The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

A rather old but innovative zombie killfest by Charles Cuiguet where you command squads of infantry and fighting vehicles to repel a zombie invasion.

Engage the zombie hordes with your squads, wait until the undead things shamble into range before giving the order to fire and watch the wholesale slaughter begin. Just try not to move the mouse in the combat window as it’s used for scrolling the view around the battlefield as it can get quite disorienting at times.

I especially like the close combat sequence that ensues when the zombies crash (slowly) into your defensive line. It’s a blast to watch your troops pull out knives and cut down zombies hand-to-hand but don’t expect many of your troopers to survive a melee against superior numbers of undead.

The strategic portion of the game emphasizes on manuevering your squads (in red) around on the map to attack different enemy units – preferably with you in tactically advantageous terrain (dark green) and them in open areas (light green).

Use heavy armour and RPG troopers to thin out larger groups and the standard assault rifle or pistol squads to mop up the remnants. RPGs are so effective against the undead invaders it’s hard to believe that they were designed to take out light armour – they must have been designed to combat a secret zombie infestation

Later missions allow you to reinforce battered units back to full strength or supplement your squads with an additional jeep or armoured vehicle to provide the extra dose of firepower like this

A sequel is currently in the works and you can follow the progress at the creator’s blog at Newgrounds.

Play Autumn War.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Beat Back the Zombie Hordes in Boxhead : The Zombie Wars
Boxhead – More Rooms Zombie Shooting Flash Game
The Last Stand & The Endless Zombie Rampage & Crimsonland
Marvel Zombie Wallpapers

This is old news really, but tomorrow is Halloween and this excellently polished game by Three Rings Design is just the perfect thing for getting in the mood

A puzzle-strategy hybrid, Corpse Craft combines the familiar match three gameplay of games like Bejewelled with rock-scissors-paper tactics of games like Ben Olding’s Warlords – Call to Arms.

By matching three or more blocks of the same colour in the puzzle grid, you collect stocks of flesh (white), energy (blue), blood (red) and scrap material (yellow) for churning out abdominable creatures made from dead flesh fused with vicious steel blades and whatnot. Despite their hideous appearances, these creatures were originally created to assist in menial tasks but are now being utilized in a murderous conflict between rival students at Dr Eygor Weardd’s Academy for Responsible Reanimation.

Due to the fact that there are no overpoweringly strong units (each unit counters another) and a well-thought out day-night cycle which instantly annihilates every single undead being unlucky enough to be caught outside during the day, Corpse Craft prevents the problem of single unit rushes and reduces the chance of a lopsided fight with two disproportionate forces.

Apparently, sunlight doesn’t only casue skin cancer, it makes delivery boys go Boom! too

Unfortunately, this also means the single player game often denigrates into a tedious war of attrition (at least for me) until either side gains a overwhelming advantage in resources and breaks through the opponent’s defenses by sheer weight of numbers. While I usually utilize a cautious style of play in strategy games to minimize casualties on my side, it doesn’t really work in this game since the only option here is a frontal assault by hurling your units straight into the meatgrinder. Don’t feel guility, they’re already dead in the first place

So why do I recommend it then if the gameplay isn’t that fantastic? Simply because it’s loads of fun until you find yourself out of a certain type of resource due to the random nature of the puzzle grid. Furthermore, the macabre unit designs are some of the more imaginative ones that I have seen in games recently. While not as hideously warped as the creations from the fertile minds of illustrators like Keith Thompson, these characters (and the music) do an excellent job of conveying the sense of dread, fear and despair of the glommy days and nights of the Victorian age that the game is set in.

Don’t know why I’m constantly reminded of Johnny Depp’s role in Sweeney Todd while playing Corpse Craft – must be those darn Street-walkers.

Play Corpse Craft.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Halloween Jack O’ Lantern Wallpapers
Halloween Icons @ The Icon Factory
Tofu The Vegan Zombie : Zombie Dearest
Beat Back the Zombie Hordes in Boxhead : The Zombie Wars
CuteDeadThings Wallpapers

A wonderful CG short film created by William Vaughan in conjunction with students from the September 2007 class of animation and visual effects school DAVE School. The titular character in this 8:22 min film is a timid little zombie with a tofu (or is that yummy swiss cheese) in place of his brain to curb the typical zombie preoccupation with human braaaaaaiins.

While poking his undead nose around the expansive mansion of Professor Vost whom which Tofu lives with together with the Professor’s daughter Addie as well as his faithful simian sidekick, Lab Monkey #5. The combination of Tofu’s inquisitive nature coupled with Lab Monkey #5’s love for fun and mischief is a potent recipe for disaster and that’s what happens in Zombie Dearest.

© William Vaughan / DAVE School Student Productions

What is Tofu & Lab Monkey #5 hiding from?

As you can see above, animation and visual effects like lighting and shadows are top-notch stuff. You’ll find that the sound effects and pacing are equally well executed when you watch Zombie Dearest

© William Vaughan / DAVE School Student Productions

Lab Monkey #5 does a Michael Jordan

The DAVE School Movie Theater has quite a substantial showcase of short films by their students – I’ll do up a more comprehensive follow-up post once I finish watching all of them. I do recommend Creeper featuring a gang of bumbling animal superheroes for a start.

Watch Tofu The Vegan Zombie : Zombie Dearest in Flash Video format at DAVE School or download the full high resolution video (68.1 MB) to enjoy at your leisure.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Beat Back the Zombie Hordes in Boxhead : The Zombie Wars
Darkwatch Wallpapers & Concept Art
The Last Stand & The Endless Zombie Rampage & Crimsonland

© Sean Cooper

Sean Cooper’s Boxhead series of zombie shooting Flash games have received a graphical upgrade, a new Defence game mode as well as new foes for the latest game in the series – Boxhead : The Zombie Wars. The name Boxhead probably stems from the distinctive blocky minifig looks of the player character and the zombies that infest each level. More about this series in my previous Boxhead : More Rooms article .

© Sean Cooper

The first thing you’ll notice if you played the earlier games, is that you no longer dodge between pearl-white monoliths in desolate deserts (above) while battling the zombie hordes as in Boxhead : More Rooms. Instead in Boxhead : The Zombie Wars, the zombies and their fiendish flame-spewing masters have overrun pleasingly lush (but soon to be despoiled) grasslands.

© Sean Cooper

Boxhead : The Zombie Wars also sports new lovely transparency effects as you can witness above, especially in the floating text that appears when you collect weapon crates and upgrades.

© Sean Cooper

The number of upgrades have actually dropped from 58 in Boxhead : More Rooms to 55 although the maximum multipler required to unlock all upgrades has increased from 125x to 500x(!). Upgrades range from the lowly 4x multipler required for a Pistol : Crack Shot upgrade to the 500x needed to unlock the final upgrade Airstrike : Nuke.

© Sean Cooper

There’s three new enemies apart from the generic zombies and their devilish overlords. You’ll quickly encounter groups of pesky red zombies who pursue you relentessly, shambling mummies and vampires who teleport right next to you whenever you stop for a break from the fighting. The blood-red demons have also now acquired fearsome flamethrower attacks that incinerate any friends or foe in its path.

Boxhead : The Zombie Wars relies even more on laying devious traps using barrels, barricades and whatnot than the previous games in order to get multiplers of over 50x after which goodies like turret guns and miniguns are unlocked for you to stand a better chance against the zombie host.

© Sean Cooper

For those who prefer a high bodycount, Defence is a new game mode (above) where you are given a few extra seconds of time after each level to emplace stationary stcutures such as turret guns, mortars and barricades to create killzones and fend off invasions by huge mobs of undead in numbers far greater than in the original Classic mode. You can easily reach multiplers of over 200x (and the associated goodies, of course) after completing just two or three levels but I find the action too frantic for me

Play Boxhead : The Zombie Wars.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Boxhead : More Rooms
The Last Stand & The Endless Zombie Rampage Games
Keith Thompson – Illustrator (Undead, Mecha, etc)
Operation Darkness Wallpapers
Soul of The Ultimate Nation Walllpapers

Wallpapers from Darkwatch, a shooter set in the Wild West against the accursed Undead. In this game, you play as Jericho Cross (below), a half-vampiric member of the secret society known only as the Darkwatch .

© Highmoon Studios

There’s also an additional wallpaper not shown on the actual site at the developer’s (Highmoon Studios) FTP site here. Filename is dw_valentines2_xxx.jpg (substitute xxx with the desired resolution)

© Highmoon Studios

Concept art are also available at the FTP site. Below are concept art of Jericho’s allies Cassidy Sharp (above) and Tala (below) illustrated by Steve Jung.

© Highmoon Studios

The 3D renders for Jericho and Cassidy are pretty well done too.

© Highmoon Studios

And if you happen to download the 47.5 MB fansite kit, you’ll be rewarded with 5 stunning images of Darkwatch members throughout history. Below are members of the Darkwatch in ancient times, the Dark Ages and World War I.

© Highmoon Studios

Below are the filenames of the better trailers at the FTP site since I don’t want to directly link to the files.

Cinematic trailer – dw_longtrailer.wmv
Cinematic trailer + Gameplay – dw_cinema_lg.mov or dw_cinema_lg.wmv
Concept art trailer – DarkwatchComics.wmv

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY
Fighting Fantasy Wallpapers
Dungeon & Dragons Source Book Wallpapers
The Last Stand & The Endless Zombie Rampage Flash games
Boxhead : More Rooms Flash Game
Oneechanbara vorteX Wallpapers
Soul of Ultimate Nation Wallpapers