IC Forum Archive

oligophagy · Posts: 110

At last! The Professor's magnum opus, Zombie City Tactics, has found its true self and now runs on Apple Macintosh computers as a Universal Binary for OS X versions 10.2 and later on PPCs and any version on Intels.

Or, it should. I maintain my confidence, but it would be really swell if, having access to a Mac, you download http://butanpressfight.fireandrobot.com/prof/zct.dmg and then post any problems here, along with a little machine spec. Or maybe just a resounding A-OKAY.

This port is the same Zombie City Tactics that for generations has been the standard zombie tactics text in academic and professional contexts worldwide, with two additions: the readme.txt got html-ed and can be reached under Help > Zombie City Tactics Help, and I made an icon. You can see both in the screenshot below!

.

Yay!

Mr. Mustache · Posts: 551

Seems to work fine.

Thanks!

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

Wowza, that readme graphic is pretty segzy. Mind posting a .png of it or something?

dark steve · Posts: 3002

Two little things: you can't quit using the keyboard shortcut, and the help file lists "enter" when on an apple keyboard it's actually "return" (hitting the enter key does nothing!).

Other than that, this is peachy! Does this have the correct mission loadout by now? The first version had levels from eight versions back or something/

oligophagy · Posts: 110

Yeah, actually all of those issues are fixed in the most recent build, but I ended up sending professor_scissors three different ones so there was a bit of lag. Thanks for the feedback.

JUST CHECKED: Yeah, what's at the link now is all fixed.

QUESTION: Did either of you have Intel macs? That is what I am the most unsure about.

oligophagy · Posts: 110

Mr. Business wrote:

Wowza, that readme graphic is pretty segzy. Mind posting a .png of it or something?

Not at all!

dark steve · Posts: 3002

can't help you there

professor_scissors · Posts: 1033

oligophagy wrote:

Mr. Business wrote:

Wowza, that readme graphic is pretty segzy. Mind posting a .png of it or something?

Not at all!

Abducted!

oligophagy · Posts: 110

professor_scissors wrote:

Abducted!

Flattered!

That image is 128x128 because it's the Mac icon size and was scaled down from a much larger source, so I could give you a 150x150 if you'd like?

professor_scissors · Posts: 1033

oligophagy wrote:

professor_scissors wrote:

Abducted!

Flattered!

That image is 128x128 because it's the Mac icon size and was scaled down from a much larger source, so I could give you a 150x150 if you'd like?

Nah, this is a good size.

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

I'm very glad that this made it to mac. No technical issues so far, though I do kind of wish that battles flowed faster. There is a certain sense of accomplishment in having your lines of slowly advancing soldiers surrounding generators, then spawning hunters to have them shut down the whole map in a final turn, though.

oligophagy · Posts: 110

Yeah.

My play style rests on expanding soldier walls, so I spend most of most turns clicking a soldier and then clicking an adjacent zombie. Sometimes I forgot and hit return too soon and then a part of my wall gets eaten, and I have to back up a few steps and rebuild. A little annoyed, I always wish then for an auto-defense mechanism whereby soliders unused at a turn's end but adjacent to a zombie will auto-attack. If adjacent to more than one zombie, they'll attack the zombie that is adjacent to the fewest number of other soldiers. This ensures that the zombie only one soldier can attack will actually get attacked by said soldier.

It's an idea.

I was also thinking if all the zombies moved at once instead of individually, it might feel a little faster.

vision · Posts: 472

oligophagy wrote:

I was also thinking if all the zombies moved at once instead of individually, it might feel a little faster.

I think the individual movement is essential—not only at the game's outset, but throughout—in teaching the player the intricacies of just how and where each type of zombie will react to each type of brain/base, step-by-step.

Then again, I'm willing (unlike many) to watch every battle animation in Advance Wars, so I certainly don't speak for everyone.

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

gameplay is streamlined enough. The interface is simple, and everything flows smoothly. The thing that gets to me is that everything also flows at one space at a time. hunters get two moves, sure, but even the most conservative of hit-and-run attacks are impossible since that they can't move after hitting a zombie. I can only find soldiers useful, as they're the only ones that don't get eaten up after attacking a zombie. I use militias mostly for claiming space in areas I already have secured.

GrimSweeper · Posts: 530

You use hunters to distract zombies. Those pesky wall-climbing zombies? Just have a militia and a hunter closer to them than your main mass of men.

Monthenor · Posts: 455

You are a bad person. I had just completed this game on my work machine, and now it's right here in my iBook with an empty map list. At all times.

mocking

waiting

Mr. Business · Posts: 1530

Woah, wait, you completed it?! You must be really damn good.

Monthenor · Posts: 455

Mr. Business wrote:

Woah, wait, you completed it?! You must be really damn good.

It's important to understand that there are only two types of level:

1) stabilize the board position and build up the humans until they look like the zombie horde
2) make the correct sequence of moves with your very limited resources

I just understood all the right moves. I grokked it in fullness. My own mental shorthand was to count the number of zombie HP being produced each turn and put together a defensive line that could deal that number + 1. Then I was "stabilized".

That last level, though, I mean jesus shit. For those who aren't there yet: 83 turns!

professor_scissors · Posts: 1033

83 turns? impressive! It took me 99.
Don't spoil the surprise for everybody, though!

Monthenor · Posts: 455

The vicious, terrible surprise that took the creator of the game 100 turns to defeat? Wouldn't dream of it.

And yes, I was certainly surprised.