So, if you’d like to keep abreast of developments, sign up to the Zafehouse Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/Zafehouse. For major features or changes, however, I’ll be writing them up here on the blog where there’s more than 140 characters to play with.

For those who haven’t been following Twitter, I’ve finished implementing the new, saner firing code and am charging ahead with the tutorials and general polish.

Not long now…

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Fiddling around with the firing logic too. At the moment, survivors try to guess how many shots it’ll take to kill each zombie in their line of sight, starting with the weakest. I thought it was cool until someone pointed out that it’s not realistic. At all. It’s also annoying when a survivor guesses a zombie should take two shots to kill, they fire those two shots and… one of them misses. Cue unexpected flesh-munching.

What (trained) people usually do when they fire a gun is use bursts. The new firing logic will go “Okay, I’m going to fire x rounds at the closest, weakest zombie I can see. If it dies, move onto something else. Otherwise, fire another burst”. The x is determined by the weapon and experience level of the survivor.

Once the combat demo is out, I’ll be curious to hear how people find the auto target selection/shooting done by survivors. I wanted to add more control, without entirely sacrificing the feel of the first game.

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Truth is, I underestimated how long it would take to debug. I managed to get the demo feature-complete, but the polish just wasn’t there. I’m really disappointed I didn’t get it done, but I’m continuing to work hard to get it out as soon as possible.

On the upside, setting a deadline helped me focus on what was important and it’s looking good. It also made me chop and change parts of the design that weren’t working, and combat plays a lot better as a result.

The biggest change is the addition of awareness arcs. Originally, each weapon had a firing arc that would determine bullet spread. As time went on, this arc made less and less sense, and the only weapon it applied to in any significant capacity was the sub-machinegun. I wanted to keep the arcs, but disconnect them from weapons while buffing their usefulness.

The result is the awareness arc. Each survivor can be in a focused, normal or heightened state of awareness. These states determine the width of that survivor’s awareness arc. A focused arc grants increased accuracy, but reduced defenses against zombie attacks. A heightened arc reduces accuracy, but the survivor has a better chance of avoiding zombie attacks.

The other big change is that zombies not inside an awareness arc are hidden from view. Each combat you will have to sweep the room using your survivors’ awareness arcs and set where each one should look. This means the cop can be focused on killing zombies, while civilians can make sure he doesn’t get attacked from behind. It also reflects that a lone survivor is more likely to be attacked than a group. Survivors are always aware of zombies directly next to them.

Obviously, a focused arc doesn’t let you cover as much of a room as the heightened arc. Survivors will have access to different arc states depending on their experience level, with a character like the cop able to select from all three and newbies being stuck to one (the normal state).

Melee combat is implemented and working, but I’m not 100% happy with how it works. I’m likely going to cut it from the demo, but it will be the first thing I put back in for subsequent releases. Really, the combat demo will represent an alpha test of the game.

I hope you guys can tear it apart and make it even more awesome.

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No, they’re nowhere near as lovable as Quatchi. Then again, what is?

London gets chance to eyeball its 2012 Olympics mascots [The Age]

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In fact, I think it went worse.

Head over to Sekrit to take a look at the now-unfolded story, especially for quotes such as:

I’m just going outside. I may be some ZOMBIES.

And:

Andrew: Church doesn’t matter because extra survivors are now just dead weight.
Sinny: Mercenary bastard.

Enjoy.

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