Zombox

Lots of Zombox development has been happening lately! Progress is still slow because my free time is limited but I’m slowly shortening my todo list.

Most notably, the game now includes a comprehensive fire simulation system. Years ago, I really wanted to include something like this, but the old devices I thought I’d be targeting (iPhone 4) have terrible performance issues when drawing transparent triangles to the screen due to horrible graphics fillrates…so even simple effects like explosion fireballs or burning zombies were causing performance problems. That meant having the ability to display fire effects over large portions of the screen was out of the question and I had removed certain weapons like molotov cocktails from the game in order to remedy the problem.

Now, the silver lining to development taking so long is that mobile technology has progressed to the point where drawing transparent sprites to the screen isn’t that big of an issue any more. So transparent effects like smoke and fire are all things that I can include which won’t kill device framerates. Fire-starting weapons are back in the game too.

So, now everything in the world can be burned with fire, and fire can spread depending on the intensity of the fire and the material it’s spreading to. Concrete and metal are more resilient to flame, whereas wood and cardboard will burn quickly. Fire can also be put out with water. Filling a bucket with any liquid and dumping it on the flames will put them out quickly. Rain will also help snuff out outdoor fires faster.