When Zombies Attack!

Since we haven’t had a good zombie post in a couple of weeks, I figured I’d remedy that situation.  Hey, speaking of zombies, Karn - when is the movie that features you as the famous Zombie #10 coming out?  Well, until then, at least this little free game called When Zombies Attack! can keep us busy.  Once in a while, I get totally fixated on a really obscure and usually flawed little game and play it to death for a couple of weeks.  And lately that game is When Zombies Attack!

I couldn’t find any discussion or reviews of the game other than those mentioned on the game’s home page:  comments on the author’s blog, a short thread in the Slick Forums and a thread in rec.games.roguelike.development.  So what the heck…I figured I would talk about it and maybe a couple of people will give it a play.  The author says, “If enough people like the game, I’ll likely continue working on it…” So I’m doing this for my own selfish reasons.  But I’ll even provide some tips at the end of my post!

I’m always searching around for new roguelikes to check out.  Speaking of roguelikes, I’m still playing Rogue Touch more than twice as much as all my other iPhone games combined.  But anyway, I often visit sites like Temple of the Roguelike, which is where I found When Zombies Attack!  The game was actually intended to be a 7DRL game (a roguelike created in 7 days) but ended up taking the author 60 days to complete.

It has quite a different feel than most roguelikes.  Sure, it has many roguelike qualities. The maps, items and mobs are randomized.  There is permadeath and the game is punishingly difficult.  But on the other hand it’s isometric and hex-based and is mainly about battle tactics with plenty of ranged weapons.  For some reason, it reminds me a bit of this old old game called Breach.  Unlike most roguelikes, you don’t get any XP for killing monsters.  You only “level” when you reach the stairs at the end of a floor.  I put level in quotes because you don’t really have any stats that go up when you hit the stairs.  Rather, you select one attribute from a list.  Strangely, the game even has a slight FPS feel to it, if only because you can instantly switch between weapons by using the numbers 1 to 7.

When you begin the game, you are randomly given a number of attributes.  These attributes can be things like Marksman (10% pistol headshot) or Medic (+2 to bandage heals), amongst others.  You may also receive a weapon: knife, bat or pistol.  There are better weapons in the game but you have to find them.  And to keep things fair, if you get, for example, three attributes, you will likely get no starting weapon at all and will have to rely on your fists until you can find something better.  You will also receive a random number of bandages which act as heals.  I like the randomness of the character creation.  It really forces you to adapt and work with what you have so you play in different ways.

Once your hero is created, you find yourself in a building filled with zombies.  Your goal is to get to the top of the building by reaching the stairs at the end of each floor.  There will be 4, 8 or 12 floors depending on the difficulty you picked.  Of course, preventing you from reaching those stairs are your friendly neighborhood zombies.  There are different types of zombies with different stats and the variety and difficulty of the zombies will increase as you go up floors.  The zombies will just shuffle around as zombies do, but when they spot you (an exclamation mark will appear over their head) they will come right at you and attack.

You can fight the zombies either by moving into them with a melee weapon equipped (or just your fists) or by targeting them with some type of gun and firing.  Certain weapons are better than others.  Some will cause more damage, some will have a larger range and some will take out multiple zombies at once.  I guess I should mention, if it’s not obvious, that the game is turn-based.  Nothing happens until you move.  It also does take a turn to turn around, so if you are facing the wrong way and a zombie is behind you it will get a free hit in as you turn around.

Zombies will not drop items.  The only way to get items is to enter the rooms you will see on the map, all of which have doors and have one, or usually more, zombies inside.  Inside these rooms you can find bandages, weapons and ammo.  The zombies can not come out until you open the door and will not follow if you close it behind you.  Apparently, zombies aren’t too good with doorknobs.  In most roguelikes, you don’t want to rush from one floor to the next because you want to kill monsters to get xp and get items before things get harder.  In When Zombies Attack!, even though you don’t get xp from killing zombies you still want to search the rooms if you can to pick up items before things get too tough.

You continue on through three screens on each floor and then get to the stairs.  If this sounds easy - it’s not.  It’s freaking hard…at least at higher floors.  When you do make it to the stairs, you pick from a list of attributes and then repeat the whole process.  Oh, I should mention that you need to keep moving because you will see a very large number of zombies enter at the beginning of each floor after a certain number of turns.  If you’re interested in the background story (I never read it until just now) you can find it here.  But be aware that not all of the gameplay features mentioned there were implemented.  The game’s author also mentions that he found his inspiration from this design idea.

Look, this game was created by one person in a short amount of time so of course there are going to be some problems.  It sometimes crashes on me and other times my character or the zombies will just be invisible.  The attributes are really really unbalanced (I’ll get more into this in my tips section).  Even though the walls turn transparent at points, there are times when it is impossible to see the location of enemies.  Also, you can not see into a room when the door is closed, but you can see the whole floor outside the room when you are in it with the door closed (I don’t really care about this one).  The AI can be a bit wonky - once the zombies spot you it’s perfectly fine.  But sometimes you will shoot them when they haven’t spotted you yet and they won’t even turn around.  Apparently the first version of the game was too easy so the developer made it harder.  But even though I play really tough roguelikes all the time - I think the difficulty for this game is too high.

One thing that I thought was a bug turned out not to be.  When you are attacking zombies with melee weapons, you don’t want to let them get the first hit.  So if they are only one square away you don’t want to move towards them or they will get a free hit.  At first, I couldn’t believe there was not a way to skip a turn and stand still so the zombie would come to you.  I had to move up and down and stuff like that and sometimes that wouldn’t work because of the map.  But one day I pressed the space bar and I found out that skips a turn, which made things a lot easier for me.  Unless I missed it, I didn’t see this command listed anywhere on the website or in the game.  I definitely should have tried the spacebar sooner but it would be good if the developer added this to the keystroke info on the game’s page.

There are certain aspects of the game which may not exactly be bugs but seem unfair.  Sometimes you start with just your fists and at times that can be totally fine.  But if you only have fists and start off near a zombie that’s all green…you’re totally screwed.  They regen HP and will be back to full health after you punch them.  So there’s no way out and there are a lot of these guys on the first floor.  Since this happens at the beginning of the game I don’t care too much.

Other times, you start off on a new floor with quite a few zombies close to you.  Even if you defeat them, it will likely take you too long and the huge zombie swarm will appear.  And there’s no way out of that.  The swarm comes quicker and quicker the higher you go.  Recently, I was on floor 6 or 7 (it would be helpful if there was some indication of what floor you are on) and I was stacked.  I had every weapon in the game and more ammo than I could ever use.  I had full health…and 15 health at that, along with all the best attributes and a shitload of bandages.  But when I entered the floor, there were a cluster of zombies right near me.  Even though I could have insta-killed them through melee, I wanted to off them even faster.  So I was ready with my shotgun and blasted them away as quickly as I could.  But it was too late - by the time I could move forward the zombie mob was upon me and there was no escape.

You might think I’m crazy when you play it but right now I’m loving this game. I just think it’s fun.  I enjoy the randomization and using different weapons and strategies to take out zombies.  I even like the difficulty because, while it annoys me sometimes, it keeps me coming back because it’s such a challenge.  And playing with new attributes and items keeps it from getting boring (for now).  I think the graphics are decent enough for this kind of game.   There is no sound so be prepared for that.  I’ve had a lot of good times with it…especially in those moments when I’m about to die and I get an extra turn or a head shot or something like that and manage to survive.

I’m guessing most people won’t care for this game.  It’s unpolished, has serious issues and you have to be able to deal with some major frustration.  It’s also a very linear experience.  You are always heading to the stairs and apart from the combat tactics and attribute picking there are not a whole lot of choices to make.  And there’s nothing going on besides the core gameplay.  There are no quests, no NPC’s, no items other than weapons, ammo and bandages, and the zombies don’t really vary enough.  I was also bummed out that the best weapon (or at least the highest number weapon), the flamethrower, really wasn’t anything special at all.  When Zombies Attack! is probably very repetitive…I don’t why I don’t find it so.

But hey, if you like roguelikes or love zombies or just feel like wasting some time, it’s worth a try.  It is simple to pick up and fast to play. I figure since I like it, at least a few other people have to. Right?  And hey, you don’t even have to register or download anything…just go to the website and launch.  Just don’t have any high expectations.

Okay, now I’m going to provide some tips.  This may be kind of crazy considering how few people have probably ever played this game but what the heck.  I’ve played it a lot so revel in my zombie knowledge! But please don’t read further if you haven’t played yet or don’t want to spoil your own strategic discoveries.  To be honest, none of these are really revolutionary and you could probably figure them out for yourself.  But here goes:

Probably the biggest tip is to make use of the unbalanced attributes.  Some of them, like Slugger, completely suck.  But some are fantastic.  The best one, by far, is Crocodile Dundee.  Since it only makes knife attacks stronger, it may not sound like a big deal.  But holy shit…pair this baby with a knife and things get a whole lot easier.  On the early levels (I play on the 8 floor difficulty) you can kill every single enemy with one melee hit from the knife.  Yep, insta-kill.  That will let you load up on gear from the rooms if you want or just cruise through the floors.  There will be some zombies that show up on higher floors that will not die with one knife hit.  But you can level your Dundee skill up further…twice!  If you want the easiest path to victory (it’s still freaking hard) Dundee is the way to go (if you can find a knife).  I also really like Wolverine for the health regen and Fleet Footed for the extra turn.  Healthy as a Horse is worth grabbing if you can.  The other attributes are nowhere near as good.  But don’t get too caught up in Dundee world - it’s really fun to mix it up and play with ranged weapons sometimes.

Do not waste time on the first screen of any floor.  I would highly suggest you don’t even go into any rooms on that screen.  Just keep moving. That’s because you definitely don’t want to get caught up in the giant wave of zombies.  However, you don’t really have to worry about being slow once you hit the second screen.  The zombie mob never seems to catch up to you at that point (this is a flaw in the game in my opinion) so you can search around all you want.  But on the higher floors, it’s insane how quickly they come on the first screen.  I’ve recently decided that I just have to have the third level of Fleet Footed even if I want other attributes because that’s my only hope of survival in those first few moves upon entering a high floor.

When you open the door to a room, take a good look at what’s inside.  Do you really need the items in the room?  Are the enemies too tough or arrayed in a way that would make it difficult?  You have the ability to simply shut the door and move on.  I should note though that it seems zombies in rooms have the most difficulty spotting you when they are facing the other way - so sometimes you can grab items and get out of the room without a fight.  Also, be aware that on occasion, when you open a door a zombie will get the first shot in before you can do anything.  So be wary if your health is low.

Ah, this is a big one.  On the first level (there are lots on the first level) and on levels after that you will see zombies with red hair, no shirt and black pants.  These zombies can be killed with one hit from your fists.  So do not waste any ammo on them.  Just melee them with your fists.  I mean, you can use the bat or the knife if you want since they don’t have ammo.  But any melee hit of any kind will always kill them.  Use that knowledge to your advantage.  Likewise, when you shoot another type of zombie and its health is low…don’t waste ammo shooting it again. Switch out your weapons and finish it with melee.  Switching weapons does not use a turn.

If you have the Wolverine ability, make the most of it.  Clear out the area near the stairs but don’t go up the stairs yet.  Just skip turns until your health regens and keep doing it until you are at max health.  There’s no time pressure in the game other than the zombie mob and they’ll never make it that far.  You can use the same trick in a room.  Clear it out, close the door and skip turns until your health is full.  Just don’t do this on the first screen or you will be in the middle of the zombie stampede when you leave the room.  If you don’t have the Wolverine ability don’t be a hero - use your bandages.  Any time your health drops to five (or 10 if you have the increased HP ability) use a bandage…if you have one.  Without the Wolverine power, your health is never going to go back up except by using a bandage.  So you may as well use the bandage as soon as you need it.

Well, I’m off for another run through Zombie Towers!