Inside ‘Take Down Zombies’

Review Fix chats with Mikael Thomsen, CEO at Soluna Software, who lets us know why his new game “Take Down Zombies” is worth checking out. Coming from an Educational Games background, Thomsen tells us all about this passion project.

Review Fix: Why do you think people love zombies so much?

Mikael Thomsen: It’ is fascinating. The thought of a new set of rules that turn the world as you know it up-side-down is fascinating. For example, you can just go to a store and take what you need. It’s also like an invasion from space, but the aliens are not clever and you can fight them with low technology (e.g. a crowbar). It also bring humans together (rich and poor, young and old, black and white) and it is us against them (the zombies).

Review Fix: What games inspired this one?

Thomsen: To be honest, none. But a couple of movies game me some inspiration. I have been making educational games for younger kids for years. I just needed something else than sweet animals and oh so correct gameplay. So the idea of shooting zombies in a simple and new challenging way came across my mind.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Thomsen: As with most indies, the game took much longer to develop than I first imagined. My first idea was one to two months. But it took six months in total. I spend around 7000 DKR (about 1000 USD) of my savings mostly on graphics bought from freelancers. But I had so much fun and I loved every moment of the progress including none-coding tasks like working with the two artists that made all the cool pixel art graphics in the game. I never got tried of the game during it’s development. Because I have a day job and wife and three. kids it was just not easy to find the time to progress any faster.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone play this game?

Thomsen: You get to shoot zombies in a challenging way. The long answer: Even if the game is simple (you just shoot left or right) you must be clever to win a mission. Not because the zombies are smart (at least not in the beginning of the game), but because shooting just a single human will fail a mission. It’s is all about turning and shooting at the right moment (e.g. when screaming humans are BEHIND you and not in front of you).

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Thomsen: The game that invented the “left-right shoot” sub-category. That would make me proud.

Review Fix: What are your goals for this game?

Thomsen: My goal is to make an easy to play game that people like.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Thomsen: I’m currently prototyping some ideas. It is too early to say anything concrete about the direction of next game. But it might be something in space, or something about a snail or zombie in trouble. I have not decided that yet.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14316 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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