Hey guys!

I'm blogging today about a new mod I'm working on. I wanted to keep a log of ideas and progress until the time I release it, and considering that blog is literally short for "web log" it seemed like a good place to have it!

So, first things first: I'm a huge modern zombie fan. I'm talking things like 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, The Last Of Us etc. Minecraft only has the traditional "slow" zombie, and he's gotta go. He's an insult to modern zombies.

My mod will overhaul the vanilla mob system as a starting point. I'm also going to redesign the sound system a bit, more info on all of this later.


The Zombie Types
Now, I said that the vanilla zombie is bad right? Yup, he's gone. Removed, No longer in the game. Instead, I'm replacing him with a plethora of new zombie types - famous zombies from a number of films and games. I'm completely open to more ideas on other zombies to add too so throw 'em at me in the comments! Here we go!

Braindead
The simple and easy-to-kill zombie. Until disturbed, they won't move or look around, just stand there. When they hear a noise, they become a runner (see below) until they lose their target, where they return to the braindead state.

Standard
Basically the current zombie, but I'll make him a little slower to balance the mod. These will be very common, easy to kill but a threat in large numbers.

Runner
Much faster, they move at the same speed a player sprints at.

Bloater
These guys are kind of like a cross between a creeper and zombie, and explode when near you or on taking damage. They never drop anything so are merely an inconvenience to kill you while you're running from others. Infects anything in range.

Clicker
Ripped off straight from TLOU, these guys hear via sonar. They cannot see you while you're sneaking unless you're 3 blocks in front of them. If you make too much noise (eg by not sneaking, jumping, dropping an item, or interacting with things like doors and chests), they'll "see" you and run in the direction of the noise throwing their arms around. If they grab you, you're dead. Doesn't matter what armour you have how much health buffs you have, if you've got /god mode... they -will- kill you

Crawler
These guys are a bit creepy. They crawl along the floor, walls, and ceiling and jump at you. Think of these as a much more dangerous spider.

Tank
This zombie has thick armour plating, but moves slowly. They're quite rare but very hard to kill, and just like the clicker will insta-kill you if it gets close enough.

Screamer
Appears to be a normal zombie or runner, but they scream when close, paralyzing you and leaving you open to attack. Applies slowness and nausia for 3 seconds each scream.

Lurker
These guys only spawn in very dark places, and will not move unless the player is close enough. They do make quiet noises so you can hear them before you find them, but you don't know WHERE they are going to be.
Until active, they are partially invisible, just to avoid graphical glitches that might give away their location. They can grab the player but wont one-shot you.

Half-dead
These zombies are a little more intellegent, and will use tools available to aid in their cause. They will also break blocks such as wooden planks and dirt to get at the player. They avoid bloaters and creepers.

Tracker
Trackers can hear or see you a much farther way away than the other zombie types. Fear not though, thanks to the new hearing AI, other zombies will follow it as it runs at you screaming, so they'll all know where you are still!

Giant
Larger zombie (not as big as the original MC "Giant Zombie" that some of you might remember). They only ever spawn as tank, bloater or half-dead. The bloater version spawns a small swarm of zombies when it dies (as well as a much larger infection radius), and the half-dead version will throw blocks or other mobs at you. If it throws a creeper it acts like a grenade - so expect them to blow away that wall you're fearfully hiding behind.
These are very rare to spawn, and are considered a mini boss mob.


Vanilla Tweaks & Changes
So, lets discuss my tweaks and overhauls shall we? If you're not a fan of walls of text, feel free to gloss over this as I'm going to go into quite a bit of detail.

AI
Mobs will use a new AI more focused on their senses - no longer will mobs automatically know where you are if you're within 32 blocks! My system gives mobs working eyes and ears - They have to see or hear you to know where you are. This new system will be applied to all vanilla mobs and be available as an open API for any mods to implement as a soft dependency (IE, only active if my mod is installed). The range of sight or hearing will vary between mobs - one mob may only see you from 8 blocks away while another might see you from 150.

Sound
Sound is going to play an important role in this mod. Mobs will be able to "hear" and react to sounds in a 3D space. For example, if you throw an egg and it lands just behind a mob, they'll hear the crack and turn around to see what it was. Likewise if you're walking or running near a mob it'll hear it and try and get towards it.
To assist with this, I'll listen for what item is being thrown. Things like a snowball or egg won't make much of a noise, but if you throw something like a brick, it'll make a bit more. Likewise for dropping items - that will make "noise" too. Walking, running, jumping and even sneaking will make SOME noise, but sneaking won't be enough for mobs to detect.

On a similar note, I'm going to replace the vanilla music with something more suited to the end of the world (more on that here), and make the music system dynamic. It will play a different track depending on what's happening in-game.

The Actual Mobs
Mobs will be toggle-able. You can stop certain mobs appearing entirely in your game if you want a zombie-only experience, for example.

Hitboxes
The hitbox is the area considered "hit" if you are aiming at a target. In vanilla minecraft, this is a pathetic and lazy square, scaled roughly to the size of a mob. You can see it as a white cube by hitting F3 and B together.
I'm planning to change this, and I want to make a box for each bodypart of any mob, as well as the player. Your head, each arm, each leg and your torso will each be it's own individual part, with it's own individual health. If you (or a zombie) gets an injury to the leg, for example, it'll slow you down, while damage to the head is very likely to kill you. This will also work for PvP - hitting the arm with an arrow will hurt, but hitting in the head will kill. Armour will negate in the same way it does now, just it'll save the bodypart's specific health instead of overall health.

Persistence
With this mod, all mobs become persistent, just like animals are. That means they won't despawn when you leave the area, but instead are saved. This way, if an area becomes severely infected by the undead, you'll have to fight to get it back instead of just logging out and back in.

Grabs & Assassinations
Both players and zombies will have the ability to grab one another. Zombies can grab from any side, and you must fight them off (or someone else can kill them) to survive. They may bite you or do damage during the grab, and other zombies or mobs can still attack you while you're being grabbed - making swarms a real and dangerous threat.

Players can only grab from behind. Once grabbed they can quickly assassinate most zombie types, or players. When grabbing a player, both players have to "fight" one another with a key mash. If the grabber wins, the victim will be killed, and if the victim wins he'll break free and be able to attack the grabber or make a run for it.

Infection System
All vanilla mobs, including the player, can be infected by a bite. A bite is a rare chance hit when a zombie attacks you. For a bite, the zombie has to be within a block of you when it attacks, and have a percentage chance of success. A bite also makes the zombie grab you - and if you only narrowly escape a grab you may get bitten too.
Infection is a very slow process, but it's going to kill you. The only way to prevent yourself from dying is with a cure, which won't be a direct part of this mod - it'll be in my FlenixCitiesResearch mod instead as an end-game product.


Any vanilla mob can be infected, and zombies will target specifically animals such as cows and pigs. Usually they'll just kill the mob by eating it, but if something stops them after they have bit it the animal will eventually turn and act just like a normal walker zombie, in animal form.

If the player dies to infection, a zombie will spawn at the point of death holding whatever item they had when they died. The rest of the drops will simply fall to the floor, and killing the zombie will cause him to drop the held item.

Infected Gamemode
On multiplayer, I'll eventually add a new gamemode called Infected. In this mode, you will be a randomly selected zombie (only certain ones available). This will kick in once you've "died" of an infection.
When in this mode, you have no inventory and you can't pick anything up (except half-dead, which has one slot). All you can do is attack and move. A shader is applied, and player skins are altered with their names removed. Players don't know you are you either - so you have no idea who you are attacking, and they have no idea it's a player attacking them. When you attack players in this mode you've got a 100% success bite, and even if you kill them they will be infected.
Upon death in this mode, you'll respawn as a standard player. This gamemode does open up oppertunities for other mods to make a new minigame of humans v player-controlled zombies which could be interesting to see.

Blocks & Items
I will add a few essential zombie-style weapons - for example the traditional bat-with-nail and molotov cocktail. I'll also add in health kits to patch yourself up. I'll have a parts system similar to The Last Of Us, letting you craft things on the go using parts found by looting. Finally, I'll probably add a few of what the Americans might call "Civillian Weapons" - pistols, shotguns, rifles and the likes. I believe the law is for nothing fully-automatic so that sounds like a good cutoff point.

Those guns will be toggle-able in the config for people wanting to use other more advanced mods, as they will be very basic. You will find guns and ammo (independantly) in the same way you find other lootable parts. Ammo WILL be scarse, and guns/ammo will never be craftable.

Creative mode will let you place in various things to store those parts- things such as draws or shelves. They can be set to respawn on a timer or be single use per player.

Players in Adventure mode will still be able to interact with those, and still be able to craft, meaning maps in adventure mode will work great with this mod.

Finally, if playing on anything lower than Hard, in single player you will spawn in a small pre-built bunker with a few supplies, to make sure you don't just get spawnkilled.

My Research
I did a bit of research into other zombie overhaul mods, and there's only one serious contendor right now: Crafting Dead.
This is a technic modpack, customized gamemode which you can't really alter at all. On top of that, the developer does not even allow YouTube or streaming, let alone modpacks. I will of course allow those things, although modpacks will be subject to the same restrictions I apply on my other mods.

Other than that, there wasn't much. A couple of AI overhauls which seemed relatively inactive - but I think I've got a good gap in the market to make this worth making.

Sum Up
There ya go- those are my ideas to make zombies a real challenge instead of the pathetic pushover they are right now. I'm open to all ideas and constructive critisism - but please keep the theme in mind. I'm not going to make 10 new types of creeper, and I want to keep this hard so I won't be making something to just kill every zombie in the world in a single shot. There are other mods for that (eg Flan's guns, ICBM antimatter missiles...)

So comment away!