Alright, it’s June! With that comes sun, BBQs an… and… aand… *achoo!!*. Oh yeah, hay fever. To my fellow sufferers, you have my sympathies. If you are free of this curse, enjoy it! Enjoy it for me! Alright shall we look at what’s happened at the #EgoOffice in the last month?
We left off two weeks ago on a more downbeat note than usual, as I had come to the realisation that Horde wasn’t very fun in its current state. So I went away and played around with it a bit. Nothing huge to start with, just some tweaks to existing gameplay. First up, the speed. The game suffered for having lots of downtime where you’re just waiting for things to happen. So I upped the tempo of the entire game. This felt odd at first, but I’m pretty sure this is because I’m used to them shambling forwards at their original tempo. Also, there’s no animation. That never helps! One day…
Anyway, the problem I then noticed was that there was still very little to do, and that the human AI seemed really pathetic, even after their speed boost. I turned to traditional zombie defence games in search of a solution, and came to the conclusion that increasing the size of your horde would be a good next step. So I quickly modified the level data to up the number of zombies you can spawn, made the humans a little more trigger happy to compensate, and the result is quite a bit more interactive!
It feels a little more engaging for sure, but we still aren’t there yet. Thankfully, you lovely people have come forward with your own suggestions, all of which I am considering and trying to take on board where I can! The next step is to try to remove the “rush” tactic in later levels. Currently it’s still better to just fire all your zombies out as fast as possible. I’m hoping that this will be reduced by simply adding more humans, but I’m also looking at AoE (area of effect) attacks to help reduce that. Grenades from better tiers of humans should help reduce reliance on simply launching everything at once, and hopefully create more intelligent solutions to problems.
In the video above, for example, I could have rapidly fired all the zombies in the same location, but if you’re forcing the AI to reposition more, then that is less time for you to get shot! Ideally, after the first few levels, this will be something you’ll need to start thinking about to win.
In other news, my workstation is getting an upgrade today! I ordered a new desk, a swanky sit/stand job, so that I can help keep my body from slowly becoming permanently locked in the sitting position. I swear it’s getting harder to reach the top shelf in supermarkets… I’ll be setting that up as soon as I send this blog out, so expect updates on that front soon!
I also went through the fun and frolics of sorting out an accountant last week. It took a bit of shopping around, but I think we’re all sorted, so I don’t have to think about doing my taxes anymore! This was something I desperately didn’t want to have to deal with so it’s a huge relief to have someone to do it for me! It also means I can now say “I have an accountant” which is weird, to say the least! Never thought I’d get to say that!
And now, I shall leave you to your day, hope it’s a good one, and I hope you are making the most of the seasonably, but un-Britishly good weather! I am on holiday next week, so come two weeks from now, when I come to write another blog post, don’t be too surprised if it’s some holiday snaps and “I built a desk”! Until then,
Matt out.