Micro-mod idea: Night of the livng dead (1968)

[ziemeck]

I just had an idea for micro mod, that could be done by someone willing to learn modding. That would require 2 maps (cementary and house) and might make a funny survival scenario. The catch is you would start at cementary as blond lady and switch to black guy ... with blond lady as NPC. Small mods can be pretty funny, as Vault rats proved.

I think many modders attempt to make huge mods and lose interest halfway through. Aside from VaultRats also Lexx proved micromods can be funny ("Shattered destiny" is in fact a downscaled larger mod ...).

 

[Forgotten Knight]

There is one such mod called "Living Dead" made by Haris & Miran, back in 2004 or earlier. You might wanna check that out, see if that pumps your adrenalin

 

[Lexx]

So your idea is "2 maps and 2 people"? You should come up with far more details to spark interested. Like, what are you going to do, how will the player have fun while doing it, how will you make sure that the player isn't done with it in less than 5 minutes, etc. etc.

Other than that, Micro-Mods are a great way to actually finish something (many modders have problems with finishing their stuff). Once I tried to get some people for a small "modding jam"- but yeah, nobody has been deeply interested, which I can understand. Fallout is an old game and the "active modding community" is like 5 or less people today.

 

[ziemeck]

@ ForgottenKnight:
Thank you for hint. I will take a look. Seems though that it is a Diablo-style massacre.
EDIT: I took a look ( http://www.fileplanet.com/148419/140000/fileinfo/Fallout-2---Living-Dead-Mod ) - it is indeed a Diablo-style massacre. I made 3 first maps hoping it would lead somewhere (finding other survivors, dialogue), but lost hope. To make sure I googled and found that the author (Harris) wrote about his mod as follows ( http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewtopic.php?p=215219&sid=3d6547e23590c911e8e41ed5684a0b79#215219 ):

Well i made this only cause i felt like shooting zombies. Its not big mod and its not fun to play longer than half an hour. Its 4 maps and 2 of them keep looping forever and you never even come to worldmap. Its was done so to create panic feeling of never really having a place where you arent attacked. So after a while you get sick of shooting ghouls.

So your idea is "2 maps and 2 people"? You should come up with far more details to spark interested. Like, what are you going to do, how will the player have fun while doing it, how will you make sure that the player isn't done with it in less than 5 minutes, etc. etc.

My idea is a mod that reproduces as close as possible the movie (at start point for "blonde" cementary quest and at the beginning at "house map"). So the story/scenario is pretty straightforward. The mystery for player might be how to change the flow of events and what possible solutions might emerge. A thing that should not be openly revealed here anyway (if anybody ever made the mod and got anybody to play it for more than 5 mins). If there appeared someone willing to experiment with the premise I could PM some ideas.

I think that the game should be difficult and make exploration of the house and hoarding of various items pretty important. I fear that a lot of scripting would be required (e.g. game engine offers no means of entering building via window, holding a lit torch does not scare ghouls away and so on).

What I find really difficult might be scripting of "zombie special features" - high degree of immunity to damage in other areas than head (AC on head lower than elswhere?), "bite attacks" (and transition of bitten NPCs into zombies), usage of items (stones, clubs, batons and so on), grabbing of items from the ground and dead bodies - that seems to be unsolved even in latest version of Killaps RP. Another thing would be - how to render blonde useless (maybe lock her AI on "run when your finger bleeds" combat setting?).

I think the best way to make the mod work would be fast prototype and then spiral methodics. It means that not everything should be implemented at once - but modder should aim at making a playable scenario with the elements offered out of the box, gradually tweaking all that needs tweaking.

Other than that, Micro-Mods are a great way to actually finish something (many modders have problems with finishing their stuff). Once I tried to get some people for a small "modding jam"- but yeah, nobody has been deeply interested, which I can understand. Fallout is an old game and the "active modding community" is like 5 or less people today.

I am not convinced by the statement about 5 persons. Killap, Jesterka, MR team, you , ForgottenKnight makes already 5. And I haven't even mention the famous Arek Balcerzak!
Regarding the "jam" I doubt two days is enough to put up together anything working. Not with available documentation of modding tools and scripting language.