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New release Dead Hand Drive brings anarchy to the App Store and Google Play

We get the lowdown on the title.

New release Dead Hand Drive brings anarchy to the App Store and Google Play

For gamers who enjoy going a little bit mad with their mobile games, Steampunk Wizards have released a title right up your street with Dead Hand Drive.

With its fast-paced, anarchy-fuelled dystopian premise, the zombie game sees players take to their choice of four-wheeled weapon and seek to mow down any of the undead in their path.

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We spoke to publishers Steampunk Wizards about their new release:

What do you think your game offers that you can’t get from any other title on the App Store?

"Our main aim in making Dead Hand Drive was to create a zombie game with some humour, but most importantly an exciting gameplay. Whether the player plays 3 minutes, or 3 hours, the key was to create a constant stream of energetic fun.

There are other good zombie games out there, that we all personally love but most of them tackle the premise with darkness and seriousness. Dead Hand Drive gives an adrenalin rush like no other: your mind is constantly at work on smashing zombies, time-managing your fuel consumption, completing missions, saving people, upgrading your vehicle, all while listening to blood pumping tunes.

And that’s what an apocalypse should be all about. It’s not the end of the world, you’re still alive remember? So act alive! Don’t be depressed, avenge your loved ones, go on a rampage and fight for your life and your world. And if you have fun along the way no one is going to begrudge you that.

One of the USPs of the game is this open world (GTA like) feel. It’s the best way to get the player to immerse themselves into this apocalypse."

What challenges did you face during development, and how did you overcome them?

"The biggest challenge was adapting our ambitions to the mobile market. We had great ideas but had to harness a few to adapt to the processing power of mobile phones.

As mentioned above, our USP - the open world - meant a much more complex level building system and we had to make sure it wouldn’t affect the size or performance of the game too much.

With any upgrade game also comes extreme tweaking of numbers and difficulty curve. That took quite a lot of time and testing. It’s an on-going process in any case so once we received player feedback and extensive data we’ll be able to tailor them even more to suit players."

dead-hand-drive-mobile-game Which part of the game are you personally the most proud of and why?

"We managed to get some really awesome local rock bands to feature in the game with some great songs. I don’t think many mobile games have done this, due to the logistics, but we managed to pull some strings.

The music type may not be to everyone’s taste but we hope people appreciate the originality and it definitely enhances the immersion of the player in this apocalyptic world.

We also wanted to make sure there was plenty of humour in the game. We’ve managed to hide a ton of easter eggs in reference to some of our favourite zombie films/TV shows.

We wanted to make sure the game didn’t take itself too seriously which we believe is a key ingredient to making fun games."

Do you have anything planned in terms of future updates for the game and, if so, can you give us any details of what these might include?

"We are strong believers in making games for the players. So we are hoping to receive feedback from players and give them what they want ultimately. However, we do have a few ideas up our sleeves.

Besides the logical add-ons such as expanding the world by adding more crazy zones, maybe adding power ups or additional weapons to help players smash even more zombies, we are also mulling over the possibility of a multiplayer version which would be really awesome.

The main objective of the game would change quite a bit but it would support the original game in a strong way. There’s nothing like a little friendly competition during an apocalypse."

Have you any plans to bring the game to any other mobile platforms, such as Windows Phone, or Steam?

"Yes, we are currently working on a version for Steam. This game was a little ambitious for the mobile market originally but we’ve pulled it off and are now looking to expand into PC format. The game mechanics lend themselves to playing on a keyboard or with a joypad."

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App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/la/app/dead-hand-drive/id1111216863?mt=8

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SteampunkWizards.DeadHandDrive