Zombie Survival Simulator

Zombie Survival Simulator or Zsim, used as a placeholder name until a further time when an official name is created, is a realistic first-person shooter simulator based around the concept of zombies in a post apocalyptic setting.

Developers Theory
Unlike previously made zombie games, this general premise behind Zsim is not about forced action, or linear, story-driven gameplay. Rather, Zsim's premise is based around being a Zombie survival simulation, mixed with the general elements of a first person shooter game, ensuring gamers don't lose interest in more boring stretches of gameplay. The action packed, story driven nature of other zombie games will be mostly sacrificed for realism, and engaging, strategic gameplay. The horror element, or the fright factor will be driven not by scripted events or the way a level is set up, rather it will be derived from the common scenarios players will find themselves in, along with the overall characteristics of the game, and the enemies themselves. Another aspect of the Zsim is the inclusion of hostile non-infected enemy survivors. These hostile survivors will shoot at you without hesitation, try to kill you and steal your supplies, or defend themselves. This adds a whole new dynamic, forcing the player to be wary of not only zombies, but gun wielding enemies as well who can wage a battle over a distance.

This is not to say all survivors are hostile. You may encounter npc survivors who will aid you, or join you.

Storyline
An infectious virus coupled with worldwide social, economic, and political problems around the world has led to a major collapse of world governments. The highly infectious virus alters the physical and mental being of infected humans and animals turning them into mindless, and murderous animals who hunt down and infect others. This has led to a Hollywood-like Zombie Apocalypse.

Settings
Zsim occurs in immensely large maps which can encompass dozens of types of environments. Sprawling urban metropolises, suburbs, business districts which include malls, department stores, and restaurants, industrial parks with factories, power plants, and warehouses, rural landscapes with farms, trailer parks, and extensive plots of forestlands. The natural side of these maps includes any type of natural landscapes like forests, deserts, tundras, mountains, valleys, plains, rivers, creeks, swamps, etc.

Maps
There will be -- maps to choose from. The following is a list and description of the maps.

Skills and Stats
Skills and stats affect the players character and the way they interact, and behave in game.

Base Stats

 * Strength - The higher the strength the more the player can carry, the less burden heavy loads have, and the stronger melee attacks are.
 * Agility - The higher the agility the faster players run, the higher they jump, and the faster they recover from fatigue.
 * Endurance - The higher the endurance the more physical activities the player can do before getting fatigued, the slower players become hungry, and the more quickly they naturally heal.
 * Covert - The higher the covert skill the more the player can remain undetected by the infected. Players with low covert stats attract more attention from further away than higher players.

Skills

 * Firearms - The firearm skill determines the players aptitude when using firearms. The higher the skill level the more accurate the players shoot, the faster they reload, the the less their firearms degrade, and jam.
 * Melee - The melee skill determines the players melee abilities. The higher the melee skill the less chance the player has of stumbling or being parried while in melee combat, and players attack faster.
 * Security - The security skill determines players quality of barricading, or their abilities to pick locks, hotwire cars, and deal with security systems.
 * Medical - The medical skill determines the players ability to heal other players by using medical supplies. The higher the medical skill the more efficient the player is at healing others.
 * Mechanical - The mechanical skill determines the players ability to manipulate or repair machines, or vehicles. The higher the skill the more machines the player can operate, or manipulate, and the easier it is for players to repair such machines.
 * Driving - The driving skill determines the players ability to operate a vehicle such as a car, truck, motorcycle, or large, wheeled vehicle. The higher the skill the better the handling the player has while driving, and what kind of vehicles the player can drive. Players with a low driving skill cannot drive large vehicles like a semi-truck, or dump truck.
 * Aircraft - The aircraft skill determines the players ability to use aircraft such as helicopters, and planes. The higher the skill the more advanced types of airplanes that the player can operate. Players with a low aircraft skill can only fly ultralight aircraft, or gliders, while players with a high aircraft skill can potentially fly larger airplanes and helicopter.
 * Watercraft
 * Military Vehicles

Combat
There are two types of combat experienced in Zsim. Infected combat involves either ranged, or melee combat with the Infected. The second type of combat is firefights with hostile survivors. Generally, Infected combat takes place closer to the player due to how Infected are strictly melee attackers. Hostile survivors generally use firearms and other weapons to attack at a distance.

Travel
Players have many choices in how to travel around the map, be it on foot, on non-motorized vehicles like a bicycle, or on motorized vehicles like cars, trucks, four wheelers, motorcycles, RVs, semi-trucks, etc. On rare occasions players may find military vehicles like APCs, or tanks. These take special skills in order to operate, but offer a very unique travelling experience. Players can also access trains, airplanes, helicopters, and boats assuming they have the proper skills to use them.

Gathering Resources
Gathering food, water, ammunitions, and equipment is essential for survival. These things can be found across the map in realistic places. Players can loot houses, stores, and warehouses for supplies. If they have the proper items players can siphon gasoline from tanks at gas stations or abandon vehicles.

Fortification and Barricading
Players are able to barricade things to protect from the Infected. They can push large furniture in front of doors and windows, as well as wedge chairs under door handles. If a player has a hammer in their inventory they can find planks of wood to nail windows and doors shut.

Interacting With The Map
If the player has the right skills, and the right knowledge they can interact with the map itself to create very advantageous situations. If the player can figure it out, they can start up power plants, or back up generators for buildings rather than using portable generators for electricity. Players can also figure out how to raise and lower bridges to allow easy access over rivers, or to cut off the flow of Infected to an area.

Finding Survivors
Occasionally the player will run into non-infected survivors. In most cases they will be hostile towards the player, but in some cases they may not. The chance of allying with survivors relies on the players awareness of the npc survivors, and their behaviors. If the player notices that they are acting non-threatening, or that the npcs are aware of the players presence, and do not react, most likely they are friendly survivors. If the player notices that they are acting strange, or see that they panic when become aware of the players presence, they are most likely hostile. In some cases the player may find single survivors in need of aid or rescue. If the player are able to rescue them they become permanently friendly towards the player. When opening a dialog with friendly survivors, the player can trade supplies, or ask the friendly survivors to join the players party.

Salvaging and Crafting
Each character has a mechanical skill level which can allow them to salvage items, and craft items. A player with a low mechanical skill has the ability to swap car batteries, build simple contraptions such as a gasoline siphon, while players with higher mechanical skills can alter weapons, and vehicles, and even fabricate vehicles. A few examples of crafting are:

- A metal pipe, bicycle tire pump, and a rubber hose = a gasoline siphon. - lol item 2

Becoming Infected
When in direct contact with the Infected, there is a chance you can contract the virus. Unlike most other zombie movies, and video games, there is no immunity, also people do not get infected indefinitely by being bitten or coming into contact with bodily fluids. The chance of infection (COI) is based on various factors including, zombie age, equipped apparel, bite location, fluids transmitted, and the players health, and stats.

The following explains the COI factors:


 * Zombie Age
 * Fresh - Fresh zombies are the least infectious as the virus has yet to completely saturate the victims body.
 * Aged - Aged zombies are considered the most dangerous age of zombie as their bodies are saturated with the virus making them more infectious, while their lack of physical frailty makes them more able to attack than decrepit zombies.
 * Decrepit - Decrepit zombies are the most infectious since their bodies are breaking down and not only super saturated with the "zombie" virus but other illnesses as well. Even the air decrepit zombies exhale contain viral spores.


 * Bodily Fluid Type
 * Saliva - Saliva is the least infectious bodily fluid, although it still contains more than enough viral compounds to infected a bite victim.
 * Bile - Stomach bile of the infected contains the next highest amount of infectious agents.
 * Blood - Blood is the next most infectious bodily fluid. The virus flows freely in the blood stream travelling to different parts of the body making blood very infectious. Blood plays a factor in becoming infected as Zombies will projectile vomit bloody bile in order to infected you. Blood can stay infectious even when outside the body for a period of time. So eating bloody food, drinking water with blood in it, or licking a blood toilet seat can get the player infected.
 * Cerebral Spinal Fluid - CSF is the most highly saturated bodily fluid. Contact with CSF means definite infection. The player only has to worry about this if they are on the other side of an infected while it's head is blown to pieces or if someone injects you with a syringe of CSF.


 * The players stats and general health determine their immune systems response to the virus. If the player is in healthy condition their bodies may be able to fully fight off the infection, depending on what bodily fluid they came into contact with. On the other hand a wounded, or unhealthy player may not be able to fight off infection.

You Are Infected
You have been vomited on by an infected individual and you have definitely contracted the virus. Based on the COI factors you have a mathematically generated and realistic timespan until you slip into a coma and awaken as a zombie. The player will not know this time span. As time goes on the players stats will drop, health may drain, and their vision may become cloudy and discolored. They're also prone to muscle spasms which will cause uncontrolled movement. The players running and walking speed will eventually bring them to a crawl before they lose consciousness. Than it's game over, at least for that character. Now there is a strangely familiar zombie walking around, and the player has to create a new character in order to play again. Better luck next time.

Game Modes
Zsim is a strategic first-person shooter gameplay experience. The overall point of the game varies between different game modes. The following is a list of game modes available, and a description of each.

There are a number of settings that can be adjusted in certain game modes to affect the game play experience. These settings aren't available in all game modes.
 * Infected frequency - affects the number and probability of encountering the Infected on the map. A higher frequency will create larger hordes that cluster together. A lower frequency will lessen the chance of hording.
 * Infected Aging - affects the age, and therefore the quality of the Infected.
 * Fresh (Hard) - Fresh Infected are newly infected making them stronger, faster, and more aware of their surroundings.
 * Aged (Medium) - Aged Infected are generally malnourished, but not enough to severely affect their physiology. They are less fast, strong, and aware, but tend to cluster together more than fresh Infected.
 * Decrepit (Easy) - Decrepit Infected are extremely malnourished and physically broken. Instead of sprinting they shuffle at a jogging pace. They have trouble breaking barricades and doors, and are poor at climbing. They are also severely handicapped in their ability to detect prey.
 * Item Frequency - affects the frequency of randomly placed items and weapons, as well as gasoline in gas stations.
 * Starting Weather - affects the weather patterns when the game starts. Weather changes randomly over time afterwards.
 * Survivor Frequency - affects the amount and probability of encountering survivors, friendly and hostile alike.
 * General Survivor Disposition Frequency - affects the probability of survivors being friendly or hostile towards the players and each other.

Survival
The Survival game mode involves surviving from enemies for a set amount of time, or an infinite amount of time. Players have access to all features of game play, and the entire map. This is the most open ended game mode as there is no set destination or objective, and the players can determine their own strategies for survival, be it fortifying a farm house, hiding atop a sky scraper, battling it out in the streets, or trying to fix up a boat to float out to sea, or anything they can think of. Items, weapons, and vehicles are generated and placed randomly across the map, in realistic positions.

Escape
In the Escape game mode players must travel from one point to an escape point on the other side of the map. They can choose whatever method or path to get to that escape point, leaving the game open ended. The Escape game mode puts a heavy handicap on gasoline and vehicle frequencies as to provide a challenge to those who want to just drive a car across the map.

Game Mode Specific Settings:
 * Escape Point Distance - affects the distance between the starting point and escape point.

Defense
In the Defense game mode players are set loose in a small area of a map and given a certain amount of time to set up fortifications, gather weapons and other supplies, and ready themselves. After the time is up waves of infected attack the players.

Game Mode Specific Settings:
 * Wave Frequency - affects the amount of time between waves. Can be set from several minutes to none so that the flow of enemies are at a constant.
 * Infected Aging - affects the age, and therefore the quality of the Infected.
 * HS Frequency - affects the chances of an attacking wave of hostile survivors instead of infected.

Search and Destroy
In the Search and Destroy game mode players are given a section of the map that they must clear of all infected individuals.

Game Mode Specific Settings:
 * Area Size - affects the size of the area being searched, and cleared.

Rescue
In the Rescue game mode players can either set themselves to be civilians, or military personnel, whose objective is to travel into infected territory, find, assist and escort a group of people out of infected territory.

Game Mode Specific Settings
 * Class - The player can choose to start in a civilian group, or a military group.
 * Group Size - Effects the size of the starting group that accompanies the player.
 * Victim Group Size - Effects the size of the group of survivors the player rescues.
 * Starting Equipment - The lower the value the less equipment you start with. (e.g. weapons, ammunition, food, medical supplies, vehicles.) The higher the value the more equipment.

Potential Game Systems

 * Dynamic Vegetation - I'd like to see dynamic vegetation. Not just bland, non-realistic forests like you see in a lot of games these days. One game in particular has the kind of vegetation I want, and that's Crysis. I'd like to have the ability for trees to be cut down, creating new geometry and objects, hence creating barriers. The player can cut trees down to block roads, or create obstacles for the infected. I'd like shrubbery and bushes on the forest floor to affect the players speed while going through thick vegetation, giving them more incentive to find a clear path or another route through the forest.
 * Breakable Geometry - Architecture has the ability to collapse or be broken provided enough force is applied. Games like Red Faction have this capability. It would add a new dynamic to the game, giving players the opportunity to blast through walls to create entrances or exits, or to level entire buildings.
 * Interactive Maps - The map itself can be manipulated by the player. Examples are:
 * Raising, lowering bridges.
 * Restoring power to the power grid through manipulation of power plants, windmills, or hydroelectric dams.
 * The aforementioned dynamic vegetation.
 * The aforementioned breakable geometry, and the ability to destroy structures.
 * Dynamic Infected Generation - Creates zombies with random and varying stats, mixing up the monotony of zombie hordes with individuals who can, for instance, run faster, or vomit further. Hah.
 * Cached Zombie Placement - I'd like to see if we can find a way to have zombies be placed, en masse, around the map at one time, instead of spawning them as soon as the player enters an area. This would also allow players to effectively clear areas of zombies without the possibility of random zombie re-generation. S.T.A.L.K.E.R has this ability, to a point.