303: How Games Get Zombies Wrong

[xengk]

Someone need to make a zombie mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Limited the availability of gun and ammo, make hardcore rule(food, rest, time) part of the game.
The factions can be enclave of survivors, food and other resource(respawn every few game day) need to be raid from ruins in the wild or from other enclave.

In the game, you can either try to convince the enclave to let you join them or go solo and hole out in said ruins, however risking not only wandering zombie but also raiding survivors.

Upon death, you are scored base on how many game days you survived and supplies you have. And don't forget the achievements! Like avoiding fights for 7 days, manage to hoard supply, generosity to NPC and stuff like that.

 

[Dhatz]

I can't imagine anyone doing the STALKER of zombie games.

 

[whattheblub]

To my mind both dead rising games implemented the points in the article. In both games the zombie outbreak is caused by humans. In the beginning of the first game the survivors are doing fine until the old lady tries to get to her poodle. And in the second game there are multiple points where survivors and not psychopaths are a thread.
Both games feature the need to fight of infection. The first game had overtime mode, which was all about finding a cure. The second game you are constantly trying to keep Katey from turning.
Plus the zombies are a force that can't be stopped since they autospawn.

 

[Zoomy]

http://www.projectzomboid.com/blog/

 

[Narcogen]

This is just a long-winded way of saying that a zombie movie is not the same as a zombie game. In zombie fiction, the danger does indeed come from the threat of infection, or competition with other humans over scarce resources in a devestated world.

In zombie games, the threat comes from the zombies themselves, for which the counter is guns, guns, and more guns.

The two share some elements; namely zombies, although the zombies themselves are not the same across all media.

Zombie games won't become better games by becoming more like zombie movies, or making the zombies in zombie games more like the zombies in zombie movies. Making other humans the real threat in zombie games just makes zombie games more like non-zombie games.

The way out of this conundrum has already been shown by one game: Stubbs the Zombie. In a proper zombie game, you play as the zombie-- which makes it only natural that the real threat comes from humans.

I'm sort of at a loss for what the author expects developers do to differently as a result of these revelations, if anything.

 

[dementis]

I loved this, everything mentioned is why I want a free-roaming survival horror based in a city, where the main gameplay is not killing zombies but staying alive, similar to the hardcore mode of fallout new vegas you have to eat, drink and sleep, but you also need to protect yourself and others (if you choose to group up with others) from other survivors as well as the undead, but you also need to find medical supplies and the like in case of more severe injuries.

In this game if you're bitten you will turn into a zombie and there won't be a quick save feature, it'll be more of a cooperative, persistant online world where your safehouse can be overrun when you're not online, just like you can be attacked by the undead when you're asleep, if you're bitten you can give your items to your friends and you must start a new character and can get the equipment back from your friends or you can find your body and salvage your belongings.

There aren't levels or stats, you're just a human being survive with anything they can and the damage you can do is dependant on the weight of the weapon or the sharpness, or if you're using a gun the usual as ammo type etc and the weapons need to be maintained to remain effective.

Why can no one make a game like this!? It would be like the walking dead and other similar zombie stories but in video game form.

 

[MightyMole]

You know, an english teacher of mine presented me with a theory a while back. He told me he believed that zombies where the manifestation of our fear of drug abuse.

Back when zombies were created, many had irrational fears that their towns youths would be corrupted by marijuana and become stupid, mindless... "zombies". So the premise of the zombie, is that if you don't contain the problem, it will spread to every town in America and cause our entire society to collapse. And so I present to you, "So the premise of the [drug addiction], is that if you don't contain the problem, it will spread to every town in America and cause our entire society to collapse."

So today, we've become much less afraid of Marijuana. Now our zombies represent herion/cocain addicts that have been known to do some crazy things while under the influence of the said drugs. (ex. Tales of police shooting a man hopped up on herion who, despite being shot numerous times, continues to run at them until ultimately brought down.)Suddenly, it would make sense why zombies have gone from slow moving and stupid to driven and fast. Of course theres more ways to connect this, like talking about how you have to shoot them in the head or why, in some cases, only some are infected and not other, but I'm merely presenting this theory to you, not writing a research paper. Feel free to expand on this as much as you want.

I think they need to explore a time setting not often explored in video games: The begining of the outbreak. Take a sandbox game, much like the size of Dead Risin, and fill it with NPCs who do their own scrip, much like normal people would. Somewhere at random in the in game world the zombie infection would begin, starting with one person. Maybe he's in his house with his wife and kids and infects them in their home, and maybe the mailman comes and gets infected and it goes from there. Or maybe a woman NPC in a shopping mall trying on clothes infects the employee helping her, who infects the mall security guard and it goes on from there.

Then you would keep doing whatever you were doing before untill the infection reached you, and you saw some lady getting pulled out of her car and eaten. Being open world they could do a lot of things with this. You could go the Dead Rising approach and go to town, and just go to town on the zombies, or you can try to escape the infection, or maybe you just sit on your roof with some beer and a handgun and take the Romero approach and shoot some neighbors you never really liked. Of course, I'm not a game designer so I don't exactly know how advanced they'd be able to make these NPCs, but its just a thought.

This post is getting way too long so to wrap it up...

TL;DR
I think zombies represent drug addicts so I don't really mind them being all fast and everything... Hey it'd be cool for a game to take place at the begining of the infection, wouldn't it?

 

[Mantonio]

What about FUN though? You remember FUN, right?

There's a reason there aren't many zombie games about hiding in a cupboard reflecting on the human condition. Mainly because that would be really bloody boring.

 

[Chris646]

I really love how this article was written. It had an upbeat tone yet an important message.

 

[Dork Angel]

I think playing Fallout New Vegas on hardcore mode with zombies would be pretty cool (much like Red Dead Redemption did with Undead Redemption). You're really just swapping Post Nuclear War Apocalypse for Zombie Plague Apocalypse. Swap radiation with some sort of infection rating. Change the animals to zombies and add lots more of them. The different factions are just groups of survivors. Survival is about scavenging for food, finding safe places to sleep. Making contact with other survivors and gaining their trust. Companions could react to your infection rating by either fleeing or attacking you. Settlements would refuse to let you enter if your infection rating is too high. Dead companions would join the zombie horde. Make it something that effects mammals as well as humans and you can add zombie animals as well. Your main mission might be just to find out what happened as opposed to any sort of cure. Want to go extra mean, have it that once you're infected you will eventually die, taking anti-biotics will stop the infection for a set amount of time then they wear off. Want to be less mean, your mission is finding a cure.

 

[XT inc]

Its the devs fault for not trying to convey the kind of worlds people are into. It's survivor horror, and yet you always play the swat team, or the person with the right kind of checkered past to get through it.

As it stands now though, no one conveys the danger of the zombies secondary and tertiary threats to your life, you aren't just trying to not get bit, you are trying to live. Which is pretty hard to do when ghouls are around every corner, there is no supplies, you have to revert to a survivalist mode, which most people have zero background in. If average Joe were to wake up and the power, water and electricity were off after a huge party and there was no food and his car broke down. What is he going to do about it with what he knows, now compare that against zombies massing the streets. This my friends is day one of an average guy in a zombie world.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

I think there's a lot of potential for a story-driven, single player game based in a zombie apocalypse, in which you struggle to survive, need to find food and shelter, and must avoid close contact with zombies to avoid being bitten/infected. It would be a very different game to a fast-paced FPS like Left 4 Dead though, obviously.

And regarding L4D, that game did had a great atmosphere partially because everything was in the dark and the survivors really sounded like they were frighten and disgusted by the creatures that were hunting them. That's mainly the reason why I prefer the original. I mean, 4 people having fun shooting zombies in broad day light? It's the fucking apocalypse not some day off work.

I agree completely sir. I liked Left 4 Dead 2 despite that, but the first game is a far better concept and I still enjoy it more.

haha, the captcha this time is "infectious". How appropriate.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I've never really believed in a threat from a creature that lacks cognitive conditioning. A creature that cannot think and develop strategy cannot become a predator. Ants for example reproduce naturally so mass numbers can be a strategy for survival, zombies don't survive, they just 'consume'(can't digest so eventually they won't be able to cram any more brains down their throats).

Comparing zombies to natural disasters is an interesting concept, they even share the same cons as a life ending entity:

People survive, even the greatest natural disasters only take out a small number of us and if we're prepared for it(hurricane), it has even less effect.

Also, as an unthinking entity, basic defense stops them in their tracks. A wall will stop zombies, guaranteed, because climbing is a problem solving skill that zombies can't develop. Granted, without a functioning nervous system, they shouldn't be able to stand due to an inability to feel balance.

 

[concrete89]

The analogy of pinball has a serious flaw.
Pinball is a terrible, boring, repetitive game. No one likes to play pinball, unless thay are rurned on by blinking lights.

 

[LogicNProportion]

This is probably the best-written and best-thought-out article I've ever read on The Escapist.

Kudos.

 

[KazOondo]

Minecraft sure gets zombies right.

 

[Maxman3002]

I have just 1 thing to say that covers all those points:

www.die2nite.com

The game that is a perfect zombie survival experiance. Free and multiplayer!!

 

[Moeez]

Zombies are fictional creatures used as a plot device. From the original night of the living dead, to shawn of the dead, zombies only exist as an unusual circumstance for character interaction. In games that interaction is usually combat. Solving the world's problems by shooting zombies is a fun excuse to shoot something. If you want a psudo-realistic zombi game, go play rebuild on Kongregate.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/sarahnorthway/rebuild?acomplete=rebuild

Thanks, that is an exceptionally fun and unnerving game! I'm on Day 26, doing fine with lots of food, but I need more recruits and hope they become builders. It got pretty intense when I only had 1 pack of food! Thankfully, I can save the game and quit to strategise another day.

Thanks, once again for the recommendation.

 

[geizr]

Some interesting points that are poorly communicated, in my opinion. However, there is one major point that I think the author misses about the basic nature of current gaming. Games are designed and constructed as amusement-park thrill rides; the intent is always to have fun and escape from reality. Now granted, this, I feel, is the prime reason it is difficult for gaming to ever gain any credibility as an artistic medium(and will certainly have extreme difficulty being taken seriously as a medium for education or information), this is simply how games currently are done, and it is how the gaming community currently desires games to be done. If the expectation ever changes to more use games as a means to explore reality(something which they definitely have the potential to do), rather than solely to run away from it, then the ideas here may be more reasonable to implement. But, as it stands, a zombie horror game that truly mimics what a zombie apocalypse would actually be like would just not be much fun, and fun, because of the thrill ride expectation of games, is the entire point of gaming.

Gaming, as a medium, has lots of potential for many different possibilities and experiences. There have been many comments on a lot of different alternate ways games can be designed to elicit different reactions, different modes of expression, different experiences, and experimentation with reality. All these things are possible, but they will likely not be realized because games are always treated, constructed, and expected to be amusement-park thrill rides.

EDIT: I just felt I need to clarify that I don't think there is anything wrong with the creation of games as thrill rides. However, I feel that to make more credible what the author is proposing, we need to expand our thinking and expectation of gaming beyond being just being a thrill ride. We need to realize games can be much more.