This game combines two of my all-time loves: playing with Lego and killing zombies! If only I had a penny for every zombie I’d killed…
The developer, Sean Cooper deserves a special footloosemoose mention for making a couple of great online games. More than simply the usual point-and-click fodder… Sean (who has 20 years experience developing games for major titles) includes a healthy dose of physics and AI in his projects. This post will focus his Boxhead series but I’ll include links to his other games in the footnotes.
Warning: if you don’t like zombie blood, this post isn’t for you!
You are a lone soldier tasked with fighting an endless onslaught of blood-thirsty zombies. All hope would be lost if it wasn’t for the promise of an impressive arsenal of weapons and powerups. You choose the arena and then see how many you can take down with you!
Each map has a number of spawn points which generate zombies and you must repel each wave as it comes. As you progress you’ll be rewarded with red packages that contain goodies of various utility. The individual maps require their own strategies which, along with the various weapons, helps with the ‘replayability’ of the game (don’t think that’s a real word but you get what I mean).
There are two types of zombie: the everyday moron zombie that just limps toward you whilst licking his/her lips, and the satan-esque red zombie that walks a little quicker, seems to be a little smarter, and packs heat by way of massive yellow fireballs that aren’t all that easy to dodge.
The simple colour scheme of white, black, grey, bone and red create a polished look that adds to the stylised vibe of the game. Flash 8 filters are used throughout; the blood effects on the ground are very effective. The minimalistic interface makes sure you’re not distracted from the pretty visuals though it’s easy to forget which number key corresponds to which weapon - so perhaps an on-screen method of divining this information would have been useful.
The mechanics of the engine provide for a smooth and impressive experience. It seems to be a tile-based setup and manages to run well despite numerous baddie sprites and the evident path-finding AI.
Eventually you succumb to the overwhelming zombie forces and get mauled to death - sad but true. At least you can rest easy knowing that it’s mostly their blood on the floor (insert evil laugh here).
So nothing left for you to do but have a go! There are three Boxhead titles… the grabs above are from the most recent version, Boxhead: More Rooms. It seems to be the most polished of the three, but perhaps you should play them all and make the call yourself?
The games:
- Boxhead: More Rooms (pictured above)
- Boxhead: The Rooms (the original version)
- Boxhead: Halloween
Make sure you also check out his other online titles:
… and finally, his site (very slick!):
Link: Sean Cooper
