Now that I'm back in the US and can access my old RPG materials I've been re-reading "The Slayer's Guide To The Undead" by Gary Gygax. I'm currently reading the sections on zombies and skeletons and how they can only respond to commands in the most literal of ways and are incapable of any sort of intelligent self-guided action. There's a funny line about how the necromancer might make a grand gesture and order his skeletons to "kill them!" and end up indicating a bunch of his allies by accident along with the PC adventurers.

Being a necromantic military commander would be a fun concept for a RTS game. The way I see it, it would be a bit like the game Lemmings where your zombies would just keep doing what they were last told to do, potentially walking off cliffs or going into suicidal situations. Part of the challenge of the game would be quickly re-issuing orders in response to changing situations and the discrepency between the situation changing and the rate at which the player can issue commands with the mouse. I am imagining having a decent RTS style artificial intelligence for the computer opponents, which would be the humans or the elves or something, and having that contrast with the dumb-as-bricks zombies which the players control.

I can see the concept as being more effective with touches of humor to go along with the potentially frustrating stupidity of the zombies. Perhaps the player plays the role of a busty female necromancer with a spiky leather bikini and the ending graphic shows her sitting grinning on a throne with a big cup of wine and some totally humiliated paladin holding the wine jug, or something.

http://www.zombiemaster.org/

Mr. Fix-It - That looks absolutely fascinating. Have you played it, and if so, would you mind giving a brief review of your thoughts and opinions on how it plays, pros and cons, reliability, etc?

I'm thinking about giving it a try myself, but I'm not very computer literate so any computer game related endeavor is a significant undertaking for me. Before I give it a try, I'd like to hear if you think it's actually worth the effort.

Seems interesting but I don't have the requisite software. But it really seems worth a try.

My friends and I play it whenever we get together for a LAN.

I believe it's in second beta version right now. the first had an extremely clunky interface for the Zombie side, but they fixed all the problems.

the map variety is kind of limited, (5-6 total, i think.) but that's to be expected.

most involve collecting parts for some kind of vehicle to escape, while the zombie master spawns various undead to kill the survivors, and guard the parts, which are randomly placed throught the map every round)

others are time-based survival levels. (survive for 10 minutes)

you can carry a total of 3 weapons:

one melee (sledgehammer or crowbar)

one main (smg, shotgun, rifle)

one pistol.

ammo is limited for your main weapon, so use it sparingly. running is usually a better option (except vs fast zombies).


as the zombie master, it requires quite a bit of strategy to kill the survivor team. you have to isolate individual players, and corner them. flooding the level with zombies doesn't usually work, as they are dumb and slow.

one can also set physical traps in the level that execute and can either do damage, spawn zombies (allows you to go over the zombie population cap), or change the enviroment (blow up a bridge, shut off a generator)

this game is a riot. not a long-term game, but it's a free mod for Half-life 2, which is worth every penny.

installation is an executable file, so it's pretty idiot-proof. the only requirements is a copy of Half-Life 2.

the Orange Box is a bout 60 bucks US right now, and a steal. it has Half-life 2, 2 add ons, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. not even counting the number of awesome and free mods