ZOMBIE-KIRI
Zombie-Kiri is a social action game where you play as a Ninja on a HOVER-BLADE fighting against zombies!
Zombie-Kiri is the first Facebook game to come out of the Vancouver Film School. Built in Flash by Clarence Chan, the lead client programmer, Stanislav Costiuc, the systems and mechanics designer, and Nathan Nasseri, the audio lead, artist, and project manager.
I was responsible for all the network programming, the server maintainance, and the Facebook API calls. After the initial set up, I was also responsible for client programming as well.
HARDCORE AUDIENCE
Before we even settled on an idea, we knew it needed to be something different that would set us apart from the rest of the games to come out of VFS. With the increasing popularity of Facebook games and the large market, we decided it would be the best way to achieve our goal.
When we started this project, Facebook games with core mechanics were nowhere to be found. We set out to create a game that had more to it than clicking to harvest crops. We wanted to make a game that kept players enthralled but didn't limit how long they could play.
Retro art and live action gameplay set Zombie-Kiri apart from the rest of the games on Facebook.
FRIENDS
We also wanted to create a unique interaction with Facebook to add social interaction to Zombie-Kiri. The core feature we came up with was to revolve gameplay around your friends.
Using the Facebook API and SDKs we get all the player's friends and send their profile pic, name, id, and gender back to the game. A random number chooses which friends you will find while searching the buildings, after which they are removed from the list to avoid duplicates. The list is repopulated each time the game is started, so you won't run out of friends to interact with.
REPERCUSSIONS
The game gives you the option to save, kiri, or abandon your friends. We track this each play session and change the gameplay based off your actions.
When you save your friend, we reward you with a long term reward, our premium currency.
Kiri'ing your friend gives you a short term reward called god mode. Ten seconds of invincibility and unlimited HOVER-BLADE fuel.
Abandoning or failing to save your friend results in the friend returning for revenge the next time you leave the base. This time they are super powerful and require a lot of skill to defeat. You are rewarded with ability points upon defeating the boss.
MICROTRANSACTIONS
Initially we had cut microtransactions from the game. As the game progressed, we realized we would have time to implement more features. With the importance of microtransactions in Facebook games, adding them was my top priority.
Our premium currency is Duct Tape, and it is purchasable in four options. We offer better prices the more you purchase to entice players to spend more.
To avoid people altering the amount they get, purchases are initiated through flash and the rest is handled by the server.
BUFFS
Another social action we have is the ability to send and receive buffs, a temporary stat increase from friends.
We used the Facebook request system to initiate sending buffs, and passed along an identifier to keep track of the variety of buffs.
When the receiving player loads up the game all outstanding requests are added to their saved progress and deleted from the Facebook system.