Posted: 05-06-06 In: Interviews By: Munro2 |
Tags: Apocalypse, Zombie Master

We recently got a chance to chat with the lovable team of Zombie Master, an upcoming gem of originality in the wasteland of generic zombie apocalypse modifications. Without further ado:

Halflife2.net: First off, for those woefully uninformed; just what is Zombie Master?

Angry Lawyer: Zombie Master is a strategy/shooter modification for Half-Life 2, where a team of humans must survive, and complete a number of objectives, while one player becomes the Zombie Master - an omnipresent being that can summon and control hordes of undead creatures. ?

Pi Mu Rho: Zombie Master is a crossover RTS/FPS mod. With zombies. Lots of zombies. And killing. Killing zombies. Or getting killed by zombies. Different types of zombies. On different maps, with different objectives. Killing. Zombies. Different. Raargh.

Halflife2.net: You're one among a plethora of zombie apocalypse mods for the Source engine. What defines ZM and makes it stand out from the rest of the flock?

Angry Lawyer: As far as I can see, we're the only ones taking the strategy/shooter aspect. Plus, we're actually getting work done and heading towards a release, rather than twiddling our thumbs and showing off unskinned renders [wink].

Pi Mu Rho: Zombie Master is pretty much defined by the strategy element. One player is the Zombie Master, and is in control of the zombie hordes. For everyone else, it's purely survival. Although in most cases, only very briefly. There's also potatoes.

theGreenBunny: I think that to stand out in the current climate of unreleased mods, you need to be either original or very pretty. I don't think Zombie Master is the epitome of originality: zombies have been done before, RTS+FPS has been done before. We're just combining it and it comes out fun. I wouldn't call ZM a graphically strong mod either, seeing as we have about two-thirds of an artist spread out over 2 or 3 people. The good news is that as soon as you release as a mod, you can stand out by simply being fun to play.

Halflife2.net: What stage of development have you reached - that is to say, how much of ZM, content and code-wise, is finished?

Angry Lawyer: We're currently closing in on a release. As for how much is done - we don't have a clear end-point to it all. We're aiming for a release, and are trying to simply add more on every subsequent update.

Pi Mu Rho: I'm glad you asked that question, Roger. I'd like to refer you to our PR department, except we don't have one. Seriously, though, I don't really think we can quantify it. Without knowing where the endpoint is, we can't say where we are. There's two maps that are shippable, barring any entity changes. Two more are almost done, and there's another one that's about half done, but we're having too much fun playing on it for me to alter it too much right now. Models and textures are even less quantifiable - we tend to put those in as and when. So I've completely avoided answering that question. Next!

theGreenBunny: I can only second what Lawyer and Pi already said, in that we're just working where it's necessary. When we reach a point where we think it's at a point we can let other people play it and get a fun game without getting bug-induced seizures, we'll release a build. Then we'll continue work and improve it further.

Halflife2.net: You all seem to pride yourselves on your development process, which is uncommonly (and some might say refreshingly) informal, even for a mod. What's your development method?

Angry Lawyer: We don't have team leaders, and it's pretty democratic. In addition, we've made sure that we don't hire unnecesary "ideas guys" or "PR people". The core team is four people. Although, we have a number of good folks who help us test, contribute ideas, and do odd jobs such as writing and conceptual art.

Pi Mu Rho: Throw stuff at a metaphorical wall and see what sticks? We have a broad idea of where we're going, and we aim for that. For maps, I just pick a theme and crank them out, release to the testers, fix based on feedback, release again. It's a fairly normal, iterative process. I think where we differ from most is that we have no particular heirarchy or structure. There's no lead coder, lead mapper etc, no one person is in charge (although Angry Lawyer came up with the concept and initial implementation). However, this only works because we get along with each other anyway, and did so before we started working on Zombie Master. No-one is going to have a childish hissy fit over anything, we're not afraid to give or receive criticism, and our overall goal is to make a (hopefully) cool mod for fun.

theGreenBunny: I don't know if I "pride" myself in our development process. It's just how we work, and I'm not going to gospel it around or something. Our approach only works because of our situation, where everyone's noses are defaulting to the same direction. Lawyer mentioned how we're democratic, which I suppose is true, but we've never actually had to vote on anything. Despite not having a set-in-stone design document, everyone seems to know very well and agree on what would and would not work.

Halflife2.net: What are a few of the interesting features that are sure to blow our minds that you've got planned or implemented in Zombie Master?

Angry Lawyer: Manipulates. They're points in the maps that, for a small resource expenditure, will trigger an environmental effect, such as lights turning off, or rocks falling.

Pi Mu Rho: Personally, and with a certain amount of bias, I love the map objectives. There's no specific game modes in Zombie Master - they're all map-defined. One map could have you collecting several parts for a broken truck. Another could have you defending a church in an overrun graveyard. Yet another could see you escaping a town full of the undead. The flexibility of the entity and logic system in Source really made all this possible, although the tools implementation could be better (hi Valve!). On top of that, I think the whole RTS system is great. It's simple, and intuitive, which is exactly how it should be.

theGreenBunny: It's hard to say, being used to all the features currently we have. However, I am looking forward to implementing a certain feature that could turn out very nice. Sadly, telling you about it goes against my personal policy of only talking about things we actually have rather than what could be

Halflife2.net: Has the essence of ZM evolved much since its initial conception, or has the concept remains mostly static throughout development?

Angry Lawyer: It's stayed rather true to the initial vision, although it plays a lot faster than I initially envisionaged it to.

Pi Mu Rho: As we never had a design document, it's very hard to say. From what I can recall, we're still aiming towards the same general goal as we were in the beginning. Obviously, the specifics change over time, but I'm sure we're still along the same lines.

theGreenBunny: For me it has only grown to fulfill many of my expectations and hopes for the initial concept, rather than evolving as such.

Halflife2.net: As a developer, do you prefer playing as Zombie Master or as a survivor, and why?

Angry Lawyer: Zombie Master, definately. There's something appealing about trapping a human between a mob of Shamblers and a cluster of Hulks, and watching them panic.

Pi Mu Rho: I hate being the Zombie Master, and will actively avoid it at all costs. I much prefer grouping with other survivors and blasting our way through a solid wall of undead flesh. That, and I'm really not very good at being Zombie Master...

theGreenBunny: Survivor, actually. I think it's because I spend so much time doing initial in-game testing on my own of stuff I just coded, it surprises me every time how scary and hectic it can actually be in a proper game as survivor.

Halflife2.net: What plans do you have for ZM following the first public release?

Angry Lawyer: Bugfixing, artistic improvements, balancing, and new features.

Pi Mu Rho: Further releases! More maps, certainly. The main aim of releasing a beta is to get more eyeballs on things - bigger and better testing. One of the main aims of development was to concentrate on making it all work, and then make it look pretty afterwards. Obviously, we add graphical touches as we go, but it's never been the primary focus. After a beta release, and dealing with any issues that may arise from that, we'll focus more on the shiny stuff. We're certainly not going to release and run.

theGreenBunny: Fixing the problems that come up, adding features we didn't have time for earlier, making things prettier. I think I just repeated Lawyer's answer. Nyargh.

Halflife2.net: I'm sure by now fans are drooling with anticipation - so do you have any idea when the public is going to get its hands on a stable build of ZM?

Angry Lawyer: Every time someone asks that question, theGreenBunny pushes the date back another day.

Pi Mu Rho: Soon. We don't know ourselves, and we're certainly not going to commit to a date. At the moment, we're in a very intensive working phase, but that could change as our individual commitments change, making any deadlines redundant. I wish we could be more specific, and we will be later...

theGreenBunny: I can't get much more specific than the others, but I would be very surprised if we still had no public release done in three or four months from now. That's a nice and roomy timeframe isn't it?