Zombie Quest
|
| Zombie Quest

Although the public appetite for zombies shows no sign of abating, it's still something of a shock to see the living dead shamble into the world of the match-three puzzler.

After all, this is a genre that's usually characterised by vivid hues and pristine gems. But, here, instead of a board packed with primary colours, Inlogic's morbid puzzler has you steering undead pawns around a gloomy cemetery.

Thriller

And rather than swapping adjacent tiles, Zombie Quest has you ordering the walking dead around the grid that makes up each level. Once you've selected a zombie with a tap of the '5' key, you simply select his destination with another button press.

If there are no obstructions in his path, your ghoulish flesh-eater will wander on over to said destination, and should he find himself stood alongside two or more matching undead comrades, the colour-coordinated troupe will promptly disappear.

If a move doesn't produce a match, though, a fresh batch of lurching cadavers erupts from the earth, crowding the board and making navigating the graveyard that much more difficult.

The focus, then, is on managing the board to ensure that your minions can always shamble their way over to where they're needed.

Bad Moon Rising

Clearing navigable paths is made doubly important in Zombie Quest's arcade mode, where you have to form matches in specific locations. Instead of seeking high scores in this mode, you have to match zombies over each of the highlighted squares in order to progress.

But, this unique spin on the traditional match-three mechanics frequently proves stilted and difficult in practice. For instance, newly risen zombies often don't register in matches, leaving you to ponder a board that contains rows and columns of three or more undead that simply haven't disappeared.

And even when matches do register, these successes don't affect the rest of the board, which means that Zombie Quest is short on the happy accidents that punctuate its genre peers. There are no cascading chains of matches here, and the game can feel comparatively dry and slow as a result.

It may stand out among its match-three contemporaries in terms of aesthetics and mechanics, but, in truth, Zombie Quest's innovations actually work against it in the long run.

Zombie Quest

Zombie Quest offers a distinct brand of match-three puzzling, but it feels dry and stilted compared to its genre peers
Score
James Nouch
James Nouch
PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013