YEAR 2 - BA2a - Ammo and Zombie Placement

This is the new map. It's been updated with ammo placements (white) for flares and for your pistol.

One way the game used randomness along with the exit placement and it's idle zombie movement, is with it's ammo placement.

First, the game checks whether the player has unlocked the pistol and if they haven't, the game only spawns flare ammo (no pistol ammo).

If they have unlocked the pistol however then the game does spawn pistol ammo.



 
The game then has a 50% chance to destroy an ammo placement on spawn.

Therefor, regardless of what items the player has unlocked, the ammo placements will be slightly different on each playthrough.

This means that the player will have to go out of their way to search for ammo, as they will be unable to accurately rely on their memory of where the ammo was hidden last time.

THEREFOR, if the player hopes to improve at the game, they will have to develop their underlying strategy and technical skill as experience ALONE will be less beneficial.


Important: There is one instance where I break the 50% rule and I will talk about why I do that in my next post

You may have noticed that there are a LOT more zombies (red) in this map.
Most of them are not in the first playthrough however.

I basically have an integer that increases each time you purchase the pistol. When you spawn into the next level, the game checks how many times you've bought the pistol (without dying since). Based on this number it will despawn some of the zombies.

1st level (no pistol) - 14 zombies

2nd run (pistol but not much ammo) - 20 zombies + special secret zombie that can teleport. I put a second one in the first room so that the player knows to expect the unexpected. I want the player to feel really powerful now that they can kill the zombies.

3rd run (after purchasing the gun a second time) - all 34 zombies + secret zombie - FPS/hell mode. I want the player to feel overwhelmed by all the zombies.
The reason I included this 3rd variation was because I wanted to test what the game might play like if I went down the design path of "This game could become an FPS shmup".