Well, that's broken...

Just finished adding the new multi-part humans/zombies to the game and, as expected, performance took a major, major hit. At the previous human and zombie cap (15 and 45) the game was using 108% of the iPad's processor power and only running at about 4 frames per second. After lowering the numbers to 5 and 15, the game regains an acceptable frame-rate.

I'm done coding for the day.

Tomorrow I am going to spend most of the day trying to optimize the performance with a target of 30 zombies and 10 humans on screen at once. If I can't reach at least this number, I am going to have to scrap the multi-part zombies. The old zombies and humans will still be receiving new textures, and  I will make it so that zombies are simply made out of two parts, heads and bodies. The arms and legs will likely stay attached to the model and I will remove all physics operations from them. I guess the iPad 1 just isn't powerful enough to manage 360 rigid bodies at once. Go figure.

New Zombies!

That's right, we have new zombies/humans! With a complete textural overhaul as well as multiple detachable body parts! This also means 6 5 times more blood particles! Now if only I could figure out a way to make them color the ground as they land... Despite what I said in an earlier post this graphical update will be going live before the "Upgrade Shop" update.

With this update there will also be a complete overhaul of the control system as I have received feedback that the controls weren't clear and or fun enough. The main change is the removal of the forward and reverse direction on the joystick. The car will now be constantly going/accelerating forward, you will only be able to steer left and right. That's right, no brakes. I feel that this adds to the "arcadey" feel of the game and makes it much more hectic. The intent of the original version was that the car would never stop moving so it now seems counter-intuitive to have given the player the ability to stop/reverse.

Oh, and there will also be some form of mute button so that you can listen to your own music while you are playing. I'm not sure at the moment if I will be able to mute sound effects and music separately or if I will just have to toggle all sounds for the time being.

Old Texture

New Texture Sheet

Oh, and lasers...maybe, maybe not, we'll see. 

Super Lasers!

As always, if you are reading this, and have $0.99 to spare, buy the game?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/have-car-kill-zombies!/id501357751?mt=8

The Future!

With the first day's sales numbers trickling in and the possibility of people actually visiting this "Dev-Blog" I figured it was as good a time as any to give some brief insight into the future of "Have Car? Kill Zombies!"

Some features to look forward to in the coming week/s:

•  Gameplay - A few new gameplay features:

1. The main feature of the first update (as in the first update will ship as soon as this feature is complete) is the addition of an in-game upgrade shop. I'm not talking about in-app purchases or micro-transactions. While playing the game, you will earn points/currency that you can spend to upgrade various aspects such as car acceleration, human spawn rate, human hit-points, etc.
2. Story Mode? After I have implemented the upgrade shop and the better zombies (see below) I am tossing around the idea of adding a story/campaign mode. However, this is a very low priority. The game is intended to be a quick, fun, arcade game that you can pick up and play for 5 minutes at a time and a story mode just doesn't really seem to fit in with that model.
3. Power-ups: Either bundled with the Upgrade Shop update or shortly thereafter I am planning on adding power-ups that the player can pick up.

• Mute button - I can't believe I left this out of the first version. In the next update you will have the ability mute all game sounds. *facepalm*

• Better Graphics - The graphics will be updated bit by bit over the course of several updates:

1. More backdrops
2. Better icons (if that's possible)
3. Better Zombies: Originally cut for performance reasons, the zombies (and humans) were made up of several different pieces (arms, legs, heads, torso) and would "explode" if you hit them hard enough. As you can imagine, this multiplies the number of objects on screen by a factor of 5 which really slows down the game. I've been working on optimizing some sections of code and balancing the number of units on screen at any given time. This is one of the main updates that I am hoping to include within the first couple of weeks.

• Sound - So far, I've heard mostly all good things about the music and sound effects. However, I am working on some new tracks to go with the new backdrops mentioned above.

Launch Day!

After 4 hours short of 7 days, Have Car? Kill Zombies finally left the "Waiting for Review" period and went under review by Apple. Literally 10 minutes later, the app was accepted and is now live on the app store!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/have-car-kill-zombies!/id501357751?mt=8

Pick it up today for only $0.99!



 

Version 1.0.1

Welcome to the support site for "Have Car? Kill Zombies!"

Version 1.0.1 will hopefully be going live on the Apple iOS AppStore in the next couple of days.


Feel free to post any comments, questions, feedback, suggestions, etc.

Title Screen