I fell in to a burning ring of... HOLY SHIT!

In part 1 of this series we discussed the zombie phenomenon and what we must learn from it in order to make the perfect game. In part 2, we went through the gameplay details to make sure we were putting together a game that would be fun to play. Now, we’re going to wrap this series up by putting together a zombie tale that will challenge everything we’ve come to expect out of a zombie story while improving upon the things we love. Let’s end this bitch.

IN THE BEGINNING: We need to start things off with a bang in a way that serves our story as well as teaches the player how to play our game without making it feel too much like a tutorial. First off though, we need to give them the opportunity to customize their character. The more detailed system we can create, the better, as we want to draw the player in to the story in a very personal way. We want our players to become emotionally tied to the character they create, and allowing them to control as much as possible about who that character is will get them more invested in their creation.

1ST CUTSCENE: Cutscenes in our game will not feature the main character, which allows us to get very detailed, cinematic quality scenes and still allow the player to create an avatar that looks the way they want them to. The first cutscene starts immediately after the player finishes making their character. The camera starts high above the streets of downtown Chicago and slowly moves down as the traffic rolls and the pedestrians make their way along the sidewalks. It continues to go in until it gets into the crowd itself, moving between them as it continues to lower.  The camera comes to a stop at a sidewalk cafe where two people whose faces we can’t see are sitting, enjoying drinks. Then a phone chimes on the table.

One of the patrons picks up the phone, clicks a button to stop the chiming, and then slips the phone into his pocket.  He says, “It’s time,” then raises his glass and clinks it against the glass of the man sitting across from him.  They both take a drink, set down their glasses, and pull out a ring from their pockets that is in stark contrast to their impeccable clothes. The rings are clearly home made, with electrical tape wrapped around a simple steel band. Sticking out of the electrical tape is a sharp pin that is about half an inch long and appears very, very sharp.

This is what a condom feels like.

The man in the forefront takes out a glass vial with a rubber top that contains a yellow liquid. He stabs the needle of his ring into the vial, turns it upside down, then pulls the needle out. The other patron throws some money on the table and they both stand up. You still can’t see their faces, but as the camera moves up you can see the faces of the other patrons sitting at the restaurant.  As the two men walk out, the one closest to the camera bumps into someone sitting down. The player sees the needle ring stab into the patron, and the man walking just keeps moving as the woman he just stabbed talks with the woman sitting next to her about how that rude man just bumped into her, then they continue on with their conversation as if nothing happened. She never even felt the needle go in.

Then it moves to a new scene of a different person, same perspective as the first scene where you can’t see their face, moving along a city street in a clearly Asian metropolis. The person is tapping other people in a crowd on the leg with a ring similar to the needle ring seen in the first part.

Next we see a man working in a bustling kitchen, slopping spaghetti sauce into a large metal serving tray. He pulls out a vial of yellow liquid that he dumps into the sauce before swiftly mixing it up. Then he moves away to reveal that he is standing in a cafeteria at a school filled with children lining up to be served lunch.

Next is a man reaching out to grasp a gas pump handle at a station. The camera is set close to the handle itself, and we see the glint of metal as the man’s hand wraps around it. He yelps in pain and pulls his hand away, and then we can see that there is a needle taped to the trigger of the pump. He curses in French.

Next is a person inserting a more conventional needle, filled with yellow liquid, and injecting small bits into bags of bag in a refrigerator. The camera slides out the door to reveal that the bags were inside of a blood donor van with a line of people outside. Everyone standing in line appears to be hispanic.

Next is a row of marathon runners passing by a table where a man is standing, handing out bottles of water that have a slightly yellow hue. By this point, the scenes are flipping by quickly, and the player gets the point that there is a worldwide effort to spread this disease. At this point, if the cutscene has been effective then we don’t need to show specific instances of the yellow liquid being inserted into a food substance.

Now we will give them scene after scene of food and beverages being made. Lines of bottles rolling down a conveyer belt, a butcher chopping up meat in the back of a grocery store, row after row of packaged meats, an outdoor market with fresh meats laid out, and then we’ll switch to people eating. We’ll show face after face eating, drinking, and licking their fingers. Teeth ripping into meat, chewing slowly.

Then the game’s title appears on the screen: DEADLOCKED.

Bitch, you are OUT! Sit the fuck down.

CHAPTER ONE – CONTRACTION: The game starts at a paintball field. The player walks into a room with paintball guns lining the walls. An instructor points at the wall behind the player, where more than ten cell phones with cracks in them have been pasted to the wall. A sign says, “Leave your valuables here!” and the instructor says that the player needs to leave their pack in the store. A prompt appears on the screen asking the player to hit the left bumper (l1 on PS3) to drop their backpack. After that, the player is handed their gun and taken out to a target practice where the instructor goes over how to shoot. This should play out quickly, allowing the player to get the point that the controls are familiar. We will allow them to stay and practice as long as necessary, but the instructor will let the player move on as quickly as the player wants to. Once the player moves out of the starting area, the instructor hands them a large bag filled with ammo. He asks the player to drop it off in the blue base, where the rest of his team is waiting.

This is where we will teach the player about the backpack drop feature of the game (hitting the left bumper [l1 on PS3]), as well as how to use the HUD map. A blue icon appears on the map inside of a small wooden base where two other paintball players are waiting, showing the player how to locate things on their map.

At the base, the player is told to drop the ammo into the chest where everyone can grab from. This, of course, introduces the idea of bringing ammo and equipment back to the chest at the home base later in the game. At this point, one of the other players asks, “Where’s your buddy?”  The player answers, “Right behind me. Shouldn’t be long.”

Then the game goes back to a character creation screen, but one that isn’t as in-depth as the original. Here, the player is asked to design their best friend. The prompt explains that the player has known their best friend for years and that the only person they trust more is their spouse. The hope here is that the player designs a character that resembles a good friend of theirs in real life. This is to draw them in further, hopefully making them care for this person. We are going to use this against them, and also reinforce the idea that they can’t predict where our story is going to go.

The best friend the player just created comes jogging across the field, decked out in a seemingly ridiculous amount of padding. The blue team members joke about how silly the best friend is being, but he insists that paintballs hurt and it’s better to be protected. Then they all pull on their masks as an announcer tells the players that the game is about to begin. The announcer does a countdown: 3,2,1, GO!

The first round of the paintball match goes as expected. The map is small, and it is a four vs four match. When a person is hit, they are “dead” and have to lay on the ground. If the player gets hit, the game forces them to lay on the ground, and the match fades to black. Then the second match starts: 3,2,1, GO!  with the players in their bases, and the second match plays out similarly to the first. Then the third match starts and the announcer say, “3,2…” and the speaker whines as if there was a malfunction or the microphone was pressed up against something.

One of the players on the blue team asks, “Did he say Go? Are we supposed to start?” Then a paintball explodes on a wall nearby, followed quickly by a second. The player laughs and says, “I guess that means yes!”

Now for a little bit of game manipulation. The other team will be terrible shots this game. They will be unable to hit the player, giving them the chance to strike a quick and easy strike, but only one. At least one player on the other team seems to be hiding, giving us a chance to play out some plot here. If the player doesn’t take any shots within the first 20 seconds of the game, then one of the other players on their team will score a hit, allowing us to go forward with the plot.

Zombies don't have hot girlfriends.

Within only a few moments of the NPC on the other team going down, we hear the downed NPC say, “Hey man, I’m down. I’m down! What the fuck, dude?!” Then he starts screaming. The player loses control here, and his character lowers his gun and starts at first to walk slowly towards the screaming, but then starts to run. As soon as the downed NPC comes into view, the camera zooms in to reveal a man lurching over the downed NPC, clawing and biting him as he screams. Now, all of the other paintball players have gathered, and some of them have started screaming at the attacker. Someone starts shooting paintballs at the attacker, but it doesn’t have any effect. Then someone moves in and kicks the attacker as the victim pulls himself away, with bite marks and blood on his arm.

This scene progresses, with the attacker continuing to stand up and rush at the players until someone else knocks them down again. The NPCs discuss how bizarre the situation is, but the tension gets more and more intense as everyone tries to figure out what to do. Then, one of the NPC’s picks up a piece of wood laying on the ground and smacks the attacker against the side of the head, knocking him down for good. Everyone approaches, peering down at the unconscious attacker. “Is he dead?” asks someone. “He was attacking us, man!” says the guy that hit him with the wood. “You saw him, right? What the hell else was I supposed to do? Holy fuck. Is he dead?”

The player’s best friend leans down and extends his hand to check the unconscious attackers pulse. He reaches his fingers out to touch his neck. The player, and more than likely you reading this as well, expect the unconscious attacker to spring to life and bite the best friend. Years of rote horror films have taught us that this is a zombie, and that he isn’t dead, and that the best friend is putting himself in extreme danger. We want to play this out, big time, with the sight of the best friend reaching his arm out and placing his fingers on the zombie’s throat causing the player to explode in frustrated expectation. Draw this out, with the best friend’s fingers resting on the corpse’s grey skin. He looks up at the player and shakes his head before saying, “He’s dead.”

mmmmm, Liver!

And now the payoff. The zombie does not come back to life and bite the best friend – that’s not the payoff here, but the event is going to happen at the exact moment where we would have expected the zombie to burst to life. Instead, a car comes crashing through a wooden fence of the paintball field and smashes into the blue base. The airbags of the car erupt, and someone inside is screaming. The player can only catch glimpses of what is happening, but it looks like the driver of the car is struggling with a passenger. Then the door opens, and the driver tries to get out, past the now deflating airbag, but their seatbelt is still on and hands are ripping at the woman’s hair, pulling her back in. A man’s face appears beside her’s and begins biting her neck.

Before the player or any of the other paintball players can react, two more infected people come running in from behind the car and into the field. The other paintballers turn to the player and say, “Go inside and call the police. We’ll handle this.” The player steps forward, wanting to help the woman in the car when their best friend grabs their arm and pulls them away while saying, “Come on, let’s go! We’ve got to call the cops.”

They head back to the training area, where the game started. The best friend rushes into the building with the player following behind. Inside, the best friend grabs his back pack while throwing the player theirs. He begins to dig around for his phone while the player’s attention is drawn to a television set up behind the counter. There is a newscast playing that the camera now moves in on. It is a newscast featuring video of scenes much like the one they just witnessed happening in a larger city.

The best friend complains that he is getting a busy signal at 911, but the player points at the TV and tells him to look.

The newscast reveals that this event is taking place all over the country. The newscaster is disheveled and stutters as she tries to keep up with the news that keeps coming in. She says something about the President of the United States, then looks up ominously at the camera, a look of horror in her eyes. She mutters, “Oh God…” then the picture cuts to a ‘Please Stand By’ screen.

Before the player has a chance to react, they hear screams coming from the paintball field. They inch closer to the doorway, wondering if they should go help, when one of the members of their team comes rushing in, covered in blood.  “Go! Go, go, go!” he screams and pushes the player and the best friend through the building and out the front door. The wounded NPC grabs their pack and digs out a set of keys, then throws it to the best friend. “Take my truck. I’ve got a rifle in there. I can’t drive, the motherfuckers bit my legs. You’ll have to drive.”  Then he hands the player the rifle and says, “You get in the back. If any of those things get on the truck, shoot ’em.”

“What the hell’s going on?” asks the best friend as everyone gets in their spot in the truck. “What about Harry?”

“He’s dead,” says the wounded NPC. “They got him. They’re all over the place out there. They were coming into the field ten at a time.”

“Shouldn’t we help them?” asks the best friend.

“They’re fucking dead!”  The NPC is screaming. Then a horde of zombies come rushing through the door of the building and rush the truck. The best friend throws the truck in reverse and the player is given control again and has to shoot the zombies as they try to get in.

The Novella's done!

The truck backs out, turns around, and then begins to race down the unpaved road back to the main street that connected to the paintball field. The truck skids into the road and then takes off, giving the player a chance to see the world in which our game takes place. The truck races through the street and scenes of violence can be seen all around. At one point, the truck is slowed down by an accident in an intersection and the player sees a black gas station attendant in blue overalls fighting off a zombie. The man falls backward, then tries to fend off his attacker. He holds the zombie up, away from his face, but it is clear that the attack is going to be fatal. In this moment, the player can try to take a shot to kill the zombie and save the man.  If he does, this NPC will be alive later on and can help the player.

 And here we are, 3000 words into part 3 of this article series and I realize that I have tumbled over the deep end with this. I haven’t even gotten out of Chapter 1 of the plot and this article is already approaching the length of an ebook! So that’s what this is going to become.

I am going to take the idea I have for the plot of this game and turn it into an ebook over the course of the next month. After getting it edited and published, I can then return to this series and take the plot of the book and break down how we would translate that into a video game. Thanks for your time reading this, and I hope you’ll join me in the journey to mock-publication online in the near future!

UPDATE: And here it is!  The Novella exists! It plays out a lot different than the game plot from above, but the inspiration started here. You can read an excerpt from the novella, or buy it, HERE!