With a blog named “Zombie Apocalypse” it’s probably strange that I haven’t actually written much about about zombies. In fact I’ve really only written about one game, Plants vs. Zombies, in my first official blog post and that post wasn’t really about zombies either. The name of my blog brings in a lot of weird web traffic and my Twitter feed tends to attract zombie lovers—and then probably disappoint them with the lack of conversation about the undead. I love checking out my blog’s search engine statistics which list the words that lead web users to my site. So far my favorites are “best diet for the zombie apocalypse”, “finding love during the zombie apocalypse”, and “zombie apocalypse rooftop garden shotgun”. So I should gear more of my posts to overweight and lonely survivalists?

I’ve not written about more zombie games as I don’t really like most of them. Most games about the undead are really just excuses for murdering large amounts of people without consequence or the typical video game shooter gun porn. My attraction to the idea of a zombie apocalypse is more of an interest in humanity’s reaction to a global calamity or thinking about my own ability to survive in an impossible situation; not necessarily the walking dead themselves.

I recently played a couple zombie themed games, more by coincidence than design, which seemed to capture what I was looking for.

I had seen Survivor – The Living Dead crop up on a couple indie games sites and on a quiet weekend decided to give it a try. The game, specifically its introductory cut scene, doesn’t start well. Judging by her proportionately wrong and top-heavy frame, the main character, a woman name Amber, seems to have been designed by an adolescent boy, or at least someone in desperate need of a girlfriend. Amber, running from some attacking zombies, stumbles across a home where the owner has killed himself and starts to barricade herself in. 

If you make it this far, and I almost didn’t due to the irrelevant and inane opening story (and Amber’s constantly bouncing chest), Survivor – The Living Dead really turns itself around. Using items and weapons you find around the house you must hold off the incoming zombie horde until help arrives. There’s a definite order and strategy to defending the house that makes the game more of a puzzle than anything else. 

It’s important to use the defenses appropriately – pushing a dresser out of a window is a great way to take out a large cluster of zombies but a waste if timed wrong. After you survive the allotted amount of time, a team of soldiers storm in and save the day. As you beat each timed level you can try again with a longer amount of time needed to survive, bigger zombie hordes, and additional defenses. 

Survivor – The Living Dead is most certainly an indie game as it’s occasionally buggy and not entirely polished, making getting away from attacking zombies frustrating. I’d love to see if the developer intends to apply updates and grow the game as time goes on. At first I thought the game only had one level but later realized that you can unlock a “story mode” which has additional levels. However, if you fail in those later levels you have to start the story mode completely over, which is maddening in a game based on trial and error.

I’m thoroughly surprised at how much I enjoyed playing Survivor – The Living Dead. The game focuses less on combat and more on what’s appealing to me about that fiction – surviving and trying to buy time.

The other zombie apocalypse themed game I’ve been playing is Rogue Survivor. A game in the roguelike video game genre, Rogue Survivor also has a rough start. You begin as a randomly named survivor who wakes up during a zombie apocalypse. You see someone standing in your room and exclaim, “ZOMG, you are a zombie!” Gross. In other parts of the game, dialogue and written story aren’t much better (with even worse grammar and spelling). Before I criticize the game too much further I should clarify that Rogue Survivor is still in its alpha phase so I’m sure that many improvements and changes are still to come.

Writing problems aside, Rogue Survivor is a fun change from my past experiences with roguelikes where I’ve only played fantasy/medieval themed games. You run through randomly generated city terrain dodging zombies and other undead monsters, hungry people, and marauding gangs. Supplies are a rare commodity and the game does a good job keeping you on the move as you’re constantly looking for food and a safe place to sleep. Rogue Survivor emphasizes that combat should generally be avoided. The longer you stay alive the more capable you become as you gain useful skills, but even so, you won’t last against large groups of enemies. One of my favorite moments in the game was tagging along with a group of soldiers who were clearing out a section of the city. You decide to get some sleep while being in their safety, and wake up to find that one of the soldiers had been bitten in the night and the entire squad, now undead, are seeking to eat you.

Walked into the wrong building...

With everything Rogue Survivor does right, in its current form the game doesn’t have a long shelf-life. The draw of a roguelike is a good narrative mixed with the desire to find ever better items and gear for your character. The game doesn’t have a story nor does it have an ending. The developer has indicated that a story and multiple possible endings will be added in a future update as well as more features and items. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with as they have the seed of what could grow into a lasting experience.

Pitting yourself against a hostile world that is falling apart is part of the lure of zombie apocalypse fiction for me. Not many games capture that idea very well as they focus more on the violence associated with the fiction instead of what is truly the prevailing theme: buying time. Time spent waiting for help to arrive, having enough food and other supplies to wait out the chaos until order is restored, or quickly getting somewhere safe until the danger subsides. Again, it’s not about blowing the brains out of an endless shuffling undead horde, but having your world turned upside down, being forced beyond your breaking point, and surviving long enough to hopefully see the end of it. I chuckled when I realized that both the video games I played had the word “survivor” in their title, thinking it to be an obvious cliché of zombie game titles, but after playing each game I realized that the word summed up exactly what I was looking for.