Dire Darkness by jsmitq

A horde of zombies is coming to eat you! Try to shoot them down and stay alive as long as possible.
Made using Unreal Engine 5.0, Pyxel Edit, Gimp, Audacity, and Bosca Ceoil. This is my first project using the Unreal Engine, so I've been using this compo as a learning experience.
Ratings
| Overall | 597th | 2.604⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 590th | 2.435⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 614th | 2.063⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 528th | 3.042⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 593th | 2.271⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 484th | 2.208⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 474th | 1.778⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 487th | 2.818⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
It was way more of a jump scare than I had hoped for; playing with no sound, turning around, to already be up close and personal with a zombie :)
Nice entry!
Zombies heads are too big, and each zombie has same size, so you can just rotate your mouse on one horizontal axis to shoot them in the head and don't miss
And you need more sounds, like footsteps of zombies, to make them a bit more scary and to know that they are coming, because every time i shoot, one or two guys behind me start to eat me, and i know about that only because of i rotate and look at them
So one more that this game needs, that is some effects on screen when zombies starting to hit you!
Btw for first game on unreal it's cool and much more valuable, you finished it, congratz!
1. It felt a bit too easy to stay alive, i was surrounded by zombies and my health bar was barely going down
2. No reloading made the shooting less stressful than typical horde games
3. Would be cool to add some music or different characters moving at different speeds
4. a pretty simple shooter but still fun to get some headshots! Could be fun to track kills somewhere on the screen as well.
I don't know that I have anything to add that others haven't said, but my general feeling:
- I was a zombie buffet, but my health bar barely moved. Increasing the difficulty would enhance the thematic element. I didn't feel the pressure because the zombies individually weren't much of a threat.
- Adding some more mechanics (score? new zombie type?) -- something to enhance interest past the minute mark. Maybe this wouldn't be an issue if I had felt more afraid of the zombies.
+ Gun shot sound is surprisingly easy for the ear to listen to. I could listen to that for a while.
- The zombies make no sound. There should be some sound/visual indicator that zombies are behind you.
- Zombies should hit harder. I could just stay there not shooting and survive for a while.
- Gameplay get's a bit bland after a while; you just move your mouse horizontally and spam left click. Maybe you could add some new types of zombies, new guns, etc.
My verdict: This game has potential!
I did not like the sound. There was VERY little sound, and what WAS there was annoying my wife (who was in the same room). So, I guess add some music, or maybe at least give the zombies a walking sound that increases as the get closer. Also, The art is... Not there. this is just a blocked out game atm. I guessing this is your first game/project. you did a lot of good things, but you have just as much to improve on
Congrats on finishing a project on a new engine :thumbsup_tone1: