Building Zombie Donkeys 2069: A Gassy Retro Boomer Shooter
The year is 2069. The digital abyss has been corrupted by "Bad Vibes," transforming the once-noble donkey population into mindless, nibbling zombies.
I decided to document the process of building this web-based multiplayer FPS, mostly because it involves some of the most ridiculous physics I've ever had to implement: Cheek Jiggling.
The Tech Stack
- Engine: Babylon.js (for that chunky retro software-rendered feel)
- Networking: Peer-to-Peer (WebRTC) for state sync, using Socket.io for signaling.
- Frontend: Vite + TypeScript.
- Backend: Node.js (Signaling only).
The Bio-Gaster and F-BOMBS
Instead of bullets, I wanted something more "purifying." Enter the Bio-Gaster. It's a methane-powered purification unit that blasts bad vibes out of donkeys, turning them into flying rainbow unicorns.
The technical challenge here was making the hit detection feel generous. I ended up using invisible 3D cylinder hitboxes instead of the 2D billboard sprites to ensure that even a near-miss with a gas cloud would trigger a transformation.
That Specific Aesthetic
To get the "Boomer Shooter" vibe, I did three things:
- Hardware Scaling: I dropped the resolution by 4x to get those chunky pixels.
- Dynamic Texturing: Every wall and floor texture is procedurally generated with noise to look like 90s stone and metal.
- Billboarding: All enemies and pickups are 2D sprites that always face the camera, just like the original Doom.
The Future of Gaseous Combat
Zombie Donkeys 2069 features a global scoreboard, multiple difficulty levels (from "Gentle Breeze" to "Gassy Hell"), and a progression system where you rank up as an elite Ass-sassin.
Check out the live game at zombie-donkeys.vercel.app.
From jose with love. ❤️