Apocalypse Express by D3kryption

[raw]
made by D3kryption for Ludum Dare 53 (JAM)

Welcome to Apocalypse Express.

Voting

Please vote on my game <3

Theme

This game was written for Ludum Dare 53 with the theme: Delivery

Gameplay - Video

https://youtu.be/7JmVmq1NUqw

Review - Video

coming soon

Story

The world has gone to poop. The virus started with the odd bite and then it spread. Rapidly. In order to regain order nukes containing radioactive waste were dropped on the worst areas. Of course, it did nothing. Most of them didn't even go off. So now you have zombies running around, attacking people and as per human nature, civilisations and gangs were formed. But somebody needs to go out in the wild and find things people need then deliver it back. Work with the gang who required you to find what they need to survive. Run, dodge, and take out zombies all to find the parcels you need to deliver.

You start in a recovery base where you have been rescued and healed by a gang known as the Enforcers. They are trying to restore military order to the world. They are in dire need of supplies and since you are a famous runner (someone who can dodge duck dip dive and dodge zombies) you are asked to go out into the world once again to help them out.

Gameplay

This is an FPS game where you run around hordes of zombies to find parcels to collect and deliver. When you bring parcels back your base will upgrade to help the gang out. You have basic movement with WASD + Mouse. T for the torch. E to interact and left shift to sprint. You can press R to reload your revolver.

Developer Comments

This game has been mixed development emotionally but so much fun. The first day was really slow. The idea fluctuated over multiple ideas until halfway through the day I settled on this. The ideas kept changing because honestly, I downvoted delivery. It sounded so bad lol Plus I didn't have the right assets to do whatever idea I came up with :(

But by the second day, I was wired in. Writing blueprints out left right and centre to achieve the idea. By the third day I was writing entire sections with minimal testing and it just worked. It felt so fantastic.

What I did well

  • Level designed the Synty packs into a very nice little base
  • Integrated Narrative into a project and made some epic dialogue/quests
  • Finally tried an FPS! I have never done guns before and it worked fantastic!
  • Smashed the AI out in half the time than I did last time.
  • Cracking idea for a game/story (if I do say so myself)

What I would do better next time

  • Honestly, if I don't like the theme, don't do it. I was so guttered and took way too long to come up with an idea but on the flip side, I'm well happy with what I have
  • Jump into new ideas, embracing them rather than avoiding them. It often works out and is much easier than previously thought.
  • Add a cutscene! A game isn't a game without a cutscene IMO. But I ran out of time lol

New things I've learnt

  • First-person shooting. It's super easy! Its not AAA but its good enough!
  • Narrative quest and dialogue. Its fantastic!

Known bugs

None...? So far?

Ratings

Overall 663th 3.5⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 697th 3.31⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1030th 2.793⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 941th 3.466⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 439th 3.431⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 769th 2.778⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 461th 3.672⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 39🗳️ 51🗨️

Feedback

tinykidtoo
01. May 2023 · 21:28 UTC
Wow this is a full experience, voice acting, quests, shootin and looting. This is quite a lot for a jam game. Really well done. What did you use for the voices?
🎤 D3kryption
02. May 2023 · 05:55 UTC
@tinykidtoo Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it :D for the voices I used xVASynth :)
ashashza
02. May 2023 · 07:20 UTC
Hah, my first impression was just like @tinykidtoo "so much in this jam, shooting, looting, quests".

My favourite moment is walking out of the camp's gate for the first time. There's zombies right in front of you scootching around and also this whole world to explore. That tension between "I can go explore" and "I need to be careful" felt so good for me.

Read through your comments and thought your use of the asset packs was really smart. Great way to get quick results, elevate the project and spend your jam time working on parts you clearly enjoyed ... rather than bashing out tons of assets.

A niggle I had with the FPS control was that the acceleration when moving feels a little sluggish. Like it would take me longer than expected to reach full walking speed. My personal preference would be to reach speed faster.

Also liked what you did with the ammo / reload indicator. Seeing it visually instead "X / Y remaining" was a nice touch.
rodvik
02. May 2023 · 07:20 UTC
very good!
LDJam user 318832
02. May 2023 · 09:13 UTC
Firstly I said that game have a big potential and made very well, secondly : dialogues, quests, cut scenes, game systems are really cool for jam game. However, I can't feel this game really well because graphics are really demanding and there no graphics settings. Otherwise game is pretty nice. Good job!
🎤 D3kryption
02. May 2023 · 13:59 UTC
@ashashza Thank you for playing :D

I know what you mean about the running. It was a cross between allowing the zombies to actually get near you vs being able to get to places at a good pace. I'll note it down for next time :D
🎤 D3kryption
02. May 2023 · 13:59 UTC
@rodvik Thanks for playing! :D
🎤 D3kryption
02. May 2023 · 13:59 UTC
@dk-game-labs I did mean to add a main menu with graphics reducing but ran out of time :(
LDJam user 281643
03. May 2023 · 22:29 UTC
Impressive for a game jam!
Kreshi
03. May 2023 · 22:50 UTC
You got some awesome looking lighting there! The game looks stunning! Storytelling and quests were super well done as well. Congrats to this awesome game!
🎤 D3kryption
04. May 2023 · 04:59 UTC
@waysneighborgo2 thank you for playing! :D
🎤 D3kryption
04. May 2023 · 04:59 UTC
@kreshi
Thank you for trying my game. I'm glad you liked it :D
Gatlink
06. May 2023 · 17:01 UTC
Pretty solid entry, and very impressive. I got stuck after getting the weapons, nobody wanted to talk to me anymore, and I think you left some debug text and gizmos in there, but it is still really impressive. Good job!
🎤 D3kryption
06. May 2023 · 17:22 UTC
@gatlink
Thank you for playing!
I couldn't figure out why the debug stuff wouldn't go.
To my knowledge, building the game in "release mode" should have removed them :(

Sadly the weapons was the last mission! I ran out of time :(
Austin Sierra
06. May 2023 · 17:42 UTC
Apocalypse Express by D3kryption is a cool prototype first person shooter reminiscent of the fallout series.
I think the AI voices make the game stand out in a very cool way, but it takes some focus away from more the more shooter aspects of the game so they are little more glitchy and less polished.
Overall the game runs great though and the story is very engaging for a ld submission. Amazing work ! Have a great ludum dare!
someone
06. May 2023 · 22:34 UTC
A solid entry. Nice seeing what can be done quickly with unreal engine and premade assets.
The zombies were a non-threat. Seeing them there was intimidating at first but you can just stroll casually past them.
The 'Press E to talk' doing nothing once you completed the two quests seemed like a bug. It wasn't clear you have done everything.
I appreciate the Linux build.
🎤 D3kryption
07. May 2023 · 05:23 UTC
@austin-sierra thank you so much for the kind words! :D
🎤 D3kryption
07. May 2023 · 05:24 UTC
@someone Thank you for your comments!
I wanted to add up a conclusion but ran out of time :(
Gotta support us Linux people <3
LDJam user 336851
08. May 2023 · 07:41 UTC
Very cool it really is a whole game, the motion blur is a little too much but the city looks really nice
🎤 D3kryption
08. May 2023 · 21:33 UTC
@larsievl thank you!
I'll take a look at the motion blur for next time :D
Sarah Alexa
09. May 2023 · 16:28 UTC
This was pretty impressive overall! I had the sense assets were used and wanted to know which set because they looked great and now I know thanks to the description! The level design was nice and the level was unnecessarily big in a good way so I had a fun 5 to 10 minutes running around exploring!

A quest system, voiced NPCs, a dialogue system, NPCs walking about and shooting were all very nice things to have implemented. I almost got the feeling you plan to work on it a bit more with the scale but it could just be so the questing had a nice backdrop which it did, it felt like being in a big world!

A couple things I would suggest:
-A retry button as one time a corpse killed me because the body hadn't despawned yet and the only option was to close and relaunch the game
-The option to skip dialogue, mainly for the previous reason

This was very pleasant to play though. It made my laptop heat up like crazy but zombie killing will heat things up a bit! Great job with this!
🎤 D3kryption
10. May 2023 · 06:23 UTC
@sarah-alexa I love how much you've analyzed this game!: D
Yeah I had plans to add multiple missions and set a world. It was all achievable until I got that ONE DREADED bug. Took a large chunk of time to fix :(

I normally go for a lose screen / main menu to restart but ran out of time.

Thank you for playing! :D
LDJam user 263763
11. May 2023 · 00:22 UTC
Hey I love the environment, is great,the lighting to, maybe a little darker and some light in the dark areas, the animations are cool, I think need some sound effects and bg music, can´t find any packages, I expolore a lot but nothing, I have fun killing some zombies, maybe could be good some orientations about where do you find supplies, crazy work on the environment men, has a ton of cool models, cool job, congrats!
🎤 D3kryption
12. May 2023 · 05:44 UTC
@dreamerflow Thanks for playing! I'm still trying to figure out lighting. It was either too bright outside or too dark inside. I couldn't seem to find a middle but that's just down to knowledge :D
LDJam user 263763
12. May 2023 · 09:57 UTC
@d3kryption Maybe you can put adicional lights on the dark rooms
fabula_rasa
14. May 2023 · 19:08 UTC
Impressive work for a jam time! You really managed to do a lot!

The level design is nice, and it was fun to explore. The colors are pleasant and I adore the low-poly look. Having the lines ai voice acted is a really nice touch! I had fun shooting at zombies, even though some of them... just... wouldn't... die (or rather, die again?) :laughing:

I'm not sure if I run into a bug or that was the end of available quests, but the Captain told me to come back to talk to him later (after the second delivery) and I never could. I ran around, killed stuff, returned later, and he still didn't want to talk to me.
Nastasya
15. May 2023 · 07:38 UTC
Wow! Interesting and cool design! It was good to play!
Stevie257
15. May 2023 · 20:40 UTC
The visuals in this game are a testament to the developer's artistic vision, with breathtaking scenery and imaginative creature designs that make it visually memorable
🎤 D3kryption
16. May 2023 · 07:15 UTC
@fabula-rasa Ahhh that damn bug! I keep trying to figure out and put so many patches in to stop them from staying alive (or dead?) forever! :joy:

Unfortunately I ran out of time due to a bug so didn't manage to finish it :(

Thank you for your kind words :D Glad you enjoyed it! :D
🎤 D3kryption
16. May 2023 · 07:15 UTC
@nastasya Thank you for playing :D glad you enjoyed it :)
🎤 D3kryption
16. May 2023 · 07:15 UTC
@stevie257
I love your comment! I'm glad you enjoyed it :D
SayuriNyooko
17. May 2023 · 12:47 UTC
Wow! It's like "Days Gone" but low-poly, I like it! I enjoyed just walking around and watching everywhere. Thank you for your game!
StupidHobbit
17. May 2023 · 17:35 UTC
Nice game, the map is realy big. Unfortunately, game freezed when I went on the bridge
🎤 D3kryption
18. May 2023 · 16:29 UTC
@sayurinyooko Thank you! I did have slight inspiration from Days gone and Dying light :D
🎤 D3kryption
18. May 2023 · 16:29 UTC
@stupidhobbit Thats odd. Freezed as in outright breaking or?
StupidHobbit
20. May 2023 · 02:34 UTC
@d3kryption No, it hanmed and then the screnn just remained static and controls didn't work. I had to use Alt+F4 and the restart the game. It happened when I was near the center of the bridge (it's broken in that place)
StupidHobbit
20. May 2023 · 02:36 UTC
@d3kryption Also, how come you have a Unity logo on yout avatar but use Unreal?
🎤 D3kryption
20. May 2023 · 07:37 UTC
@stupidhobbit Thats super odd! I'll try it out and see if I can replicate :)

For the logo, it was legacy. I used Unity for 10+ years and moved to Unreal only 2 years ago. Haven't gotten around to updating my logo yet haha