Synopsis

Project Z is a mod created for the Zombies mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops III. The map is based on a CIA office building that is being overrun by zombies. The player, or players, start with a single weapon upon spawning inside of a locked room. The players must search the map in order to find ammo, new weapons, and key cards. The key cards can then be used to unlock other areas of the map, but the more areas that they unlock, the more places the zombies will have to spawn from and the more difficult it will be to keep the situation under control.

The players must use strategy and skill to gun down the zombies and work their way through all of the rooms, picking up multiple key cards and replenishing their ammo throughout. If the players manage to fight their way through all of the locked rooms, they are then able to unlock the CIA Garage Bay. Upon entering the Garage Bay, a mass hoard of zombies is released on the map. With dwindling supplies, the players must successfully kill off all of the remaining zombies to clear the CIA building and win the game.  

PROCESS

1. Goals

Our process began with the base game Call of Duty: Black Ops III zombies gamemode. Since this was already a complete game, our goal was to alter the code in order to remove some of the fundamental mechanics of the base game and replace them with our own, as well as create a custom map for the game.

2. Replacing the Rounds System and Points System

Standard zombies mode has the zombies come at the player in waves of increasing number, and the player gains points for killing the zombies. Our first action was to remove both of those features; the point system was removed entirely, and the periodic wave spawning of zombies was replaced with a simple constant spawn rate. The heads-up display was removed, taking away all of the on-screen information and decals normally available to the player, leaving behind only an ammo counter to let the player know how much ammo is in their weapon. Additionally, a timer was added to show the player how long they have been playing for.

2. Weapons

The weapons themselves were replaced too. Black Ops III has a vast array of weapons already in the game, but we added our own using pre-made models. The custom weapons added included a semi-automatic pistol and rifle, and an automatic submachine gun. None of these weapons are in the base game.

3. Progression system

Next, we added a progression system. This involved numerous doors which lead to rooms at various parts of the map. The player starts in a room and must find and use the key to open that door; all keys are consumed upon use. The next key is in the hallways, and from then on after the player can choose which rooms to go in and when, as any key can be used on any door. Each room contains a single key which the player then must use on another door, and the final room will only be available once all of the doors are open. Ordinarily, doors are opened with points, but again that system was removed and replaced with our own version.

4. Beating the Game

Another staple of Call of Duty Zombies is that there is typically no ending; while some released maps do have ways to “beat” the game, in general, the idea is to survive for as long as possible, with quitting or dying the only way to finish. In our mod of the game, we added a way to beat it. As stated before, the final room becomes accessible when all of the other doors have been unlocked. When the player enters the final room, a mass of zombies will spawn, and the player(s) will win once all of the zombies left on the map are killed. A message appears to alert the player of their situation and objective, all custom.

Tools Used

There were two main tools used for this project; GSC and Radiant Black. Radiant Black is the mapping tool; it allows the user to sculpt a map out and create whatever they desire. It also allows the user to create some of the basic functions of a zombies game, such as doors and spawns. GSC is the coding language for Black Ops III, and this is where the non-standard features come from. The original base game was altered as stated above, and all of those changes were made using GSC. The convenient features is that these changes could be made to items or other objects with the map of Radiant Black, to allow for easy duplication and moving of things like custom weapons and keys.

Skills Learned

The communication between these two different parts helped the game to come along very well. Each of us learned much more about these two different tools, and how they can be used and operated. Some members of our team focused more on some aspects more than others, but we all had a part and focus and learned more from it. It was an enjoyable experience for all.

Bugs

Several bugs were encountered along the way as we altered and added code. Since our main goal was altering a game that was already playable, bugs were few and far between, and basically just consisted of problems with the new mechanics that we were trying to implement. Some were encountered in time for the final presentation and were able to be fixed in time. Other bugs were only encountered at the end of the project time period, and so they remain in the game.

Game Demonstration

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.