Galactic Bits is the 2-man beast that built consistent judge’s pick, “Last Call Paradise”. Made up of Markus Nigrin and Martin Schwarz, the team went for something a little different, blending the tower defense and FPS genres into something we all found to be very playable and satisfying.
Tadhg from TechCrunch had this to say about the game, “Part of it is I just like snipering as a game dynamic, and I liked how the game was trying to combine that with tactical placement.”
Whereas Jefrey from Eurogamer had the most impassioned response to the game, “This is probably the most mechanically polished of the bunch. It starts out simple, but switching between vantage points to try to suss out the undead menace is a smart way of getting the player to reassess the situation on the fly. Additionally, the weapons feel balanced (the rockets are so slow, yet so powerful!) and deciding how to stock each watchtower adds a nice layer of resource management. It’s not the most complex approach to “all out war,” but it captures a small slice of the zombie apocalypse beautifully.”
TWD.com : What was your creative process to come to the final game that you submitted?
GB : “The whole idea of working with stationary towers came from a prototype we made for the Oculus Rift, where movement can break the immersion. When we heard about the Walking Dead Game Jam we spent a day converting the fantasy scenario of that prototype into a real shooter. Which I always wanted to make.”
“When I first watched a survivor running towards me through my sniper gun and a walker appeared from the right, it was a strong “you have one shot now and it is all up to you” experience and I caught myself holding my breath when firing. Loved it, took it from there. And the idea we had later in the process of being able to guide the survivors opened a whole range of interesting level setups.”
TWD.com : What kind of games does your team aim to make?
GB : “No limits on anything except it has to be a great experience for our players.”
TWD.com : How do you think you will further develop this game and its concept in future?
GB : “I wanted to position our players into a “destination place” where it makes sense for them to camp and help survivors through their last sprint towards them. So we came up with a train station and the longer I work on it and play it, the more intriguing I find this aspect.”
“If you think Zombie Apocalypse, the question “where else could you go, is there a better place, can there even be a better place” is always lurking and over time just growing stronger (and I love how TWD gradually introduces that thought).”
“Both the story and our gameplay offer a straightforward path for more. We are building a set of about 20 levels with the given street and tower layout, with every level offering a unique strategic challenge.”
“We definitely want to check out different layouts and see if we can get more strategies out of those, so we can send our players on a journey to find out what ‘paradise’ stands for in our world. Next stop might be another train station. Or something else.”
“Also, local Multiplayer would work really well with the game.”
TWD.com : What’s your favorite Skybound comic?
GB : “Can you please send all of them so we can do more research?!? I’m so behind on my “comic to read” list it’s not even funny, even worse than my steam backlog. The TWD comics are on top of my list though, I started with the TV show and want to finish it before I read them.”
“I love how the series captures how a zombie apocalypse could develop midterm and how it explores so many aspects of what comes after the initial survival stage, so my expectations are sky-high!”
To follow further development of the game beyond the game page here, click this to follow their twitter feed. Otherwise, you can read their blog to learn more about how the game was made (when they eventually update it!).
Finally, if you like the version of the game they put together in 2 weeks, you can vote for their larger vision to get released on Steam Greenlight, right here!
Very nice game. It is not just a plain shooting game. You need to have some strategy in your mind for advancing through the levels. I really like that about the game. I also liked the perfect combination between tower defense and shooting. Its truly fun !!!
thanks!! so glad you like it. and yes, I’ve seen players finding out rather late you can/need to replenish your ammo in between levels. We need to emphasize this earlier as I really want the player to think twice before using an EMP on say a single walker. great feedback, thx!