I am trying to design a bite system for my team's horror modification for the Half Life 2 Source engine. Our game uses minimal interface, so I am trying to keep it consistent with the rest of the game, but I am having problems thinking of ideas. I would like to start an open dialogue to help get my creative juices going. So far, I have come up with two options. The first is the mouse cursor and the circle idea. The following sums up the idea: Human players can be infected if they receive more than 20% of their total hitpoints in damage in a given period of time. The decay of the player from this point will be determined by the players RESISTANCE and ENDURANCE attributes. (I have yet to come up with the formula). Once a player is infected this way, zombies will have a much easier time in biting them and completely incapacitating them. Zombies may bite the player if they manage to keep hold of their opponent for x amount of time. First, they must grab the uninfected humans. Once grabbed, the human will need to move the mouse, whose position will be denoted by a “cursor” outside of the zombies “circle”. The cursor and circle will be able to be moved using the mouse. The zombies circle will always move at the same rate, while the player’s cursor will move at a speed depending on the amount of hit points left and the player’s ENDURANCE and STRENGTH stat (If the player is infected, this will also slow the player’s cursor down substantially). If the zombie is able to keep the cursor inside of his/her circle, he will be able to bite the player by pressing the action button (left mouse click). If not, the player will break away and play will resume as normal. Additionally, any trauma caused to the zombie by an outside party will immediately break the mini game and play will resume as normal. Obviously, for this idea, we would have to record the mouse movement for both sides. Mouse speed would be slowed dramatically to increase the playability of the mini game. While this idea isnt terrible, I'm not sure how I would present this to the players without adding additional items to the UI. My second idea involves using a combination of button presses. These presses would involve the movement keys, wasd. The human player would press a key, and the infected player would have x amount of time to mimic that key press. If the infected player is able to sustain control of the player over y amount of time, the infected player would be able to bite the human player. Again, I am not sure how to do this without adding UI elements. We could simply show movement with an animation or maybe just a quarter circle glow over the 4 areas of the screen (top, left, right, and bottom) to denote the presses. Those are my ideas, tell me what you think and feel free to brainstorm your own with me.

I like it, but I'm worried that the mouse-chasing aspect will be entirely decided by relative cursor speeds. FPS players, particularly Counter-Strike players (whom I imagine will make up a sizeable portion of your target audience) are very precise, quick-responding mousers. I wouldn't expect your average Quake kid to have any trouble at all maintaining optimal or near-optimal accuracy during the game, whcih, as I said, makes it a stat-driven chase for all but the most incompetent players.

I haven't done any playtesting, obviously, but I suspect that it will eventually be reduced to the zombie trying to chase the player's cursor into a corner of the screen.

I advise you to complicate it a little bit. Add some kind of "turbo" key that lets your cursor go faster as long as it's held down, and have the length and regeneration rate of the "turbo" effect be linked to something like your in-game stamina or health. That way, the zombies can expect a better chance of success if they're prey is tired from running or fighting.

Modifying the size of the zombie's circle based on how much damage it took will penalize them for shambling through a hail of bullets to reach their opponent and encourage humans to fire even when they won't be able to drop the zombie in time.

Ideally, a worn-out, freaked-out or badly hurt human would be easy prey for even a single zombie once they were caught, regardless of player skill, and a chopped-up zombie would take little more than an elbow and a clever one-liner to escape.

The first thing that pop'd into my head was the Alien bite system in Alien Vrs Predator 1 & 2. The aliens can get a whack of health by centering their cursor on a target players head, when its lined up correctly a pair of teeth appear on the top and bottom of the screen, clicking then neatly takes his head off. Another ability was the tail whip, which could stun a player causing him to wobble around, giving the alien a chance to get in close, line up and take the bite.

In respects to your game, you could have a zombie "grabbing" a player like the aliens stun attack, the player could try to wring himself free by moving the keys (in a specific order if you like) and moving the mouse to break free, the more injured or tired either of them are could make this take longer or shorter respectively. In the mean time, the zombie would be trying to line up his cursor on the struggling player to take the shot, which could be more difficult depending on how much he's struggling (like giving the zombie a "wobbly" cursor).

Are we talking reasonably fast respawn?

How about:
Zombies have 3 melee attacks:
Claw, Bite, Grab

Humans have 3 melee defences:
Block, Dodge Away, Smash Back

Humans have a Health%, Infection% and Mobility%.

When a zombie enters melee range, the minigame starts.

      Block   Dodge   SmashClaw    +       -       0Bite    0       +       -Grab    -       0       +

+ means "good for human", - means "good for zombie", and 0 means "neutral".

So the player wants to BLOCK a CLAW, DODGE a BITE, and SMASH a GRAB.

The above results don't have to be perfect -- if a player is wounded/crippled enough, SMASHING a GRAB might still fail.

In a Zombie movie, once you have been bitten, you will turn. So any level of infection grows -- and the more wounded you are, the faster it grows. Once it gets high enough, you die and turn into a Zombie.

Bites give a chance that the target gets infected. A bite has a better chance of landing if the target is immobalized or wounded. An attempted bite on a full-health full-mobility human has a very low chance of success.

Claws do damage to health. Lower health reduces max mobility. Less mobale targets are easier to Claw. A Claw has a decent chance of landing even on a completely mobile human.

Grabs reduce the human's mobility, and possibly minor damage. Grabs are quite dangerous, because they leave the human open to being bit, but don't directly take the human out.

...

When a Zombie enters melee range, the two players are tied together (and maybe slowed). 3 seconds later, the first combat round evaluates. The interface to pick which attack/defence is up to you. If a player doesn't input an attack/defence, the same one they used last time is chosen.

Each attack/defence can have different costs and different results.

Ie:
Smashing a Grab causes damage to the zombie and increases your mobility. The Grab has a low chance of success.

Smashing a Bite causes damage to the Zombie, but it also gives the Zombie a high chance to bite you.

Smashing a Claw risks damage to both players.

The Smash damage may still need to roll for success.

Meanwhile, Dodge and Block would only rarely do damage to the Zombie.

Dead Rising for XBox360 has a timed button press for zombie grabs. They have basic strikes that do little damage, but if you get too close, they'll lunge at you. When they grab you, a button or thumbstick motion flashes on screen. If you press the wrong button or let the time run out, they take a bite out and knock you down. Then you have another timed-button press event to kick them off you.

The button presses are usually random in Dead Rising, but you could make them movement buttons based on the direction a zombie attacks from so that it is more immersive and less random carnival game. You could also scale the number of buttons and lengths of their timers by the number of zombies grabbing at once and the relative statistics of zombies-vs-player.

Thanks to those that responded.

Iron Chef Carnage: I really like your idea of changing the size of the zombies cursor relative to its health. As far as the relative mouse speeds are concerned, I believe we would be able to code it so that the movement of the mouse and its speed is dependant on the player's health and endurance. However, the more I think about using the mouse in this way, the less I like it. It doesn't feel natural to me when when I play around with it, thinking if I were playing the game now. It seems an idea like this would best fit a console type game, but maybe its just me. Perhaps I can combine both the movement keys and the circle and cursor keys. The movement keys would be used primarily to escape the zombie, while the mouse would be used to damage the zombie. If the player gets the cursor outside of the zombies circle, more damge would be inflicted, and, if the player has a weapon, he/she would be able to use it.

Gyrthok: While the idea from Alien vs. Predator isn't actually bad at all, I can't see how it would fit this game. The reason being is that the zombies will be viewed from a third person perspective. I do like the idea of a "wobbly" cursor as you put it, and I'm sure that I'll be able to work that in the game somehow.

NotAYakk: Your game sounds an awful lot like a rock paper scissors event. While very simple, this is all not bad. For one thing, it would severely decrease programming time to which we are already limited to.

templeWulf: We want to stay as far away from a button mashing minigame as possible. Games like this, in my opinion, are not even worth playing. In no means am I bashing your suggestion, it has been brought up several times within my group. We are looking for a more strategical minigame where involvement is more indepth and intense.

Keep the ideas coming guys, and I'll keep responding.

Here is my latest idea:

ATTACKING AS A ZOMBIE
Zombies will only be able to use melee attacks with bare hands. They will not be able to pick up any items or weapons to be used in combat. A left click of the mouse will result in a left swipe; a right click of the mouse will result in a right swipe; a scroll forward of the mouse wheel will result in a knockdown; a scroll backward (or a simultaneous pressing of the left and right mouse buttons for those without scroll wheels) will result in a grab. Zombies will also be able to lunge at their opponents by double tapping the forward key. Players will be able to combine the lunge with any of the moves, including the swipe, grab and knockdown. If a zombie deals more than 15% damage in a span of less than 3 seconds, the human player will become infected. Zombies must be immediately next to a player to grab them.
Once the human player is grabbed, the zombie can maintain control of the uninfected player by repeatedly tapping left mouse button. Human players will also need to click the left mouse button to break away. Whoever taps the button the fastest within 3 seconds will “win” the confrontation. A zombie win will result entering the mini-game in which the zombie will have a chance to bite the player. A human win will result in breaking away from the zombie.
Uninfected humans will have the upper-hand in melee combat due to their use of environments and items. Certain items will allow the player to break away from a zombie hold much easier than if he/she had no items at all. These items will act as a button tap multiplier.


BREAKING AWAY FROM THE ZOMBIE HOLD
If a zombie succeeds in successfully entering a grapple with the human player, a mini-game will begin. To begin with, a red overlay will be placed on top of the screen. This overlay will have a circle cut out from the middle of the screen. The size of the circle will represent the strength of the grasp the zombie has on the player. The strength of the grasp will be determined by the zombie’s health and his/her ability to mimic the uninfected player’s shaking. Shaking will be done with the movement keys (WASD). Uninfected players will be given up to 10 button presses to shake off a zombie. Button presses may not exceed more than 1 every second, as to increase the playability of the mini-game. If the zombie is unable to mimic the press of the human player within 1 second after its pressing, the strength of his/her grasp on the human will diminish, as will the size of his/her circle. Zombies will be notified of the direction of the press by a brighter red overlay denoting the direction it was pressed (top, left, right, and bottom). However, if the zombie is able to mimic the press, the player will lose a portion of his endurance.
Uninfected players may also decrease the strength of the zombies grasp by dealing damage to it. This can be done with the mouse cursor. By moving the mouse cursor outside of the circle, the player will be able to deal damage by a left click or right click of the mouse. A left click of the mouse will do a simple melee attack, and a right click of the mouse will use the weapon that the player is holding. The speed of the uninfected player’s cursor will be determined by the strength and remaining endurance of the player. Zombies will be able to play defense while this is occurring by moving the center of the circle of the overlay with their mouse, but will not be able to deal any damage. Any trauma caused to the zombie by an outside party will deal three times the amount of damage to the zombie, shrinking the size of the circle dramatically.
If the uninfected player is not able to shake the zombie off in 10 seconds or if the player becomes too fatigued, the uninfected player will fall to the ground and the zombie will be allowed to bite the player. Once bitten, the player will fall to the ground paralyzed and will resurrect as a zombie within one minute of the biting. Once the size of the circle of the zombie is below a radius of 5 pixels, the human player will knock the zombie to the ground, and will have a free shot at it.
Being grabbed by a zombie takes a heavy toll on the uninfected player’s endurance.

***wobbly cursor - make it hard for zombie to control direction they move their circle
**turbo - allows for either two quick button presses or a fast cursor to get outside the zombies circle. Heavily effects stamina.


One of my team members responded with this:
The time that would take up is 13 seconds total. In a first person game, 13 seconds is a lifetime, so I'm not sure that would play well.

I think that after 5 seconds, any attempt to bite should be made or thrawted as teammates should be on the scene to help and not just stand around for 13 seconds watching the two combatants dance.

What I'd like to see would be after the zombie makes the grapple, all he/she has to do is hold down his left and right mouse buttons for the 5 second duration (which will seem like an eternity anyway). If the zombie lets go for any reason the grapple will end. This would allow for the zombie to escape if he's taking too much damage, or if he sees the rest of the team coming to beat on him.

For the player, they should just move the mouse constantly for 5 seconds to simulate struggle. If they stop moving for more than a second then they get bitten. If they keep moving for that duration then stat calculations will determine if they free themselves from the grapple.

Obviously certain stats will either decrease or increase the length of the struggle, but the maximum time should not exceed 5 seconds. There for the strongest character could break free in a second, but the weak old lady would struggle for 5 seconds.
___________________________________________________________________________

I agree that the time should and can be scaled by the player's attributes. But I think that escaping from a zombie, and, conversely, grappling an uninfected should be more enthralling.

What do you guys think?






[Edited by - duhchamp on November 19, 2006 4:36:29 AM]

I'd like you guys to read my last post and make some comments/criticisms.

hmmm, I can't help but think you are over complicating the zombie grab idea. Why not simplify the whole aspect? My suggestition would be as follows:

The zombie can grab a person if the mouse cursor is centered on the person and they are within a set distance. When this happens translucent arms appear on the zombie players screen and a pressing the left mouse button will grab the player. To bite the player they have to position the cursor on the person neck then teeth appear and the zombie player can right click to bite the person. If the cursor leaves the persons body for 3 seconds or the zombie lets go of the left mouse button then the person has broken free.

so people are move about trying to break free and zombies are trying to move their cursor to right postion to bite the person.

In this way you can keep the interface the same throughout the game.

Well, we dont want grabbing and biting a player to be that easy. By establishing a somewhat difficult mini-game, this will ensure difficulty for biting a player, and will require skill to do so.

Still, I can see your point as to how it could be considered over-complicated. What are some other opinions?