Last Shot

Inspiration

We were inspired by several games we have played before, including Minecraft Zombies and adventure-story type games such as The Last of Us. We believed a zombie apocalypse would fit the theme the best, but we decided to incorporate a unique gameplay style to make it stand out. It's common to have zombie FPS horde-shooters, so we wanted to put a creative twist on that.

What it does

In this adventure game, players take to the skies in an airship, scouting a zombie-infested island below. Players must strategize and navigate tense combat from above under a set time limit. The objective is to handle the zombie hordes via near-eradication, in order to leave a single zombie alive to collect for researching a cure. Players must coordinate with their coworker to exit the ship to collect the sample, and return the sample to the ship.

How we built it

We created this game using Roblox Studio, specifically Lua for gameplay scripting. The airship, ships, objects, and mountains were hand-built, while the zombies were controlled with a random movement script to make them move around. Throughout development, we prioritized testing to ensure the combat and controls felt responsive and engaging.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into several challenges during development. Many were caused by Lua bugs and gameplay issues. Game development was not linear at all, and we knew that going into this. The scripting and cutscene development were very difficult because we had to learn new features of Roblox technology and incorporate them in the small timespan we had during the game jam.

Beyond technical issues, we also had some conflicting ideas on what to implement, and had to use our communicative and collaborative skills to decide on how to merge our ideas into the final product. All of the proposed ideas in every relevant portion were meaningful, but we sadly didn't have time for all of them.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of making this whole thing, first off. But more specifically, we're proud of the aura of the game. It truly felt like we made a real adventure in such a short amount of time. The cutscenes, animations, and visual effects were very challenging, so it was a great experience to put effort into building something we can showcase and be proud of.

We're also particularly proud of the gameplay loop. We're proud of how Last Shot mixes top-down shooting with open-world elements and storytelling to keep things fresh for the player. We knew early on from our MVP that the top-down gameplay was a good start. But we also really wanted to implement the theme "the end is near" directly into how the game plays. Thus, our twist to the horde-shooter genre was born: leave just 1 enemy alive. This small change effectively gave the game an entirely new half of gameplay.

What we're most proud of is our teamwork when making Last Shot. Whenever there were disagreements over the direction of the development, we were able to come to compromises quickly. Additionally, it felt like all of us put in a good amount of effort and passion into it despite that we had varying amounts of experience with Studio. If it weren't for us being a cohesive team, the game would be nowhere near the state it's in now.

What we learned

Through developing Last Shot, we gained a much deeper understanding of gameplay scripting in Roblox, particularly with implementing zombie movement, engaging player controls, and conditional events. We also learned the importance of perspective and camera design, as controlling gameplay from an airship required careful tuning to make aiming, movement, and environmental awareness feel easy and fun.

On the game design side, we adopted skills in creative thinking and problem solving, realizing how leaving a single zombie alive could create tension and player engagement in ways that are unique from typical horde-shooter games. We also improved our skills in visual storytelling to evoke players' emotions and capture their attention.

Above all, we learned how crucial testing is in a small team, particularly to handle gameplay, resource collection, and storyboarding. Overall, the project taught us a lot about using teamwork to strategize and implement mechanics into a compact experience.

What's next for Last Shot

Last Shot feels perfect to continue. Despite such a short time, we were able to build a playable game, and we had fun making it. Knowing we had fun making it and learned so much, we believe we will continue developing this game into a real Roblox experience, with dynamic storylines and other mechanics like currency, upgradable weapons, zombie types, mobile support, and way, way more.

Credits

• Ragdoll module: Aspecky
• Blimp template: Quenty
• Explosion effect: Elkarguro1
• Minigun icon: Wynsage
• Laser icon: lol3000q
• Tornado icon: JAKPINE
• Chair: gdaget
• Building and tree models:
  • LowTierDaro, adam201023aprile, StarModelX, DireViolet, ranchhand46, killzone122345isback, deejfjfhh2, BURAK_319, Nikox333, ItzJustRose555
• Zeppelin in the poster: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4323448547/vintage-blimp-svg-zeppelin-airship
• NPC Dialogue System: supdoggy2

Built With

• lua
• roblox
• roblox-studio