Video Game / Riddled Zombie

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Riddled Zombie was a 2014 indie free-to-play causal Shoot 'em Up game developed by Diabolic Mind, made with the Game Maker engine and was released for mobile Android and iOS devices. It features an animesque pixel art aesthetic inspired by the 8- and 16-bit era of video games with chiptune music composed by Samuel "jompositor" Cadi.

Its premise is simple: Somewhere in New Mexico, there is a clandestine laboratory where scientists are conducting experiments on the Z-Virus, a virus that holds the potential for mankind's immortality. A rogue scientist however, out of jealousy and contempt against his cohorts, decided to reverse the effects of the virus, causing it to transform humans into zombies. By 2065, the United States of America has been overrun by the undead and mutated monstrosities. A pair of survivors in New York, Chief Officer Jon and his partner Chloe, are fighting back against the undead hordes and prevent the annihilation of mankind. An unlockable third character, demon girl Erika from Diabolical Mind's Demon's Cauldron, is also playable. Later updates introduces a few more playable characters: Fael, a scientist from another dimension; and another guest character, the demon girl Liery from Diabolical Mind's Candy Cut Halloween. Gameplay-wise, players are tasked to gun down an endless wave of monsters that will Zerg Rush their way to them and try to survive for as long as possible. Players can shoot enemies at any direction by touching the screen in that direction to fend off the oncoming horde while grabbing gold and power-ups dropped from slain foes by touching them. Gold can be spent in between runs to upgrade their characters or unlock other characters with his or her passive abilities. By quickly killing multiple enemies in quick succession, it builds up a Combo meter that rewards double points once it's full. When in a pinch, players can use a Time Clock that can slow down foes, and a powerful Dynamite pack that nukes the screen while damaging the stronger enemies. The game however was later delisted from Google Play Store and the Apple Store respectively shortly after its release the same year...

...but the game would later get remade as a twin-stick shooter with Riddled Corpses in 2015, releasing on PCs for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS through Steam. The remake expands on the original game's plot of Riddled Zombie (albeit very slightly) and gameplay. The plot in the remake is kicked off by some scientists whom, in their search for knowledge of the unknown, have created an monster in an attempt to fight evil in the world. Their experiments however caused the monster to turn against them and open the gates of Hell, unleashing zombies and demons upon the world. A new character was also introduced in this remake: Nora, a policewoman from the future. The core gameplay elements carried over into this remake but also has been retooled to fit a twin stick shooter with light RPG Elements. Instead of simply surviving an endless horde of zombies and demons until you drop (although a Survival Mode is also available), the player now has lives and the game features six stages, each with multiple waves that players must fight their way through and smaller encounters in between before culminating with a boss battle at the end. The Combo meter in the remake not only provides a Kill Streak once the gauge is full, but will also double the size and attack power of your shots for as long as the combo is going. New upgradable power-up items were also introduced: the MK-1000 drones, which permanently provides additional firepower, and the deployable Turrets, which temporally provides cover fire by shooting down foes in all directions. The remake also features a Survival Mode and online leaderboards.

An Updated Re-release of the Riddled Corpses, dubbed Riddled Corpses EX, was released June 5, 2018 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One; a Nintendo Switch version was later released in 2019 and a version for PlayStation 5 was released in 2022. This enhanced port was handled by Cowcat of BROK the InvestiGator fame and features 60 FPS gameplay, a new Story Mode, a revamped Arcade Mode, optional smoothing and CRT filters, remixed soundtracks composed by Jorge "Giorgiost" Olivares, improved sound quality, and quality-of-life improvements.

This game features examples of:

• Absurdly Low Level Cap: The playable characters have a maximum level cap of Lv. 20 while the MK-1000 and Turret drones in the remake caps out at Lv. 5. It's possible to cap out the characters before reaching Stage 5 in the remake after a few money grinding sessions with either Liery or Erika.
• Achievement Mockery: There's an achievement for getting a Game Over for the first time.
• Achievement System: The remake features 15 Achievements/Trophies to unlock. These range from "Clear X Stage", "Collect 5 (Original) / 10 (EX) of each special items", or "Kill 50,000 enemies in Arcade or Survival Mode" (Original).
• Adaptation Expansion: The Riddled Corpses remake expands upon the original mobile game in a couple of ways:
  • In the original mobile game, the characters are more or less defined by their passive abilities in terms of usefulness gameplay-wise. In the remake, each character has his or her own stat parameters that lends them into different playstyles. The items in the remake were also retooled while adding the new unlockable Turret item.
  • The original mobile game only had a few static backdrops the players blasts zombies and mutants in: the streets of New York, a New Mexican desert, some kind of cathedral, and high-tech room that could be a laboratory. The remake not only fleshes out these locales into proper shoot 'em up stages (with the EX version later introducing their own hazards and gimmicks), but also features more locations such as the highway in Stage 3 and an empty nighttime forest in Stage 4.
  • Similarly to the visual designs of the stages, the original mobile game only had a small set of background music: one for the title screen screen, one for gameplay that is re-used for every backdrop, and one for the Game Over screen. The remake adds unique music for each of the stages and the Survival Mode.
  • The plot of the original game involves a Zombie Apocalypse with a few other mutant monsters in the mix. The remake expands on the plot that also includes demons unleashing Hell on Earth with demonic monsters added into the enemy roster, while the EX re-release also adds story scenes for its Story Mode.
  • The gameplay of the original game also lacks level structure and has no boss battles whatsoever. The remake however features unique end-stage bosses and a few mini-bosses.
  • The remake introduces another new character, Nora, who also has her own stake in the game's plot in the EX version.
• All There in the Manual: The original game's plot is only mentioned on the Google Play Store's or Apple Store's respective storepage, and the story is never brought up in the game proper. The two guest characters, Erika and Liery, would only have their origin game mentioned in the storepages of the original game and the remake's itch.io page for the demon. The remake does alleviate this somewhat by featuring a brief opening cutscene when launching the game, and the EX version features cutscenes between stages in its Story Mode.
• Allegedly Free Game: The original Riddled Zombie has microtransactions where the player can pay with real currency for extra in-game Gold to buff up their characters or get unlocks faster than Money Grinding through gameplay.
• Animesque: The game was originally developed by a Spanish developer but main characters are drawn in a Japanese anime artstyle.
• Arrange Mode: In the EX version, Arcade Mode plays the game's six stages back-to-back in one sitting, and players must collect dedicated weapon power-ups to buff their character's damage output as they play the game for score similarly to a classic shoot 'em up. Taking damage will also causes the player to lose a weapon level but the power-up will fly out of their character and can be re-collected if they can get it before it disappears. Gold also does not carry over into the other modes, thus must be spent in between stages at the shop when possible.
• Attack Drone: Players can spend 9,999 Gold to unlock the MK-1000 drones that adds extra firepower to their regular weapons and the Turrets item that can be placed to shoot around all sides of its vicinity. Both of these drones can leveled up 5 fives for greater damage output.
• Bishōnen Line: Erebus's first form is the brain in a jar with a huge demonic circling around during the final boss battle. In his second second form, it takes form of a pale humanoid demon missing his lower half and assymentrical wings.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The game's English text, especially during the opening and ending cutscenes, have lots of grammatical errors and hokey sentences.
• Body Horror: Many of the zombies of the remake, despite the low-resolution artstyle, have flesh falling off their faces/heads or already flayed, missing/whitened eyes, etc. The demonic enemies are no slouches either as some of them have detailed and grotesque appearance, especially from the larger demons.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Nora. She is one of the most powerful characters in the game and can hold two turrets, but by time you unlocked her from beating the game (or Story Mode in EX), you've already have the other characters maxed out and beaten the hardest stages of the game.
• Brain in a Jar: The scientist's monster in the remake is an evil gigantic brain inside a test tube.
• Bullet Hell: The remake's bosses can flood the screen many bullets in intricate patterns that the player must weave through in order to avoid taking damage.
• The Cameo: There are collectible items in the remake that references to five characters from Diabolical Mind's earlier mobile games, Demon's Cauldron, Candy Cut, Fruit Jump, and Brutal Shark Attack!!. The EX version would go on to add five more from Cowcat's BROK the InvestiGator and Demetrios: The Big Cynical Adventure as Cowcat is the EX version's developer as well as the Plus versions of Xenon Valkyrie and Demon's Tier.
• Checkpoint Starvation: In Story Mode of the EX version, the sixth and final stage of the game will kick you back to Stage 5 if you die at any point.
• Clock of Power: The Time Clock item gives the user time-bending powers that can either temporarily freezes enemies/bullets in time or slow them down, depending on the enemy or projectile type. This item does however stop the progress bar of the current enemy wave while it's active.
• Collision Damage: Players will take damage if they collide with an enemy and, in the EX version, stage hazards such as electric fences or lava pits.
• Competitive Balance: The six playable characters have his or her own stats and passive abilities, whom are fleshed more gameplay-wise in the remake:
  • Fragile Speedster: Chloe — Unlocked by spending 2,000 Gold. She has the fastest movement speed but very weak in terms of dealing damage. Passive ability: Magnetism.
  • Glass Cannon: Liery — Unlocked by spending 2,000 Gold. She has the lowest Damage stat out of the entire roster but this gets offset as she levels up thanks to her maxed out Shot Speed. Passive ability: 2x Gold.
  • Jack of All Stats: Jon — The starter character. He has fairly balanced stats across the board with a good Damage rating. No passive abilities.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Fael — Unlocked by spending 9,999 Gold. He has the worst stats in every category outside of his maxed out Damage stat. Passive ability: 2x Lives.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Nora — Unlocked by clearing Story Mode. She has a very high mix of stats in all categories outside of her Damage stat being slightly weaker than Erika's. Passive ability: 2x Turrets Capacity.
  • Master of All: Erika — Unlocked by unlocking and raising Chloe, Fael, and Liery to Lv. 20 and spending 9,999 Gold. She has stats similar to Jon's but has three passive abilities: Magnetism, 2x Lives and 2x Gold.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: The remake features local 2-player co-op multiplayer, allowing a buddy get in the monster shooting action. The Switch version of EX also takes advantage of the systems' single Joy-Cons feature that each used for both players, but firing is handled automatically to make up for the lack of a second analog stick.
• Crapsack World: The game's setting takes place during a demon- and zombie-infested apocalypse thanks to some mad scientists trying to fight evil with more evil.
• Defector from Decadence: In the EX version's Story Mode, before Stage 5 starts begins Liery and Erika, demon girls whom originally came from Hell, show up and joins Jon and co. to fight back against the demonic invasion as they have been in war with Hell for a long time.
• Double Unlock: To unlock Erika, first the player must unlock Chloe, Fael, and Liery and level them all the way to Lv. 20 to make her available in the Upgrades menu, then the player must spend 9,999 Gold to buy her.
• Eagleland: The game takes places in the U.S.A., the player starts from New York and make their way through New Mexico to find their way into the lab where the demonic and zombie outbreak started.
• Endless Tasks, Endless Game:
  • The original Riddled Zombie's gameplay is entirely designed around fighting against endless waves of enemies until you drop.
  • In the Survival Mode of the remake, players must face off against an endless wave of enemies that gets progressively stronger with each wave while scoring points.
• Evolving Attack: The characters' bullet changes its appearance with every level-up as they become stronger, with every 5 levels changing their bullets completely. This also applies to the MK-1000 Machine and the Turret item.
• Explosive Barrel: Oil drums as well as burning trash cans, explosive creates, and parked vehicles can be shot down until they explode, which can also damage enemies (while oddly not harming the player) and setting lesser enemies on fire. Shooting down explosive objects also gives you a huge boost in your Combo meter.
• Excuse Plot: The original game's and remake's premise are simply excuses to have the player shoot up hordes of zombies and demons, and does not go beyond that as the game has no cutscenes to speak of. The EX version however, as barebones as its plot is like in the remake, does add new story cutscenes in between stages in the Story Mode that contextualizes the events and fleshes out the characters in the game as it unfolds.
• Fair Cop: The game has two: Officer Chloe, an attractive blonde policewoman in the present, and Nora, a pink-haired policewoman from the future whose uniform includes a mini-skirt, thigh-highs, and her top shows some cleavage.
• Fake Difficulty: It can be difficult to discern where you hitbox is in relation to your character's sprite, which makes it very hard to dodge though dense bullet patterns and heavy enemy swarms.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Upon fighting Erebus in Stage 6, the scenery changes from the laboratory to a trippy space-time dimension.
• Flash of Pain: The player's sprite will flicker upon taking damage, and enemies will flicker in different colors when they are being shot.
• The Goomba: The basic Zombie enemies pose little threat to the player as they lurch slowly to their target outside of their large numbers.
• Graphics-Induced Super-Deformed: The characters have normally proportioned artwork on the cover art (save for Erika and Fael until the EX version), the characters in-game are represented as 8-bit styled chibis.
• Guest Fighter: The game features two characters from Diabolical Mind's earlier mobile games, Erika from Demon's Cauldron and Liery from Candy Cut Halloween.
• Guns Akimbo: The playable character's weapon of choice are dual pistols, uzis, or laser guns.
• Hell on Earth: The remake takes place during a demonic and zombie outbreak that was caused by mad scientists when they tried to create an evil monster of their own.
• Improbably Female Cast: The gender ratio of the playable characters have more girls (Chloe, Liery, Erika, and in the remake, Nora) than there are guys (Jon and Fael).
• Kill Streak:
  • In the original game, the game keeps count of how many kill points the player has earned by shooting down enemies.
  • In the remake, once the player fills up the Combo meter completely, they will go into a powered up state that not only doubles their bullet's size and damage output, but each successive kills builds up a kill streak as long as the player can keep their Combo going. A kill count can also be seen in the pause menu and the Upgrades menu keeps track of their highest combo streak.
• Man on Fire: Many of the grounded enemies can be set on fire by burning them with shooting down explosives near them or baiting them into walking onto lava, resulting in them losing health over time and frantically chase the player.
• Mercy Invincibility: Upon taking damage, the player will have a few seconds of invincibility frames shown with a barrier protecting them until they are vulnerable again.
• Meta Multiplayer: The remake of the game features online leaderboards that compares players for the highest score. In the EX version, this applies to the game's Arcade and Survival Modes.
• Money Grinding: The game has a few characters for this purpose. Chloe can pick up gold automatically thanks to her Magnetism ability during the early game, while Liery has the 2x Gold ability that does the value of gold pick-ups, and Erika has both of these abilities.
• Monster Clown: Nyx, the Warm-Up Boss in the remake, appears as a demonic jester.
• Multi-Mook Melee: Throughout the remake's stages, the game often locks in you a particular area to deal with a wave until the wave finishes, then goes into an auto-scrolling sequence with some enemies attacking you until you find the next wave. This pattern repeats until the player eventually reaches the stage's end boss.
• Multi-Platform: The original Riddled Zombie was released for Android and iOS systems in 2014. Its remake, Riddled Corpses, was released for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on the same day in 2018.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The majority of enemies you fight against, especially in the earlier stages, are zombies.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: In the original game, most characters outside of Fael and Erika only have 1 live and getting attacked by a zombie is all it takes to end your run. In the remake, everyone starts out with 3 lives while Fael and Erika have twice the amount of starting lives thanks to their passive abilities.
• One-Winged Angel: Some of the bosses, such as the Nyx in Stage 1 of the remake, turn into bigger and more monstrous forms once their HP hits low.
• One-Man Army: In single player, it's you up against armies of the undead and demons from Hell.
• Palette Swap: The EX version palette swaps Player 2's character if they are playing with same character as Player 1 in co-op.
• Promoted to Playable: Liery was originally from Candy Cut Halloween, who is mainly seen during the menus and the HUD. She gets a more active playable role in this game.
• Punny Name: Fael's name sounds exactly like "Fail", which reflects on his stats being the worst out of the playable characters outside of his maxed out Damage stat in the remake.
• Retraux: The game's visuals mimic the low-resolution 8- and 16-bit consoles with its pixel art graphics that is complemented with a chiptune soundtrack.
• San Dimas Time: Nora went back in time from her timeline in the future and is assisting Jon and Chloe in the present in order to prevent the Bad Future from happening by destroying Erebus it gets a physical form.
• Scoring Points:
  • In the original Riddled Zombie, the game keeps score of how many enemies the player has killed, and by filling up the Combo meter, their kills can be doubled.
  • In the remake's Arcade Mode, players earn points of set value by killing their enemies, and filling up the Combo meter and killing enemies during a kill streak will steadily reward more points. The EX version would go on to ad end stage bonuses based on the player's performance that are added to their overall score.
• Sexy Packaging: The remake's original key art features Nora whose uniform shows off some thighs and cleavage in the middle, while Liery has her back turned as she looks from behind with her butt in hotpants on display. The EX version features a different key art that tones down some of the sexiness by featuring Nora looking back with a full body version Erika who is showing off some thighs and partially exposed midriff on the front.
• Shifting Sand Land: Stage 2 takes place in an arid desert in New Mexico.
• Start X to Stop X: In the remake's prologue scene, scientists have tried experimenting on trying to fight the evils in the world by creating an evil monster of their own. It backfires horribly as said monster goes on a rampage and opens the gates of Hell, causing an apocalypse that is threatening mankind as zombies and demons terrorizes the world, and a great demon is about to be reborn into the world.
• Smart Bomb: The Dynamite is functionally one as it clears the entire screen of bullets while destroying most lesser enemies instantly while some of the stronger ones take high amounts of damage.
• Start Screen: The game features a title screen where the game's basic zombies are aimlessly roaming around the streets of the first stage with a "TOUCH SCREEN TO START / PRESS START" prompt in the lower middle part of the screen. In the remake and EX, waiting at the start screen long enough will replay the game's intro cutscene.
• Unlockable Content: For beating the game's EX version, players unlock Nora and an extra "Metal" soundtrack option.
• Updated Re-release: Riddled Corpses EX features 60 FPS gameplay over the original game's 30 FPS, a new Story Mode with cutscenes in between stages, a revamped Arcade Mode, optional CRT and smoothing filters, alternate remixed soundtracks, improved sound quality, rebalanced gameplay, and a multitude of quality-of-life improvements.
• Vanilla Edition: The PC version on Steam, unlike Xenon Valkyrie and Demon's Tier, has never received any of the new improvements and features from its console ports.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: In the remake, it's The Laboratory, the origin of where the zombie and demonic outbreak began, serves as the setting for the game's sixth and final stage.
• Video-Game Lives: Averted in the original mobile game, but they are featured in the remake. Each players start out with 3 lives in a chosen mode (although Fael and Erika can double it to 6 thanks to their passive abilities), and once all of their available lives reaches 0, the game is over. Extra lives can be obtained by collecting the Medkit items that can randomly drop from enemies or breakable objects, or purchasing them in the shop in between stages. Players can hold a maximum of 9 lives.
• Video Game Remake: Riddled Corpses is one to the original Riddled Zombie, which turns the game from a casual endless horde survival shooter to a twin-stick shoot 'em up with traditional lives and six playable stages. It also features a new character, slightly tweaked the storyline, and new gameplay systems with co-op support.
• Video Game Weapon Stats: Apart from their Movement stat, each of the playable characters have these three stat parameters for their weapons:
  • Damage: The typical amount of damage they can inflict on enemies.
  • Shot Speed: How fast their projectiles travels on screen.
  • Delay: The rate of fire of their shots.
• The War Sequence: While the remake already pits players with lots of zombies and demons to shoot up throughout the game, from Stages 4 and onward the game ramps up the amount of on-screen enemies in droves, almost 100:1 and sometimes to the point of filling the entire screen full of monsters to contend with moreso than bullets.
• Womb Level: The 2/3rd portion of Stage 5, which starts off from a ruined demon-infested cathedral that later turns into a climb of gigantic fleshy hill that leads into the entrance of The Laboratory.
• Zerg Rush: The primary means of the game's enemies attacking the player through running into them in great numbers.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The setting of the original game involves the world being overrun by zombies and most of mankind being wiped out as a result.