Undead Labs

AUTHOR: Jeff DATE RECORDED: September 30, 2011 AT 18:23PM

Dear Team Zed,

Today was a momentous day at the Lab.

As you know, pre-production is the project phase where we lay down the design, create the core technology, develop the art style, build the art production pipeline, and prototype essential gameplay systems. At the end of pre-production, we should have a no-bullshit, fully playable game. Of course, it won’t have the polish or scale gamers expect and demand, but it should be a real game. And it should be fun.

Today was our final pre-production milestone, and you guys delivered. Hard.

I’m blown away by how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. Our task now as we move headlong into the production phase is to take this fun little gem and turn it into something we’re proud to show the world. Over the next few months we’ll be bringing on some great art production partners, voice actors, motion actors, musicians, and world-class writers to help us get it done. We’ll of course also continue to have the support of our dedicated partners at Microsoft Studios.

We’ll have some great help, but the heart and soul of this game is each of you who have been here over the past year pouring your talent and passion into this game to bring it this far. I’m truly honored to work with you.

Let’s get this done. Onward to production!

Jeff

AUTHOR: Gronk DATE RECORDED: September 23, 2011 AT 17:40PM

On Friday, September 23, a detailed Survivor Diary was discovered near the Undead Labs office in Seattle. From the author’s references to his years of work as a video game artist, we’ve been able to ascertain that these are the writings of one John Gronquist.

The following excerpts provide insight into his personality, his life history, and the conditions he faced during the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse.

Read on to learn his story…

March 20

I can’t believe how much this guard tower is starting to feel like home. It’s only been a few weeks since we hoisted the recliner up. It’s starting to feel like my old living room, only instead of late-night horror movies, I’ve got the real thing. It’s all zombies, all the time.

There’s no electricity at the moment, but I still brought a TV up here for shits and grins. It’s sitting unplugged in the corner, and makes a great foot stool.

The rest of the camp is perfectly happy with me spending most of my time up here. We don’t have enough manpower to cover all the guard posts, and I’m one of the best shots in the camp. Who’d have thunk that a handful of years in the military in my youth would help me score the safest spot in the apocalypse?

Was that really me, all those years ago? It’s starting to feel like some other life I heard someone talking about while I was busy keeping an eye out for runners or screamers.

I spent four years in the Air Force — two stationed in the hills of Germany and two in San Antonio. In Germany, I learned respect for quality beer and mustard. In Texas, I learned respect for cheap beer and pico de gallo, and met my wife of 21 years. I hope her and the kids are doing okay out there. God knows she’s more capable of handling this than anyone else I know.

April 27

We finally got the power grid stabilized! The new batteries we grabbed from the boat store were the key — those babies should last us at least a year before they burn out.

It’s nice to be able to charge my laptop again. I can’t believe I still have the thing! It was just laying in the back seat of my car, which is now hanging out of the window of a mini-mart four blocks from here. May as well be four miles with the size of the horde that’s out tonight.

May 2

Got my laptop back from that damn thief, Dunniway. He snagged it a few days ago but failed to realize that there’s no wi-fi around here. I think he’s been sneaking extra whiskey rations.

I fired it up and took a trip down memory lane. My favorite programs, all intact. Photoshop, of course. My old friend, 3D Studio Max. Maya. Flash. After Effects. God, I was such a junky for anything related to making games.

I got into the industry by painting and teaching myself 3d modeling. I got some freelance work, one thing led to another, and bang — I’m no longer doing database programming. I’m a professional artist!

I’d worked on a number of great projects too, starting with Total Annihilation (ironic, considering our current situation.) I spent my days modeling and animating tiny tanks and robots, and it was amazing. I’d go to work each day and all I’d hear was, “Hey John, can we make that robot bigger, and maybe do some sort of flamethrower effect for it?”

Ha. I’d give anything to get my hands on an actual flamethrower.

May 7

Almost screwed the pooch today. Was engrossed in a game of Dungeon Siege and a handful of zoms got past my watch. Luckily, McMillan and Dunniway managed to catch them before they got their mouths around anyone at camp. Guess I’ll be giving them my beer rations for a month — they did just save all of our asses.

Still, this game is pretty dang fun. I created most of the UI and cinematics, and even got to model and animate a bunch of stuff for it. A little bit of everything.. I’ve always been a sort of Jack of All Trades. I love figuring out how things work.

Crap. Our scouts are coming back, and they’re dragging a horde behind them. Gotta go…

June 19

Rough day today. We’re running out of ammo, so we’re having to look for supplies farther and farther from base. Everyone know that we’ll eventually have to leave, but we’ve put so much work into building this thing up. Having to leave “home” is almost more painful to think about then all the crew we’ve lost over the last few months.

On the plus side, we scored an Xbox360 when we were out scavenging! We were so excited that it took us less than five minutes to get that thing up and running. Had to keep the sound down, obviously. Had an even harder time keeping our voices down during our Halo matches.
I casually dropped that I’d worked on FX for Halo 3 and did modeling and sky painting for Halo: ODST.

I’ve now become Target #1 in all our slayer matches for being Braggy McBraggart. Good times.

July 11

Happy birthday to me. Dunniway says that the giant mob of zombies hanging out at the foot of my tower are celebrating. Yeah, that’s a nice thought. At least they can’t climb ladders.

July 12

When I woke up, I realized that I was alone — the camp buggered out in middle of the night, headed for safer ground. Thanks a lot, guys.

Maybe they’ll come back for me, but I wouldn’t, so I hope they don’t. I’m glad I grabbed the satchel full of silencers and a case of ammo last night to restock my tower.

July 13

Lucky day. Some idiot drove a truck through town, pulling away half the horde. If I was a different kind of guy, I may have popped him and “borrowed” his truck.

July 23

Trying not to use too much of the battery left on my laptop, but I can’t help it…it’s the only link I have to my old self.

Today, I found some concept art and bits of design from when I tried starting my own game company.

Heh. If I had more juice in this thing, I might even try and finish one of these games. Not much else to do up here except wait for the zombies to pile up.

August 5

I couldn’t stand not having power. Food I could live without, but electricity is the only thing keeping me sane.

They thinned out a little last night, so I made my move. Snuck down the ladder, grabbed a big bag of dog food, a case of beer, hooked a lead wire from the batteries and wrapped it around my waist. I even managed to bring the Xbox back to my tower. You do crazy things when you’re desperate, I guess.

What do you know? My TV foot stool has a new purpose now.

August 10

I ran out of dog food the other day. Not wanting to deal with the zeds, I held out as long as I could. Got too hungry, so I snuck out again and went exploring. Came back with a case of noodles and another blast from the past: an Undead Labs hoodie I’d found in someone’s closet. We’d finished Class3 about a week before the outbreak hit.

Oh, the irony…

October 2

The power line got pulled loose by one of those damn stiffs. Stupid screamer got wrapped up in it, and shrieked like an animal until I used my last round to put it out of its misery. Now half the damn town is clustered around my tower again, and I’ve got no way to shut them up. If I don’t die of starvation, I’ll probably go crazy from the moaning.

October 4

The guy with the truck came back today. Don’t know what he was thinking, driving straight into the mob. Gotta give him credit, though — he managed to take out half of them before the truck got stuck. They pulled him out, and that was that.

I can see the keys through my rifle scope. As soon as it gets dark, I’m going to sneak down and make a break for it. Here’s hoping that there’s gas in the tank…

October 30

After a hellish drive, I managed to find the new base! Most of the old camp is here. They were shocked to see me, and said they’d left suddenly that night. By the time they realized they’d left me behind, they couldn’t go back — too many zeds to deal with. I was pissed, but when Dunniway told me that he’d heard news about my family, I forgave them. Can’t hold grudges in this kind of world. People need to stick together.

To show how sorry they were, I got treated to a bowl of hot stew. It was some canned crap. The meat was dry, but after living on dog food for weeks, it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

November 7

I miss my family. Going to make my way towards their camp tonight. Wish me luck.

As a parting gift, I gave my laptop to Dunniway. I’m not sure how he plans to do it, but he told me that he’s thinking of restarting the Internet with it. Wish him luck, too.

Signing off.

Gronk

(Emily’s note: If you just can’t get enough Gronk and would like to know more about him, be sure to check out Jeff’s introduction.)

AUTHOR: Jeff DATE RECORDED: September 23, 2011 AT 17:40PM

Exactly one year ago tomorrow, our most excellent art director Doug Williams introduced himself on our website with a post titled “They Actually Pay Me To Do This $%#@”. It was an earnest, personal, and thought-provoking post. And then some clown gets on the comments and posts this gem:

Doug, I think the truck should be more red.
ps. If I eat your brains do I get your powers?

Brilliant. Mod it out? Nah, there’s no harm in it — it’s just silly.

Some people.

A few days later, Doug, James, and Dave came to me and said they knew the perfect guy to fill our recently opened position for an effects and environment artist. “Who?” I asked? “Gronk!” they said, looking proud. Just that: “Gronk”. Like I was just supposed to know who “Gronk” was. Like “Madonna”. Regardless, if these three were endorsing the guy, I figured I should meet him.

“Gronk” came in a few days later to interview for the position. It turns out his name was John Gronquist, and that he was a cool guy, a total bad-ass environment artist, and a zombie freak to boot. He’d spent the last three years doing FX and environment work for some little indie game I’d never heard of — ODST? Or Halo something? Reach 3? All of those.

Fortunately for us, Gronk was ready to tackle something new, and our passion for zombies and the design directions we were exploring for Class3 were right up his alley. He was at the Lab with his hands down in the guts of CryENGINE 3 a few weeks later, and he’s now our go-to guy for effects, user interface, and lighting. He’s a fantastic artist, and we’re lucky to have him.

But there was something about his name that stuck in the back of my mind. Where had I heard it before? Oh yeah. He was the clown who called out Doug for the not-quite-red-enough truck. His comment is still there on Doug’s article, by the way, setting the maturity bar for all of us…

Hey Gronk — thanks for jumping in with us on this. You kick ass.

Jeff

P.S. Don’t forget to check out Gronk’s welcome to his fellow survivors!

AUTHOR: Emily DATE RECORDED: September 21, 2011 AT 12:12PM

A few months ago, the entire Lab went on a post-milestone adventure to a local shooting range to get some hands-on firearm experience. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that some of us really wanted to go back to keep improving our skills and that Brant, the author of our gun-focused Weapon of Choice article, has continued to make the shooting range his new home away from home.

A gun-enthusiast long before he came to Undead Labs, Brant’s been doing “research for Class3” by hitting the range after work once or twice a week. He always comes back the next day with notes about an increasing variety of firearms (one takeaway: he loves Czech weapons) and with stories about the wide range of interesting classes he’s been taking.

One of the most recent was a defensive pistol course — which his training instructor filmed and then leaked to us. Brant thought the video was kind of cheesy and didn’t even want to show it to everyone at the Lab, so (naturally) I decided to share it with you guys while he’s out for lunch.

By the way — the voice that you hear in the background is Brant’s instructor, Erik Schmidt (who you may have seen in our range trip videos). As a firearms and defensive tactics specialist with a law enforcement background and a hearty love of zombies, Erik has been a great resource for us and we’ll be interviewing him for a future article.

Now let’s see how long it takes for Brant to notice this post…

Emily

AUTHOR: Gronk DATE RECORDED: September 09, 2011 AT 20:10PM

The first thing you notice when you reach the Black Rock Desert is the brilliant white expanse of playa stretching as far as the eye can see. This region is all that remains of a long-evaporated pleistocene lakebed. The terrain is desolate — an arid sea of cracked earth coated with an incredibly fine, highly alkaline dust. There are no plants, no animals, and no insects.

Massive dust storms rip through the area with no warning, bringing winds as high as 70 mph and decimating anything not anchored down with rebar. Temperatures are extreme — during the day, the dry heat can spike well over 110 degrees, and can plummet to nearly freezing at night.

It’s the perfect place to celebrate Burning Man.

Last week, this seeming hell-on-earth was a vacation destination for me and the 55,000+ other people who congregated to form Black Rock City — a make-shift city that becomes Nevada’s ninth largest urban center for the one week it exists every year. It’s an impromptu civilization with few rules, minimal police presence, and essentially no currency. There’s an emphasis on freedom and self-expression, but in this harshest of environments, basic survival needs are an ever-present reality.

It was the apocalypse. Minus the zombies.

I’m not talking about the level of danger, of course. (Though there is that — people die at the event every year.) I did draw some interesting, practical lessons about desert survival from the trip, but there was something else more inspirational: Amidst all of the rows of tents and shacks and RVs and big, organized camps, amongst all of the people eager to trade or share their own unique talents and goods, I saw the echoes of something we’ve talked about here at the Lab. Not the immediate, destructive moment of the apocalypse. Not the intensely chaotic period that would follow. The aftermath. The attempt to come together and be a society again.

One of the most striking things about Burning Man is that the culture of this post-apocalyptic city isn’t just a copy of our society. Fundamentally, a lot of things change.

First, time loses meaning. It can be hard to imagine a day that isn’t ruled by the clock in our wired and go-go-go modern world, but out there it’s very different. Unless you happened to bring a watch or a clock with you, you quickly have no concrete idea of the time. It’s even easy to lose track of what day it is. In fact, most people at Burning Man choose to completely disconnect and intentionally stop keeping track of time.

Day and night become irrelevant because there’s always something to do. You end up sleeping when you don’t have the energy to go on, and you wake up when your body decides it’s rested enough. This is incredibly freeing during the event, but it makes acclimating back into the real world really difficult. (Emily, who also attended, still seems a little spacey if you ask me. )

Second, your sense of direction and spatial awareness changes dramatically. Away from the usual landmarks of home (and the crutch of GPS or online maps), getting lost becomes an everyday event. While all of the streets in the massive semi-circular city are named or numbered, it can be really hard to figure out where you are. As the week goes on, street signs are stolen or swapped by pranksters, the huge fixtures like the Man are burned, and new art installations pop up every day.

Aside from the group of DPW volunteers that head out to the desert early to set up the core of the city, there’s no Department of Transportation maintaining order and clarity. Throw in a dust storm or the nighttime darkness of a city with a limited electrical power grid, and navigation becomes a real challenge. Even with all the fires and illuminated art installations, you’d better have a headlamp or flashlight if you want to get around.

Third, you completely re-evaluate what does and doesn’t have value. At Burning Man, real-world currency is largely useless… much like it would be after a societal collapse. Would you want to trade the food you need to survive for some green paper? I sure wouldn’t. There’s a lot of fun bartering that goes on at Burning Man, but — unlike a real apocalyptic situation — there’s also a tremendous amount of people that share what they have with no expectation of reciprocation. Home brewers set up make-shift bars to share their beer and absinthe. People spend the mornings cooking up pounds bacon for passer-bys. Carts are set up to kick out sno-cones in the peak of the afternoon heat. Professional masseuses bring their massage chairs out to work on sore bodies.

Little things that would be easy to take for granted now assume an immense, life-saving value in a place like that. A duct tape patch I used to seal a hole in my air mattress saved me from a week of sleeping on the ground. I learned that vinegar is the best way to combat the damage done to your skin by the extremely alkaline playa dust that covers everything.  A chance to bathe is a godsend. Imagine the trade value — in a land with no running water — of a camp with a functioning shower. (Also worth considering in a world without indoor plumbing: a certain highly popular device handed out every year by the crew over at Pee Funnel Camp.)

Finally, without the same safeguards we have in everyday society, you really get to see the ways you can and can’t trust other people. Don’t get me wrong. Burning Man is a wonderful, fun, and (mostly) safe environment. It’s an arts festival. There were no roving bands of gun-toting marauders slaughtering innocents and setting camps on fire. There were no starving masses of refugees desperate for food we could scarcely spare. But even so, the generous spirit of sharing you see with most burners isn’t embraced by everyone. Throughout the week, I heard accounts of tents and camps in the outer parts of the city getting raided by thieves when their owners were out at night. Most people lock their bikes to keep them from getting stolen. Ultimately, it all comes down to human nature. The same behaviors and emotions that people carry with them every day exist on the playa, whether they manifest as love, hate, generosity, greed, hope, despair, or something else.

So often, when you play a game set in a dramatic situation, a lot of the characters in the world don’t seem to recognize the situation. You’re trying to save the world from certain doom. They’re looking to charge you as much as they can for the next weapon upgrade. In Class3, we’re trying to do something different. We want everything, from the look-and-feel of the world, to the behaviors and motivations of the NPCs, to reflect the situation you’re in. Last week I had a unique chance to get a first-hand look at the psychology of a society without rules. It was a best case scenario, but I still had an eye-opening look at how it affected me and the people around me, both for good and ill.

Now all we have to do is add the zombies.

Gronk

P.S. As I mentioned, some of the actual survival lessons were pretty interesting. Right before we set out, I’d checked my list, making sure that I had everything that people recommended for the week-long excursion, but as I was loading our camp’s truck for the trek, my first thought was “Are two coolers and a few boxes of food really going to be enough to feed more than a dozen people for an entire week?” It seemed like a stretch from what I was used to back in Seattle, but the answer, I discovered, was absolutely. By the end of the burn, we still had half of our dry goods left and a third of our cooler items left. Part of this was due to our eating habits changing in the desert — on the playa, you wind up eating when you’re hungry instead of adhering to regular meals. I found that I was generally too busy (or hot) to want to do much more than snack.

When we actually did cook, it became apparent that dried foods like pasta, rice, and beans really go a long way — they’re filling, they can be stored for months without spoiling, they don’t need to stay cold, and they generally don’t take a lot of prep to make. If an outbreak happened tomorrow, make sure you stockpile this stuff — it’ll be worth more than gold.

AUTHOR: Emily DATE RECORDED: August 29, 2011 AT 15:07PM

Happy Friday, everyone! You’ve sent in a batch of new drawings and paintings since last month’s fan art update, so it’s time for us to show these cool pieces off.

Read on to check out the art and to learn how you can send in creations of your own.

Fan art by Michael Andrew Holmes and Sian Taylor-Deville

Fan art by Cody Turcotte

Fan art by Loki

Fan art by Dantron

Thanks to Michael, Sian, Cody, Dantron, and Loki for sending in these awesome sketches. Keep them coming, guys — we love seeing the stuff you come up with!

If you’re an aspiring artist that likes to draw zombie-related pieces, we’d love for you to send us your creations. Go ahead and post a link to your art here, or send it to fanart@undeadlabs.com. If you’d like your work to appear in a future website post and our Facebook fan art gallery, make sure you provide me with an email address where I can reach you.

AUTHOR: Emily DATE RECORDED: August 23, 2011 AT 13:33PM

Headed to PAX this weekend and have the itch to chat with fellow zed heads? We’re not going to have a booth this year, but if you’re interested in meeting the UL team, you’re in luck! We’ll be at the show, wandering the floor and checking out the sights, so if you see someone in one of our brown Undead Labs shirts, stop them and say hey. If you’d like to meet up Friday afternoon to shoot the breeze with members of the dev team, drop us a line at community@undeadlabs.com.

Earlier on Friday, I will be joining a handful of other female developers to discuss careers in the industry, what it’s like to be a woman that works on games, and more. Look for “The Harridan’s Guide to the Game Industry” at the Serpent Theatre from noon to 1:00 PM.

Hope to see you at the show!

Emily

AUTHOR: Jeff DATE RECORDED: August 18, 2011 AT 17:50PM

Last week, our art director Doug talked about his vision for the look of the Class3 world. Doug certainly has a strong vision and his concept art looks fantastic, but everyone knows that since this is an Xbox LIVE Arcade game, there is no way the game can really look like that.

I mean, come on, right?

Today we’re happy to announce that Class3 will be powered by the awesome CryENGINE 3. The state-of-the-art engine has a well-deserved reputation for providing the graphics horsepower to create gorgeous games, and we’re squeezing it for all it’s worth to bring Doug’s “Faded Americana” vision for Class3 to life. With the cutting-edge technology of CryENGINE 3, combined with the experience and talent of our own Team Zed artists, we think we’re getting awfully damn close to achieving Doug’s vision, even at this early stage of development.

What’s that? Did I hear someone say “Pics or it didn’t happen”?

Or was it, “Video or it didn’t happen…”?

Jeff