Thorn: Zombie Dungeon Survival Review

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Thorn: Zombie Dungeon Survival Review

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Thorn: Zombie Dungeon Survival Review

By Jason Wadsworth on July 19th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: A SIMPLE SLASHER
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

Kill zombies. Find the dungeon exit. That’s about it. This game is about the essentials: killing zombies and surviving.

Developer: Good Controller LLC

Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 3GS

Graphics / Sound Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Game Controls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Replay Value Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Most people, upon discovering a dark, dank zombie infested dungeon would do everything they could to stay out of there. Not Thorn. This brave little viking wades into dungeon after dungeon filled with the undead. He hacks, slashes, stabs, throws, and explodes his way through hordes of zombie assailants and makes his way stubbornly from entrance to exit, re-killing everything in his path.

Thorn: Zombie Dungeon Survival is a very simple game, and the first-time developers that created it have boiled the zombie gaming experience down to its essential elements. Specifically, getting safely from one place to another and dispatching the undead while en route. This is the entirety of the game, and the gameplay isn’t cluttered with crazy mechanics, a convoluted plot, or or tons of unnecessary options. This is zombie slaying at its purest.

The controls are fairly simple as well. Touch anywhere to make Thorn move there. Double tap to make him dive-roll quickly in that direction. Tap a zombie to attack it and drag a line from Thorn to a zombie to throw a weapon at it. While Thorn’s main axe weapon remains the same, there are several different types of ranged weapons that Thorn can find throughout the dungeons. These include throwing axes, throwing stars, and even bombs. With these weapons, getting Thorn through the first few dungeons is easy enough, but as the hordes grow and the dungeons become larger and more maze-like things get much more difficult. It’s not just fighting zombies off, either. There is a time limit and Thorn must reach the exit before time runs out or he will perish in the dungeon.

Every game starts at level one and the game progresses from one randomly generated level to the next for as long as the player can survive. There isn’t much variation in the levels at all other than the size and layout of the dungeon and the number of zombies. On long play sessions the environments can get tiresome and the zombie killing a bit tedious, but in shorter chunks the gameplay is an enjoyable distraction. There are a few charming little additions to the game such as names above the zombies identifying them as Dan, or Carl. These little quirks make the game that much more fun to play around with.

While it’s a simple game, it is certainly a focused experience and players will always know exactly what to expect from this game time after time.