Design log

Notes from the city of the dead.

The dev log for Zombie City.

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  1. One frame of the game pulled apart into layers. At the bottom the city drawn by PixiJS, then the survivors and zombies, then a gunshot ring, fog and night, and on top the React panels: meters, panels and the log

    Latest entry

    Entry 40

    The stack

    What the game is made of: one language for the world, one for the screen, a contract generated between them, and a practice town that is the same world in your browser.

    TechWorldRead →
  2. A house kitchen's list, headed Most likely first, with Furniture (four kinds), Salt Shaker, Canned (four kinds), Milk and Milk Strawberry

    Entry 39

    Reading a room

    A room is now one thing you can read: one pile for everything left in it, one glyph that says searched, recharging and how full, and one list that names what a room like this tends to hold, best first, without ever giving you the odds.

    DesignLootRead →
  3. A desk's item sheet, with the desk icon, its weight, a green Lift button, a Break down button, and the note that it yields two to four planks and five to seven nails, very loud

    Entry 38

    Furniture, and what it breaks into

    The forty-five placeholder tiles got faces, and then furniture stopped being loot: you carry one piece in your hands, or you break it down into planks, nails, scrap and rags, and every one of those gets used up by something. Also, a chainsaw.

    DesignLootRead →
  4. A search result in a house kitchen. Three finds, a sausage, a teddy bear and a plastic wrapper, each with a take button, next to the roof-off kitchen

    Entry 37

    Picked over

    Searching had become a vending machine, every search paid out, nothing worthless existed and a room never ran dry; now a room holds junk, a search can come up empty, a picked-over kitchen says so before you spend the energy, and the furniture is finally in the rooms.

    DesignLootRead →
  5. The practice town at night on a large screen. The survivor stands alone in the middle of a wide road, a supermarket across it, the stats on the left and an empty log on the right

    Entry 36

    The practice town

    A whole town that runs inside your phone, with no server and nobody else in it, where dying costs nothing, and with the one power the real city never gives you: the clock is yours.

    DesignPracticeRead →
  6. The Survival Guide's Energy article. A bar chart of what each action costs, with a dashed line marking one minute of rest, and the house still visible above the sheet

    Entry 35

    Learning the game

    How the game teaches itself: tips that sit next to the thing they talk about, a building that walks you through its rooms the first time, and a Survival Guide inside the game whose every number is read off the live rules.

    DesignOnboardingRead →
  7. The game on a phone. The street fills the whole screen, a small glass card with the vitals floats at the top, and one row of controls sits along the bottom

    Entry 34

    The screen, again

    A week on the screen itself: the map now runs edge to edge and everything else floats on top of it, gauges instead of digits, one row of controls where the thumb is, conditions as dials on the map, and a sight edge that lights only what you can see.

    DesignPhoneRead →
  8. Standing on the door tile inside a house, roof off. The door menu offers step outside, lock door, and block door with bare hands, no planks needed

    Entry 33

    Stand in the opening

    A door works both ways now, a zombie shut in chews its way out, a broken door can be put back on its frame, and to bar, board or unboard anything you stand in the opening to do it.

    DesignDoorsRead →
  9. A zombie tapped from beside it on the street. The card shows its face and clothes, and the action reads Sneak Attack with a baseball bat, thirty to fifty-eight damage, one second, silent, and a green note that it hasn't noticed you, two times damage

    Entry 32

    The first hit

    A hit on a zombie that hasn't noticed you lands twice as hard, and then it has noticed you; fists stop at shut windows, a zombie in your own doorway is a fight, and a survivor who died and got up looks like any other walker until you look closely.

    DesignCombatRead →
  10. A street tile tapped while overloaded. The Move here card says the walk costs twelve

    Entry 31

    Carrying too much

    The pack used to have a wall at full, and now you can go past it and pay for it: overloaded, every step costs double, takes twice as long, and you can't run.

    DesignItemsRead →
  11. A house with its roof off, seen from above. A survivor stands in the green living room just inside the door. Three back rooms in brown, yellow and blue, each with a search marker, thin walls between them, the street dark around the house

    Entry 30

    Real interiors

    A building used to be a menu you opened at the door; now you step inside and the roof comes off, with rooms, walls, doorways and a floor you walk tile by tile, on the same map as the street outside.

    DesignBuildingsRead →
  12. The gear panel after a fight. Soldier helmet, t-shirt, vest, soldier pants and boots, each with a condition bar. The vest's bar is orange and down to about a third, the rest are still green

    Entry 29

    What you wear

    Armor was a flat number that made a t-shirt too good; now each piece takes a share of every hit, the shares add up to a ceiling, and the piece doing the most work is the one that gives out first.

    DesignItemsRead →
  13. The yard of the army base seen from above, thick with zombies. One is tapped and its card shows a soldier in a helmet, jacket, pants and boots

    Entry 28

    What the dead hear

    The zombie got smarter this week: sound pulls it with a weight and then fades, a loud enough noise makes it force a boarded door and climb the stairs, it searches the spot where it heard you, and some buildings now have guards that never left.

    DesignZombiesRead →
  14. A survivor's pack. A pistol with a green condition bar marked good, an apple with a green freshness bar marked fresh, and a crowbar marked good

    Entry 27

    Things wear out

    Food goes off, weapons wear down and break, armor takes the hit and gives out, and a found gun keeps whatever was left in it.

    DesignItemsRead →
  15. A house door tapped from the street. The sheet says barred, shows a strength bar, and offers one action, break down door, loud

    Entry 26

    Locks and boards

    A week on the door: keys went in and came straight back out, and what stayed is a bar you throw from inside, three grades of boards, and three ways through a boarded door.

    DesignDoorsRead →
  16. The goals card. Nine goals, one ticked, and a Remove tutorial link at the bottom

    Entry 25

    The first hour

    Every entry so far is for people who already know the rules, and this one is for the person who has never heard of the game and has an hour to decide.

    DesignOnboardingRead →
  17. A survivor tapped on the street. The sheet shows their face and clothes, and one action, Attack, unarmed, with its cost and that it is silent

    Entry 24

    Other survivors

    Every entry so far is one person against the city, and this week the game got its second player: you can talk to them, from a short list, and you can attack them.

    DesignPlayersRead →
  18. The search list inside a gun shop. A box of revolver rounds, three revolvers, two kitchen knives and two dresses

    Entry 23

    What you find

    Every entry says search the shelves and none has said what is on them: now a gun shop holds guns, a house holds a shovel and a first aid kit, and downtown holds the best of it.

    DesignLootRead →
  19. The death screen. You died, Tomas Reyes is gone for good, three counts for days survived, zombies killed and tiles walked, a line saying your gear walks off with your reanimated corpse and your next survivor keeps your map, bookmarks and notebook, and one button, Create new survivor

    Entry 22

    Gone for good

    Death is permanent now, and what survives it is you: the map you walked, the notes you took, and a record of everything your survivor did and had done to them.

    DesignDyingRead →
  20. A diagram. Three players drop taps into a queue. A single loop reads the queue, beats every half second, and sends each player their own picture and writes the save

    Entry 21

    How the world runs

    Every entry says the server decides, and this one says what the server is: one loop, one queue, a beat every half second, and a screen that works out everything it can.

    TechWorldRead →
  21. The top of the create-your-survivor screen. A pixel character in a green shirt with brown hair, a name typed below, and the rules for a name under it

    Entry 20

    Making your survivor

    Until this week you were a number in random clothes; now you pick a name, a face and what you wear before you walk in, and the name is for keeps.

    DesignCharacterRead →
  22. A zombie tapped at long range. The sheet shows Shoot with an amber AUTO badge, the pistol's magazine, a reduced damage number, a fifty percent hit chance and a high noise mark

    Entry 19

    Auto, after all

    A day on combat: weapons take their time now, guns get worse with distance, reloading costs you the gun, and there is an auto toggle after all.

    DesignCombatRead →
  23. A survivor on a street at noon. The sound log on the right shows one loud groan from the east repeating every few seconds, and a green arc on the east side of the sound ring points the same way

    Entry 18

    The murmur

    A whole day on the thing the game is built around: what you hear and what they hear are different now, you don't hear what you can see, walls leak, and a crowd is a murmur.

    DesignSoundRead →
  24. The same street of houses at midnight. The lit circle is smaller, the colours are cold blue, and the dark wedges behind the houses are closer

    Entry 17

    What you can't see

    The other half of the new look is the dark: what the lit circle around your survivor means, why the ground behind a house is cut out of it, and what a window gives you back.

    DesignLookRead →
  25. A street of houses at noon in the new look. Roofs with icon badges, doors and windows drawn on the walls, and the ground behind each house cut out of sight in a dark wedge

    Entry 16

    The look

    For two months the city was coloured squares; this week it became a place you can read at a glance, flat and seen from straight above.

    DesignLookRead →
  26. The game on a phone. A street, a house with a small badge showing it has three floors, and a small sheet at the bottom offering to enter through the door

    Entry 15

    The phone

    The plan promised the phone would be a real way to play, and this is the week that got paid, with one rule: the map is never covered.

    DesignPhoneRead →
  27. The generated city split into neighbourhoods, each a different colour with its name and the number of people who lived there

    Entry 14

    Doors, names and numbers

    The city entry left three things out that matter more to a survivor than any zone map: where the doors are, what the streets are called, and how many people used to live on each one.

    DesignCityRead →
  28. A whole generated city seen from above. A grid of blocks in the middle, a highway cutting across the south, a lake, a river, farms on the edges and a prison in the far corner

    Entry 13

    The city

    The city used to be a rough first map, and this week I rebuilt the machine that makes it, so every number you give it makes a different city.

    DesignCityRead →
  29. Sneaking down a street with a zombie one tile away. The path is drawn, the move shows its energy cost and a low noise level, and the stance control at the bottom reads Sneak, Walk, Run

    Entry 12

    Moving

    Every entry says your steps make noise and cost energy, and none has said you get to choose how you step: now you do, sneak, walk, or run.

    DesignMovementRead →
  30. Inside a condo. The door and both windows on the south wall are boarded, and the building panel lists the door and the pair of windows, both Boarded

    Entry 11

    Barricades

    A door is a countdown, and this week you can make it a longer one, with planks, energy, and a lot of hammering everyone gets to hear.

    DesignBarricadesRead →
  31. A survivor on the doorstep of a building. Two zombies stand right below, both facing away, small arrows showing where each one is looking

    Entry 10

    Zombies

    The plan said zombies are slow and they listen, and this week I decided what that means: a zombie here is slow, half blind, and never gives up on a door.

    DesignZombiesRead →
  32. Midnight on a dark blue street. The survivor is a green square, a zombie stands four tiles east, and the sound log on the right fills with faint groans from the east

    Entry 9

    Night

    The city has a clock now, and at night you see less, so you listen more, and the street you knew in daylight is a different street.

    DesignNightRead →
  33. A zombie tapped next to the survivor on the map. A small menu names it and shows one action, Attack (unarmed), one energy, silent

    Entry 8

    Fighting

    Your character never swings back on its own: you tap the thing, you read what it costs and how loud it is, and then you decide.

    DesignCombatRead →
  34. A fresh survivor's Stats panel, HP 100 of 100, Energy 1500 of 1500, Nutrition 100 of 100, then Melee, Armor and Weight

    Entry 7

    Energy

    Everything you do costs energy and time is what gives it back, which is what makes this a game you check on instead of a game you sit in.

    DesignEnergyRead →
  35. A survivor standing on the door of a building, a broken window just above, and the prompt press F to enter

    Entry 6

    Buildings

    You can go inside now, and a building turns out to be a place to hide, a place to loot, and a box you can't see or hear out of.

    DesignBuildingsRead →
  36. A survivor standing on items lying on the street, drawn as yellow diamonds, with the lines worn: none, pack: (empty), and press G to grab: Rusty Knife

    Entry 5

    Gear

    There are no levels, so what you're carrying is the only thing that makes you different from anyone else, and now there are things to carry.

    DesignGearRead →
  37. The survivor as a green square among purple squares, reanimated survivors, with one red ordinary zombie among them

    Entry 4

    Dying

    Death is in: your survivor stands back up as a zombie where it fell, and the rule that it keeps your things is decided even if there are no things yet.

    DesignDeathRead →
  38. The survivor as a green square with a zombie three tiles east, a thin yellow ring around the survivor from a shout, and faint arcs of heard sounds around the view

    Entry 3

    Hearing

    The first thing in is the sound idea: a survivor on a grid, a few zombies, and a log of noises.

    DesignSoundRead →
  39. A Zombie Days fight log, most actions with their energy cost next to them

    Entry 2

    The plan

    Before the first zombie, here is the list of rules I'm going to build, written down so I can see later what changed.

    DesignPlanRead →
  40. The Zombie Days city map

    Entry 1

    The game I want to play again

    Years ago I played a browser game called Zombie Days, and since it's gone and nothing took its place, I'm going to build the game I wish it had become.

    DesignInspirationRead →