< Custom art I made for my CocoZombies variation of ZIS (don't worry, the pink guy is fiiiiiine)
My variations and updates to a classic Zombie Infection Simulation game. The game is simple - a bunch of zombies are infecting everyone in the city, and you have to stop them with force. Or, you can just change the settings around and watch how everyone runs around and panics. I've made pretty extensive verbose comments to most sections, and have just today finished adding a splash screen and a controls UI menu. I've made some optimizations to the code, made it look prettier and easier to understand, and will now be focusing on making large sweeping gameplay additions to make the "game" aspect of this simulation REALLY pop! I look forward to adding on more and more complex systems as I learn more about Java Processing.
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So, back in 2003, a Kevan Davis released to the world a Zombie Infection... Simulator. (roll credits) It was really basic, barebones - you just watched some Green pixels run around and turn pink pixels into one of them. Pretty basic.
Not long after, John "Hardcorepawn" Gilbertson comes along, also in 2003, and makes some code changes, notably the ability to click and place bombs!
There have been a few others between and after, but these two are the main inspirations for my own development journey. I recently rediscovered this "genre" and decided to see how hard it could be to make my own modifications of the classic game. Now, I took a single C# class over a decade ago in College, and it's not Java but it's similar enough.
So I am introducing my own release and continually updated version of the classic, right here on Itch.io!
https://coconutsales.itch.io/cocozombies
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The source code for Stop the Zombies! I got off the still-active website (don't browse it without an adblocker, though...) was a .pde - Processing. The code, being from 2003, didn't immediately run. In the process of me getting the code to work in Processing 4.3.1, I discovered I actually really like this! I never HATED coding when I took a class, I just didn't see myself doing it professionally and my degree took me elsewhere.
Well, now over a decade later I am an IT professional, and learning some amount of programming is going to be essential down the road. With this rediscovery, I have decided that working on this for fun in my spare time would be a great way to hone a new skill. I've already made a slew of changes, which you can see on my GitHub repository, where I keep everything open-source and documented! I am somewhat of a verbose commenter, always have been as I can recall from college, so the comments sometimes border on unnecessarily long and detailed - but it's great for anyone trying to dive in to their own modifications!
I love this genre, and have been surprised that not many variations of it have been released like, at all. There is ONE VERY notable exception to this; DeadOS on Steam, which I have been following for some time and the dev puts out constant updates. While I am trying to keep true to the original charm of Zombie Infection Simulator, DeadOS is a 3D version with tons of awesome features and customization, and is (without encroaching on the dev's territory) definitely what I strive to accomplish for ZIS one day. Definitely check that game out if this interests you.