update 15th july 2009

You’re in a garden surrounded by tall buildings. It’s dark but there are distant noises that sound like groans and screams. Walking toward an alley you peer and see a figure. It sees you, makes an unearthly sound and starts sprinting towards you; it’s orange eyes glowing and fixed with an expression of mindless rage. It strikes out at you and you leap out the way running for your life toward the main road. But the road is filled with more and more of the creatures. All their eyes glowing orange. All fixed upon your destruction. You see a car on the road, its doors wide open, the keys in the ignition, you jump in and drive before they can drag you away. As you drive you knock down every creature that stands in your way. You drive because your life depends on it. You drive toward the bridge and just hope that this is one road that hasn’t been mined.Welcome to my newest map. There’s no hurry. You can wander around at your leisure. That is if you can survive the persistent zombie attacks. The street lamps glow through the rain but this remains the darkest level. The eerie quality of a dull twilight adds to the nightmarish quality of the horror that surrounds you. You may decide you don‘t want to hang around. It may be a little… intense.. You may want to head for the tunnel that leads… well… Let’s not spoil things eh.

I’ve added an effect called Iron Sight. This basically means you can look right down the barrel of the gun and see what you’re shooting at through the crosshairs. You can turn iron sight off and off according to your preference but it might make aiming your handgun a little easier when you know you have a zombie in your sights.

But I haven’t just been adding this map and playing around with weapons aiming. I’ve also been creating and coding a brand new creature by the name of Zombo. This is an affectionate nod to the character recently created by Al Ewing and Henry Flint for 2000AD. The creature is also inspired by Hell Knight from Doom the movie. The look of the creature bears some resemblance to both Hell Knight and Zombo but has its own unique characteristics.

My next step is to create the city centre. This is going to be partly inspired by London’s west end and filled with bright neon lights, bars, and restaurants and night life. I needed to build something that would offset the oppressive dark atmosphere of this level. I’m hoping that this next area will be my most detailed.

Video Games

There was a time when children used to run and play and laugh and frolic in the sun while darting between speeding cars on the M25. Of course there are many people who still feel that sunshine is good for you and not the cause of heatstroke and skin cancer and it may be that today’s young aren’t getting out in it enough. I have to confess, however, that given the choice of actually risking my life climbing trees or causing harm to other people’s lives by throwing things at them from those same trees I prefer the dark, mysterious and intensely violent world of the video game. I like to exercise my primal instincts fighting my way through hordes of zombies. Caught in a grim and cathartic fight for survival I can walk away, after an hour or two, without even needing to clean the blood from my semi-automatic.

The gaming experience really only comes alive for me when I believe in it. I like to be confronted with the consequences of my actions and if I lack stealth or wisdom or the ability to negotiate my way through puzzles and obstacles I expect to pay the ultimate price… Game Over.

In designing the 7 Tasks modification I’ve added elements that some gamers probably won’t notice. The main advantage of modern games over those of ten to fifteen years ago is that now we can have fully textured worlds. Your footsteps echo on cobbled stones or sink into snow or mud. Birds scatter as you approach. Trees catch reflections of light. A room that has been inhabited by people is filled with the objects they owned. I’m constantly adding such details to my map. Hopefully even those players who don’t notice these details will still feel that added sense of entering a believable world.

On Saturday, working from a rougher version of my map, I put together a minute long teaser trailer. Obviously this is a work in progress and it only shows one small semi-developed area within a single level but I wanted to put it out there anyway to show people how things were advancing. See what you think: