Jack vs Zombies is a beat'em up game I have been working on the last several months.
The basic mechanics and animations are in place, so I thought it would be a good time to start getting some feedback on the game-play while I continue to work on the other aspects of the game.
So this is my call to action: If you ave a few minutes to spare, please try the game and give me your thoughts!
Update 2024-08-09
Following feedback from folks over on reddit I have worked on changing the animation system to get more freedom of sprite size as well as try to give more impact and feedback when hitting enemies.
As part of my efforts to improve combat, I also implemented a very basic combo system. By pressing the X button at the end of the attack animation, the next phase in the combo will begin; this will allow the player to chain up to 3 attacks increasing in damage and ending in an uppercut that will knock back enemies.
Combat before and after
What is in the game
- Randomly generated levels
- Infinite zombie waves to battle
- Equipment with different effects:
- Gloves boost the punch attack
Crowbar has a longer reach but is slower than punching- Gun offers range attacks... It's a gun, what did you expect?!
On the TODO list
- The game difficulty needs some further balancing
- The scoring system need some work
- Music. I am looking to add a couple of tracks
Changelog
V1.0
- Initial release with basic gameplay
V1.1
- Rebuilt animation system
- Added impact during battle
- Added basic combo system
- More juice
Previous versions
Some notes regarding version 1.1
The primary focus was to improve the action and make combat more interesting, here is how I tried to achieve this.
Better animations
I had to completely rebuild by animation system as It used to rely on sprites of the same size each time. This approach was easy to implement, simply make each frame fit in a 16x16 sprite and iterate over the sprites. However I quickly ran out of space in the spritesheet.
The new solution I implemented allows me to defined animation frames made of multiple sprites of arbitrary size, which are then drawn based on an offset from the character's position.
This took a lot of time to build, but was an interesting problem to tackle.
Combo system
In the previous version it was sufficient to hold down the attack button to chain the single punch animation and destroy the zombie standing in fort of the player. This got the work done, but wasn't very interesting or fun.
So I decided to try and implement a very basic combo system. I now have 3 distinct combat animations and if the player presses the attack button shortly before the end of the previous attack, the next attack in the combo is executed.
Also , I added a little knock back to the end of the attack cycle to get some distance from the enemies and reward the players timing.
The combo system isn't particularly elaborate but I hope it will encourage players to focus on the attacks rather that spam the attack button.
Next steps
It all works now, and I have plenty of space on my spritesheet. On the other hand, I keep exceeding the character limit so it looks like the next step should be some heavy code refactoring...
Looks good so far, the animations are smooth and the particles feel nice. I noticed the random background after a while, which hints at good generations.
I didnt know about the combo system until I read it in the description, so a in-game tutorial would be great.
Maybe a system where you can move up and down the street like in the "lair" game by krajzeg. It would give littarly give more depth to the game.
Also I'm assuming you are working on a better Title screen, if not then do so.
I am definitely looking forward to playing future versions of this game, thanks. Good luck :)
This is really cool! Came here from the Pico-View, and I can see the improvements taking root. I especially respect the animation system and I like the timed attack combos.
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