Atomic Zombie Smasher is a real-time strategy (RTS) game wherein you are attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse by reaching a certain point threshold before the zombies do. Each turn in the game covers a month which brings with it more zombie outbreaks, new resources, and a randomized parameter to keep things spicy. The game starts with a single outbreak, depicted by a pink diamond with a number in it over one of various territories on your map. The map below shows a game that's been in progress for a while, evident my the massive amount of zombie outbreaks.
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Grey areas are either contested or haven't been infected yet, black areas are territories that you've already evacuated but didn't cleanse of the zombie scourge, pink areas are overrun by the zombies, and the tan areas are safe zones in which you have completely eradicated the zombies.
The numbers in the pink diamonds, which range from 1 to 4, reflect the severity of the zombie infestation and the difficulty in attempting to evacuate and/or cleanse a specific territory. Once a territory caps out at 4, any further outbreaks there will instead increase the severity in nearby infected territories. You let too many territories cap out and you will quickly fall under an avalanche of ever increasing infestations.
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Once you have selected a territory to deal with in for that particular month the games zooms in to a top down view of the actual town in question, as seen above. As long as the territory is not a level 4 outbreak, there will be civilians in need of rescuing, represented by the little yellow squares. The pink squares are the zombie hordes hoping to eat the yellow squares.
At a minimum, every evacuation attempt will provide you with a helicopter to airlift people off the map. But this isn't a particularly quick process, so as you clear territories and gain points for doing so, the game unlocks more resources for you to use. These can includes such things as artillery, infantry (whose line of sight is depicted by the green cross in the image above), blockades, snipers, and a variety of explosives. And as you use these resources they gain experience, which further expand upon their abilities as the game progresses.
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To successfully complete a level you need to rescue a set minimum amount of survivors. To secure the area from further infestation you have to wipe every zombie off the map in the time allotted. If you haven't done so by the time the sun sets, the town is enveloped in zombies and the only thing you can do is to try and rescue any remaining survivors.
Of course, not all your resources will be available each month so you need to choose wisely which territories you wish deal with in a given month. And as mentioned earlier, the game also throws in a bit of a curve ball by changing the parameters each month. These can includes things such as a slower helicopter, faster ZED (the game's name for the zombies), and a shorter daytime.
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At the end of each mission you get points for how well you did and then it zooms back to the larger map. Here you gain 20 points for every territory you have successfully liberated (tan colored) so far, and the ZED gain points for each territory they still infest, equal to 10 times the threat level (e.g., a level 1 would score 10 points and a level 4 would score 40 points).
The default settings have you each racing to 6000 points, and let me tell, it is NOT easy. I've lost far more games than I've won, but I still keep coming back for more. The individual levels only take a couple of minutes and you can redo them as many times as you like until you get it right, so it's a good game for when you only have 10 minutes to kill.
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The game also comes with a light but amusingly weird storyline depicted via static cut scenes in between months. And there's much more depth to the aspects I've already discussed. If RTS's are your thing, I think this is a nice "lite" version for when you're not in the mood or don't have the time to commit an hour or more.
It's currently selling for $9.99 on Steam, but if you wait for one of their sales I'm sure you'll find it for less.
Final Judgement: BUY IT.
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