State of the Chaos: The zombies are Alive!

Meet Jane, distant cousin to Zombie Jill. Jane looks like she had a rough day at the gym and was ready for Netflix and chill when the plague hit. She’s still in her comfy tank top shirt and yoga pants. In zombie world, she is ultra comfortable and ready to long walks down dark alleys and ice cream brains.

Jane has been with me since almost the beginning. She’s a special zombie full of life and adventure. She loves exploding barrels and ragdolling effects. In the testing videos you’ve never really had the chance to see her up so close. I figured she deserved that much considering all her hard work. As far as her “brains”, her core AI (Artificial Intelligence), it’s done (this time, yes really). Granted there are bugs, but the core AI functionality is complete.

The biggest challenge was adapting the AI for Apex Path. But that solution was a mess from the beginning. All the videos showed how awesome it was, but the documentation was absolutely atrocious. The Grid layout blocked perfectly walk-able paths because there was an overhead object, like a pipeline. This was a very needed solution because as I edge closer to Procedural generated levels, dynamic paths and overhang ability was critical. This past Friday I made the decision to remove it and go straight NavMesh. Honestly, the Unity3d Navmesh isn’t all that bad. The only real adaptation was getting the Wandering function to work without the need for waypoints. It was an extra function and off we go to the wonders of wandering zombies. The zombies now have a consistent speed in their different States as well. It was a big win to go backwards. I’m happy to say it wasn’t as big of a setback as I’d anticipated.

As the above video shows, the zombies can hear and will mosey on over to investigate. If they see the player, they’ll pick up the pace and give chase. Oddly enough, the switch to Navmesh fixed the inconsistent speeds with Apex Path. I only really needed to change a few functions and add in my own Quaternion rotation to face targets. I’m so bad at Quaternions, but they sound so cool.

Immortal Realm

This was the primary project until I ran into a wall with the Character Controller, Inventory, quest system…. all working together. Thankfully a solution was discovered searching for a completely different asset. I do believe I was looking for hats or funky steampunk glasses. So Immortal Realm is now migrating towards being an MMORPG. Granted, aside from being one hell of a mouthful to say “Massively multiplayer online role-playing game” I have nothing against MMO’s. I grew up with them, I love playing them and now I’m going to make one.

Immortal Realm will feature a Skill Based combat system that skills level up with use. Crafting is a definite now. Basically everything you expect from an MMO will be in there, including character creation and customization. Initially we’ll be on the island featured in the videos and as the game grows, more islands will be added. This will all be written into the story line and well, I’m really excited to be doing this. Excited that Immortal Realm has a bright future.

Their own websites

I have the domains registered and soon updates for each individual game will be featured on their own page. Chaos Rift Games will become more business professional and oriented towards “company” news and happenings. Links to the games to all go to their individual websites and everything will be much better off and less cluttered for it.

Funding

As always, I’m open to funding by “rich individuals or companies that have a few $hundred K or $million they don’t mind losing”. We’re planning a Kickstarter Campaign early 2019 and are ramping up demos and game information up to the event.

Thank you and till next time.