You’d be forgiven for thinking this
was a throwaway joke game. And it is
a joke – but hardly a throwaway.
Ska Studios is committed to the bit,
elevating a simple horde shooter into
an interactive rock opera that
celebrates its home-made status.
At a basic level,
you’re a little character
destroying waves of
advancing zombies,
firstly with a veritable
peashooter and then
with lasers, shotguns,
flamethrowers, and
rocket launchers.
Power-ups and zombies
appear steadily on the evolving map,
but soon they’re joined by deadly
emoticons, green blobs, and killer
diamonds, as the song enters its
extended prog-rock middle section.
The shooting is simple – you
move with the left stick and shoot by
aiming the right – with no alternate
firing modes or movement abilities.
It’s just about engaging enough, but
not demanding or polished enough to
compete with the best in the genre.
Without the rest of the experience,
there might not be much to
recommend about this game.THRILLER
However, as you weave
and fire, the setting
transforms around you.
Song lyrics flash up on
the battlefield, coloured
floodlights make it feel
like a disco, and the
scene transitions from
a grassy field to a marbled room, to a
Tron-like cyber realm, and to outer
space. Meanwhile, the tongue-in-
cheek rock song goes through phases
as well, dipping into the background
before amping up for the finale.
It’s a well-produced track, and
doubtless you’ll be humming it toyourself after a few sessions with I
Made a Game. You may even find
yourself singing the preposterous
lyrics, which describe the nature of
the game and its development. “I
made this game, using XNA. It costs a
dollar, and I hope you pay, yeah.” The
lyrics are so utterly blunt that you
can’t help but smile.
There’s an early-2000s, pop-punk
vibe to I Made a Game with Zombies
in It, which was first released a
million years ago, back in 2009. If
you’re not susceptible to nostalgia
then you might get less out of this
than I did. But it’s fun enough to
recommend if you like blasting
zombies, alone or in local co-op,
while a developer literally rocks out.
There are still lots of XNA games
that haven’t been rescued from
Xbox Live Indie Games purgatory,
so hopefully this will inspire other
devs to dust their games off for a
belated PC release.78
A funny, ridiculous rock
opera, and an
importance piece of indie
history that’s finally
made its way to PC.VERDICTO
riginally released for the Xbox 360 under the Xbox Live
Indie Games/Community Games program, I Made a Game
with Zombies in It is emblematic of its output, being small,
cheap, and charmingly unpolished. It’s an early game from
Ska Studios – developer of Salt and Sanctuary and Charlie
Murder – and it’s finally been ported to PC as a free release.
LIVE WIRE
I MADE A GAME WITH ZOMBIES IN IT returns from the dead
Hopefully
this will inspire
other devs
to dust their
games offNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
A 360 zombie shooter
that finally hits PC after
over a decade
EXPECT TO PAY
Free
DEVELOPER
Ska Studios,
OMNIViOLET
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
Intel Core i7-10750H,
16GB RAM, GeForce
RTX 2060
MULTIPLAYER
Yes
LINK
bit.ly/SkaZombiesCOOL TITLES FOR NO CASH by Tom Sykes
FREE GAMES REVIEWS
Near the end, the
various enemies
attack all at once.