Atom Zombie Smasher Message Board

Not sure we’ve posted about the Humble Weekly Sale yet. This is because all we enlightened souls on RPS all dispute the concept of ‘weeks.’ It’s an artificial tyranny imposed upon us by the secret world government in order to keep us from the independent thought that would allow us to realise there are in fact 417 days in a year. The world leaders spend these hidden 52 days at a giant orgy the rest of us aren’t even aware of, let alone invited to, because we’re too busy working, paying the taxes which fund that immense, secret international flesh-fest. It makes me so angry! Thus, I’m sickened that the Humble Bundle guys feel they can make light of the insidious concept of ‘weeks’, that they can appropriate this tool of ultimate opporession for a pay-what-you-want bundle of awesome indie games. This week – OH GOD THEY MADE ME SAY IT – it’s the turn of the incomparable Blendo Games. Atom Zombie Smasher, Flotilla, 30 Flights and Loving and more are yours for a low, low, customisable price.(more…)

It’s some sort of annual festivity, which means there can only be a Steam sale to match. If you’re not too busy pouring boiling oil onto the damnable children who keep on turning up at your door and begging for candy while you’re busy trying to watch the latest episode of M.A.S.H., you might wish to play a videogame which you’ve not paid much for. Over eighty games are in the sale, most of which have some sort of scary theme and crazy-low prices. There are also quite a few zombie-related games, but we all know zombies are about as scary as a cat dressed up as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart these days.

WARNING: Comic Sans is used on the Sale page.(more…)

Onlive and the IGF are spooning for a fortnight. The sensual lovers are celebrating the Indie Gaming New Year by giving you access to 30 minute demos of 16 IGF finalists. The alphabetically sexy list of games is: Atom Zombie Smasher, Be Good, Botanicula, Dear Esther, Dustforce, English Country Tune, Frozen Synapse, FTL, Lume, Nitronic Rush, Once Upon a Spacetime, POP, SpaceChem, To the Moon, Toren, and WAY.(more…)

They said it would never end. And then, on Saturday, it did. We’ve been posting our series of chats with the many splendid finalists in this year’s Independent Games Festival over the last couple of months, and, with the exception of English Country Tune (dev was worried about sounding boring), Mirage (dev didn’t reply) and Fez (dev wouldn’t confirm the possibility of a PC version) we managed to get mini-interviews with all the PC/Mac indie developers in the running for a gong.

In case you missed a few, didn’t understand what the hell it was all about or just like looking at neatly-ordered lists, here’s the complete series for your relaxed perusal. It’s a fascinating and diverse bunch of games in the finals this year, and if nothing else, it’s a rare chance to see what 18 different developers would say to the monsters in Doom if only they could talk to them.

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And so our series of interviews with the finalists in this year’s IGF continues… High-speed, high (un)death toll strategy game Atom Zombie Smasher is up for the Excellence in Design prize at this year’s Independent Games Festival. Here, we chat to Blendo Games’ Brendon Chung about his origins as an indie dev, how people are creating their own narrative arcs in AZS, and his answer to the most important question of all.(more…)

Release Notes:
- Fixed winter achievement not displaying correctly.
- Bomb pickup now respects player timescale.
- Santa heli now respects player timescale.
- Warning timer now appears at 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).

v1.89

• Gameplay: when no more zombie territories, humans win.
  
• UI: merc control bar now accommodates any arbitrary amount.
  
• UI: can press ESC to skip Territory Score screen.
  
• UI: can press ESC to skip New Outbreaks screen.
  
• UI: can press left/right to select upgradeable mercs.
  
• UI: can press Enter for Yes/No popups.
  
• UI: fixed Player 2 artillery cursor mixup.
  
• UI: added loading animation to File Share menu.
  
• UI: added URL tooltip in Behind the Scenes.
  
• UI: vid. resolution menu now shows current resolution.
  
• UI: helicopter name limited to 23 chars.
  
• UI: add help message for bad profiles.
  
• Mods: removed empty mods from database.
  
• Fix: custom resolutions are now saved.
  
• Fix: fix crash in Zed Bait.
  
• Fix: fix crash in Twitter feed.
  
• Debug: PAX Demo functionality.
  

Version 1.84
- Gameplay: Chooser gamemode no longer scrambles merc lineup.
- Gameplay: landmines now respect user's gamespeed.
- UI: middle mouse click now opens Merc Chooser window.
- UI: Alt+Enter now toggles fullscreen/windowed.
- UI: added option to quit without saving.
- UI: added social feed.
- UI: added More Games menu.
- UI: increased Report-a-Bug window size.
- UI: campaign log export now includes hours/minutes in filename.
- System: Disable joysticks with "-joystick 0" command line.
- System: Disable sound with "-sound 0" command line.
- System: Added telemetry system.
- Fix: crash in 3D renderer.
- Fix: crash in region generation.
- Fix: crash in newsletter page.
- Fix: crash with empty mod names.
- Fix: crash in music system.
- Fix: crash in pathfinder.
- Fix: crash in text renderer.

Blendo Games outputs some weird products (see Gravity Bone) but thankfully knows how to balance fantasticality with fun. Such is the case with Atom Zombie Smasher, a deceptively complex, creatively presented game where you wipe out zombies with bombs and bullets to save a terrified populace. It's go...