Zombie Cure Lab
by Aethyna
Dec 21, 2022 |
1
Votes |
47
Played |
0
Reviews
8
rate
Genres:
Simulation , StrategyGraphics:
3DLabels:
Building , Zombies , Post Apocalyptic , Sci-Fi , ManagementPlatforms:
Publishers:
Aerosoft GmbH Why kill the zombies when you can cure them? Survive the nightly zombie onslaught as you scale up and optimize your zombie-curing facilities in this “Two Point Hospital x They are Billions” survival-based, sandbox-styled colony management title, Zombie Cure Lab! Play Now Similar Games Played
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Summary
Zombie Cure Lab is a survival-based, sandbox-styled colony management game where you are in charge of a base with only one goal in mind – to cure the zombies of their affliction and turn them back into humans. Survive the nightly zombie onslaught as you scale up and optimize your zombie-curing facilities in this “Two Point Hospital meets They are Billions” title!
Plotline
It is still unknown how the zombification of the human race began but began it did! Everyone that a zombie bit turned into a zombie and their numbers grew. Unlike in the movies where a single shot to the head would have taken care of things, they seem to be immune to any attacks. Needless to say, they made short work of the civilization that humanity has built with their invulnerability and sheer numbers.
Thankfully, a group of scientists, who were already isolated from the world in MOOSE Labs in the remote reaches of Northern Canada before the zombie apocalypse even began, were largely spared from the horrors of the apocalypse. They were perfectly positioned to workshop a cure to the zombie virus and so they got to work.
With the cure in hand, they now send you and your crew of brave pioneering scientists into the zombie-plagued lands for some crucial fieldwork; to test out the cure and help as many zombies as you can to regain their humanity.
Gameplay
Zombie Cure Lab is a survival-based colony management game and as such, you can definitely expect to have to build a base, manage your people, and defend it against the zombie hordes which attack nightly in a way that’s similar to games like They are Billions and Age of Darkness: Final Stand.
However, instead of the typical zombie-slaying bloodfest that other games would have you play, Zombie Cure Lab takes a much different – more “scientific”, in the kind of comedic way that is perfected by Two Point Hospital and its equally humorous spin-off, Two Point Campus - approach to tackling the zombie apocalypse… *points to game title*.
Here, you capture the zombies by freezing them (there are many freezing options available to you here); you treat them, turning them into a zombie-human hybrid a.k.a. a “humbie”; and then you put them to work. The zombie-curing process takes a lot of iteration and time, and after several rounds of treatments using different cures, you will eventually be able to turn a humbie back into a human.
That being said, before you can do that, you’ll need to put in the hard work. After all, research doesn’t do itself, and you’ll need plenty of it. There are 3 types of humbies with humbie 1 resembling a zombie more than a human, while humbie 3 is the opposite. Each humbie evolution requires a different cure and this cure can only be researched by sending the previous humbie iteration to the central lab, MOOSE Labs.
Once you’ve sent enough of them, you’ll unlock the next stage of the cure and be able to get a more advanced humbie. Remember – the goal is to completely convert a zombie into a human and not have them remain in their humbie forms, despite having some really nice advantages like being stronger and more resilient than a mere human.
Besides researching new zombie cures, the game’s several-pages-filled research tree also comes with plenty of new unlocks and upgrades that are segmented into different tiers, allowing you to, for instance, make use of the ores and chemicals you’ve gathered from the wild. However, to unlock these new features, you’ll need to have scientists – humbies won’t do – work at research desks in the Science Room to generate enough research points.
Naturally, some unlocks may require substantial amounts of resources that you’ll need to gather from your environments, such as wood and stone. This is why it’s important for you to set up your base in a location that has plenty of resources nearby just so you can quickly accumulate a lot of resources right from the start, with little downtime involved in hauling said resources from the Resource Camp to the Main Storage and subsequently to wherever they are needed the most. This way, you’ll have what you need to set up all the facilities you need, be it rooms, or production machines and stations, to support your zombie-curing efforts as well.
If you need some extra help, you can request a container of resources to be airlifted from the MOOSE Lab to your location as well. The lab will “generate” a selection of resources over time, including new scientists who are willing to join you at your base to replace anyone you may have lost to the previous night’s zombie attack. As long as the plane in charge of transporting the container isn’t already en route, you can always stuff a container full of the stuff you need and have the plane transport it over to your base.
The scientists in this game aren’t robots either and have basic needs that you’ll need to fulfill, namely food and sleep. To keep them happy and content with their work, you’ll need to set up a bedroom where they can take turns sleeping, a dining room for them to eat their food in, as well as having a steady source of food. You’ll start off gathering food from the wilderness but eventually, you’ll need to set up proper farms since food doesn’t regenerate in the wild.
Thankfully, your scientists aren’t chronic complainers and won’t mind, for instance, only having a single type of food to eat as long as they have food or having to rotate bed use as long as they have somewhere to sleep when they are tired.
Despite their more resilient nature, humbies have needs too, but their needs are different. For example, they do not eat vegetables like your human – and apparently vegan – scientists do, but instead, consume only meat. You’ll then have to set up a meat-producing facility that produces vegan meat for them. Besides needing some bed rest from time to time despite not needing to sleep, humbies also need to put in more effort at the gym than normal humans to stop their muscles from decaying.
However, humbies have a nasty tendency of lapsing back into zombie nature if their needs aren’t being met and they get discontent over it. When that happens, thankfully, you can get security to pitch in. Security, like research, is a role that can only be taken up by humans a.k.a. scientists. Since the zombies, and by extension humbies, are basically invulnerable in this game, you can’t really kill them if they do decide to run amok. Instead, what your stationed security team, if you have one, can do is to freeze them and put them in front of the hypnotizing calming station to calm them down while you hurry to remedy whatever caused your humbie to succumb to rage in the first place.
As mentioned before, zombie hordes of varying sizes (depending on the zombie alert rating of your base) will swarm and attack your base, specifically the gate, every night. Not only will you need to have people ready to tackle any zombies that may have breached your defenses and entered your base’s compound, but you’ll also have to set up sufficient defenses, including a variety of turrets and even double-layered and upgraded walls, to keep your colony protected. Note that zombies that weren’t frozen will wander off once morning comes around, so all you need to do is to survive until the sun rises.
One interesting feature about assigning people to different roles in this game is the fact that you can decide which shift they should take. For defense-based turrets, you can have the turret operators work nights only since that’s the only time you’ll need your turrets. You could technically get them to just work both shifts, though this would greatly increase the chance of burnout and hence, discontent, so you might want to split your workforce into shifts to lower the risk of lowering your people’s morale.
Now, although many of the machines and turrets in this game require people, or humbies, to operate them, they also need some electrical juice to actually work. This is where your network of carefully-planned electrical grids comes in! However, it’s important to point out that, unlike most games, you can actually set up different electrical grids for different facilities in this game if you want to.
Having a few separate grids would actually be a wise decision since it’ll ensure that the other stuff is still working in case one of your grids experienced a failure, either because you’ve accidentally over-tapped it or because some critical infrastructure powering the grid was damaged or destroyed.
Despite being an early access title, Zombie Cure Lab has quite a lot of content, enough to keep you engaged for tens of hours as you try to survive the endless waves of zombies while curing as many of them as you can. However, it is still a work-in-progress and hence, has some room for improvement. One such improvement involves the game’s room-building aspect. For a sandbox-styled game where you can build your base the way you want, it’s surprisingly difficult to extend an existing room without having a wall in the middle, short of destroying the existing room and rebuilding it.
Unfortunately, the currently available room-building tools just aren’t as user-friendly either. Despite having what seems to be a “merge room” tool, it’s not working the way I wished it would. You don’t have a simple way to just destroy the wall in between the extended side of the room and the original just so you could merge the two together.
Graphics/ Sound
Graphics-wise, Zombie Cure Lab has the kind of overly cartoonish 3D style with a “claymation” appearance that’s similar in tone to Two Point Hospital’s iconic “Wallace & Gromit” look. The bug-eyed characters are both adorable and funny at the same time, and that matches well with the game’s light-hearted theme. In terms of sound, the game oscillates between its more relaxing daytime music that’s filled with the sounds of nature, and the more heart-pounding soundtrack that plays at night during the (scheduled) zombie attack.
Conclusion
Zombie Cure Lab is an early access title that adds a Two Point Hospital-style comedic twist to the typical zombie-driven colony management and survival genre that was popularized by games like They are Billions by letting your team of scientists gradually “cure” the zombies of their afflictions and having them contribute to the operations of your zombie-curing base, whether they like it or not.
Despite still being a work-in-progress, the game already has plenty of content to justify its asking price, plus the developers have already unveiled a development roadmap detailing new features and even more content later down the road. So, if you’re a fan of survival-based colony management sims, Zombie Cure Lab is definitely one game you’ll want to play.
Zombie Cure Lab Blog
New Game Added: Zombie Cure Lab
by Aethyna
Dec 21, 2022
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