Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid

Boxshot of Project Zomboid
Developer(s) The Indie Stone
Publisher(s) The Indie Stone
Director(s) Andy "Binky" Hodgetts, Marina "Mash" Siu-Chong, Will "Velvet Owl" Porter, Chris "Lemmy" Simpson
Programmer(s) Chris "Lemmy" Simpson, Romain Dron, Tim Baker, Andy "Binky" Hodgetts, Paul Ring
Artist(s) Marina "Mash" Siu-Chong, Andy "Binky" Hodgetts
Writer(s) Will "Velvet Owl" Porter
Composer(s) Zach Beever
Engine In-house engine
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Mac OS
Linux
Genre(s) Role-playing, Survival Horror
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer
Distribution Download

Project Zomboid is an open world survival horror video game in alpha stage development by independent developer The Indie Stone. The game is set in a post apocalyptic, zombie infested world where the player is challenged to survive for as long as possible before inevitably dying. It was also one of the first five games released on the alpha funding section of the gaming portal Desura.[1]

The Indie Stone were subject to a high-profile setback within the indie gaming community following the theft of two laptops containing code for Project Zomboid. Since then Project Zomboid has appeared on Steam Early Access and continues development to this day. Project Zomboid is The Indie Stone's first commercially released game.[2]

Gameplay

The aim of Project Zomboid is to survive as long as possible while knowing death is inevitable, in the zombie ridden Knox Country, which has been quarantined by the government.[3] The player has to manage such things as hunger, tiredness, pain and mental stability to stay alive. To do this, players must scavenge for supplies to keep themselves alive for another day, while avoiding the roaming zombies. The game uses the traditional, Romero style, slow moving zombies, though certain zombies are faster than others.

The game itself features three modes, survival mode, sandbox, and last stand mode. In survival mode the player creates a character and survives as long as possible in either Muldraugh or West Point in Knox County. In survival all zombies walk or crawl and spawning is automatically set. The sandbox mode allows players to change between very slow zombies, normal zombies, and sprinting zombies. The player can also change item spawning, heat, rain amounts, zombie spawning, and NPC spawning although NPCs are not yet implemented. In last stand mode the player must survive against either waves of zombies or a steady flow of zombies, earning cash for killing zombies that they can spend on ammunition and weapons. When creating a character the player must choose a profession, each with its own perks, and then choose the character's traits. Each trait has a points value assigned to it, either positive or negative, depending on if it is a good trait or a bad one. The player begins with zero trait points available and thus needs to choose a bad trait to gain points to use on good traits.

The current stable version of the game, known as build 29.4, uses 3D models for the player and zombies, depending on graphics settings, and hand drawn building and map models.

Work continues on build 30, the latest version of the game.[4][5][6]

Development

The game was first released in April 25th, 2011 as tech demo. As of Nov 8th, 2013 Project Zomboid has been available under Steam's Early Access program. As of Feb 10th 2014 the Indie Stone is making available a multiplayer version of the game through Steam.

Problems

The Indie Stone have been notably plagued with problems while creating Project Zomboid.[7]

Code Theft

On October 15, 2011, a flat owned by two developers of the game was broken into. Two laptops were stolen from the flat, containing large amounts of the initial game code had been backed up externally onto one of the laptops. This resulted in severe delays to the game development. [8][9] Due to this setback, they gave a presentation at Rezzed entitled "How (not) to make a video game", going over some of the lessons they have learned since starting the project.[10]

Piracy

Soon after its initial release as a paid pre-alpha tech demo, the game was leaked, and spread illegally to many other websites.[11] The pirated copies enabled auto-updating from the Project Zomboid‍ '​s servers, and unable to bear the costs, The Indie Stone took the customer-only paid version offline,[12] and instead, released a free "public tech-demo" for download.[13]

Funds frozen by PayPal and Google Checkout

While working on Project Zomboid, The Indie Stone initially had their account frozen by PayPal,[14] totalling around £4,454.47.[15] This was due to the game only being in Alpha stage development and thus not "a finished good." This was bypassed by negotiation with PayPal and The Indie Stone selling other games, with the Project Zomboid Alpha as a free bonus. This allowed them to continue distributing Project Zomboid, while receiving money for the finished goods.[16] Following this the company decided to also open a Google Checkout site. A month after this was opened it was also frozen[17] with 80% of their funds from transactions within.[18] Following this The Indie Stone were eventually contacted by a member of Google Checkout and their account unfrozen.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Greg (14 September 2011). "Alphafunding for Indie Games news - Desura". Desura Community. Desura. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  2. ↑ "Games released by The Indie Stone on their IndieDB profile". Indiedb.com. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  3. ↑ Modular Digital Ltd - http://thisismodular.co.uk. "Article on the Project Zomboid website: Survive". Projectzomboid.com. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  4. ↑ http://projectzomboid.com/
  5. ↑ http://projectzomboid.com/blog/2014/05/26-out-proper-on-steam/
  6. ↑ http://projectzomboid.com/blog/
  7. ↑ "Game Developers Who Don’t Hate Piracy Get Screwed By… Piracy". Kotaku article. 20 June 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  8. ↑ "Burglary Delivers Huge Setback to Indie Game Project Zomboid [Updated]". Kotaku article. 16 October 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  9. ↑ Conditt, Jessica. "The Indie Stone is burgled, loses code for latest Project Zomboid update". Joystiq. Joystiq. Archived from the original on 18 June 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  10. ↑ "video of Presentation". Youtube.com. 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  11. ↑ Wesley Yin-Poole (20 June 2011). "Pirates force Project Zomboid offline". Eurogamer. Retrieved 21 August 2011.
  12. ↑
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ "Kotaku articleFrozen Account Further Sours PayPal’s Terrible Reputation with Indie Devs". Kotaku.com. 9 October 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  15. ↑ "The Indie Stone Forums, post by Chris Simpson". Theindiestone.com. 2011-05-23. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  16. ↑ "Project Zomboid’s eureka moment: "we started selling the world’s worst games"". PC Gamer article. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  17. ↑ Project Zomboid article: Google Checkout Woes
  18. ↑ "Google, Can Indie Stone Have Their Money?". Rock Paper Shotgun article. 2011-04-26. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  19. ↑ Project Zomboid article: Happy Days!

External links