Zombie Kill of the Week - Reborn News

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h2]Oh this better be good.. [/h2][p]I couldn't get ZKW out of my head, even though things went belly up.[/p][p]While ZKW-Forever remains a pipedream, I knew I needed to do something with the franchise. The announcement of Forever, and the reception from you guys fueled me even more. I think it is time.[/p][p]I want this. And it seems that you want this, too?[/p][p][/p][h2]No Forever? Ever?[/h2][p]For now, no. Long story short, things didn't go our way, and Forever isn't really possible to do at this time. With that said, I noticed a lot of you were upset about the transition to 3D anyway, and I completely understand why. So I feel that returning to 2D not only is far more doable for me, it's also better for the game to keep the feel of the original titles. I think we got ourselves a win-win situation here?[/p][p]I'll most likely still want to re-visit Forever one day, but for now, I'm excited as all heck about Redacted! I think you guys will love it![/p][p][/p][h2]Ok, what now?[/h2][p]I really, really want to make this game happen. But I also want to see if anyone else thinks the same way. So, I have a question for all of you's out there.[/p][h3]Would you play ZKW \[REDACTED] ?[/h3][p][/p]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Wait.. What? :D[/h2]
Since the last post, we've been hard at work on a prototype (eight days of work!) for ZKW-Forever, just to see if we're crazy or if the jump to 3D would actually be worth it.
Turns out.. It definitely is! (testing new features always took 15-30 minutes, because we got stuck playing the game instead of testing the feature >.> )




[h2]What now?[/h2]
First of all, I need to thank all of you. You have no idea how much you helped us in the past couple of weeks with your comments and likes. It really comes to show how many passionate fans
are still out there after all of these years! THANK YOU (The last update for Reborn was in 2016!)

But the battle is not yet over.. Keep the comments coming! Let's make this happen, together!



[h2]Why do we need another ZKW again..?[/h2]
I've always had big dreams about what I wanted to do with ZKW. Unfortunately, I was always very limited with what I could do by either my skills, or resources. This lead to ZKW being a 2D side-scroller game, which limited what I could do even more. Don't get me wrong, I adore Reborn for what it is, and I'm still proud of what I was able to accomplish with what I had back then.
But I always felt like there should be.. more..




[h2]Any new features?[/h2]
Yes! Here's a short list of new stuff that's been planned:

• Split-screen multiplayer!
  
• Faster combat!
  
• More complex levels! (thanks to switching cameras to FPS / 3D)
  
• New weapons and zombies!
  
• More unlockables! (Perks, Overkills, weapons..)
  
• Weekly and monthly online events! (finally, become the Zombie Killer of the Week!)
  
• Social events!
  

[h3]On top of all that, pretty much everything you loved in Reborn is already planned to make a comeback in Forever![/h3]

• Round based zombies
  
• Online multiplayer
  
• Player customization
  
• Bots (bless those idiots)
• Bosses
  
• Challenge / Highscore mode
  
• A wide variety of zombies
  
• Multiple levels to choose from
  
• Skill systems
  
• Crafting
  
• OverKills
  
• Powerups
  
• Wacky random machines
  
• Upgradeable weapons
  
• Daily missions
  
• Perks
  
• And more!
  

[h2]Ok cool, but what about..[/h2]
Did I miss a feature you'd love to see in the new game? Let us know in the comments below!


Once again, thank you all for your continued support after all these years. It's just mindblowing to me to see how many of you are still here :')
PS. To that one guy who complimented on my mustache.
Thanks!

[h2]This is going to be a bit of a weird one, but I'm going to need the help of all of you.[/h2]

Still Running is in a bit of a rough spot, as are many more developers at this day and age.
The market is tough, and publishers are being more careful than ever.

After years of working on Morbid, I've really wanted to get back to my roots.



[h2]I want to reboot ZKW, with Zombie Kill of the Week - Forever[/h2]

But unfortunately, just an idea, pitch, design, prototype.. those aren't enough anymore.
We need to be able to show to our publisher, that there's demand for another ZKW title.



So I'm asking you, please comment / react / anything, if you'd like to see ZKW dug up from the grave with yet another game in the franchise.

My plan was originally to shadow-drop another ZKW when Still Running turns 10 years old in just a couple of months. But we're not going to survive that long.

So now's your time to show us, and the publisher, that you want it.



Enjoy the couple of concepts I uploaded here, and if you want to see my face and my face talking about this same subject, feel free to check out this video from YouTube:


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Oh boy has it been like a forever since I've done one of these..

[h3]So, what happened?[/h3]
- The profile servers of ZKW are down. For the first time in the history of ZKW, you can't register a new profile, or login to your existing one.

[h3]And why did this happen?[/h3]
- We updated our website yesterday. The website itself was working nicely after the update, and the news of ZKW were loading in correctly. So I figured everything would work as intended.
Well, nope. The profile handling side of things stopped working, and I'm sorry for this everyone!

[h3]But I wan't to play now![/h3]
- I'm working on a solution right now! Hopefully, I can get this mess cleaned by the end of the day, and this'll all be like a bad dream of sorts. That happened during the day. Those exist.

- I'm going to update this announcement as soon as the servers are back on track and things are working. Until then, hold on to your hats!



- Everything seems to be working as expected again! Thank you for your patience!

Google has been looking for apps that use older development tools within them, that may cause the app to have some sort of an security issue, since 2016.

Until now, Google has only blocked these apps from being updated (if they haven't updated the development tools that had the security issue in the first place) but now, Google is actually starting to remove any apps from it's Play Store that still have the outdated development tools in use. Including ZKW-Reborn.


Unfortunately, there is basically nothing I can do to stop this from happening. The only thing that would prevent this, is to update ZKW in the Play Store, but that is quite simply too late for that. Since the game was made with a really old version of GameMaker Studio 1, bringing the game up to Studio 1.4, and then Studio 2 would be a-LOT of hassle in itself, but it'd also require a ton of other development tools to be updated, as well as (obviously) making sure everything worked as they should.
Even if I did this, I would also need to update every other platform the game is on (iOS, Windows, Mac) since it is a cross-platform multiplayer afterall, and updating only one version would cause serious issues within the game.
And, that's not even all there is. The server is also made in GameMaker, meaning that I'd need to update that as well.
All in all, all this would take me something like 6 months to make, which at this point is too late, since the removal will be happening in less than a month.


As far as I know, anyone who has previously installed ZKW-Reborn on their Android device, will still be able to re-download it, activate any in-app-purchases (such as Full Version) and play the game to it's fullest. With the exception of not being able to purchase any more ZKW-Points or anything else with real money within the game.

With that said, I will still keep the multiplayer servers up and running. Android version is still bringing in more money, than Steam and iOS combined, so I'm not too sure how long I'm going to be able to keep the servers up. But I'll try my best to keep them running as long as there are players around.


I'm sure I'm going to piss a-lot of you guys off, but trust me. I'm pissed as well. ZKW-Reborn was the first game I ever released with Still Running, and Android was the first platform I ever released a game to. ZKW-Reborn kept me alive for the longest time, and the community of the game has been super passionate, and I appreciate that.
ZKW-Reborn wouldn't exist without you guys.
Still Running wouldn't exist without you guys.

Thank you.
Hail ZKW-Reborn. Have fun while it still last's. Let's make this final month of ZKW-Reborn the biggest in years!