Video Game / Zombie Night Terror

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Zombie Night Terror is a Lemmings-inspired Strategy-Puzzle-Platformer video game developed by French game developer NoClip and published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment. After going through a series of demos released from mid-2015 to early 2016, it was fully released on July 20, 2016 for PC's Windows & Mac (on Steam) and mobile, and was later ported to Linux on September 21, 2016, and the Nintendo Switch on January 31, 2019.

The game is framed as a series of Science Fiction Zombie Apocalypse movies that you interact with, with each of the four chapters of levels being colloquially a "movie" within the series, and each level being a scene from said movie. Instead of focusing on the survivors of the apocalypse as usual for these movies, you play as the zombie apocalypse, controlling the zombies and infecting humans while chasing after the Mad Scientist who started this whole mess, known simply as the "Chemist".

On May 16, 2017, a DLC for the game, titled Moonwalkers, was released for free. It added a fifth chapter that's always playable regardless of your progress in the base game, and follows a story entirely independent from the base game revolving around a "Mega Monolith" found on the Moon, wherein your goal is to guide the zombies from Earth to the Moon and destroy the monolith to eventually reach even higher planes of the universe. This chapter features a variety of unorthodox enemies and gimmicks that detach from the base game's conventions.

On October 24, 2017, the game's PC version received another free exclusive update that added a downloadable Level Editor, which allows players to create their own customized levels (known as "community levels") and share them via Steam Workshop.

On July 1, 2022, a Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition, named "Deluxe Edition", was released as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. In addition to including the base game and Moonwalkers, this edition features the game's first physical version on Blu-ray, as well as the first physical release of the game's soundtrack on vinyl.

The game has an official website that can be visited here.

Zombie Night Terror contains examples of the following tropes:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: AL, the Artificial Intelligence created by The Men in Black that runs their Elaborate Underground Base, doesn't have any idea what a zombie is, and assumes that the zombie horde that invades the base during "Brainless Invasion" broke in because humans are becoming rapidly stupider. When the zombies are explained to it, AL decides to slaughter all possible vectors of contamination, including uninfected humans.
• And I Must Scream: Although Overlord zombies can scream, and constantly do, they are literally rooted to the spot. All they can do themselves is wave their arms. And when you don't need them to move the horde anymore, there's nothing left for them except death. They cannot be transformed back.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The fate of any human that dies because of a zombie, except the bosses, mini-bosses, Suicide Bombers and Astronauts. Before it was patched, a glitch caused this to also happen to any human who happened to die for any reason, such as falling from a great height, being shot or being ran over by a car.
• Armor Is Useless: Downplayed with the Riot Troopers that recur throughout the levels of "Terror in the City". They're tactical police officers equipped with heavy body armor and a shield, which makes them slightly more tough than unarmed civilians, armed civilians, and their Cop Riflemen teammates (i.e. they die in two hits from regular zombie damage instead of just one). However, they're nowhere near as resilient and strong as many of the other armed humans seen in both "Terror in the City" and later stages of the game, most of whom have no armor or wear less armor than the Riot Troopers; the most notable examples of these are the Brawlers, all types of The Men in Black's guard agents, the Survivor Shotgunners, the Survivor Gunners, the Lumberjacks, and the Astronauts.
• Asshole Victim: The Drug Lord, thugs keeping a couple hostage, a cannibal planning to eat his frightened girlfriend, neglectful doctors and a bunch of PC elitists bullying a Mac user in "Dead Heist", just to name a few.
• Black Blood: One of the game's settings allows you to change the blood particles' color from their default red to any unorthodox color you want.
• Black Dude Dies First: In the intro cutscene of the first level, "Movie Night Terror", the Patient Zero who consumes Romero and thus becomes the very first zombie is a distinctly black man with an afro hairstyle, who's the only black person among the small group of people that the cutscene focuses on. In the level itself, you have the option to contaminate other people instead of him, however.
• Bottomless Magazines: Played with in that while the humans armed with firearms need to reload their weapons from time to time (which is the period in which they're most vulnerable to the zombies), they never seem to run out of backup ammo.
• Company Cameo: NoClip's name makes recurring appearances on building signs and wall graffiti in the levels' various background environments.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: "Railway to Hell" has a train that passes down the subway killing any zombies it runs over. Make sure your zombies aren't in its path when it arrives.
• Death by Irony: The chemist is eventually killed by the very same zombies he had created through his drugs.
• Elite Zombie: There are three zombie mutations that allow you to transform a normal zombie into a stronger type, each of which is similar to a common Elite Zombie type for the trope.
  • Overlords are based on the Horde Master. They're stationary, but they can direct the otherwise dimwitted zombie horde. If given an ability, they'll be able to direct zombies into using it (Run, Jump), repeatedly spam it (Spit), or rally zombies around them with it (Scream). Their explosions with Explode are also larger and more powerful than those of normal zombies.
  • Crawlers are based on the Ferals/Hunters/Stalkers. They're immune to Falling Damage, are capable of using Wall Crawl to climb walls, and can crawl through narrow vents. They're also Stealth Experts which cannot be detected by humans if they approach from behind. Additionally, their acid balls with Spit, compared to those of regular zombies, are powerful Pinball Projectiles that will bounce and/or roll through floors and walls until they hit a human.
  • Tanks are based on the Brutes. They're durable and huge Lightning Bruisers, capable of slaughtering humans very quickly while soaking up bullets far better than regular zombies. Their abilities also add extra force, such as Explode making them die with more powerful explosions than even those of Overlords, Run becoming a charge that kills humans and breaks down walls, Scream knocking humans away, Jump causing a Shockwave Stomp, and Spit creating a big Damage Over Time area that infects or drives humans away.
• Enemy Mine: The penultimate level of "Brainless Invasion", "Murderous Cortege", has the zombies and a human group (consisting of the Chemist, another scientist, and several agents of The Men in Black) "working together" to get to AL's central intelligence module in order to stop its extermination rampage. That term should be only used in the loosest sense, as you aren't necessarily making the zombies cooperate with the humans so much as keeping the two groups from killing one another by directing the zombies away from the humans and helping them reach AL's module by disabling its defenses.
• Falling Damage: Befitting its inspiration from Lemmings, one of the game's key gameplay mechanics is a fall damage system. Both regular zombies and all kinds of humans will die instantly if they fall to a solid floor from a high enough height, which at times obliges you to take considerable caution in angling zombie jumps commanded by an Overlord zombie and/or targeting certain humans to infect. Crawler and Tank zombies are less susceptible to fall damage; Crawlers are entirely immune to fall damage, and Tanks don't lose much health from it, though they can still be vulnerable to dying from it if their current health is low enough or if the falling height is very high. For all zombies you use the Jump ability on, the jump line indicator will warn you about risk of fall damage, which comes in handy in helping you minimize your chances of committing mistakes involving fall damage.
• Feed It a Bomb: This is how you defeat the horribly mutated chemist. When he opens his Belly Mouth to suck in the zombies, making them use Explode will cause some huge damage after he sucks them in.
• Gratuitous Spanish: In the opening cutscene of "Streets of Rage", the Drug Lord calls the Chemist a "hijo de puta" ("son of a bitch") when he discovers that the latter had just broken free and escaped his prison.
  Drug Lord: Hijo de puta! Get back here! [screams in rage]
• Kill It with Fire: Not only can survivors lob Molotov cocktails at you, but the Latino drug lord decides to use Molotov cocktails on trapped zombies. It works, but the smoke from the fire has a distinctly green tinge.
• Little Red Fighting Hood: The Swordswoman is a type of armed human exclusively faced in the levels of "The Last of the Living", who wears a cloak soaked in red zombie blood and hacks zombies to pieces with a sword. The cloak makes her unable to be detected by zombies and immune to their normal physical attacks, but explosions, spitted goo, and environmental hazards can still hurt and kill her^note Notably, she's also the only human type who tries to run away from zombies that are about to explode., and screams still stun her in the same way as all other non-boss humans.
• The Magic Comes Back: The Mega Monolith gives its followers (possibly) magical powers such as levitation, barrier generation, and shooting streams of fire from their hands.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: What is the Mega Monolith? A Sufficiently Advanced Alien or something more? It seems to be scientifically minded and its followers are technologically advanced, but others seem to be able to cast magic.
• The Men in Black: Some sort of secret society is studying the Zombies, and while they have nothing to do with their creation they don't seem to have mankind's best interests at heart.
• Nested Story Reveal: After the horribly mutated Chemist is killed once and for all, the base game's ending cutscene cuts back to the first level, which has become decayed and abandoned... then the random woman who hid in a dumpster during the level itself crawls out of the dumpster and walks to the right. She appears startled at something offscreen and attempts to run to the left, only to be surrounded from both ways by zombies. As she screams in terror, it's revealed that the woman, Juliette, is an actor for the movie "The Last Woman on Earth"... but then one of the workers in the filming crew finds a syringe of Romero on the ground, the director puking up blood and violently shaking soon after before cutting to black.
• No Dead Body Poops: Averted for Laughs with Gertrude, whose death animation in "The Incredible Gertrude" ends with her still corpse suddenly shitting itself with a loud farting noise.
• Organic Technology: The central intelligence module that stores the core of AL the Artificial Intelligence is literally a massive brain with the size of a small building and a network of wires and circuits. It even spills an enormous amount of blood when it's destroyed upon AL's defeat.
• Palette Swap: The Lumberjack enemy's design is a Texture Swap of the Drug Lord. Beyond the fact that he's deliberately designed to resemble Ash Williams, the Lumberjack has the same body shape as the Drug Lord, has near-identical animations to his (the only major difference being the replacement of the Drug Lord's uzi and kick move with the Lumberjack's chainsaw), and even recycles the Drug Lord's dying scream for his death animation.
• Paranormal Palette: Most zombies are grayscale-colored per the game's Deliberately Monochrome art style, but bright green is prominently used as their Color Motif, manifesting in the zombies' DNA, the flames and remains combusted zombies leave behind, the goo balls zombies shoot with the Spit ability, and the Sickly Green Glow of glowing zombies. Green is one of the only three non-grayscale colors featured in the game^note Not counting the Black Blood option in the settings that allows you to change the blood to a customized color., the others being red, which is exclusively used for blood, and blue, which is the color of the electric sparks emitted by electric hazards and AL's entities.
• Professor Guinea Pig: You think you have defeated the already mutated Chemist in the final level... But then he stabs himself in the neck with a syringe and transforms into a hideous monstrosity.
• Rise from Your Grave: Zombies start to rise from the grave when the green smoke turns into green rain.
• Shout-Out: There's a lot of them...
  • The name of the Fantastic Drug causing people to turn into zombies is "Romero". Befitting the game's nature as a tribute to Zombie Apocalypse movies, the drug is named after director George A. Romero, who's famous for pushing the genre forward in cinema.
  • The level of the Boss Fight against the Drug Lord, "Streets of Rage", has the same title and similar scenery to the Streets of Rage series.
  • The challenge of "Burger Kill" tasks you with killing Gronald the Clown, a Ronald McDonald Expy who fights zombies with a bomb launcher and an Extendo Boxing Glove. He runs Gro Food, the fast food restaurant that's located at the very end of the level, and appears to be a parody of the Corrupt Corporate Executive.
  • Yet another challenge is to kill The Zombinator.
  • At the beginning of the first level set on the graveyard, there's a group of people hanging out near a tomb, one of which is a naked woman dancing on top of it.
  • Two of the civilian humans in "Meatnight Club" (as well as the targets for the level's challenge) are a duo of teleporting DJs who wear the iconic suits and robot helmets of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk. The Level Editor even labels them as "Human Daftpunk 1" and "Human Daftpunk 2", respectively.
  • The ending cutscene of Moonwalkers sees one of several space-traveling zombies being teleported to a Bar Full of Aliens resembling Chalmun's Cantina from the Star Wars movie A New Hope. In addition to the many aliens resembling the Star Wars aliens, there are some other background characters in the bar based on characters from other Science Fantasy media, such as a human duo resembling Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith from Rick and Morty, and a robot who looks like Bender from Futurama.
• Splash of Color: The game is Deliberately Monochrome except for the anything colored green or red.
• Suicide Attack: You unlock the ability to explode zombies later on in the game, which kills the zombie and any human nearby. If any cracked blocks are nearby, it will destroy those too.
• Teleportation: The duo of DJs in the discotheque of "Meatnight Club" start at the bottom floor, and teleport to the floor above them every time they're alerted of zombies approaching them, which can culminate in them disappearing from the map entirely once they teleport while at the building's rooftop. The level's challenge tasks you with catching and killing them; in order to do so, you have to use Scream on a zombie to stun the DJs just long enough for them to stop teleporting temporarily and thus have a period of vulnerability to the zombies. Due to how the level's map is arranged, you can only use Scream against the DJs once they're in the building's third floor and above.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Tank zombies and muscular humans have massive upper bodies in contrast to their ridiculously short and skinny legs.
• Villainous Breakdown: The level of the Boss Battle against the Drug Lord, "Streets of Rage", opens with the Drug Lord seeking to execute the Chemist after having captured him, only for the Chemist to break free from his prison. The Drug Lord finds out about the Chemist's escape and rages just as the zombies break into the shelter. Most of the level involves the Drug Lord fearfully running away from the zombies while his henchmen try to fight them, and the Drug Lord himself only starts fighting when the zombies have cornered him, with his body language clearly indicating that he's not in the best composure despite showing that he's a One-Man Army against the zombies.
  Drug Lord: Hijo de puta! Get back here! [screams in rage]
• Villain Protagonist: You play as a zombie horde whose goal is to infect and kill humans.
• We Have Reserves: A mindset which you must embrace to win. Evaporate those zombies about to die or get stuck in useless positions to get more DNA points. Send disposable meat shields at a human gunner until one of them manages to take him down. Turn your minions into living bombs. It's all for the mob's benefit.
• Your Head A-Splode:
  • The default death animation from human attacks for Tank zombies involves their heads blowing up while the rest of their bodies slump against the ground.
  • In "Daybreak", the part of the Chemist's head with his forehead and brain explodes when he dies, leaving a hollow, bloody hole on his head while the rest of his body remains intact on the outside.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Naturally. A Fantastic Drug created by a Mad Scientist has started turning people into viral zombies that threaten to overrun the world. The twist is that you play as the zombie horde.
• Zombie Puke Attack: The Spit ability allows the zombies to spit infectious balls of goo at long-range, the aim of which you manually choose and control. Aside from the normal version of the Spit used by regular zombies, each Elite Zombie uses an upgraded version of it: Overlords constantly spit goo automatically at the direction you set them like a turret of sorts; Crawlers' Spit balls are more damaging than those of regular zombies and Overlords, and can ricochet and bounce off surfaces; and Tanks' Spit balls explode on impact into a lingering area of infectious gas that can harm and/or drive away humans.