Zombie Hugger: Documentation and User Guide

Move with W,A,S,D to evade the undead! Use the space bar to DASH if they get too close, or if you want to get in your own HUG (with F or left click) in between their attacks! Watch out for the grandma, who will start telling you a story as soon as you get close enough for her to see you. While you’re in range, make sure you stay LOCKED facing her direction by holding shift. It’s only polite to look at someone when they’re speaking to you. You’ll have to carefully listen you maneuver around her until she has finished her story – only then can you hug her and send her off in peace. If you stop facing her, you better get out of range quickly or you’ll find your heart leaving your body! Survive for as long as you can, but the night is so very long…   

Navigate the menu with WASD or your arrow keys, and then press enter to make a selection. Alternatively you can use your mouse and left click to select an option. Start game begins the game, and selecting the high scores page will bring you...

...to here. You can see your highest score, or if it’s your first time, the highest score of someone who came before you…

Comparison to the original game concept

My original concept statement had a vision of a game in which the player had to handle an increasingly complicated mix of violent enemy types and numbers, each with their own method to non-violently put them to rest. It was also intended to be a game in which the player could learn new moves, and race the sunrise to save as many cursed undead as possible before the day began. It didn’t quite get that far in the time that I had! Instead, the core interactions are there, but they haven’t been brought to the next level like I had hoped in my original concept. The multiple enemy types are just two: the grandma, whose story you must listen all the way through before you can put her to rest, and the base skeleton, which acts as a 'swarmer' and can be put to rest with the default hug attack. The reason for the lack of additional enemy types was time and nothing else – the full vision of the game is still to make the player juggle increasingly complex scenarios, and for that, there need to be more enemies and more ways to non-violently put them to rest.

Despite this, my game has come many long strides towards the original vision. It’s a cute but moody game with evocative pixel art, a mostly-monochrome aesthetic, snappy movement, and it does indeed feature a whole lot of killing with kindness.  

Summary of Feedback

Testers were asked to give feedback about the following elements:

Art Style

The majority of testers strongly agreed that the art style fit the theme of the game. Outside of the feedback form, the first comment from each tester when they began playing was that they liked the cute pixel art. With this feedback in mind, I didn't make any changes to the art between the testing session and final submission.

Animation visibility

Feedback on attack visibility was mixed, with an even amount of testers who could and couldn't tell what was happening. What a mess! In light of this, and along with the written and verbal suggestions made during testing, I added hit effects and cool downs so that attacks were slower and easier to distinguish.

Consistency and feel of the moving system

The overall feedback was that movement felt good. Players liked that they could move quickly relative to the enemies, which allowed them to get out of harms way and generally navigate the space in a smooth way. One tester pointed out that the hug animation should lock the enemy in place, which I liked but did not manage to implement in time.

Game difficulty

Game difficulty was determined across three metrics: spawn rates, enemy movement and tracking speed, and the testers' overall impression of the difficult. Testers gave the feedback I hoped for, which was that the game feels right in terms of enemy numbers and tracking, and that the overall difficulty is 'tough but OK'. I want players to be slightly challenged, but not stressed. Given this feedback, the spawn rates and movement speed of enemies were largely unchanged.

Bugs

Numerous bugs were pointed out by testers. The most significant were the collision issues caused by enemy colliders not being deactivated until the end of their death animation, and the uncapped attack rates of the player and enemies. Other feedback around the vague animations also cropped up here, which are not so much bugs as areas needing polish. In response to this feedback I disabled enemy colliders as soon as they have been hugged, so that their death animation does not disrupt the game. I also capped attack rates to once per 0.7 seconds for the player, and only during a lunging attack for the skeletons (which occurs roughly every 5 seconds).

Suggestions

Testers wanted to see more enemy types, such as a dog (which would have been perfect!), as well as sound effects in the game. I did not manage to implement additional enemy types, but I did implement sound effects in the form of a main game theme song, and sound effects for skeleton hits on the player and enemy spawns.

Asset List

Sprite sheets (all made by me):

• Grandma
• Skeleton (movement and attack)
• Player (4 directional movement, idle, and hug)

Individual Sprites

• Hearts for the UI and particle effects
  
• Cemetery walls, tombstones, cross grave markers, rocks, and trees.

Audio

• Game music: “Hard Mode” by HoliznaCC0
• “Punch Body” sound effect for skeleton attacks
• “Skeleton emerging from the ground” for spawning.

 

References:

“Hard Mode” by HoliznaCC0 was obtained from their section on the free music archive. 

The “Punch Body” audio file was obtained from quicksounds.

The “Skeleton emerging from ground” audio file was obtained from quicksounds.

Code to obtain the letter-by-letter effect of the Grandma’s dialogue was adapted from this youtube video by Fire Brain Games (Creagines).