An isometric zombie survival game where the scariest thing on Day 3 isn't the dead, it's the taps running dry. Five chapters, built at a sprint.
The city falls on Day 1, and you're on the 14th floor with whatever happens to be in your apartment. That's how Above the Dead begins.
Survival is a clock
The zombies are dangerous, but the clock is worse. One real second is two game minutes. The water pressure warnings come on Day 2, the power fails that night, the taps go dry on Day 3 and the gas goes on Day 5. Food in a dead fridge spoils.
So the first thing you learn is to fill the bathtub. It holds 150 litres, and every empty bottle, jug, pot and bucket you can find helps too. Later, water comes from toilet cisterns, the rooftop tank (bring a wrench) and rain catchers, and rainwater has to be boiled.
Meals are served automatically from your stores at the ration level you choose, and the Supplies panel tells you exactly how many days you have left.
Up to the roof
Below you are twelve more floors, generated fresh, with apartments to search, locked doors to pry, chop or kick in, and more zombies the lower you go. Up above is the roof, and once you break through you can build a camp: fire barrels, rain catchers, tents, planters, a workbench, a radio station and spike traps.
From the roof you can signal across the gaps to the next building, lay plank bridges and bring survivors home. Maya is a nurse. Dez is a mechanic. The radio brings Rosa, Teo and Kim. Group members can follow you, guard the camp or go out scavenging.
And then it keeps going
What started as one building became five chapters:
- Above the Dead: the apartment, the blackout, the roof.
- Street Level: down through the dead streets to the harbor to find a boat.
- Gull Harbor: an empty fishing village up the coast. Wall it in, give everyone a job, raise a radio antenna and grow it into a town.
- The Long Road: a thousand miles in a truck to a fortress in the mountains. Keep the tank full.
- Holdouts: Humvee missions out of the Citadel to a hospital, a shopping mall, a grain elevator surrounded by fifty of the dead, and a snowbound mountain pass where something has been calling on the radio.
Fighting and growing
Combat is click-to-attack with melee and firearms, aim assist onto heads (headshots do 2.2x damage), dodge rolls and a sneak that makes no noise. Kills, searches, crafting, building and finished objectives earn experience, and every level gives you points for Strength, Stamina, Toughness and Agility. Armor goes in seven slots and shows up on your character.
Built at a sprint
The first commit in this repo was October 15th. Five days and 36 commits later, Chapter Five has its ending.
Above the Dead is inspired by Zombie Outbreak, the animated survival series by Beanie Survives. It's an independent game with its own story, characters and setting, and it isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Beanie Survives.
Play Above the Dead in your browser. Best with headphones.
