Ugly Baby Studios (that’s us) is pleased to announce the development of Exhumed: Kickin’ Ass & Takin’ Brains, a brand new Zombie game for Xbox 360’s Community Games Service, built on the XNA framework with a custom 2.5(ish)D game engine. Unlike the traditional Zombie fair in which hordes of the Undead stagger and/or leap after your human protagonist as he desperately struggles to survive, Exhumed will have players taking on the role of a Zombie protagonist with a damn simple goal: Kick butt, tear stuff up, and eat some juicy human brains.

There will be no attempts to save the world from aliens. There are no desires to turn other humans into zombie friends who’ll come over on Fridays for poker night (not even pai gow). There will be no saving of anyone, unless it’s for a midnight snack.

And that, my friends, is all you get until the full press release has been…released.

Check out Gametech’s Wasabi at http://www.my-wasabi.com/ these guys carry some of the coolest Japanesque style. They have taken some of the most beautiful Japanese art designs and produced useful products, some of the best and most colorful I have ever laid eyes on. They have taken beautiful prints and applied them for use on important items, such as the Xbox 360, IPod nano 4G, PSP, PS2 & 3 and the Wii. Thanks to Wasabi we can have beautiful prints on more items then just a poster on the wall.

Not only are their styles beautiful their prices are affordable and you get great style.  Wasabi’s prices are more affordable than the skins and cases I have seen at the mall. I can afford to purchase more great looking skins and cases with Wasabi compared to what is offered in stores. If the people back at Wasabi are as polite and easy to talk to as the guys working the E3 booth, I know this is one company I definitely want to deal with.

Go to http://www.my-wasabi.com/ to check out their products. You can even make your payment using PayPal, though there is a $9.99 shipping charge for orders up to $50.00 delivered to continental USA. You have to wait 2-3 business days to get your cool new Japanesque style items, but after you see their stuff you’ll know it’s worth the wait. If you order over $100 in the month of June 2009 you get free shipping!

Guys, here is a great place to start looking for a gift(s) if you know your girl just goes gaga for Japanese art.

If Japanesque style is just not your cup of green tea check out GelasSkins at http://www.gelaskins.com/index.php they have some of the most wicked designs and graphic prints to protect and customize your portable devices.

I’d like to first state that because I’m a guy, the amazingly large number of attractive women-and not just booth babes-at this type of event would naturally be at the top of my favorites list. Getting the chance to play new games and see exclusive demos such as Bioware’s upcoming masterpiece “Mass Effect 2″ and Ubisoft’s “Splinter Cell: Conviction” would come in a close 2nd. I was also happy to see that some Independent games were available for play and demonstration.

Some stuff just bugged the shit out of me though. Bethesda, tell me how it makes sense to set up at E3 and then tell people they can’t come in…  smart move.. . Some of the wait times were bad, I’d have played the God of War 3 demo at Sony’s booth if the wait wasn’t an hour or more. I did, however, spare the hour wait for Halo3 ODST; if nothing else it was a well deserved break from another of my dislikes…walking! Yes, walking for nearly 6 straight hours with little in the way of a break sucks…bad. The price of food is kinda ridiculous as well: $9.50 for a Cheeseburger and fries…does it come with a gold napkin?!?!

All in all, my first E3 was fun, I enjoyed the hell out of it and i look forward to more.

Beyond that, we also have the new Tony Hawk skateboard controller, which from what I saw is very impressive. Not to be forgotten, of course, is Nintendo’s own Wii motion plus, which finally brings true 1:1 control to that platform.

For me, this sudden flood of motion controllers is in many ways Nintendo’s vindication; yes, they shipped a system with less horsepower than Sony or MS, but they took a gamble with motion control that paid off so well that they have now redirected the efforts of Microsoft, Sony and the entire games industry. Love or hate the Wii, there’s no longer any way to deny it: Nintendo was right.

Where there are Pros there are Cons, however, and the downside of the secondary function of [Hunger for Blood], makes it a useless talent in pvp.  Sure, you get a damage buff, but in pvp (battlegrounds especially) you rely on burst damage to down an enemy quickly; using this cuts into the amount of energy you have left and slows your ability to react quickly to an opponent using his/her pvp trinket to remove a stun. Also, some classes that use deadly bleed effects, such as Warriors, stack these effects with no way to remove them. Without the aid of a healer, you will die even after you have slain your opponent. Prior to this patch you could easily remove these bleed effects and be right back to dealing insane burst damage for the faction of your choice (Alliance/Horde).

 
My personal coach goes by the name of “My Weight Loss Coach” (Ubisoft). It’s a fun way to keep track of your progress to becoming a healthier individual! The game comes with a pedometer which you plug into the Nintendo DS on a daily basis to keep track of the distance traveled throughout the day. In my first two days I managed to climb Mount Everest without even having to pack for the trip…hey what more can a person ask for? It has motivated me to keep on walking, take the stairs at the office, park further away, and to go that extra lap around the block, just to get those steps adding up on the pedometer. I want to see what else I can climb!

In the Daily Session you keep track of on the calendar your pedometer reading, the challenges given to you by your “Coach” in order to track your physical activity for the day. Depending on how physically active you were it will give you a distance bonus to your next milestone…who knows, without even knowing it and without breaking much of sweat you may have completed an Olympic Marathon. Awesome!

 
Your Daily Session also tracks food balance. Food balance is somewhat genius. At the end of the day you give a detailed account of what you ate and it will give you on the food balance a total of calories consumed according to what you ate. You get to drag from the food groups the servings of food you ate and feed your coach from general fruits, vegetables, different kinds of meats-almost anything you can find on the food pyramid-yes even fast food. This feature of the game has to be my favorite, which probably tells you I eat too much fast food. I always wanted to keep track of my calorie intake and this is as easy as it gets. I am now eyeing the fruit bowl more enthusiastically then I do the cookie jar. Usually.

 
If you want to invest in a fun way to keep track of your progress, become more aware of your weight and overall gain a healthier life style, go out and get Nintendo DS My Weight Loss Coach. It’s easy to use, not to mention fun, provides you with healthy tips, and personally I look forward to keeping track of my progress at the end of the day. Keep in mind that buying the game and turning it on will not magically make the extra “fluff” around the middle go away; it is up to you to make the changes. The game is a tool to keep track of your progress, see how far all your hard work takes you and motivate you to become a healthier person. So, clip on the pedometer, put on your running shoes, turn up the tunes on your MP3 player and report back to your coach! Soon you will see not only was it fun but it was so worth it.

 
I’ll try to keep you guys posted on the healthy improvements I make with My Weight Loss Coach. Till then, get out of the way-I have mountains to climb.

I played House of the Dead at the arcade, I shot Rabbid bunnies with my boyfriend’s wii-mote, I remembered the secrets hidden in the pipes that I thought even Mario had forgot. I even took  a few lessons from American McGee’s Alice and you know what all that did for me? Other than having a shit load of fun, it actually confused me more. I saw so many interesting concepts and styles that I truly admired.

But at the same time I was lost as to where to take the look of these zombies. So I went with what I DO know, and that’s composition and characters. I started small and reworked things. I went back to my traditional education and pulled out my art books. I took inspiration from the people who have always inspired me, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are,  artists like Edward Gorey and Arthur Rackham…then I started really thinking about how the games look would be influenced by my artwork and I started brainstorming ways to keep this new and unique and yet creepy and zombie-ish.

For some odd reason I kept visualizing the old movie posters of the 40’s and seeing rockabilly girls and I thought: Pin Up Zombie! She was reworked many times, but ultimately the pieces fell into place…a few pieces even fell off, but we won’t discuss that now.  I initially went with the idea that if I combined the look of the old zombie films with the popularity and attractiveness of the Pin Up girl that it would make for an interesting and fun look.

All this lead me to the main character we have now. That and the fact that the game’s Man in Charge, wanted an overall hand drawn look to the game that seems to be lost in today’s video game world. Not lost completely, I’m told, but few and far between. Looking through the games I’ve been playing recently I’d have to agree. So today, in my first of a few Behind the Scenes Exhumed pieces, I will showcase not only a few of my progress shots, but point out a few of the latest and greatest art styles I’m really enjoying right now.

As mentioned above, I am not primarily a gamer, I am not an expert on these things. I am still new, still learning, still discovering some of these stories and pictures for the first time. But my artist’s eye tells me a lot. While I can admire and respect the talent it takes to create some of these 3d masterpieces out there, I get so much more enjoyment out of some of the simpler designs. The designs and art styles that don’t seem like much but are really beautiful and inspiring in their simplicity.

Games like: World of Goo and Lost Winds have such a wonderful sense of style. I think a lot of people out there miss just how hard it is to sometimes keep things clean and simple, to not overload your viewer with every tiny detail. That’s a talent not many can boast: the ability to communicate with simplicity and elegance. Line work and subtlety, finding the perfect color palette; those aren’t just simple things to discover and create. Looking at the upcoming remake of A Boy and His Blob I would much rather get lost for hours in that game, where everything was created in a specific style for a made-up world, born of the imaginary. It’s what makes us lose ourselves in these games in the first place. They are not real life. We can lose ourselves in the imaginary and forget the reality of our everyday lives for a little while, and it’s the very rare artist who can achieve this far more difficult goal.

In the next part, we’ll showcase a step by step progression of the building up of a character concept for our game!

Call of Duty: World At War

Nazi Zombies Strategy Guide

Map: Verrückt

Number of Players: 2

Highest Level Achieved so far: 24

Done right the strategy will consistently take you to at least level 18 – 20 with only two players working together. It relies mostly on strategy, some skill, and some luck. I realize there are people out there who get to level 1000 or more by glitching or running the Zombies in circles. This strategy is not meant to break records its just a fun way for you and a couple friends to have some intense encounters and maybe progress a little further than the norm.

ALWAYS start on the American side; you’ll know it’s the American side because the chalk drawing of the M1 Garand will be in front of you. If the game starts you on the German side (Kar98 will be in front of you) just restart until the game gives you the other side.

DON’T BUY ANYTHING IN THE STARTING ROOM. Use your pistols. 4-5 shots into the oncoming Zombies followed by knifing them when they come close will net you the most points. Your goal is for one person to collect 1950 points and the other person to at least have 1200 points. The person with 1950 then opens the door to the next area, which I call the Thompson room for obvious reasons. Everyone buy a Thompson and start using it as soon as the door is open. Typically if playing with 2 people, this should happen no later than mid-way through round 3 and possibly by the end of round 2.

Hold the Thompson room. Stay in this room and rack up points. There are 2 windows facing the courtyard, a breakaway wall (around round 5 they start coming through here) and the doorway to the first area that you were in. Typically one guy covers windows and the other doorway and wall. Either way your goal is to accumulate points so let some Zombies in so they can drop things like 2x, max ammos, and insta kills. Only hit bombs at the end of rounds or if desperately needed. A nice feature is that the bomb always gives you 400 points as well. Move upstairs in the break between round 5 and 6 otherwise the running zombies will cause havoc in the downstairs.

BEFORE GOING UPSTAIRS CHECK YOUR THOMPSON AMMO IF IT’S LESS THAN 100 ROUNDS BUY SOME MORE

Once upstairs immediately progress through to the next room (determine door opening duties amongst partners so that you all have about the same amount of money). The room you are now holding is the one with the grenades on the wall and the unlit green (slight of hand) fast reload perk machine. You have two areas to watch, the window in the adjacent room and the hallway that leads to the main room with the stairs. Keep using the Thompson and grenades. Your goal is for you and your partner to accumulate around 6500 points. This should happen by the end of round 6 or 7. After which, the following sequence of events needs to occur:

Step 1. Acquire Points around 6500 (more is actually better but this will do)

Step 2. Leave a Zombie alive at end of round (should be 6 or 7), crawlers are preferable

Step 3. Someone opens door to kitchen area

Step 4. Someone opens door to power room (usually the other person however sometimes points are not distributed equally)

Step 5. Flip the power switch

Step 6. Grab Fast Reload/Slight of Hand Perk 3000 points (both players)

Step 7. Go back downstairs to Thompson room, back to starting room, through the now opened door to the German side.

Step 8. Grab Juggernaut Perk 2500 points (red machine with cross on it) Typically one person grabs this and the other opens the stairs. The one that opens the stairs will need to come back for it, usually in the lull between the next round.

Step 9. Open Stairs

Step 10. Kill Zombie that you have kept alive up until this point if you have not already done so

Step 11. Have the person with both Perks watching the long hallway that contains the Double Tap Perk and the person with the Slight of hand perk watching the window on the balcony.

Important thing to remember at this point is to keep an eye on ammo and funds. Once the Thompson runs out of ammo buy the MP-40 (1000 points) off the wall on the upstairs area (near Double Tap machine). The double barrel shotgun is also a good investment for the guy on windows as long as they have the quick reload perk. My friend and I have survived using just these 2 weapons up to round 20.

Hold these two positions until you are killed by an onslaught of the undead.

Some Tips for holding this area:

-       Make sure everyone gets the juggernaut perk as soon as possible

-       Grab MP-40, Double Tap perk, and Bouncing Betty’s as funds increase

-       Grab shotgun if needed

-       Around round 11 or 12 try to keep one Zombie alive at the window (constantly repairing the window so he doesn’t burst through) so that the other player can run back through the level to the power room to grab weapons from the mystery box. Hopefully by this point at least one player has a surplus of points. The following weapons are the most desired: Ray Gun, M1919 Browning Machine Gun, MG42 Machine Gun, and possibly the Ppsh and sawed off double barrel shotgun, but the first 3 are the main ones your aiming to get.

-       Also try to make the teddy bear appear. Why you ask? It refunds you the money and moves the box closer to your holding spot. The box will either move to the Thompson room in the dark corner, the juggernaut room, or to the left of the broken wall in your upstairs defense area (this is the closest most ideal place)

-       NEVER EVER OPEN THE OTHER DOOR IN THE POWER ROOM OR THE OTHER DOOR AT THE END OF THE DOUBLE TAP HALLWAY. Opening the other door in the power room isn’t the end of the world, but it will cause another random box location to occur and this one is even further than the electricity room. Opening the door at the end of Double Tap hallway is suicide because the Zombies will flank you

-       Past round 15 start using the electric fence traps located on the balcony. This gives you a rest and is a way to conserve ammo. Once triggered it lasts for one minute, it then must recharge before it can be retriggered (I believe 1 – 2 more minutes) it beeps when it can be retriggered.

-       On bouncing betty’s. Always place them behind you so that you can lead hordes of Zombies into them for maximum damage. Betty’s will not hurt you or other human players. Use them to create traps and fall back points. 

-       On Ray Guns. The Ray Gun is the most powerful weapon in the game especially in the realm of Nazi Zombies and it is almost a near necessity for one person on the team to have it, so that you can progress past round 20, as it’s the only weapon that still retains some semblance of stopping power at that level. However, it has a severe drawback: splash damage. If you shoot at a wall, window, or Zombie that is too close to you the splash back damage from the Ray Gun will kill you, causing you to go down and lose all of your perks. So be careful and try to shoot Zombies from a distance (shooting your partner with the Ray Gun has no effect).

Beyond that, however, I have to tell you that the process to date has been incredibly educational. While we’re making excellent progress to date we’ve had a few hurdles, not the least of which was simply finding enough time in everyone’s busy schedule (all of us have lives and jobs that don’t include this process, an unfortunate by-product of the need to eat). Among some other challenges, though, are things you wouldn’t necessarily realize are as difficult as they are. For starters, defining an appropriate art style was incredibly difficult, and our very talented art crew has worked really hard to come up with a look that is both unique and interesting while still being very professional. We’ve looked to some great classic titles for reference, but we’ve also been very inspired by a lot of the hand painted “retro” stylings of upcoming titles like the A Boy and His Blob remake for the Nintendo Wii.

Another point of much difficulty is simply the design aspect, especially in nailing down a lot of concrete details. Working on that angle comes with its own set of worries, many of which for me are wrapped up in the desire to not be a dictatorial asshole, so I try to make sure and get as much input from the rest of the team as possible on anything I do. This has a benefit in that we’re able to come up with some really cool ideas by bouncing things back and forth off each other, but the drawback is that the process can come to a complete crawl for long periods of time while we’re busy hashing out the pros and cons of everyone’s ideas.

Probably the biggest mistake I’ve found myself making is that we didn’t firmly nail down enough of our gameplay specifics prior to beginning work on some of the art. Luckily this hasn’t cost us much time, however, it could have been a major problem, especially if ours were a bigger production. I’m actually only just now nailing down a lot of the last specifics, thanks to input from the rest of the team, who’ve had some really brilliant ideas that are both unique and have the potential to be a lot of fun (and let’s face it, if you’re game isn’t fun, it’s not much of a game). Luckily our project isn’t overly huge or complex (in fact, I enjoy the relative simplicity of the concept), so we should be back on schedule before too awful long.

And so, of course, this is where I ask if anybody in the Indie Community has thoughts on this process of game development, and what your experiences and lessons might be. As we move forward I’ll continue to blog about our progress and process, trials and tribble-ations, and hopefully we’ll be able to help some of you other indie’s avoid some of the mistakes we’re bound to make along the way. At this point the best piece of advice I have to give you is just this: accept that you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to be wrong sometimes, and don’t bother worrying about these facts. Just try to learn from your flubs and move forward the best way you can manage, and you’ll do just fine