It has been nearly 4 months since I released Splooshe Alpha #1, and I've had some fantastic feedback from people that played it. I have been working at fixing the issues in that version and adding more content in my spare time, and I'm proud to announce the second alpha of Splooshe.
What is Splooshe?
Splooshe is a zombie apocalypse themed game, a linear story experience created, designed and voiced by me. I started work on it over the summer of 2011 after making a concept for the first map a few months prior, and have been spending time on it every now and then since.
It is far from finished, but now comprises of 4 (and a half) maps that are fully playable, and are hopefully enjoyable.
Download
So, first off, do you have Steam? (if you have no idea, hit "no")
If You Have Steam
If you already have Steam installed, download the installer below. Once you've installed Splooshe, restart Steam. There will be an entry for it on your Steam games list.
Double click the mod there, and Steam will either download the appropriate SDK files (about 3GB of data) to play, or will launch Splooshe if you already have the files needed.
Once Steam has installed, it will run for the first time. You will need to create an account to log onto Steam.
If you have created an account and Steam has loaded up, close it by right-clicking the icon in the bottom right corner of the screen, and clicking "Exit".
Start Steam again, and Splooshe should now be showing in the games list on the Library section.
Click the "Play" button to start Splooshe, and Steam will begin downloading the files needed for it to run (which is about 3GB of data).
Once that is finished downloading, you will be able to launch Splooshe by clicking the "Play" button. It's recommended that you close all other programs before running the game.
Gameplay Video
If for some reason you can't play it, or you don't want to download it, here's a video of me playing through the game instead. You can give feedback based on that below too, anything helps.
Giving Feedback
As with the first release, I'd appreciate feedback on the levels I have created so far. Some example pointers:
Level glitches, impassable terrain
Out of place things in levels
Places where the game is too choppy or slow to play
Things in levels that aren't properly explained to you
Places where you get stuck
Suggestions
... and anything else that you'd like to comment on.
At the stairs: feels like an opportunity to play "the floor is lava" was missed.
Boarded up gate caused one player to empty all ammo trying to get through
One tester brought the plug along the whole train ride - Easter egg opportunity?
Easy to get thrown off the platform at the end
"For a storyline driven mod you haven't really given the player much motivation other to keep playing, he storyline is pretty much "oh look you woke up and also here are some zombies". you don't need to add a lot to make this intresting, you've already created a pretty intresting world. maybe give the player something that links them to the zombie apocalypse at the start and sudden;y the whole thing becomes more compelling."
One tester noted that textures were too bump mapped.
"A lot of the areas felt really empty and they could as well not have been there. Flesh out what you already have. An example of what I mean would obviously be HL2 where they send you to reach an objective that you only reach 30m-1h later, after having fought for it. Now in a mod you could reduce that to 10-15 minutes, but shorter then that and the feat loses meaning."
One player wasn't clear why the train stopped
"I don't know if you intend the game to be more about shooting, or the puzzles, or the story, but personally I'd de-emphasize shooting the zombies and make the gameplay about avoiding them whenever possible. Which is to say : 3-4 times the zombies in every encounter of the alpha, except the first 2 that you meet."
Lever puzzle is too easy now
Generator could've been a puzzle; one player disappointed it was already on
Grenade section at the start is a bit gimmicky and over-the-top, and having it at the start contributes a lot to the tone of the rest of the game. suggestion: changing it up a bit, like making the player go another route or having the zombie walk off screen and not die, just to keep the player on the defensive? When the first piece of action the player sees is an exploding zombie, they feel a lot more confident that the zombies are weak and easily killable.
mix things up a bit in the later levels with different and more difficult zombies though because you can't have a zombie game without a lot of shooting
Needs more sound that adds to the atmosphere, some "dry" areas
