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.