The $1 Zombie Game
October 17, 2011 13 Comments
Zombie Survival Diary: Day One
So the Zombie Apocalypse broke out. Again. And this time I’m stuck in an abandoned courtyard of what looks like a slum. I’m all alone. Well, except for this seven-foot tall dude holding a camera that always walks about three feet behind me. I’m not sure what’s up with that, but he doesn’t seem to eat or sleep, so whatever.
Thankfully this slum was well stocked with guns and ammo, but that should come as no surprise. I mean, what else are slums good for? Well, besides drugs and cheap hookers, or cheap hookers on drugs? Either way, I’ve got a wide variety of weapons at my disposal here. Shotguns, automatics, sniper rifles, and pistols. This could be fun.
Zombie Survival Diary: Day Two
Oh my God I’m so fucking bored. These zombies just slowly hobble around, and for some reason they’re wearing workout pants. I lose about 10% of my health every time one flails its arms at me from a distance of five feet. I’m stuck in this courtyard, which is empty and sterile and doesn’t offer anything in the way of entertainment. And for some reason I have to hold the left click button my Xbox controller to run. Also, like a total idiot, I only carry limited ammo for the more fun guns but unlimited ammo for my pistols. The bullets for both seem just about equally as effective, so why wouldn’t I want to carry unlimited ammo for the gun that is more fun? And why do I only take one fun gun and one pistol out with me when I go outside to mow down zombies? This makes no damn sense.
Zombie Survival Diary: Day Three
The zombies seem to be getting faster. Which is counter-logical. Shouldn’t the zombies have been at their fastest at the beginning of the Apocalypse and not days afterwards? I mean, they are dead, right? So by now rigor has set in, their flesh is rotted more, and their muscles should have lost the ability to flex, which is what you need to move swiftly. So in theory, they should be stiff as a board by now, unable to move at all, which would allow me to walk by and finish them off in more leisurely ways, like using a coping saw to slowly cut their head off.
But no, they’re faster. It makes me wonder what I was thinking when I decided to bring a sniper rifle out with me today. Sniper rifles are more suited for things that can’t run the 100 meter dash in five seconds. You’re meant to set your shot, take aim, and fire. Here, you don’t have a chance to. Not that it matters. I don’t even have to aim, or apparently even hit the zombies to kill them. I can just point the gun anywhere in their general vicinity and it seems to do the trick. Man, this Zombie Apocalypse kind of sucks.
Zombie Survival Diary: Day Four
Well so much for that. The zombies seem to be bullet sponges now. When I shoot one, a huge cloud of red stuff that I’m guessing is supposed to be blood but looks more like the type of fire-retardant that airplanes drop explodes out of them. And once the dust clears, it’s not unusual to see them still walking, gasping as if they’re trying to catch their breath, which makes sense since I shot them in the lungs, but it doesn’t make sense because they’re supposed to be dead and not breathing. Meanwhile, some of the zombies are getting stuck in the various trash cans lying around, or stuck halfway in buildings, or in staircases. Maybe they’re polterzombies.
Either way, this whole experience has not been particularly difficult. Or fun, for that matter. For the most part, all I have to do is run a big circle around the courtyard, all while holding the click button on the left stick down. Once the zombies are in a line, I just gun them down, fast ones first, then slow ones. If they get too close, I just repeat the follow-the-leader process all over again. It’s lame. I feel like the Pied Piper, only zombies aren’t half as much fun to kill as children.
The $1 Zombie Game was developed by rmm5
80 Microsoft Points are waiting for the $0.01 Zombie Game in the making of this review.
Hurley, whom I hear has a tattoo of me on his butt, also reviewed this for Gear-Fish.
Indie Gamer Chick 
A fair assessment of The (latest) $1 Zombie Game.
One thing, though: why are you always so puzzled about clicking the left stick to run? Ever since the Call of Duty series bellowed, high fived and hazed its way to the top of the FPS slop heap, clicking the stick to run has been common practice in a variety of projectile weapon-based games. So shush.
I have never ever ever ever liked the whole “click to run” shit. Here’s a thought: move the analog stick a little to move slowly, and move it all the way to run. What’s so fucking hard about that? That’s why I hate Call of Doody.
It’s a fair point, I just think it’s probably too ubiquitous for you to continue being puzzled about why games include it. They include it because it’s what a lot of people expect from their controls these days.
Not many people have the finesse that you have with a controller so clicking left stick to run is the best way to have the controls set up. It appeals to the masses.
You probably guessed it…our game will also have left stick click to run 🙂
Exactly. You still get people moaning about those occasional NES games where they defied tradition by using B to jump and A to attack. People expect to click the stick to run; like it or not, it’s become the standard. (Personally I find it quite entertaining to play with weird control schemes though. LB to run in Frontlines: Fuel of War!)
Hey look, those zombies games have gotten better looking! Too bad they still suck IN EVERY OTHER WAY. I wouldn’t pay even $1 for the latest game that deserves its own genre because they’re so damn many of them. All because someone got lucky with a minimalist game that had zombies in it and the dev shared his 100k numbers. This is why I’m never gonna share sales numbers. These amateurs latch onto money faster than flies to garbage.
I actually hate using left click to run though, it ruins the controller. But let’s not have practicality get in the way of the ZOMBIE MASSES and their stick clicks.
You can disdain the ‘zombie masses’ if you like, but they’re your potential customers.
So you are calling developers “amateurs” for not being original? Maybe you would like to share your original one of a kind game with us (no sales #s required)?
Guys, guys, I wasn’t aiming to touch off a flame war here.
Oh no, originality was long dead on XBLIG Ruben. They’re amateurs because despite developing games based on long standing source material for years, most developers STILL CAN’T MAKE A GAME WORTH PLAYING FOR EVEN 20 MINUTES. It’s not hard. Really, it’s not. Look at Pac-Man. Call me a jaded gamer, but playing or even looking at nearly 1600+ turds tends to do that to you. 🙂 I think we need a “Zombie” letter in the ABC list, because that’s how many freaking zombie games we have.
I’d love to share my one-of-a-kind-game idea with you Ruben. But I’m afraid you’ll STEAL IT! It’s precious lol j/k
Btw Kairi, this ain’t a flame war. It’s a logical discussion about poop(everybody poops). 😀
I mean, it’s difficult not to call it like you see it in regards to XBLIG. It sucks too, because I thought(at the time 200 games were released) eventually as time went on, the games would get a lot better(I mean, you have FAQs and guides to make different games and tons of code samples, easy to copy+paste code into your projects). But look, a couple of years and almost an astounding 2000(TWO FREAKING THOUSAND!) games later, where are we?
Well, at least we have a couple of developers who are willing spend more than $20 at turbosquid. 🙂 Can’t ask for much more I guess.
it might be a bad game, but it is pretty obvious that this guy either understands the market, or got lucky making what he thought was good. This game has been in the top 5 downloaded daily for a weekish I guess. Since FortressCraft seems to be hitting about a thousand sales (or dollars, cant tell on xbligdb) I would say this guy is pretty happy with his results. Especially with this lull in indie game releases, his game will sit on the recent games list for awhile.
I suppose that’s a good thing too. Wonder what the developer’s gonna spend it on? =p
Maybe graphic design lessons?