Concept:
Period:
October - December 2025
Engine:
Personal project developed in my free time. In CampZ, you lead a survivor camp in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. Assign survivors to tasks wisely and try to keep them alive as your camp grows!
The real reason I created this game was that I wanted to practice my Excel skills, my ease with numbers, and my ability to create a tool for balancing a video game. That's why, after developing the game design, I created an Excel file before making the game on Unreal. This Excel file is broken down into several parts:
Data Analysis and Balancing
I) Testing and listing game mechanics:
Here, I have listed all the game mechanics and variables, so that they can be used by all other pages to perform their calculations.
Here is a non-exhaustive list:
_ NPC or camp population level: this is the key variable for the entire game, determined by the number of survivors in the game. I used it to scale the number of zombies that can attack, as well as the drop rates for resources that can be recovered during missions.
_ The formula that determines the individual survival percentage of a Survivor. In the first tests, I created a simple formula that removed or added a fixed value to the basic survival percentage of survivors based on the numerical difference between survivors and zombies. The fact is that, realistically, in combat, the more people you add, the more the numerical impact decreases. For example, it's more serious to fight 1 against 2 enemies than 4 against 5. So I designed a formula that takes this phenomenon into account.
_ The % chance of obtaining resources, calculated by a weight system. For example, if I have an 80% chance of obtaining a resource. This 80% is divided into 4 parts, 3 for the flour resource and 1 for the weapon resource. So I have a (3/4)*80=60% chance of getting flour when I send a survivor on a mission.
Concept
Impulse Shooter is a shooting game that isboth an FPS and a TPS. Each time the player fires, the perspective switches from the view of the shooter to the back of the projectile. The player then has the ability to give asecond projectile impulse in the direction of his choice.
The game level takes place ina wide hallway including targets, transparent walls and boosters, areprocedurally generated. The boosters are objects which, in contact with the player's projectile, allow him an additional impulse.
In Impulse Shooter, players must use precision and strategy to eliminate all targets with an allotted number of impulses.
II) Simulation and Player Archetypes
In order to see if the game was balanced with the data entered in the previous part, I recreated the game on a page with an algorithm that made the “best decision” each time from the perspective of a cautious player.
Then I thought that players are different, some are less skilled, and others want to take risks, so I created two other algorithms to simulate this.
III) Data Analysis
After creating all my simulations, I made 10 Excel pages of these same 3 simulations stacked on top of each other. This allowed me to group 30 simulations into 10 pivot tables, which were themselves grouped into 2 tables and a graph:
What's next ?
I) Making the game more juicy!
After having many people around me test the project, the main feedback was that it lacked animation. So, I intend to create a small 2D animation to simulate the Zombie Vs Survivor fight. Another change is to add feedback communicating the gain or loss of resources on the left. Here is a small example:
II) Adding Depth to Gameplay
With only 2 action choices per turn, although the player can already apply several gameplay strategies, you quickly reach its limits. So I have several gameplay avenues to explore:
_Add a scouting mechanic during the night to allow the player to know how many zombies or resources they will encounter during the day.
_Add an electricity resource to use the mill and improve the walls by electrifying them. Survivors could produce electricity via an additional building/button.