It takes some getting used to, but overall was really fun once you get in a groove.  Maybe starting the player in one of the narrow hallways would be better to get players thinking in a side scrolling manner before moving into a more open area.  It's cool to walk around and find new areas and maps. 

I did find it a bit hard to aim at the correct enemies when navigating the bigger areas when stuck in corners or using the Z axis to move. This is extra frustrating because all the best weapons require tucking yourself into those corners or through narrow choke points that require you to use 80% of that ammo/durability just to escape. So yes you had a strong weapon, but it was so short lived. Another thing is melee weapons feel pretty bad to use. They take 2-3 hits and are very slow making them almost useless outside the machete . Last gripe is it would be great to be able to hold food like in Dead Rising. Because you lock players from backtracking too much, it's hard to get back to enough food to say alive, especially since most food gives so little health.

Excellent work! 

I think the core gameplay has great feel, found it oddly relaxing to go around killing zombies, vibing to the music.

Controls are responsive and the aim assist with headshot option works nicely.

It has somewhat of a beat'em'up vibe, without the button mashing.

A few thoughts:

I did not find the jump very useful, when I jumped on stuff, it made hitting the zombies more difficult (melee), while they still could gnaw at my legs.

I did not undesrtand what advantages crouching brings as well. 

The camera worked well most of time, but got in the way in a few edge cases (some thin walls did not go transparent and the character was obscured).

I did not use the aiming with RMB, prefered just mousing over freely and shooting.


Brainstorm (trying to avoid being too scope creepy):

Replace the jump with (or just add) a dash or roll maneuver.

Add a heavy melee weapon that can hit and tumble a bunch of zombies

Add low obstacles, you can pass when crouching, but zombies stay stuck

Overall, you got a very nice core, goood luck with the next steps!

cool game! i left a lot of my feedback on the video i posted on discord, but find here a summary

• What was the most frustrating moment in what you experienced?
  • Melee weapons lackedimpact on hit, they felt weightless compared to the guns
  • I disliked getting staggered when the zombies hit me, really slowed me down when slashing enemies with melee. Also got me stunlocked a couple times if ocuple zombies would jump me

• What was your favorite moment?
  • Headshots are crisp
  • i loved the random melee weapons like the floor sign hahaahah

• Was there anything you wanted to do, but the game didn’t let you?
  • set zombies on fire with gasoline

• If you had a magic wand where you could change any part of the game, regardless of cost or complexity, what would you add/change/remove?
  • Different kinds of enemies
  • Heavier impacts on weapons
  • remove player stagger
  • allow me to aim with melee weapons a bit more

• What would you say you were doing in the game?
  • Hitting zombies with my machete
• How would you describe the game to friends and family?
  • a peaceful journey to the mall :^)

Hey, I will drop my feedback below:

• What was the most frustrating moment in what you experienced?
  • The way zombies reacted to my hits felt off for some weapons like punching, the bat and the pipe for instance. I feel like they should have more impact, they felt like the enemy wasn't even noticing my actions. It would be cool to have some blood splatered on hit too.
  • I find it really odd story-wise that instead of running out of the mall (he starts right beside the entrance), the player character enters the mall and puts himself in danger for no aparent reason. Besides narratively speaking having so many guns all over the place it's odd.

• What was your favorite moment?
  • Gunplay feels really good.

• Was there anything you wanted to do, but the game didn’t let you?
  • There were certain areas where I clearly should be able to go but there were invisible walls blocking me.

• If you had a magic wand where you could change any part of the game, regardless of cost or complexity, what would you add/change/remove?
  • I think it would be really neat for this to evolve into some sort of gun game. Having progressively better weapons by reaching killing objectives and having to face harder enemies as well.
  • More variety in enemy behavior would be nice as well.
  • I would make scoring points more visible, like having pop up numbers or something like that.

• What would you say you were doing in the game?
  • I was killing zombies in a mall with no aparent reason since I could leave the place from the start.
• How would you describe the game to friends and family?
  • It's an arcade zombie killing game that takes place in a mall.

Really enjoyed the simplicity of this game, with the focus on getting into the action. I particularly liked the aiming system, with headshot mechanic. It'd be cool to see more depth to the melee combat in the future - some kind of push/block/kick attack, weak/heavy attacks, etc. I'd also more items and traps to interact with, along with some kind of combo system.
Really fun experience! Here's a playtest video

The aiming worked well, especially since the “treasure” rooms are ahead and usually required some doorway cleanup. Mowing down zombies after finding an assault rifle in the bathroom was a highlight. Dodging zombies while searching for a gun feels arcadey on the higher difficulties, and it sometimes felt like it took two headshots to kill them but I could also be bad.

The music was fitting for the environment but felt a little off for the difficulty. I’m only really noting it because it made the difficulty ramp up feel a little surprising at first. I really liked the map, wandering around and stumbling upon and themed areas was fun

More item variety would be nice, even if it’s just cosmetics laying around. I’d run into a corner shop to grab a party hat if I saw it in a spotlight! Maybe items to change up movement since it’s the thing you’re always doing. I had a lot of fun! I recorded the gameplay without mic, private link: https://youtu.be/joEDc-Ok-kQ

This is pretty solid. I like it

The camera threw me off, as others have stated. But yeah, it actually does work nice. Until it didn't and I couldn't move back to the start area where I left some food and ammo for later. I figured it was a bug unless it's to force the player to keep moving? It was like an invisible wall or a random collider across the hallway (really close to the start, I should have gotten a screenshot - next time I play!)

Are melee weapons supposed to run out of ammo? Or they just wear out fast? It caught me out a few times but at least they spawn often. On my first run I didn't see any extra pistol ammo spawn so I kind of died quick.

I quite enjoyed playing this, lovely smaller scope with a strong emphasis  on The Night of the Living Dead. So it's got that nostalgia thing going well.

Visuals? Lots of good but I feel there is room for improvement.  The colour palette (Tone-mapping)  seems a little flat or the colours don't have quite enough contrast? Even a little Ambient Occlusion would go a long, long way too.

And, big fan of Synty here so I'm always keen on seeing their assets around. 

Overall, I think this is nice and could go well!

I was surprised by the side scroller like camera choice but it actually works really well once you get used to it, good melee and ranged weapon variety and a few different zombies. I actually believe you have a good base for a solid game. I think the current weaker point would be the UI, no one likes to working on UI but the main menu and HUD does sell the game a bit short in my opinion.  Other than that the game feel could always be improved but I think is going in a good direction. Getting overwhelmed by zombies might be a little bit to easy,  finding a way to offer a second wind could make the run loop more enjoyable. and of course AoE weapons like grenades or molotovs would be super satisfying. Overall great work, keep it going!

Hey I gave your game a quick play.   My first impressions are that it seems pretty fun as an arcade shooter/brawler type of game.  At first I didn't know what to expect, so the fixed camera perspective threw me off, but it definitely makes sense in the context of this game, and it works well when transitioning to hallways and other rooms.  Oh man, and when you go into a straight hallway I got flashbacks to that hammer scene in Old Boy.   So you should probably add a hammer :).  There was some jankiness around where the player is facing vs aiming vs shooting, but at least it always seems to shoot where I want, even if the character isn't facing that way.  The shooting always felt good, and the different guns worked as expected.  I think there is room for improvement in the feeling of the melee weapons, and maybe be able to swing faster or something?  I just always felt very exposed after a swing.  Regarding level design, you've got some good stuff here.  My favorite was being able to create a bottleneck on the escalator and just create a pile of bodies.  Unfortunately I was stuck after that because of the ropes so couldn't get to any other areas.  I think there are a lot of directions you could take this, with new pickups/powerups/abilities, and the extraction mode seems like it would be fun, but I think you've got a good base here.  Let me know if you have any questions.