Gif: Sanqi Interactive Entertainment / Kotaku
If youve ever logged into Twitter, Instagram or some other social media platform that can track your interests lately, youve most likely seen two things. One, a ton of depressing news because thats just the world right now. And two, youve likely seen those weird ads for some zombie game or other. While most people probably just scroll right past these ads, maybe shaking their head or chuckling, I decided to actually give these games a shot. What I found was just as weird as the ads plastered all over Twitter.
While there are many zombie-themed mobile games, the two titles that I see the most are State of Survival and Puzzles & Survival. Lets look at one of the weirder ones first. This ad for Puzzles & Survival features a man in prison getting bit by a zombie rat. This rodents bite then causes the man to become a zombie, but not before his cellmate escapes.
In another ad, this time for State of Survival, a woman in an elevator gets her ass slapped by another woman. But the groping gets blamed on a different dude who is also in the elevator with them, so he gets slapped in return. (Nothing like this happens in the game, by the way.)
G/O Media may get a commission
If you havent seen the ads above, chances are still good that youve seen some variation of them. There are So. Many. More. Weird. Zombie. Game. Ads. Few of them make complete sense, and ultimately, searching for logic in these commercials is as big of a waste of time.
Screenshot: Sanqi Interactive Entertainment / Kotaku
While these two share similar ads and even nearly identical names, they are very different games in action. State of Survival and Puzzles & Survival both feature base-building mechanics, forcing you to slowly upgrade buildings and farms to grind resources so you can eventually upgrade your main headquarters. You then repeat the whole process over again. Where they differ is in what you do between the mind-numbingly dull town management sequences.
In Puzzles & Survival, you play a tile-matching puzzle game where you defeat hordes of zombies by sliding pieces around and making big combos. Likely youve played a variation of this mechanic at some point or another, but in a better form. Thats not to say games need to always be fresh or innovative to be good, but the gameplay in Puzzles & Survival is a major grind. Playing the puzzles is a pain because the noises during gameplay sound crunchy and often get jumbled together during big combos. The zombies, the stars of the action, are barely animatedsame thing for the puzzle animations. And you have to sit through all of that unpleasantness for an extended period of time just to unlock puzzles that arent engaging to play. All the incentives to keep going fall flat.
State of Survival, on the other hand, doesnt use puzzles. Instead, it features straightforward and nearly hands-off combat. Your squad of survivors shoots without your input. All you do is activate their limited special abilities when they have killed enough of the living dead to fill the meter. Idle games like AdVenture Capitalist and Cookie Clicker can be fun, particularly for watching numbers get bigger. But those games smartly design around the waiting mechanics, while State of Survival just does its thing. When you do get to use a special ability, it doesnt actually feel worth the wait. The specials also feel too powerful, making fights easy to complete without much chance of failure. The poorly animated combat isnt fun to watch either and only rewards you with a pitiful amount of resources that barely help you make a dent in the grind towards unlocking more content. It got old after about twenty minutes.
Screenshot: KingsGroup Holdings / Kotaku
In a way, the ads getting the word out on these games are brilliant. There is no way you can get a bunch of folks to download and care about your Puzzles & Dragons knock-off simply using gameplay footage of it. Instead, you hook people by creating outlandish cutscenes and ridiculous premises that catch the eye regardless of your tastes.
While you could make the argument that its misleading advertising, as Vice reported a few years ago, the law hasnt quite caught up to the realities of mobile game advertising. In a later report by NYMag, a developer for a different game explains that in their case, a completely separate team creates the adswhich are of course aiming for virality. In that particular case, though, while theres a gap between what the ads show and what the game actually is, folks who download after watching are rewarded with a narratively rich experience that touches on mature themes.
Thats not what youll find in these zombie games. Im assuming that most folks will likely either be entertaining by the ads and move on, scroll straight past, or end up uninstalling the game even if they go through with it. But the model described in the Vice report says that most of the time, mobile games like this dont need a big userbase. What theyre looking for are extremely dedicated fans who are willing to drop a lot of money, otherwise known as whales. The more viral the ads, then, the more likely it is that theyll reach people who could fit that demographic.
In action, most of the zombie games with wild ads are fairly boring, gameplay-wise, and often play like hundreds of other phone games. I know this because I play and like a bunch of mobile games. Im pretty cool with playing GEMCRUSHWARSDASHPUZZLE while waiting for food to arrive, for example. But Zombie Survival and Puzzles & Survival are stiff and soulless. They come off as if a group of robots looked at the most popular free games of the last five years and then spat something out based on those trends. And despite trying to emulate some of the most popular mechanics around, theres little sense that the game understands what made the things work in the first place.
Then again, Ive written *checks word count* over 950 words about these silly zombie games on Kotaku.com entirely because these ads are so bonkers. Id say thats an effective way to get people talking and playing your game in 2021.
See the rest here:
I Played Those Zombie Games Following You Around The Internet So You Don't Have To - Kotaku
- 'Dawn of the Dead' at 45: A Zombie Love Affair That Never Died - The New York Times - April 12th, 2024
- Hyper-sexual 'zombie cicadas' infected with bizarre STD fungus will emerge in US - New York Post - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie malls and other retail centers getting extreme makeovers to keep up with the times - Chicago Tribune - April 12th, 2024
- 'Zombie' drug xylazine found in cannabis THC vapes in UK - BBC.com - April 12th, 2024
- Taxing health insurance: The Republican zombie that refuses to die - Roll Call - April 12th, 2024
- Fungus-infected Zombie Cicadas with hypersexuality to emerge in the US this year: Expert - Hindustan Times - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie Classic Dawn Of The Dead Coming Back to Theaters for 45th Anniversary - MetalSucks - April 12th, 2024
- E-News | 'Zombie cicadas' infected with sexually transmitted fungus expected to emerge this year in parts of US - WVU ENews - April 12th, 2024
- Deadly Zombie Sedative Penetrating The U.K.s Illicit Drugs Market - Forbes - April 12th, 2024
- Seattle Police warn that base ingredient in 'zombie drug' tranq is being sold as standalone pill - FOX 13 Seattle - April 12th, 2024
- Opinion | Today's Opinions: Haunted by zombie law and thrown into abortion time-travel - The Washington Post - The Washington Post - April 12th, 2024
- Rob Zombie Teases 'House of 1000 Corpses' Book With Rare Photos, Original Script and More! - Bloody Disgusting - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie malls getting extreme makeovers to keep up with the times - Detroit News - April 12th, 2024
- 2000s Horror Fantasy Is One Of The Most Unique Takes On The Zombie Genre - Giant Freakin Robot - April 12th, 2024
- Mysterious 'Zombie Neurons' Unlock Secrets of Learning in The Brain - ScienceAlert - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie SKUs: What They Are, How They Work & Results - JumpFly PPC Advertising News - April 12th, 2024
- Arizona Reviving Its Zombie Abortion Ban Is Trump's Doing - The Cut - April 12th, 2024
- Hyper-sexual "zombie cicadas" that are infected with sexually transmitted fungus expected to emerge this year - CBS News - April 12th, 2024
- Should we be concerned about zombie cicadas? - WGN Radio - Chicago - April 12th, 2024
- You need to play this underrated zombie shooter before it leaves Xbox Game Pass - Digital Trends - April 12th, 2024
- End the 'zombie' Comstock Act - Star Tribune - April 12th, 2024
- OPINION - Flesh-eating zombie narcotics are on our streets Britain is badly losing its war on drugs - Yahoo News UK - April 12th, 2024
- What Is Xylazine - The Flesh-Eating 'Zombie' Drug Linked To 11 Deaths in The UK? - Times Now - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie Cicadas To Emerge In Virginia: What To Know - Patch - April 12th, 2024
- What Is "Zombie Drug" Gripping The UK? - NDTV - April 12th, 2024
- OJ Simpson's Final Film Will Resurrect His Naked Gun Character - As A Zombie? - Looper - April 12th, 2024
- Flesh-eating 'zombie drug' sweeping US is linked to 11 UK deaths - The Telegraph - April 12th, 2024
- Flesh-rotting 'Zombie drug' tranq raises alarm in UK - The Times of India - April 12th, 2024
- Zombie Cicadas To Emerge In GA: What To Know - Patch - April 12th, 2024
- What was the first-ever zombie movie? - Far Out Magazine - April 12th, 2024
- Even Will Smith Couldnt Save Zombie Survival Game Undawn, Which Flopped Spectacularly - IGN - March 24th, 2024
- Rob Zombie Recommends This Surprisingly Wholesome Comedy - Dread Central - March 24th, 2024
- Army Writing and the Zombie (Noun) Apocalypse - Modern War Institute - United States Military Academy West Point - March 24th, 2024
- Fatal Fury's Mai Shiranui Is In This Zombie Survival Game For Some Reason - Time Extension - March 24th, 2024
- Should you be worried about 'zombie deer'? | College of Public Health - George Mason University - March 24th, 2024
- 'Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island' Scares Its Way to Blu-ray for the First Time This Spring - Collider - March 24th, 2024
- Rob Zombie hates my guts: GWAR's Dave 'Oderus Urungus' Brockie was a genius, and here's an interview that proves it - Louder - March 24th, 2024
- In the fight against gun violence, Rep. Frost Introduces the Destroy Zombie Guns Act - The Apopka Voice - March 24th, 2024
- Elfriede Jelinek's 'The Children of the Dead' is a historical zombie novel - The Washington Post - The Washington Post - March 24th, 2024
- Germany's Zombie Government Is Fueling the Far Right - The Atlantic - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie Survival Game Undawn Has Crashed And Burned According To A Reuters Report - MMOs.com - March 24th, 2024
- Will Smiths Zombie Game Has Been Hit Harder Than Chris Rock at the Oscars Its Astronomical Budget Was ... - imdb - March 24th, 2024
- Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island / Return to Zombie Island Blu-ray (Warner Archive Collection) - Blu-ray.com - March 24th, 2024
- Registration almost here for Dothans annual Zombie 5K Chase - WDHN - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie magic and gambling club Magic Island will come alive again this summer - Houston Chronicle - March 24th, 2024
- Undawn | The $140m zombie survival game starring Will Smith that bombed while nobody was looking - Filmstories - March 24th, 2024
- After 4 years, a cult classic zombie horror manga from Ga-Rei's creator is finally getting an official English release - Gamesradar - March 24th, 2024
- Will Smith's Zombie Game Has Been Hit Harder Than Chris Rock at the Oscars - Its Astronomical Budget Was ... - FandomWire - March 24th, 2024
- "The game literally no one knew existed": The Will Smith Zombie Survival Game is Reportedly a Big Flop and Fans Are ... - FandomWire - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie-palooza --- Get to the biggest undead music event in the latest Dead Island 2 expansion: SoLA - Gaming Trend - March 24th, 2024
- Bournemouth University medical students treat 'zombie attack' in mass training simulation - The Tab - March 24th, 2024
- Zombie car factories on the rise in China as buyers opt for EVs - Financial Times - March 16th, 2024
- Hey, Remember When Rob Zombie Was Going To Direct THE CROW 3? - FANGORIA - March 16th, 2024
- New Walking Dead Twist Shows How The Zombie Outbreak Will Finally End - Screen Rant - March 16th, 2024
- Candid conversations from death row with The Zombie Hunter - Arizona's Family - March 16th, 2024
- Zombie! The Musical - REVIEW - City Hub Sydney - March 16th, 2024
- A Gorgeous Harp and Guitar String Duet of 'Zombie' by The Cranberries in Honor of Alexei Navalny - Laughing Squid - March 16th, 2024
- Y2K Review: A 1999 Youth Nostalgia Comedy That Turns Into an Attack-of-the-Computers Zombie Movie. But Only the First One Is Fun - Variety - March 16th, 2024
- AMC Announces Every Zombie in The Walking Dead Getting Its Own Spin-Off - Hard Drive - March 16th, 2024
- The Growing Threat of Zombie Code - CXOToday.com - March 16th, 2024
- The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever Gets Theatrical Return For Anniversary - Giant Freakin Robot - March 16th, 2024
- You won't expect which fighting game character pops up in this random mobile zombie game trailer for a bizarre ... - EventHubs - March 16th, 2024
- Coby White, Butler and the 'Zombie Heat,' Fontecchio Are All Here to Stay - Canis Hoopus - March 16th, 2024
- 'Land of the Dead' 19 Years Later: Romero's Return Was Smarter Than the Average Zombie Movie - Bloody Disgusting - March 16th, 2024
- Z Nation Season 6: SYFY Tease Return of Zombie Series 6 Years After Its Death - ComingSoon.net - March 16th, 2024
- Zombie! The Musical (Hayes Theatre Co) - Limelight - March 16th, 2024
- Get This Definitive Edition Zombie Game For Free Right Now On Steam - Screen Rant - February 19th, 2024
- The Best Ghost and Zombie Movie Romances - Vulture - February 19th, 2024
- The couple trying to keep killer 'zombie viruses' at bay - and protect us from another pandemic - The Telegraph - February 19th, 2024
- Meet the Serbian Businessman/DJ Who Runs the Zombie AI Southwest Journal - Racket - February 19th, 2024
- Dead Island 2 Spreading Its Zombie Virus to Steam in April - GameSpace.com - February 19th, 2024
- Lincoln hosts Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie - Omaha - KETV Omaha - February 19th, 2024
- 'The Walking Dead - The Ones Who Live' Review AMC's Zombie Epic Shambles On - Collider - February 19th, 2024
- Legislative recap: zombie bills, teacher pay, lithium tax, pipelines and more - Black Hills Pioneer - February 19th, 2024
- Japan's stock markets are on a tear. Will 'zombie firms threaten the bull run? - CNBC - February 11th, 2024
- Thebe Phetogos haunted response to zombie figuration in art - The Washington Post - February 11th, 2024
- Cosmic dust from 'zombie' galaxies could form planets and life - The Telegraph - February 11th, 2024
- I walked with a zombie: 16 monster love interests that set hearts aflutter - The A.V. Club - February 11th, 2024
- Free Steam zombie shooter you've never heard of is getting rave reviews, somehow - GAMINGbible - February 11th, 2024
- South Korea's 'zombie football' finally leaves them in a hole too deep to climb out of - ESPN - February 11th, 2024
Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero