Atom Zombie Smasher is a funny, clever indie game that combines a pinch of tower defense with a dash real-time strategy (and throws in a little RISK as well) for an addictive experience. Players control an orbiting defense platform that monitors and commands ground forces during a zombie outbreak. While you won’t engage the enemy directly, you’ll deploy troops, set traps, and coordinate rescue vehicles all while plotting out a large-scale strategy from the safety of your satellite base.
Part of the charm of Atom Zombie Smasher is that it’s set in the 1960’s, complete with surfer
music soundtrack (By the Volcanics), and has Cold War propaganda posters that
encourage you to do your part to wipe out “Zed”, the collective nickname for
the zombies. While there isn’t
much of story, you’ll see comic book “Vignettes” of still images with caption
that tell the stories of survivors on the ground. These unlock over the course of your campaign, and you’ll
need to play through multiple times to see everything.
The actual gameplay starts with an overworld map divided
into numerous territories, not unlike RISK or other games of global
domination. The zombies control
several cities at the start, and you’ll try to capture as much territory as you
can by going on missions to rescue civilians and eliminate the zombie
infestation. As the game
progresses, different cities will have heavier infestation than others and
you’ll have to choose whether to try a risky mission to put down a difficult
infestation, or go for an easy victory. Once you’ve made that decision, you’ll switch to an overhead view of
that city. The “Orbiting Satellite” aspect of the story is a good excuse for
simple graphics; the zombies are just purple dots, and the civilians you’re
rescuing are nothing more than yellow dots, while the units you deploy are
represented by icons. No need for fancy graphics here.
You choose the landing zone for your rescue helicopters, and
set your troops in place to defend your landing zone. You also have traps, like mines and dynamite, as well as
barricades. Each mission gives you
particular number of civilians to rescue, but you get bonus points for
exceeding that quota. Of course,
killing all of the zombies will be an immediate victory. If you take too long, nightfall comes,
and with it an endless horde of the undead.
AI does much of the work for you, so careful planning
followed by quick reactions will make you succeed or fail. Once the planning phase is complete,
missions only last a minute or two, and if you manage to wipe out all of the
zombies on a given map within a certain time frame, you’ll “Capture” that
territory which grants you bonus points. These points are tallied up on the
world map after each mission. There’s also something of a tech tree as well, by
rescuing Scientists (blue dots) in each level, you’ll be able to research
upgrades and weapons for use on the world map. You and Zed are competing to reach a number of points that
you can set at the start of the campaign. A short campaign will last a couple of hours, the middle length a few
evenings, and you can pick a much longer campaign as well. There’s plenty of reason to replay and
try to challenge Zed for world domination over and over again.
As you play through, you’ll gain upgrades for your units,
and new units too. Each new
campaign will assign you these units randomly, and the default settings also
give you a random selection for each mission too. You can fiddle with these settings to increase or decrease
the challenge level. This makes every campaign different, and provides yet more
incentive to play through over and over again. There’s also a multiplayer
cooperative option as well, but this involves players using a mouse and multiple
gamepads on the same PC.
Atom Zombie Smasher
is a gem of an indie game and was chosen as one of the PAX 10 indie games for
the Penny Arcade Expo. Its
developer Blendo Games should be on your radar in the future if you like indie
gaming. Atom Zombie
Smasher is available now from a variety of
digital distributors for fifteen dollars, but you can get it on Steam for
ten. There is a free demo if
you’re still on the fence.