Line-drawing zombie carnage in Hey! Zombie

Hey! Zombie is a new iOS and Android game from Asian developer 4 Infinity. The game is available now as a paid app from Google Play and the App Store. Hey! Zombie is a line-drawing combat-focused role-playing game that follows the pattern set by previous titles such as Mika Mobile's Battleheart and Triniti Interactive's Heroes vs Monsters. Players recruit a team of heroes, outfit them with equippable items such as weaponry and armor, train their skills and then take them into battle against the zombie hordes. Combat in Hey! Zombie is similar to the aforementioned Battleheart and Heroes vs Monsters. The player's party enters the screen on the left and enemies generally appear from the right, though some flying enemies may swoop in from above. Player characters will automatically attack any enemies who come near them, but players may also direct them manually by tapping to select them, then drawing a line from them to the target. This is a simple system that works well for the most part -- the only exception being when several figures are standing in close proximity, and it becomes difficult to select the correct one. Each character unlocks special abilities as they level up, and these range from powerful attacks to useful healing skills. Unlike the aforementioned games, however, there do not appear to be any characters who specialize purely in healing -- most characters are attack-focused. Upon successful completion of a level, players are awarded with experience points for each character who took part in the battle and are then returned to town. At this point, players may spend earned money on new items and other equipment for their characters, and spend skill points on acquiring new skills, some of which provide passive bonuses and others of which are active skills which may be triggered in battle. Players may also recruit new characters as they progress through the game's story. It costs varying amounts of money to recruit characters and, unlike other examples of this genre, there is no apparent means of acquiring money via in-app purchase. This means that players must actually think carefully about what to spend their money on, and perhaps spend some time collecting items purely to sell to the shop and gain additional income. This adds a welcome additional layer of strategy to the game -- a layer that is usually completely undermined by in-app currency purchases. At the same time, it cuts off a potentially lucrative source of income for the developers, but increasing numbers of App Store reviewers are commenting that they would rather pay once up-front for a game than have to repeatedly pay for an indefinite period over time. The game seems well-balanced enough that it doesn't demand a significant amount of grinding -- something which cannot always be said for titles that do offer in-app currency purchases. Despite relying on the tired old zombie concept, Hey! Zombie is actually a good quality game. The combination of the zombie theme with a Wild West cowboy aesthetic gives the game a distinctive feel rather than relying on the usual fantasy tropes, and while the game mechanics are almost entirely unoriginal, they are fairly well implemented for the most part. The game's presentation is good (albeit with a few spelling and grammatical mistakes here and there) and it provides a significant amount of content for the player's money. It also seems to have been positively received from the few user reviews that have already been posted. Hey! Zombie is not yet listed on our tracking service AppData, but Google Play reports the Android version has been downloaded between just 1 and 5 times so far at the time of writing. Check back shortly to follow its progress through the App Store and Android charts.

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Line-drawing zombie carnage in Hey! Zombie

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