ZombieBlocks Alpha

[teamtwentythree]

Hey Folks,

Its been a while since I've posted any new content on here. My current project is far enough along that I figure its time to change that.

Basically its a boxel/Minecraft style game but set in more of a traditional zombie survival setting. So no random terrain per se, but there are random buildings. And more emphasis on combat, less on building of grand structures.

Ohh and the zombies can break through walls...
And climb...
And dig...
And create towers of bile to climb up to your house, if it should be floating in mid air...

If you've got an XNA Creators Club membership you can play test it now. The test is basically of one event type, that of a zombie attack on your house/fort/random patch of dirt.

Would love to hear your feedback!

http://catalog.create.msdn.com/en-US/ga ... 643&type=1

[short]

Hey this is awesome! I especially like the zombie models

Looks fantastic!

[dandymcgee]

Yeah sorry, I got caught up when I first saw this topic. Game is looking great man, good luck and let us know what's up!

[teamtwentythree]

Thanks, the zombie models are actually not something I plan on using in the final version, just placeholders for now. Didn't get any feedback from the folks on the XNA side. Thinking about pushing the PC version out for test earlier than planned to try to get more feedback in. Trying to get as much as I can before I start pushing ahead with final art (Which is going to cost me $).

Two new videos available, reshot the trailer and a seperate video showing one of the generated cities. Linking instead of embedding so I can track where views are coming from (YouTube's Embedded player doesn't tell you). Sorry for the inconvienence.

City Flyover

Trailer 2

[superLED]

With better graphics (higher resolution textures on the blocks and such), it would have the potentiality to become a great and fun game. Good luck, you've done a nice job so far.

[dandymcgee]

Linking instead of embedding so I can track where views are coming from (YouTube's Embedded player doesn't tell you). Sorry for the inconvenience.

You could always just add the YT view count to the view count of this topic and assume we all just watched the video and ignored the text. :P

[teamtwentythree]

You could always just add the YT view count to the view count of this topic and assume we all just watched the video and ignored the text. :P

Hehe, yea, I actually went through some of that math to try to figure out where stuff was coming from. But this post has 3x as many views as the videos. XNA's forums don't even offer view counts on their threads. So I'm doing this for this set anyway. Based on what I'm seeing tho I'm not getting much from the XNA side of things so I probably wont bother moving forward.

[dandymcgee]

Hehe, yea, I actually went through some of that math to try to figure out where stuff was coming from. But this post has 3x as many views as the videos. XNA's forums don't even offer view counts on their threads. So I'm doing this for this set anyway. Based on what I'm seeing tho I'm not getting much from the XNA side of things so I probably wont bother moving forward.

Well the two links you just posted have only been up for 2 days, and you probably didn't do much promotion. Just having interesting videos isn't enough. If you want an audience you have to put yourself out there on social sites, through word of mouth, etc.

[teamtwentythree]

Sorry, should have been more clear. I did this math based on the first video at the top. Trying to determine where the traffic came from (This was a ~1 week ago). Thats the video I'm referring to when I say I have 1/3 the views on the video as on this thread. And subsequently I can't tell those views apart from the XNA views which are also done via embedded player. I did a 2nd trailer beacuse I thought it might be the cause for not getting feedback on XNA, people saw the trailer and skipped playing the game. At this point it seems more likely that people aren't even looking at the trailer based on the view counts #2 has recieved since last Friday night when I posted to XNA. Not entirely surprising as only XNA devs can see them, but fewer than I expected TBH.

And yea, not expecting large view counts at this point. Really I'm just looking for enough to get people to test. I wasn't actually going to make the videos public except YouTube didn't seem to want to give me viewer statistics on them until I did. I'm not really pushing the word of mouth until I get final art in. I don't want people to look once, not like what they see and then avoid in the future.

[EdBoon]

Sorry, should have been more clear. I did this math based on the first video at the top. Trying to determine where the traffic came from (This was a ~1 week ago). Thats the video I'm referring to when I say I have 1/3 the views on the video as on this thread. And subsequently I can't tell those views apart from the XNA views which are also done via embedded player. I did a 2nd trailer beacuse I thought it might be the cause for not getting feedback on XNA, people saw the trailer and skipped playing the game. At this point it seems more likely that people aren't even looking at the trailer based on the view counts #2 has recieved since last Friday night when I posted to XNA. Not entirely surprising as only XNA devs can see them, but fewer than I expected TBH.

And yea, not expecting large view counts at this point. Really I'm just looking for enough to get people to test. I wasn't actually going to make the videos public except YouTube didn't seem to want to give me viewer statistics on them until I did. I'm not really pushing the word of mouth until I get final art in. I don't want people to look once, not like what they see and then avoid in the future.

I wouldn't worry about things like video views, etc. Feedback is a hard thing to ask for because most of the time it is asking for actual work from other people, and if they have no tie into the matter, most of the time they could care less (no offense, just speaking from experience). Especially XNA where a majority of the users are not there to discuss game dev and design, they just want to get the game out to the market with as little work as possible. I'm not saying that is ALL xna users, but most of them. I was able to find a handful of genuine people involved in xna, and that was from peer reviewing 100+ other games, and probably got a return review about 10-20% of the time.

Especially indies, trying to promote or gain interest with video is tough since video is showing mostly art assets as a basis on how someone would judge or form their first impression.

How is this project coming? are you getting some good feedback in play review?