I’m getting stoked about GDC! As usual I’ll be taking notes and pooling them with a few other developers from various companies. I’m mainly going to design talks, but there are a few production and post-mortem type talks as well. I’m really interested in what Maxis / EA wants to say about Spore. The Blizzard talks are usually good as well.
I also know a few people giving talks this year! Be sure to check out David Wu’s talk on animation, Corrine Yu’s talk on the future of multicore processing and Andy Luedke’s talk on graphics programming! Be warned, I got a preview of Corrine’s talk and it was waaaay over my head, but I’m sure anyone who hasn’t quickly forgotten Calculus will understand what she’s talking about.
Maybe I’ll see you there! If you see a guy wearing a Zombie Train T-Shirt or a COD:WaW DevTeam hoodie then it’s probably me. Feel free to say “Hi!” since I’m not a scary guy and you won’t catch me alone anyway. Be sure to stop by the Microsoft booth as well… we are hiring after all!
Okay, I could understand if you’re making a simulation and you want to train me or teach me what to do in an actual fire fight where a weapon jam might occur. However, I bristle when ever weapon jams are brought up as a possible mechanic when making a shooter (this happens more than you’d expect). Game developers of the future… please stop making my virtual weapons jam!
Not sure if this is actually due to Nazi Zombies or not, but the resemblance is uncanny so I thought I’d link it anyway. Shabs, a guy I used to work with at Treyarch send me a link to this game called SAS Zombie Assault, which is a top-down flash version of Nazi Zombies.
Also, someone started a site / blog dedicated to Nazi Zombies over at the aptly named nazizombies.com. Why didn’t Activision buy that webspace? Oh well, kudos for getting the best URL ever!
Hopefully by now every has seen the trailer for Dead Snow (Or Dod Sno) which is a Norwegian horror film that features- you guessed it… Nazi zombies. Okay, so Nazi Zombies the game and Dead Snow the movie have nothing to do with each other, but the trailer is still awesome and worth checking out! I think the movie is out now, so I’ll be watching it in the near future hopefully…
So there you have it, a few more references to Zombies, Nazis, and combinations thereof.
So, as you may or may not know I worked on a little something called Nazi Zombies. Seems like those nasty Nazi Zombies are getting more traction than I thought. A few links people have sent me the past few days have brought a smile to my face.
The first Nazi Zombie reference, by someone over at The Minus World is the Call of Duty Activity Book For Kids which does some much appreciated Call of Duty satire. Included are plenty of Nazi Zombie jokes, such as an exercise in creating the next version of Nazi Zombies!
Then today, everyone on my instant messenger list sent me a link to this little gem, where some Nazi Zombie fan in Austin, Texas hacked a road sign to warn of an impending Nazi Zombie attack. Okay, so while I don’t condone vandalism, I thought the story was pretty awesome. There are less dangerous (and more legal) ways to show your appreciation for Nazi Zombies, but it was all in good fun and no one was hurt. But next time, bake a giant Nazi Zombie themed cake and give it to a homeless shelter or something if you want to get on the news! I’m waiting for the impending “blame video games” story to follow…
Anyway, I love seeing stories like this, keep ’em coming!
Back to the motherland for me – the Pacific Northwest that is. Microsoft liked me enough to decide to hire me for a new project they’re working on. My last day with Activision at Treyarch was today, December 19th, with my start date at Microsoft being the 12th of January. Seattle here I come!
I tell everyone this, but when you come from a place that has seasons (Oregon) and go to a place like Los Angeles, time feels like it stops. I’ve been here for about five years and it feels like I’ve only been here for a few months. It’s always roughly 70 degrees and sunny – even during “winter” which to me feels unnatural. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but something just doesn’t feel right about it. When you see people busting out sweaters and scarves and it’s like 65 degrees out it’s laughable. I’m rolling cargo shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops during the winter because I appreciate the fact that I can.
Brian Tuey, our Audio Director at Treyarch has a new blog up called Aural Audacity. His site is fairly new, but he already has some great content up, including a song we were going to use for Nazi Zombies which didn’t quite make it in. The song, “Lullaby for a Deadman”, was performed by Kevin Sherwood, a Sound Designer and Elena Siegman, one of our producers. You can hear a few riffs that the song was based on when you die in Nazi Zombies, so the song should feel familiar if you’ve played that portion of CoD:WaW. Definitely a must for your iPod if you’re a fan of Nazi Zombies.
He’s got some other tracks from the game up there as well (and some we didn’t use) plus he has some interesting info on Nazi Zombies from an audio perspective. Great stuff if you’re an audiophile, especially with respect to games.
Here’s the level I scripted on Call of Duty: World at War, “Little Resistance”. Thanks to Michael Barnes for capturing nearly everything we put into the level so well and showing off everyone’s hard work. You definitely have “the eye” and I’m sure the world is your oyster in either the games or movie industry unless you already have something lined up already!
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to find it! I assumed I hid it well enough that only someone looking at the level scripts on the PC would figure it out. Anyway, I’m glad someone discovered it and now players can enjoy the Ray Gun in a regular level. As far as I know, no other levels have one.
“with all of the ways to get under the map in multi, some of my friends and i thought we might be able to do it in single.
i went to the right hole, tried to get under because it looked like the type of structure that would allow you to get under (hill in round house, slope in downfall; there is always an elevation difference), and i worked my way right. when it happened, i restarted and did the same thing and it worked. i did this a few more times and then i came and posted.”
So, for those who still don’t know how to get to the Ray Gun in “Little Resistance”, you need to touch the right and middle craters with water in them on the beach after calling in the first rocket strike. Then, stand in the far left one for around 10 seconds and you’ll find the Easter Egg.
A few notes about the Easter Egg- the sound is (was?) reversed Japanese dialog we were going to use for the level but was cut. Originally the Easter Egg played the dialog normally but the sound department wanted to make it much cooler and scary. There are four Ray Guns for co-op purposes, but they never go away anyway, so you can use the same statue, go back for more ammo, etc. Also, something changed with the Ray Gun properties right before we shipped. It used to gib guys (which was way more rewarding) but now it just kills them. That made me sad when I played the shipped version of the game, but I’m glad it made it in regardless!
Congrats to ELITE B MAN, you are indeed elite as you are the first person to see the Easter Egg outside of Treyarch!
Early in the development of Call of Duty: World at War, myself and the Lead Level Designer at the time, Jason McCord, were trying to come up with cool “extras” for the game. For example, CoD 4 had the airplane level at the very end of the game which arguably IW could have shipped without. At the time, we didn’t have anything planned besides “competitive co-op,” which is a lot like arcade mode in CoD4, just co-opified.
We had kicked and idea for an end sequence in CoD:WaW where you’d be placed in a bunker which you couldn’t leave. To your right would be a German officer screaming at you to get on some MGs, and to your left would be those MGs mounted on a window over looking a beach. It was then the player was supposed to realize that you were on the beaches of Normandy from the German perspective, and you had to mow down allies as they came up the beach. Eventually, towards the end of the credits, as the pace got to be too heavy and there were so many guys that eventually they broke through the beach head, you’d hear banging on the door to the bunker. A few seconds later, an explosion would rip through the bunker, knock you unconscious, and you’d be on the ground, facing up. An American squad would light up the place and a bad-ass US soldier would stop over you, slowly aim his gun at you and fire. Fade to black. Finish rolling the credits.
Hmm, actually, that still sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately, there was a lot of resistance against playing as a German, even though the players gets owned at the end and the Americans still win. What could have been a cool cinematic and interactive ending to the game never was.
Later in the project, we added some AI to the level “Little Resistance” (second level in the game) which had Japanese soldiers looking dazed after a rocket strike on their defensive line. These guys sort of stumbled around and every time someone saw those animations, they mentioned how they looked like zombies.
I play a lot of games, and I have opinions about them (hey, what gamer doesn’t), but talking shit about other developers is unprofessional and is one of the biggest mistakes a dev can make. It’s arrogant, juvenile and unwelcome, especially in an industry that is trying to “grow up” and be like any other professional industry.
Treyarch isn’t in the business of slamming other developers and I’m personally embarrassed and upset about the whole situation. I was distraught and depressed all weekend, especially because Treyarch isn’t a terribly well-liked developer to begin with. I just wanted to go on the record by saying that I think Gearbox makes great games and I hold them in high esteem with other top-notch developers. This is coming from a Treyarch employee.
The fact that those things were said is totally unacceptable and I hope the good people at Gearbox understand that we don’t feel that way at all. We love you guys and I’m sure the next BIA installment will be awesome.
Not sure if this is actually due to Nazi Zombies or not, but the resemblance is uncanny so I thought I’d link it anyway. Shabs, a guy I used to work with at Treyarch send me 
