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Random events and encounters to boost immersion


MrHobo

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I find it's the little things that really get me into a game. For example, investigating the sound single gunshot off in the distance might lead the player to a corpse locked in a bathroom holding a pistol with one bullet missing from the magazine. Or several gunshots finds you a group of zombies with one carrying a pistol with no ammo.

 

-Abandoned houses have a small chance to burn down while the power is still up. (makes sense for people to have a higher chance of leaving the oven on if their cooking is interrupted by the apocalypse)

-Chance to stumble upon a partially barricaded house full of zombies, including one carrying a hammer and some nails

-Chance to stumble upon the house of a lone survivalist. Looks like a normal house but upon closer inspection all the windows are curtained and boarded up. Inside is a good supply of non-perishable food, weapons and ammo and of course a paranoid, shotgun wielding home owner. (worth the risk??)

-Any other glimpses into the past lives of a homes former occupants. Maybe you find the dingy hovel of Muldraugh's former town drunk, full of mostly empty whiskey bottles. Or perhaps the home of a once drug dealer, various drugs and some (useless) wads of cash scattered about.

 

Those are just some ideas off the top of my head, would love to hear more ideas from you guys.

 

Another thing I noticed that would really boost immersion for me is if the grass grew, since there's no one around to mow it anymore. Would definitely make things interesting as crawlers would become progressively more dangerous the longer you stay alive.

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Most of this stuff is going to be built into the Meta Game that controls the actions of the NPCs as they move around the map beyond the scope of your vision. So these things will occur naturally as part of the natural function of game play.

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Another one I thought of while looking at the Sandbox settings. Zombies are supposed to slow and weaken as time goes by, but what if zombies were attracted to rotten food? Rotting food inside fridges would cause gases to build up and pop them open, attracting zombies who eat all the rotten food and then get their speed and strength restored.

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That's assuming some sort of logic to zombie behavior and function. They don't need to eat. They just do. And they won't get any healing from it since they can't process what they eat.

 

I guess the smell of rotting meat COULD attract them, but any survivor who moves into a safehouse isn't going to keep a contaminated source of bacterial disease in their living space.

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New sandbox setting: Pickiness!

 

Picky - Only eats fresh human corpses

Less Picky - Eats any human corpse it can find, fresh or stale.

Not Picky - Eats any corpse or meat it can find, human or animal, fresh or rotten.

Omnivore - Will eat any food it can find, vegetable, human, or animal, fresh or rotten.

Progressive - Starts Picky, but later becomes Less Picky, then stops at Not picky.

 

Also: 

 

Another thing I noticed that would really boost immersion for me is if the grass grew, since there's no one around to mow it anymore. Would definitely make things interesting as crawlers would become progressively more dangerous the longer you stay alive.

Turbotutone made a mod for that, actually. Definitely lots of talk of it getting added, as this was a planned feature.

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