Wanna Survive

Review

The game starts with your first character, who says that he’s starving and will die if he doesn’t find some food soon. After he’s done whining about being hungry, the first level will begin; it will also detail the Victory and Defeat conditions for completing that level. The first level will go over the basics of the game and any new party members and their abilities. You will also be told of any new zombies that you may come across on your current level.

Selecting any party member to be able to move them and have them attack. The number of squares you can move will depend on the character. Where you can move your character to is indicated by blue squares; you just click on the square onto which you’d like to place your character. The areas where the zombies can move are indicated by a red outline, so if you can, stay out of reach of them.

Your starting character wields an axe which can inflict high melee damage to a single target. However, the range with the axe is only one square in front, behind, left and right of your character. It will take three hearts off a normal zombie killing them straight away but as you are required to get up close and personal do so with caution. The range of attacks will depend on your party member. Each party member will have their own type of attacks, both melee and ranged. The range of these attacks is indicated by a red target for each square they’re able to attack.

Before attacking you, zombies will grab hold of you in their turn if they move adjacent to you, and on their next turn they will attack you. When this happens, it's called Struggling; you can only struggle with one zombie at a time. However other zombies can attack you immediately while you’re struggling with another zombie. You won’t be able to move while you are in a struggle with a zombie. It’s a good idea to deal with the zombie you’re struggling with first. If your character is struggling and they have a ranged weapon, they will be unable to move and attack. If this happens you can have another party member push, you from the zombie's grasp into a free space. You can also use Push to move boxes to help protect you from the onslaught of zombies. The boxes can be destroyed, though, and will be after a couple of hits. There are other things like gas cylinders which will explode on impact; you can take advantage of these by using a ranged weapon to detonate them, killing any zombies within their blast range.

After completing the first level you’ll receive some food and a map, after which you’ll make camp and be able to replenish your health using any food you have collected. Food is scarce and as your party grows you may find yourself making tough decisions on who you give the food to. If one of your party members doesn’t receive any food, then they can go hungry, which will reduce that character's health points by one.  Food will replenish one health point. You share food out after completing a level and going back to camp.

While at the camp you can look at the map, which will show you the Abandoned Camp (your starting point) and North City (finish point). As you complete levels you’ll uncover new locations on the map; selecting the new location will give some details about the place, the difficulty and the possibility of food at that location. As you make your way through each of the levels, you'll find items or clues which can lead to new locations, or information on others trying to escape the zombies.

Visiting new locations may also uncover new party members; these characters won’t be under your control until you complete the current level. You will also have to guide a dog to safety, or you can leave him to the zombies as you save your own botty and make it to the exit.

Making it through a level will require careful planning if everyone in your party is to survive. If you lose a party member, it’s permanent. You can restart your last turn and reset the current turn should you make a mistake. However, if you lose a member they are gone unless you restart the stage. Losing a member will only increase the difficulty in continuing further as you make your way towards North City.

In the options you’ll find Background and Sound Effect sliders. Move camera when mouse is on the edge of screen Check Box. Language options of English, Chinese, Spanish and Custom. Difficulty options are: Intense (this is the game’s original difficulty, choose this if you’re playing for the first time and enjoy a good challenge), Chill (has a lower difficulty level and increased food for those who want to kick back and relax), Resolution (Full Screen check box and several resolution options, although there wasn’t anything for 1920x1080, which I found strange; the game still looked decent and wasn’t stretched out or anything).

The game is quite fun to play; it’s certainly challenging, and it will frustrate you at times, especially if you want all your party to survive each level. The graphics, sounds and music are good.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!