Undead Labs

We’ve been talking a lot about zombie behavior recently. Think of it like observing zombies in the wild – Discovery Undead or Mutual of Zombieland, if you know what I mean. When they’re not trying to eat you, what will they be doing? This sparks discussions rife with images of both horror and comedy. A stranger trapped in a car surrounded by zombies. A zombie trapped in a car with no clue how to get out. We definitely want a mix of both elements in our game, but at heart, we are trying to create a serious zombie survival experience.

For every zombified hipster still staring down at his iPhone or stumbling shambler bumping into a wall and looking around in confusion before doing it again, we’ll need a lot of zeds on the prowl, showing their rage and their insatiable hunger. We need to be true to the one defining principle of zombie survival lore:

Zombies are freakin’ scary.

The terror starts at first sight. We’re used to seeing zombies in movies and games, but think about it. In person, an animated corpse would trigger our most primal instinctive responses of revulsion and fear — we’re hard wired to be afraid of physical disease, to be repulsed by rotting flesh, to mistrust unpredictable behavior, and of course, to dread the very thought of death. It’s only natural that we’d be freaked out by death incarnate shambling (or sprinting) towards us in an ever-growing horde.

Zombies will never let you rest “…we’re hard wired to be afraid of physical disease, to be repulsed by rotting flesh, to mistrust unpredictable behavior, and of course, to dread the very thought of death.” because they never rest, and never slow down. You can’t out wait them — their patience and desire to hunt you down will last forever. You might outrun a slow horde of them for a while, but you’ll never be able to settle down and feel safe because where there’s one, there’s fifty. No matter how far you run and no matter how many you take out, they’ll eventually find you again.

And when they do find you, there will be no discussion or negotiation. There’s nothing you can say to a zombie to keep it from attacking you, and there’s no noise or body language you can use to scare it off. Zombies care more about killing you than they do about their own preservation. So even though they may look a lot like us, they’re a sort of blank mirror. The very things that make us human — our emotions, stance, inflection, body movements, expressions, and the thousands of other little things that communicate our thoughts are gone. When facing a zombie, we face a reflection of ourselves that embodies everything that isn’t human.

Zombies do not simply seek to kill you. They want to consume you. If you fight a zombie, you’d better destroy it, find a way to escape, or pray to god someone will rescue you before it is too late. Defeat can only end in two ways: you’re torn apart and eaten alive, or you’re infected and turn into a zombie yourself. Not pretty. You must learn to cope with being hunted if you want to live. Humans aren’t used to having predators — especially ones that look like us or worse, used to be our friends and loved ones.

That’s where things get truly difficult. To survive, we may be forced to sacrifice some of our own humanity. Maybe this means you’ll find yourself in a situation where you need to make the choice between leaving a friend behind to die or dying yourself. Maybe it means not sharing food and water with people desperately in need because you know you’ll need it yourself. Maybe it means turning away an injured stranger because you’re afraid they will turn. Or maybe this means having to face your recently turned mother, father, spouse, or child. Even when the right answer is clear, the choice may not be easy. There, perhaps, lies the ultimate horror.

“The dangers and horrors of a fictional zombie apocalypse are deeply similar to the real hazards we face when order breaks down from natural disasters, extended power outages, riots, disease outbreaks, and other catastrophes.”But let’s say that somehow, despite everything, you’re still not afraid. After all, zombies are just stinking, mindless, uncoordinated, fragile lumps of rotting flesh and bone, right? You’ll find a way to outwit them, you tell yourself. Well, even if you do, you’re going to have to deal with those who have survived. Zombies give us all the motivation in the world to turn on each other. Your ultimate survival plan needs to protect you from zeds, but the more you succeed at that, the more you become a target for every other desperate, ruthless survivor out there.

On top of all that, I think one of the reasons zombies resonate with us is that there is a kind of realism to them. The dangers and horrors of a fictional zombie apocalypse are deeply similar to the real hazards we face when order breaks down from natural disasters, extended power outages, riots, disease outbreaks, and other catastrophes. When we find  ourselves trapped together in urban areas with no real sources of food and water, the interdependent network of comforts, technologies and conveniences we’ve come to rely on disappears. We don’t know our neighbors (or our neighbors’ neighbors) well enough to truly trust them. We are uncertain about the safety of the chemicals, radiation and biological agents that surround us. And we know that governments and giant corporations may have agendas that may not be in our interest, but we’re powerless to do anything about it. It’s all the horrors of modern society, brought to life by the walking dead.

As we’re building our world, these are some of the feelings we want to capture. There will be hope too, and humor, and moments of triumph, but we want to start by giving you a challenge worth overcoming. We never want to lose sight of what the game’s all about — surviving the zombie apocalypse.

As always, we love to hear your opinions. What scares you about a zombie apocalypse? What excites you about it? What moments and feelings are you hoping we’ll capture? Post a comment and let us know.

Phinney

I began shooting at age six — where most kids’ first gun is a plastic toy, mine was real and used to keep the crows out of the garden.  I didn’t eat store-purchased meat until I was a teenager ¹, and by nine I was adding to the family larder (though in tiny proportions compared to my father’s contributions. He would disappear for a weeks at a time in the fall and return with whatever game had been legal to hunt during that stretch.)

As an adult, I joined the military and learned to see guns as a way to dissuade those who would do us harm (and as the pointy end of retribution for those who didn’t take the hint) ². I gained an appreciation for their usefulness and a healthy respect for their responsible employment.

Firearms were essential to my family’s well-being and I will always recognize them as valuable survival tools. I still go shooting as often as I can in my free time.

So, as the designer in charge of guns (and other player progression and rewards), is my experience with firearms the primary source I draw from to do my job?

Of course not.

The truth is, realism is only one of many factors we consider when designing firearms for our game.  – there are a whole slew of other influences as well. Not surprisingly, our top goal is fun.

When we sit down to talk about the guns in our game, the first thing we discuss is player expectations. What do players expect from the weapons they’re using? Keeping expectations in mind doesn’t mean that we’re just trying to create the same weapons that work the same way you’ve seen in a dozen other games. But it does mean being true to the expect feel of a particular weapon — and sometimes putting our own spin on things. It means that we’re talking about the way a sawed-off shotgun should spray a whole mass of zombies at close range, tearing a big, ragged hole of gore in their formation. It means that we‘re anticipating the feeling you should get when you put a red laser dot on a zombie head and squeeze the trigger. It means lining up a triple headshot with a high-powered rifle should feel really, really good.

Next, we talk about play styles. We know that people play games differently, so how does this impact how we should design the weapons they use? Some people are interested in using the most optimal weapon for a given situation. Others just love shotguns, or prefer sniper rifles. And then there are the guys that want to run around with two pistols and leap in slow motion while doves fly out behind them.

We want you to feel like a badass when you pick up that 12 gauge, ratchet a shell into the chamber, and head out to clear the local clinic of zombies. Sure, you’ll know that you can’t paint the wall with zombie brains at 300 yards with it, but hey. You chose the shotgun because you like to get in close. And because your girlfriend seems to love her scoped hunting rifle (jealous?), so she can take the long shots for you.

In the end, it is our job to give you enough choices to let you play the game how you want to. After all, if you’re going to be acting out your own personal zombie survival plan, you should do with the gun that fits your play style.

Believability matters too, of course. When we’re having these discussions, it’s good to do a little research. Here’s where my background and interests really helps. The experience I have with guns means that I’m able to break down the performance, weight, and durability difference between a holographic sight and an infrared scope, or explain why someone who has a suppressor available will choose not to use it in certain circumstances. I’ve also arranged for a bunch of us from the Lab to go shooting together so everyone knows what real recoil feels like and just how much it can throw your aim off. (As a note, we’re shooting in an actual professional firing range — not my backyard. Be safe, everyone! MUZZLE DISCIPLINE!)

Trips to the firing range are fun, but some of the research we need to do just involves getting up to speed on things I haven’t had the opportunity to experience. This means that I do a lot of reading about weapons and tactics in my spare time. When I play modern military games, I find myself saying things like, “They’d never do that” or simply, “Bullshit”. It’s my responsibility to do my best to make sure you don’t have to utter those words when you’re playing our game.

We can call all of this real-world information “realism,” but our intent isn’t to make things as realistic as possible. In fact, in many cases, making something realistic can actually make it LESS fun. Let’s use sidearm accuracy as an example. In reality, very few people would be able to headshot a moving zombie at more than ten feet with a pistol due to extreme stress. And not being able to hit zombies at all wouldn’t be fun, would it? As another example, the M4 weapon system, which is the Army’s standard infantry weapon, can jam if it is not cleaned regularly. If we’re trying to make things that realistic, should we create quick-time games for disassembling your weapon, oiling and cleaning it? Lame. On the other end of the spectrum, a good sniper can reliably put lead into a slow-moving target from three-quarters of a mile away. Impressive, but we’d probably lose some of the tension in the game if you could consistently kill zombies before they can get within half a mile of you.

We don’t want to mimic reality — we want to use reality as an inspiration to make things cool.

After believability, we talk about balance. That means not only discussing how effective the weapons are against zombies, but also how effective they are relative to each other. We consider different situations in the game, and whether we should make some guns better than others for certain things. For example, submachine guns are not my favorite weapons. In fact, I think they have a lot of weaknesses in comparison to modern CQB rifles. But against a mass of zombies with particularly decayed flesh, their very high cyclic rate could be really good at buzz-sawing off limbs. (I await the hailstorm of offended P90 fans, but only a couple of you have fired one outside of a game, and therefore don’t know what a pain in the ass it is to have to recharge that 50 round magazine.)

Balance is about feel. It’s not essential to emphasize the differences between a 5.7mm (the aforementioned P90) and the venerable H&K MP5 in 9mm. But we can adjust rate of fire, muzzle climb, magazine capacity and reload times a bit so each weapon has strengths or weaknesses in these areas. Damage can even differ a little, but the particular terminal ballistics of each caliber needs to be very similar. We want them to both feel like SMGs and fit into the balance role and play style of that weapon even though we know that in reality, the 5.7mm round will penetrate body armor where the 9mm will not.

Finally, we have to consider progression. Should some guns suck, useful only until you find something superior? How much better should one rifle be than another? In what ways can they vary? Being able to talk about realistic differences really helps us figure out our options. For example, an M16 rifle has four times the effective range than an MP7A1, but weighs twice as much. A Desert Eagle in .50, or the Charlie Sheen of pistols, is movie-cool and fires a powerful round next to the 9mm, but the 9mm is more versatile and you’ll find like, 4 million of them before you run across a clip of .50. This kind of thing ties into a lot of the long-term reward systems in the game and is something we’re likely to adjust as the game evolves.

So now we’ve got all this information: player expectations, play styles, believability, balance and progression. Now it’s time to take all of these things into account and make some guns. Our primary goal? Pure and simple — fun.

So what do you guys think? What are the key gun-related things you absolutely want to see in Class3 and Class4? What’s your weapon of choice? What guns do you want to see? How do you feel about gun jams and weapon durability in games? How rare do you think really powerful guns should be? Post a comment and share your opinions with us!

Brant

A few extra notes:

1. My sweet mother read this and pointed out that I did, in fact, have store-bought hamburger upon request for birthdays or when the larder was running low.

2. So I don’t do a disservice to those who have served in our country’s Armed Forces, I want to be clear that since I was declared medically unable to continue with my military training just before Air Assault School, I was never deployed for active duty. I don’t want to misrepresent my credentials in this area — I have the highest regard and respect for those who have honorably served.

I finally got around to watching Pontypool this week. The premise of this cool indie flick is that certain words in the English language become “infected.” Once a person speaks one of them, its meaning sticks in their mind, and they start losing their shit. They start repeating themselves, eventually start bleeding from their mouth, and get an intense desire to eat other people’s mouths. If they can’t find any faces to munch on, they spew up a geyser of blood and die.You know. Perfectly normal stuff.

Pontypool’s unique take on the way infection starts got me thinking — there are actually a ton of different theories about how zombies are created. And let’s face it –speculating and arguing about them is part of the fun of the genre. That’s what we’re going to do here today. To kick things off, I decided I would have to do some additional “research.”

Time to dig up a bunch of zombie movies!

First, let’s take a trip back to 1932 and look at the famous Bela Lugosi classic, White Zombie. Considered to be the first feature-length zombie film, all of the zombies in this movie were voodoo-based. The story glossed over the details of how the actual zombification process went down, but suffice it to say that it involved an evil guy who made mysterious potions. Innocent girl drinks said potion, and bam. Zombie time.

This may seem like a cheesy Hollywood moment, but the principle is actually backed by a pile of interesting research. Harvard ethnobotanist Dr. Wade Davis, author of books like The Serpent and the Rainbow (which would become a loose basis for Wes Craven’s movie of same name), investigated the existence of a substance known as “Haitian Zombie Powder.” Containing neurotoxins like Tetrodotoxin and a variety of other ingredients, Davis claimed that getting this stuff into a person’s bloodstream can cause a state of death-like suspended animation followed by a re-awakening into a psychotic state. Yep. Sounds like a zombie to me.

Now, let’s fast forward to 1968. When Night of the Living Dead hit the screen, it redefined the way society viewed zombies, transforming them from trance-like humans into the mindless, flesh-eating creatures that we all know and love. How did Romero explain where his ghouls came from? Well, he didn’t, really. All that’s mentioned is that there was a probe coming back from Venus that was presumably radioactive, and it was making the dead rise.

Mark one down for the “cosmic origin theory.”

We can throw a few more into that category if we look at films like Night of the Comet (infected space dust trapped in the tail of a comet), Fido (radiation from space), Undead (infected meteorites), and Slither (alien consciousness ferried around by gross space leeches).

In addition to the zombie films that followed the Romero tradition, the late 70’s and early 80’s gave us a number of movies based on supernatural and metaphysical elements. In fact, my favorite Italian director, Lucio Fulci, drew heavy inspiration from these sources in his work. One of his earlier pieces, Zombi 2, attributed a cursed island as the source of the rising dead. A year later in 1980, he kicked off his Gates of Hell trilogy with the City of the Living Dead, which featured an evil priest who sought to open one of the gateways to hell. The second movie in the trilogy — my favorite Fulci film — was The Beyond (also known as the Seven Doors of Death). Once again, one of the seven doors to hell got opened, and the dead came spilling out.

Recent decades have brought even more of a hard science approach to zombification, often depicting it as a blood-borne illness. Movies like Zombieland and the remake of Dawn of the Dead use infected humans as the primary vehicles for a zombie virus. If you get bit, you’re coming back. In 28 Days Later, the highly communicable rage virus is spread through bites and coming into contact with any other bodily fluids. Braindead/Dead Alive uses animals like the Sumatran Rat Monkey (YOU’VE GOT…THE BITE!).

A number of real neuroscientists, such as Bradley Voytek and Tim Verstynen, have also discussed zombies, speculating that instead of a virus, a prion might be a more likely scientific cause for zombification. Prions (like mad cow disease) are infectious proteins that are known for their exponential growth rates, their resistance to sterilization, and their tendency to infect the brain.

Other movies like Thaw (not quite zombie, but still relevant) use parasites to pass around infection. Despite some debate about crawlies being unable to spread the zombie virus, I’m sure not going to discount it. After all, the Black Death was spread by fleas, and bizarre insect zombies already exist…

Of course there’s no limit to the possibilities. Maybe you like classic zombie lore. Maybe the trend toward hard science explanations appeals to you. Or maybe you’re intrigued by more unique theories. What do you guy think? What’s your favorite explanation? Tell us your thoughts!

Emily

PS: Both White Zombie and Night of the Living Dead are public domain movies. If you haven’t seen them, you can download them from the Internet Archive for free. Pretty sweet, huh?

Congratulations. It’s the zombie apocalypse, and you’re a million times more prepared than the average latte-drinking commuter or TV-addicted layabout. You’ve got some food, some medicine, a knife, and something for cracking skulls. Hey, maybe you even have print-outs of some handy how-to guides for things like building your own gas-powered electrical generator. Maybe you’ve got some experience with wilderness survival.

On top of all that, you’ve actually given this some thought. So instead of panicking or freezing with uncertainty, you’ve got a plan to follow.

If anyone’s going to survive, it’s gonna be you. And that means you face the big question: how much should you help other people? Can you really afford to share that water? Do you dare try to figure out where those cries for help are coming from?

Well, I think we all know the reasons to be selfish: there are no second chances. You simply won’t be able to save everyone. Besides, you’re no help to anyone if you’re dead. For that matter, you’re actually a threat to them. Still, in the spirit of the holidays, I’d like to offer this little argument in favor of helping out strangers, even in times of crisis. And no, it’s not going to be an appeal to your better nature or a reiteration of some abstract principle of strength with unity. To me, it comes down to one thing: monsoon season in Arizona.

That’s right. If you’re not from Arizona, that phrase probably sounds ludicrous, but that’s the point. The fact of the matter is that there really is such a thing, and in the post-apocalyptic world of self-sufficiency and raw survival, it could be the thing that does you in.

Of course, Arizona monsoons aren’t as destructive as the monsoons, typhoons, hurricanes, and tsunamis you’ve heard about elsewhere. But contrary to your natural mental image of the American southwest, monsoon season brings occasional flash floods. In the desert. In fact, those inviting little green patches (arroyos) on the arid landscape mark the spots where water will sometimes come rushing down with enough volume and force TO SWEEP AWAY A CAR.

And this happens in areas where it isn’t even raining. There’s a thunderstorm miles away and then bam: lost or damaged supplies, a sprained ankle or broken leg that gets you killed a week later, a really bad encounter with a cactus that leads to an infection, or even a blow to the head that does you in right then and there. And sitting there, in the hundred degree heat, sun beating down on you, you’d never think to even look out for it.

That’s my point. Just admit this to yourself right now: it’s a big, complicated world out there, and you don’t fully know just how much you don’t know. So help your fellow humans. They just might know that critical bit of trivia that’ll mean the difference between life and death for you. Seriously…flash floods in Arizona? In the summer? You can’t make this shit up.

I don’t like MMOs.

I love the idea of MMOs. The idea of playing in a massive, persistent world with my best friends and folks from all over the world is incredibly appealing. Current MMOs offer the world, and tons of players, but I’m an action gamer and that’s just not what MMOs are right now.

I’ve been dreaming about what an MMO could be since I was a n00b designer. In my mind I always pictured piling into a car with my friends and tearing off into a massive world. They would lean out of the car, shooting and swinging bats.

Why aren’t MMOs really like that?

MMOs get breaks because of their social nature, but if you really look at them closely they’re barely even games. Mario 64 (nearly 15 years old at this point) feels better than any MMO I’ve ever played. MMOs aren’t even close to keeping up with cutting edge videogames from a gameplay or presentation perspective.

I’m a console guy. I always have been. I cut my teeth on the NES, playing Mario 3 and Contra. I got completely sucked into A Link to the Past and Super Metroid. The FEELING of interacting with the world has always been stronger for me on consoles; it’s what they’re made for.

What about MMOs? What if we replaced all the math with action? What if an MMO could feel like a kickass console game?

How about we give you a bat, and when you press a button to swing that bat, it hits things. Not just range tests to the target, but your bat has collision and the path it moves through defines what you hit. Not numbers and spreadsheets behind the scenes, but you actually hit that thing with your weapon.

How about if you could actually dodge out of the way of enemy attacks? Not a skill that gives you an increased percentage to do some counter-math against the opponent’s formula, but an actual dodge-out-of-the-way that lets you duck just underneath the rotting grasp of an attacking zombie.

How about some actual guild goals? Not, “We’re doing this raid to get our healer caught up on gear,” but instead, “We’re going to raid the power plant because if we clear it out we can get power to our community and get our communications network online.”

Imagine plowing a modified death truck into a swarm of zombies to clear a path to a building your community wants to scavenge. Imagine vaulting over a couch smoothly into a jump kick, whipping out your pistols and nailing a couple of quick headshots, then diving out the window onto the back of an RV that your buddies are driving. Imagine loading a car up with explosives, driving full speed at a massive swarm of zombies, diving out and detonating the trap just as it plows its way to the heart of the horde.

That’s the game we want to play here at Undead Labs. So that’s the game we’re making.

It’s my job to sure that the game feels AMAAAAZING. Fortunately I’m in a great situation where I won’t be allowed to fail. Everybody at Undead Labs is a gamer, and by that I don’t mean they’re into games only the really hardcore players are into, I just mean that everyone here LOVES games. And they have high standards. That makes it pretty easy for me to get solid opinions about the latest gameplay tweaks I made.

I believe that MMOs can and should compete with the best triple-A games. And I believe consoles are the perfect place for MMOs to make this stand. Together we’ve learned tons about the power of persistent worlds from today’s PC MMOs, and I’ve personally spent years working on top-tier console action games, so let’s bring them together.

Everything that I’ve worked on has been preparing me for this one game. Vehicle tuning on Road Rash 64 and Kinetica, combat on God of War, shooting in SOCOM, systems on Guild Wars. Each of those games has taught me valuable lessons about game feel and tuning, and I’m putting all of that knowledge to work here at Undead Labs.

I don’t like MMOs, but I love this game. You will too.

Foge

[PS: If you just can't get enough Foge and would like to know more about him, be sure to check out Jeff's introduction.]

With the passing of the equinox, fall is finally here. The sun and the warmth have begun their yearly retreat, giving the rain and the gloom free rein over the Seattle skies, and even here in the Evergreen State, soon the leaves of the city trees will be turning and bathing the streets in a red and gold carpet of autumnal splendor. But these things are just the backdrop. The real beauty is that for the next two months, the world will be ready to fully embrace its love of all things dark and scary and creepy.

In short, it’s zombie season.

Last weekend brought us a selection of horror shorts and a Norwegian zombie film at SIFF Cinema. This weekend is the 2010 Revenant Film Festival, an eight-hour marathon of indie zombie flicks. Of course, not everyone lives in the Zombie Capital of the World, but you can bet there’s something going on somewhere near you. Sometimes the smallest, most obscure events are the ones most worth attending… even if you have search a bit to find them. Happy hunting, friends!

Phinney

Steve ran across this story on Lifehacker the other day.

Is this really efficient enough to be practical? I don’t know, but I do know that it’s awesome. Once the power grid goes down and zombies are roaming the streets, electricity is gonna be in short supply and the more ways you know to get around that, the better. Let’s face it, despite the fact that shake-to-charge flashlights exist, most still use batteries.

And darkness isn’t your friend.

My advice in the event of a real-life zombie apocalypse: be the guy who knows this stuff. Then A) you won’t have to go find someone who does and B) you can convince the guys with guns that you’re useful. I know, I know… you plan on being the guy with the guns, but it’s a safe bet you won’t be the only one and numbers won’t always be on your side. Odds are pretty good, on the other hand, that you could be the only one around who can rig a power generator out of gardening equipment. So study up now.

Last thing, when everything goes to hell, it’s taking Internet access with it, so don’t just bookmark that link. Start taking notes on paper and keep copies in a binder in the backpack next to your bottled water, canned goods, flashlight, first aid kit, and machete (or whatever zombie skull crushing/chopping implement you prefer).

Best of luck, everybody!
Phinney

PS: You may be wondering about the awesome art that has started appearing on the site. That’s from the talented mind and hands of our new art director. Jeff will introduce him next week, so be ready for more visual zombie candy.