We are happy to announce that the open beta version of Class 3 Outbreak’s Editor is out now! Saxon has been working hard on this over the last year, and in the mean time C3O is closing in on 1 million plays. With the new editor, you can now paint down maps in your local area, then unleash the zombie hordes upon your street, workplace or school. Map creation is achieved by painting down colors over the top of the satellite imagery – red for walls, green for trees and grey for flat ground. There are a few basic tools such as a line tool, free hand tool and fill, with the ability to change brush size as well. Once you’ve finished, you can publish your map and share it with friends or fellow gamers.

The game has also been moved to www.class3outbreak.com, where you’ll see that we have a world map showing the location of outbreaks across the globe. Maps that are published are moderated by myself, and if they’re of high enough quality, they go on the home page as one of the red markers. Even if you don’t get featured, you can still play and share your map.

So now that our most important feature is out the door, we will be moving back to gameplay, so that players can load up their neighborhood map, then begin the task of surviving the outbreak. Unlike any other game, you will walk the streets and be familiar with your own surroundings. Very first on the agenda is controllable units, I believe we will be starting with just one controllable civilian, then we will go from there.

We look forward to seeing what maps you come up with. So far I’ve been deluged with about 60-70 map moderation requests in 2 days, which is a good sign. Tell us what you think, constructive good or bad criticisms are welcome. If you’d like to follow development as we get back into the fun stuff, you can follow me on Twitter @JayWeston or Saxon @SaxonDruce. Then there’s our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Class3Outbreak and the forums.

Cheers,
Jay