Zombie Pandmic Interview With Thomas B. Krogh-Jacobsen

What made you decide to make a game based upon Zombies?

Well we are big fans of zombies and the survival horror genre in
general while tired of the cute fantasy stuff you see a lot places. So
it was really an easy choice for us when we decided to start
developing a browser based MMORPG.

Upon developing the game, did you think a survival-horror MMORPG game would actually work?

Yes we actually strongly believed that survival horror and MMORPG
would be a great match and are really happy so many players have
joined the game so far sharing that interest.

Would you ever (in the future), want to port your game onto home consoles?

Probably not. We are a small indie team and prefer the browser
genre in terms of keeping the game free to play and enabling us to
constantly develop the game easily releasing new updates on a weekly
basis. That kind of setup wouldn't be possible as console and would
require a much larger team.

How many people have signed up to play the game thus far?

We have a bit more than 200.000 players signed up so far.

Have you ever thought about making a sequel to the game?

As a browser game it easy to make continues updates and thus have a
game which is evolving rather making an entire new game. So no, we
rather want to focus on new updates and content than do a sequel.

What have been your biggest inspirations in designing the game?

We had a lot of different inspiration for the game but particularly
the game design of the original Fallout games and similar PC RPG games
have been a great source of inspiration. We are all really big fans of
the Fallout series. When it comes to the zombie "mythology", the G.
Romero movies with namely the Dawn of Dead game are the most
influential. That is slow moving hordes of living dead rather than
"infected ragers" or even mutated zombies as you see them in the “28”
and “Resident Evil” movies. We like them too but definitely prefer the
old school portraying of zombies as Max Brooks also represents.

How many people do you have your team that worked on the game?

We are currently a team of 5 people but have a lot of friends,
freelancers and active beta testers contributing with various tasks
from artwork, to copywriting and game testing.

Have you ever played any other games based upon Zombies? If so, name your favorite ones.

I personally really liked the Dead Rising games with the cool
mixture of open sandbox gaming and a storyline of several quests. We
also like playing Left 4 Dead at the office and like the Resident Evil
series too.

Final Question, Would you have any advice to anyone the best way to survive a Zombie Pandemic?

Well a good starting tip would be to get a good melee weapon which
is silent, team up with a small group of survivors, scavenge the right
resources , carry light and avoid confrontation with the zombies in
the beginning….just like in our game zombie pandemic  You might also
want to read Max Brooks’ “Zombie Survival Guide” just in case
http://www.zombiepandemic.com