It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally done enough work on Zafehouse 2’s second combat prototype to post a couple of screenshots.

As I mentioned in a previous update, the original combat implementation was ground into a fine, code-tasting dust and packed away, replaced by an infinitely deeper (and juicier) solution that uses firing arcs.

Entering into combat hasn’t changed – you still click on the event in the event window – and the representation of the room is similar too. The difference is that zombies are no longer shown as one large group, they’re now broken up into individual flesh-eating nasties. Weapons have also evolved, the far/close/melee profiles exchanged for variable firing arcs and shot modes. For example, the shotgun has a wide firing arc and shoots pellets in a spread, but it can only fire once per turn and has a short range. A submachine gun on the other hand has a medium firing arc and range, but you can shoot up to six bullets at one or multiple targets. Keep in mind that each bullet fired in the same turn reduces the accuracy of the shot that follows it.

Hit the jump for an additional screenshot which show projectiles in flight. Yes, I said projectiles.

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Zafehouse has its second user-made modification, thanks to flap on the game’s official forums.

Based on the v1.82 source code released recently, Zafehouse Infection amps up a number of features of the game, while adding a few new things for you (and I suppose, the undead) to sink your teeth into.

Version 1.0 is already up and available for play, and includes the following changes:

- Infection is now contagious, but there is a small chance to heal it.

- Weapons can be loaded automatically, and when giving a range weapon to someone, is it automatically loaded with one box.

- Barricades higher than heavy block survivors movement

- It is possible to weaken barricades to recover some supplies

- Survivors fighting alongside family members [survivors with the same surname] get an attack and defense bonus

- A survivor can only be cured once per hour.

If you’d like to help flap out, or just give his version a whirl, head over to the progress log on the forums, or check out the list of planned changes and ideas.

Zafehouse Infection V1.00 – Fan edition – Progress Log [Zafehouse forums]

If you take a gander at Zafehouse 2’s media section at the official Zafehouse website, you’ll notice a bunch of fresh screens from the latest build of the game. Combined, the shots demonstrate combat, the day/night cycle, trade window, furniture destruction and a heap of UI updates over the first gameplay video.

All the thumbnails can be clicked for larger versions, if squinting isn’t your thing, and I can assure you they want to be clicked. By you. Right now.

Zafehouse 2 – Media [Zafehouse]

Because they’re funny, mostly!

Something Awful’s devout followers have mused on the prospect of a world where classic gaming concepts are awarded their own learning-orientated literature, and crafted a series of Photoshops to illustrate their findings. I found the Health Recovery one (shown here) to be among the best, though a few other gems await you in SA’s Comedy Goldmine.

Video Game High School [Something Awful]

By far the coolest thing you’ll see all day and, most likely, all week.

Back to the Future Delorean Crysis Mod [YouTube]

Yes, I decided it was finally time to give Zafehouse.com a brand new skin. It was coded in a day (phew) and uses Wordpress as a CMS, and it seems to be working fine. I have a sneaking suspicion it breaks in older version of Internet Explorer, but I’ll get round to fixing that.

For now, Firefox and Chrome love it, and that suits me just great. Go take a look!

Zafehouse [Official site]

The global financial crisis continues to disembowel the Australian games development scene, with reports suggesting up to 60 employees have been cut from local stalwart Krome.

The cuts have been confirmed by Krome’s CEO Robert Walsh, in a statement to Australian Gamer:

These cuts, while incredibly difficult as they affect the co-workers we consider friends, are necessary as we position Krome for the future. We’re also actively pursuing several business opportunities which, if secured, will enable Krome to reemploy some of the staff given notice.

All three of Krome’s studios have been hit – its Brisbane presence lost 30 people, 16 are gone from Melbourne, and Adelaide is weaker by 14, according to comments on Tsumea, a networking and news site for Australian developers. If these numbers are accurate, the Adelaide studio took the brunt of the damage, relatively speaking – it’s original complement was just 36.

Krome’s titles include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Wii and a number of games in the Spyro series.

All the best to the employees affected. Many say the economy is well into recovery, but personally, I find it hard to see the truth of this given the current state of our industry.

The latest round of redundancies [Tsumea]
Krome Studios official statement [Australian Gamer]

BigPond, the ISP arm of telco Telstra, is closing the doors on its virtual island in Second Life. What’s a lot more interesting is that Second Life traffic (that is, downloads and uploads between players of the game and its servers) will now be flagged as metered usage for BigPond subscribers.

Unmetered usage is one of those big features you look for in an ISP. Internode, for example, has unmetered downloads to its gaming servers and site, so users can grag patches (which can be 100s of MB in size) and play Counter-Strike without it eating into monthly allowance.

According to a Telstra spokesperson, this should only affect 2000 of its clients; the regular players of the game. I’d be a bit angry if I’d signed up to BigPond just for the unmetered Second Life traffic, but I’d also be just as crazy for signing up to Telstra in the first place. It’s no mystery the ISP is a joke when it comes to pricing, and if you really, really love Second Life, I’d take this as an omen to hitch up with Internode, iiNet, or one of a dozen other much better providers.

BigPond pulls plug on Second Life [The Age]

Titillating gaming news I’ve come across in the last couple of days. Some old, some new – all pants-bulging!

Ikari Warriors Publisher Passes On [gamesindustry.biz]

After a lengthy battle with illness, businessman and civic leader Leland P. Cook Jr. passed away on Friday, November 6, 2009. He was 75. Gamers might find this significant as Cook was one of the founders of Tradewest, the now-defunct video game publisher that reached prominence in the mid-‘80s.

When Pundits Attack: Game Sales vs Game Quality [Chris' Survival Horror Quest]

This means that there is a correlation between game quality and sales which can be stated thusly: bad games do not sell. This does not mean that good games always sell, just that bad games cannot be saved by marketing. The data also suggests that the games that sell the most have to not only be really good, they also have to be marketed heavily. The conclusion is not that marketing is irrelevant, only that its powers are limited without the help of high quality game play.

The End of Hit Points [Trembling Hand]

While it stretches plausibility for an individual to take more than one hit from a mace (although Conan was known to shrug them off, to some degree), it is utterly suspension of disbelief-breaking to weather several hits from a phaser.

I don’t have anything super huge to divulge this update, but I can say that, after many requests, I’ve added outside movement to Zafehouse 2. This means instead of taking a turn to move from one edge of the map to the other, it’s looking closer to five or six turns, as you dodge between buildings and the inevitable (and darn hungry) undead.

Currently, you can only move to entrances and zombie “hotspots”, as I didn’t really see the need to position survivors outside in the middle of nowhere. If someone can give me a really (really) good reason why it should be any different, I’ll think about it.

Implementing outside movement required me to confront my fear of A* pathfinding and, while it was a tortuous and many times frustrating endeavour, my work paid off.

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