You're backed into a corner and the strong smell of decay is everywhere. The source? A shambling mob of the decaying un-dead is coming your way with one thought on what's left of their rotting minds: To sink their teeth into your warm flesh. You confidently pull out your sawed off shot gun, level the sight on the closest zombie, take aim and squeeze the trigger. "EAT LEAD UN-DEAD" you scream with glee. "CLICK!" You try again and still nothing happens. Those zombies are getting awfully close now. You crack open the chamber: Silly you! You forgot to load the shotgun!
Quickly, you fumble through your bottomless pockets for some shells. You don't seem to have any. The closest zombie paws at you and starts making a meal of your ear, the second seems to have dibs on your throat. Your last thought before you join "The Zombie Guild" as a permanent member is cursing your mistake of wasting all your ammo on those rats that annoyed you on your way here. Welcome to the Action Horror Game!
The Scenario
So just what comprises a action horror game these days? First off you need a premise for why zombies are eating the populous of a small, quaint town. Why shadows are threatening to slaughter us light loving humans or whatever it is the un-dead seem to want whenever they have nothing better to do. After close study of several games we've come up with the two main premises: Experimentation and Deals with the Supernatural.
Experimentation
As a race, we humans have been a curious lot ever since as cavemen we wondered what would happen if you tried to torch the tail of a Sabre-toothed Tiger. In the present day our curiosity is turned towards genetics and what wonderful things we can create when we splice a few genes together. Of course there ARE a few crackpots out there who want to see just how bad, bad can get and start tinkering with human genes.
Apparently all human gene-splicing experiments to create super soldiers, as is the case nine times out of ten, ends up with the net result of slavering, shambling humans who are either dead or are well on their way. Of course the other end of gene-splicing is creating some horrible virus that is meant to get rid of some terrible people who don't speak your language and oops now where did that vile of the HIGHLY infectious virus go?.
Deals with the Supernatural
So you're creditors are after you, you wife just left you and you found out that that die-cast metal model of the Enterprise you ordered broke while being shipped, what better time to make a deal with Cthulu the great god of the un-dead who obviously has nothing better to do with his time than help you to get even with anyone who's ever crossed you? This of course is premise two; deals with the supernatural.
Invariably this type of premise is used when someone has lost a loved one or when stuck between a rock and a hard place. The motivation is almost always revenge and the deal always has some sort of hitch that releases hordes of un-dead nastiness upon our world leaving the deal maker either in grief or exultation. You have to wonder about the amount of free time these supernatural creatures have considering they always seem to be within earshot of someone willing to lease out their soul for a bit of vengeance.
The Locale
A zombie horde will always be found in:
- A crowded city full of well armed cops
- A small, quaint town
- An isolated military installation
- Indian Land
- B,C & D
If you answered E
, you're correct!
Locale will almost always be somewhere out of the way; small quaint towns seem to attract zombies & co like bees to honey. The key ingredient is isolation. How can zombies run rampant in a big city without alerting the presence of the large, well armed city police force or even the military?
Another locale that is always popular is the isolated military base because it lends itself to the action side of the game plus opens up the idea of military experimentation. And let's not forget Indian Land because we all know that Indian Land is synonymous with human resurrection. Occasionally, you'll get a power so malevolent that even a big city can fall prey pretty quickly.
