Zombies are a symptom of lazy game creation?
Too cliche?
Game Zombies Fail At:
· first enemy fought in a horror game
o They are horror components, thus do not guarantee a horror game
o They are "Goombas" of games - easy cannon fodder
· Power fantasies
o masculine stress reliever to the point of silliness
Principles of a Zombie
· Zombie as:
o a personal antagonist
o a natural disaster
o a definer of space
o a time limit
o an effect on mental health
History of Zombies
· Voodoo Zombies
o Sorcerer will curse person to die, then take buried body as a slave without a soul
· The word "Zombie"
o Walking corpse creature - see “revenants” below
o Spirit of a dead person
o Ghosts and walking corpses
· Ancient times
o Goddess Ishtar threatens to have the dead consume the living
o Revelations has the dead rise and terrify the living
· Revenants
o Common N. European legends
o Corpse reanimated by spirits or by body's own will
o Come back often for revenge or terror on the living
· Draugr
o Found in Scandinavian sagas
o Guard barrows, often their own graves, filled with treasure
o Can kill people and turn them into draugrs
o Much like the modern zombie infection
· Ghul or Ghoul
o Middle Eastern legend
o Sucks blood
o Shape shifts into who they most recently ate
· Jiang shi
o Sleeps in coffins
o Drains life force
o Hops after victims
o Greatly resembles vampires
Evolution
· Frankenstein - science created revenant
· Herber West-Reanimator - hoard of animalistic zombies
· I Am Legend - viral outbreak of blood-sucking vampires
· Night of the Living Dead - establishing walking corpses that eat humans to create more zombies
Personal Antagonist
· e.g. The Walking Dead
o Loved ones are what change
o A progressive turning of a main character
· e.g. The Keeper's Diary
o Findable journals
o Audience fills in the blanks
All problems are too big. It is easy to imagine a zombie in the street, not a financial meltdown.
Watching a person turn without ever seeing them as the evil they become.
Natural Disaster
· Dispel myths about zombie apocalypse
o Don't be a hero - protagonists are not more powerful than zombies
o Zombies aren't evil - no room for negotiation or rational thought; the Freudian ID
· "A Weather System"
o Zombie herds move as a system (The Walking Dead; World War Z)
Definers of Space
· The shrinking fortress
o zombies boarder a space
o invasion reduces the space
o Defining where the hero can go
o *narrow space
§ confined, unable to move, choke points
o **intimate space
§ can reach where things are by inherent abilities
o prospect space
§ wide open space of exposer, lack of cover
· * Farmhouses are stocked and homely. But vulnerable with zombies outside.
· ** Malls are wide with all stores open. Invasion turns familiar shops into a perversion of spaces.
Let them become alternative architecture.
Let them herd the player into where you wish them to go.
Time Limit
§ Time is drama
§ Moaning will cause a domino moaning effect, with each zombie going toward the last moan
o closer and closer the distance shrinks the longer the effect continues
§ Sound as a definer of how much time before being overwhelmed
Mental Health
§ Abjection
o something that is normally appropriate, but is now perverse
o a dead body moving around
o a once living body not moving and cold
o a loved one zombified to eat you alive
§ Reaction to Apocalypse
o uselessness
o crazy
o imitation of zombie
o despair
Conclusion
Understand the parts of being a zombie for the best zombie possible!
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