Previews

Stay Dead Preview - "Live life as a Zombie Family with abilities"

Stay Dead Preview - "Live life as a Zombie Family with abilities"
  • Zombie families stick together
  • Keep 'em dead because you can't use them if they're revived!
  • Party-based puzzles as every character has a special ability

Stay Dead is a cartoon-ish zombie game where you and your family need to solve different mini-game levels together! It’s chaotic, silly, and your family each have their own role to play within the game.

Your family consists of two parents, two children and one beloved family dog. All of you have become zombies: undead. In Stay Dead, you can be turned back into a human, but this is obviously not what you’d want as you then lose access to the family members. You’ll need to manage looking after your family, ensuring that you keep them undead, all while solving the level's tasks.

Stay Dead Zombies shopping inside the mall

Each of the family members has different abilities that can be used for specific puzzles. Your dog, for example, is able to dig underground and come out on the other side, allowing them to avoid barriers and create a tunnel that has you skipping an area or avoiding an obstacle. In the level that I played at GDC, I found myself using the dad to go to capture the flag points, grab the items, and then go through the checkout with each one.



This was because our family was shopping at the mall - a very normal thing to do - apart from nobody wants zombies to be at a shopping center. This level has robot enemies and conveyor belts, adding a lot of challenge to what is normally an average, everyday activity. Switching between characters to change your key ability is simple and moving around levels is quite easy too.

Stay Dead Dog about to use his ability in the game

Stay Dead feels chaotic, it feels fun, and the graphics around the zombie characters honestly deserve their own web-series. They feel right out of Cartoon Network. It’s a charming game that doesn’t lose out on how fun it is either.

There's no release date for it just yet, but you can find out more about it over on the Stay Dead website.

Jupiter Hadley
Jupiter Hadley
Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, and judges many jams and events. You can find her on Twitter as @Jupiter_Hadley