Zombie game monsters

[Shadow]

I've been pulling over monsters from previous games to the new game recently. Most of them showed up in Din's Curse, but a few of them haven't made an appearance since Depths of Peril because we haven't had any outdoors since then. Not counting zombies, which monsters from our previous games would you really like to see in the new game?

[Castruccio]

The Demon War Monsters were really great.

Also:
Torvas, Leprechauns, Litch, Chaos Lord, Changeling,Scavenger, Firethrower, Undead Herald, Sentinel, Fury, Skeletons, Brute, Ghost, Horror, Lich, Scorpid, Death Knight.

If you do Screes, I would request that you change their audio (I think they're the ones with the irritating high pitched growl). It has been hurting my ears for years now!

[PixelLord]

Originally Posted by Castruccio

If you do Screes, I would request that you change their audio (I think they're the ones with the irritating high pitched growl). It has been hurting my ears for years now!

I always thought it was the imps/pixies with the most irritating sound. ...and there are so many of them sometimes.

[Castruccio]

Originally Posted by PixelLord

I always thought it was the imps/pixies with the most irritating sound. ...and there are so many of them sometimes.

It might well be the imps or pixies. I think you might be right.

[Desticato]

If the 'grenade' throwing fellas from Demon War don't make a return, I can perma-die a happy adventurer.

Also, the bane of my existence in Depths was the burrowing creature. The missions for locating a boss version and killing it were often impossible since they weren't visible until you were right on top of 'em and they wandered so far.

Everyone else is fair game, though! I was particularly fond of Wicked Torvas, but mostly because every time I encountered one I started singing their name to STP's Wicked Garden, which drove my wife nuts.

I sang it a lot.

[joku]

Definitely pixies. I kind of hate that they extinguish my torches, but I absolutely love that they can. They should be in every one of your fantasy games.

[Caal]

What monsters get added would depend on whether you are trying to make a somewhat realistic post-apocalyptic world or not. Call me a traditionalist, but I think that just the basic zombies, skeletons, and beasts (wolves, bears, etc) and possibly mechanical monsters of some kind can be sufficient, especially if mutations are involved (some of the Din's monsters like the demon lord and fury already seem mutated), adding random powers or skills (either positive or negative) would provide a lot of variety.

[ScrObot]

Originally Posted by Caal

...adding random powers or skills (either positive or negative) would provide a lot of variety.

This got me thinking and extrapolating... imagine if certain types of creatures (all of them, not just one member) had a pool of potential archetypes or skills, and upon a new game/world creation, it would randomly assign them for each class of creature. It might be interesting to have to be on your toes more than usual -- when you see "Zombie Type A" you don't automatically know that they are always slow and have a poison attack (or something). Your first encounters with them would be much more tense as you wouldn't know what you may be up against, and you would have to pay much more attention throughout the game rather than just falling into familiar patterns.

Replayability and intelligent randomization are important, in my opinion, and stuff like this would help make each game unique.

"Man, remember that game when the skeletons had both the speed modifier AND the freezing attack? They were brutal! I focused on stealth in that run to mitigate it."

[lizzyinthesky]

I'm probably an old lady but I like my zombies vanilla, romero-like shamblers. who move slowly but swarm in large dumb numbers.