“Currency Drop System and room restricting”

author: Joseph Horsch

Posted on 5/2/2025

Currency Drops

Currency Drops is gonna be one of the main types that separates our game from other games like COD zombies.  instead of granting points on hit we grant points by picking up currency.  Each enemy when defeated will shoot out a battery from their body that will explode into the different types of currency.  For the time the drops only consist of the main type points, but it is planned to drop small batches of ammo and energy rods that the player or objective points can use.  Since we don't plan on adding a place of refilling ammo we want ammo drops to also separate our game from others.  Ive also introduced the first Powerup, double points.  for now it has a temp cube with a different shader that has currently a 1/4 chance of dropping with the currency.  Of course this number will be adjusted to make them more rare.  Since this is planned to be a multiplayer game the powerups talk to the gamemode to hold the timers and variables for certain powerups. 

Magnet

There is a new component to the game and that is the magnet.  It is designed to attracted different types of currency drops such as the points, ammo or energy.  When a drop is in range then it will turn off the simulated physics and slowly have the items get pulled to the center allowing easier pickup for the player or for an objective point.  It is also designed to attract specific types of currency  so that in the future we could have objectives only acquire only points or only energy while  the player will be able to acquire all three.  In the video above for currency drops you will see the magnet in action.

Room Spawner Lock

One feature that we needed out for level design was making sure that certain spawners didn't spawn enemies unless a door to that room was open.  I added a new aactor that acts as a holder for two arrays. One for doors and the other of spawners of said doors.  When one door in the array is opened it will enable the spawners in the chosen array essentially turning a room on for spawning.

Animations

hit and Death animations were added to the enemies.  There is a 1/4 chance to stun and hold them in place for a second.

What I am Working on Next

Starting next month I'll have a focus on adding in the next enemies.  i will also be optimizing the current enemy code, wave balancing and also objective mechanics.