It's the end of the world, and you and a group of embittered soldiers are holed up in an abandoned research facility with a few hundred zombies under lock and key. Time to release your frustrations in the bloodiest way possible? Well... maybe not. Lab of the Dead by Evil Dog and SickDeathFiend is a unique spin on the zombie game. Part simulation, part puzzle, all shambling monster, it puts you in the shoes of a scientist scrambling to amass all the data he can on the horde at his mercy, and whether he does so with patience and compassion or cold violence is entirely up to you.
Pick a zombie, any zombie; it doesn't matter which you choose, but the way you deal with it does. The game consists of working with your new rotting pal in a run-down lab, offering it different things and observing both how it reacts, and how those reactions change depending on its mood, hunger, humanity, and so forth. Just click on the icons at the bottom of the screen to get started and experiment; the three categories are weapons, food, and objects, and while each one is fairly self explanatory, the zombie's reaction to them depends not only on their mental wellbeing, but on their own personal tastes, since each one prefers different things. The game's currency is RP, Research Points, which you earn simply by interacting with your zombie, and you can spend on everything from new items and weapons to research upgrades that can influence things like point gain and overall influence on your zombie. In order to progress the story and get new items, however, you'll have to satisfy specific requirements for each stage, such as achieving unique reactions or using enough items. You'll also be able to find notes and tapes left behind by the mysterious "Alpha Team" who occupied the facility before you... who, by the way, have a disappointing lack of "Masters of Unlocking" on staff.
Analysis: Lab of the Dead is a bit of an odd duck, but a welcome one. The game is actually really well presented across the board, with some surprisingly strong voice acting performances, appropriately chosen musical tracks, solid writing, and of course, expressive zombies. It's clear that a ton of thought and work went into this one, and the result is zombie game that stands apart from the pack. In most cases, however, how you feel about the game is going to be tied to how you feel about your test subjects. It's slow moving, and sorely needs to let you press a button to skip reaction animations you've seen before, and combined with the amount of grinding for points you might need to do, it isn't a game for everyone.
However, it's actually surprising at how engrossing it can get when you least expect it. You may go into it expecting your typical slice-and-dice zombie game, but depending on your attitude it can be anything but. On the other hand, having to research items fully and tweak your undead pal's mood and status before you can achieve certain reactions can also be sort of frustrating. Darnit, zombie, you are going to have a touching moment of humanity with that dead rat and you are going to like it! What was interesting about the game for me personally was that it showed me what a weak stomach I actually have for violence; take a creature I've blown up remorselessly multiple times in other games, chain it to a wall, and have it stroke a dead rat with an expression of perplexed, vague sadness and I can't bring myself to hurt it. I wonder if Buffy ever has this problem?
Lab of the Dead is a lot of things; sometimes creepy, sometimes funny, sometimes even oddly touching. Fans of more action-packed, splatter-iffic zombie games might want to check out Evil Dog's earlier work, Road of the Dead, which incidentally takes place right around the same time this game does. If, however, you've always secretly suspected you and Bub would have totally rocked the scientific community and made movie-goers everywhere tear up like they're watching the end of Old Yeller, you just might find something to love about Lab of the Dead. At the very least you should give it a try. And, hey, turns out, zombies and lollipops? Comedy gold.
Gosh this game takes a long time to load
[It's 28MB in size. There's a lot of voice over work in it. -Jay]
Maybe I'm just being dense, but I'm not seeing any way to REVIEW your research on specific items, or to research items after you've moved on to something else. You may want to bring a pencil and notepad and write down the information irl if you want it to actually be useful to you.
*edit to above* Never mind - one of the notes you can research lets you know how to research/view the specific information for each item. Mind you, the note doesn't become available until at least day 8.
This game looks great, but unfortunately I will never know because the load time is ridiculous.
Also, the 30 second ads you guys are using are really loud. Just saying.
You whippersnappers. Load times? Go make a snack and then play.
So how do you unlock the advanced reaction for the Bone item, because I did everything it said in the research but it doesn't unlock or activate. Am I missing something or is this a bug?
I usually don't like zombie games but this one is very good and it keeps you hooked! It is worth the loading time wait.
the game was recently patched to version 1.2 that should of fixed the bone adv. issue and a number of other things, and tweaks.
This game would be a lot better if there was a way to skip the mini cutscenes after you click an object (especially when you are at the stage of building stats without seeing different results from that action) and also if there wasn't a punishment for using the same item too many times, even though the number of times isn't specified.
Yeah it was interesting for a little while, but all the
Having to repeat actions you already 'know' just to build up points to do some really slow research
and
Having to kill off your zombie in order to try a different one because you haven't 'discovered' and 'researched' any items etc that could possibly give something other than a 'basic reaction'
made the game a little tedious.
Maybe organising the game to make it slightly more like 'Asylum' (the stuffed toy psychiatric thing) would remove some of the tediousness.
Interesting concept though.
@Traven Torsvan:
Do you have all three basic reactions? While it isn't mentioned in the advanced reaction requirements, all advanced reactions require you to have seen all three basic reactions first.
i played it for like an hour, this game is SLOW paced. nice idea, nicely put in scene, but come on, i have other things to do than to stare on a zombie dropping a stick for the twentieth time
Does anyone know what determines how long a day is? Because it seems like you have to get MOST of the objectives, but not necessarily all the alpha notes or tapes.
Best game ever. Pokemon or Doodle God with Zombies.Great in references to Day of the Dead.
I haven't been able to stop playing this game. I find it quite enthralling. Currently, I'm at 99.7% completion. The only achievement I've left is to find every way to rip off their jaws.
From what I remember, I've gotten em off with:
The Stick (takes a few hits), Crowbar, Baseball Bat, and Fan
In terms of how long a day is, I could have sworn that each new daily log is only made after finishing all objectives, but now that you mention it, there may have been a couple occasions where a new event occurred seemingly randomly like
when the officer comes in and shoots the specimen you're currently studying
Btw, your 'daily' logs start out daily, but they begin to skip days when you get further into the game.
I can't seem to get this game to load. After waiting 30 min for the 30 second add to end (no I'm not exaggerating) it says searching location and only gets to 2 or 3%. I've refreshed several times, cleared out my browser history, and tried another browser but it still isn't working :(
[The game is HUGE, 28MB, so depending on your download speed, it could take a very long time. This is one of the largest Flash games I've ever seen. There is a lot of voice over work in the game. -Jay]
I don't want to kill my zombie, I've spent an hour giving her 100% mood and humanity, she's sitting there quite happy to play with the toys I give her, why should I kill her off just to get a new one? This game is making me feel horrible. :(
I don't like the way each new stage requires me to discover so many new reactions from my zombie. I end up having to hurt him just to meet the quota, & I just feel horrible doing that when he's so peaceful (both his mood and humanity are in the high 90s-100% range).
I've never treated my zombies badly enough to merit aggressive reactions from them, & I'm darn proud of it.
Like several commenters here, I tried to be as humane as possible to my zombie. Even smacking her around with a crowbar made me feel terrible. And the more care I showed, I'd be rewarded with surprising, pathos-inducing signs of the person this Flash-animated zombie "used to be". So I ground through several weeks, slowly raising her humanity and mood, exhausting all items that weren't weapons - til I came to a point were my progress had ground to a halt, because I wouldn't hurt her. Meanwhile, the situation of the POV character both mirrored and amplified my feelings - right as I realized I couldn't go any further, the narration spoke of disassociating himself, shutting down his feelings in order to forge ahead. I realized I had to make a choice: leave this carefully crafted, tightly focused, compelling game, knowing I probably wouldn't pick it up again - or accede to the demands of the story?
So: I gave my zombie, who had reached 100% humanity and mood, her favorite rubber ducky to play with a few times - and then I shot her in the head. Then: I picked the gnarliest, most inhuman-looking zombie, and chopped, beat, and shot the heck out of him (or several of him; I still ended up wanting to put him out of his misery quickly). Then, a strange thing happened: after burning through all the aggro responses, I dumped all my points into optimizing research, and began carefully min/maxing stimulus to get the advanced responses. I even made a little chart.
I had begun to dissociate.
I had begun to think like a scientist.
I think this game is kind of amazing.
I'm still trying to get the advanced response to the teddy bear, myself. I have 4/4 on all animals but the cat (who requires the teddy bear to be 4/4), 100% mood, 100% humanity, 0% hunger, and yet nothing's happening. >.<
lol some of you guys read too much into this, and aint that what zombies are for? killing? if this world ended and became zombyfied (is it a word?) what are you gonna have to do? kill them? or love them and give them toys to play with? lol
I got a little frustrated with the Teddy at first. It was the last 'object' from which I was able to get the advanced reaction. I quit the game and came back to it with a little more patience and proceeded to re-elicit the the Advanced, Passive, and Neutral responses for the Rat, Bunny, Dog, and Cat, both alive and dead (though, the Advanced reaction to the live cat wasn't possible at that point).
Once I got my zombie back into the proper mood and such, I tried the Teddy again, and I got the reaction I was looking for. Sadly, I'm not sure which of these actions were required for the Teddy to work.
{They recently released a new version of the game in which they addressed the Teddy issue. Where it used to vaguely ask for interaction with 3 furry animals, it now says it specifically requires interaction with just the Rat and Bunny. I'm still not too sure if they have to be Passive, Advanced, or Neutral}
Pretty addictive game. I like that each specimen has different items it likes, though that does make it harder to achieve if it likes an item that isn't available until much later, unless I'm missing something.
While killing your specimen will get you a new reaction, you at least don't have to do it again as each reaction will be saved over to the new specimen. But in terms of discovering which items yield the best reactions, it's hit and miss. It feels like you're playing with random items trying to trigger the next level of reaction, and often time those items aren't even available yet which makes for slow progress.
Instead of item research, I'd much rather that there be a store where you can purchase items from. Leave the research to the actual scientific research.
Otherwise, a nice little game.
Hmm, I tried to figure out exactly what was required for the Teddy on a fresh new zombie, but I was able to get the Advanced reaction from before I even showed him the Rat or Bunny.
So, just like the POV Character,
I am unable to draw any conclusions ;p
*cough* sure we'd love'em, we'd LOVE'EM TO DEATH! (hey it's not my fault that slutty zombie whore was baring her midriff like that!
Have any of you figured out what 'fully damaged' means? I shot the businessman zombie with all the guns that don't remove limbs, then did crossbow, then beat him everywhere with the blunt weapons. I still haven't gotten it. Do I need to unlock one more?
I am right after the death threat (because I figured the game would end pretty soon after that.) For weapons I have stick, crowbar, bat, knife.
Rarely has a game so thoroughly engaged me on on emotional level. If it were not for the unskippable animations, I would have given this a 5.
Here's a few secrets/spoilers & Answers
How to get the teddy bear "Advanced Animation"
You have to first have the zombie pet & touch both the Rat and the Bunny in both ways Passive & Advanced Prior to the Teddy Bear
How to get advanced reactions
First get all 3 reactions. Neutral, passive and Agressive. Then Research that item to see what the requirements are for Advanced reaction
Btw, anybody found out how to get the Jaw Achievement?
The concept's fantastic, but the execution is lacking. The game just gets too repetitive and boring.
I'm also stuck on the teddy bear and the alive cat. Is this the newest version of the game?
items usually have 4 actions:
passive , aggressive, natural, advance
(hold the icon to see how to achieve each action, yea, you have to research twice again)
what a tedious job
it takes ages even with x5 speed and unlimited RP, i can imagine you have to burn a year of your life if you play in normal way
i am not going to do the same thing over and over again to unlock all short cut scenes (actually not that fun to see)
the author took 3 months to write this game, we appreciated the effort,
his previous zombie driving game was the best,
but this one just ..... not fun
My eyes are starting to bleed from playing this game. I Currently, I'm at 99.3%. The only achievements I've left is the ultimate damage one and to rip off their jaws.
(tried crowbar,baseball,stick,fan) i also punched the living daylights out of the poor cadaver. any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Is anyone still having trouble with the advanced reaction for the teddy bear? My description doesn't mention anything about what types of animals, it says "The specimen must have calmly felt the softness of 3 animals to appreciate this new type of softness.", so I'm not sure what version this game is. I've seen the zombie petting all four animals (rat, bunny, dog, cat), but I don't remember whether they were the dead or live animals. Can anyone post a detailed description of which animals to pet, and exactly which reactions to achieve on those animals? Much appreciated.
The version hosted here isn't the newest one; the newer versions are supposed to have fixed the bugged reactions.
[It is now. EvilDog has been uploading several new versions since the game's release and I've been trying to stay on top of them. The current and latest version is V1.33 as of the date/time of this comment. -Jay]
Thanks Jay! Time to finish the game off!
It looks like the game's been properly fixed with the latest version (v1.33) so that the boxing gloves now rip off the jaw. Woot, 100% completion.
In terms of fully damaging the zombies, here's what I did:
1) Hit him 3 times in each limb and chest with the pistol, rifle, crossbow, and machine gun
2) Hit him 3 times in each limb, chest, AND head with the knife and nail gun.
3) Shoot him once in the stomach with the shotgun
Got FULLY DAMAGING a zombie, I would add that beside HeyZeusss said you must also break his jaw !
Oh yeah, forgot about the jaw. Thanks JohnTra.
The ripping off of the jaw with the boxing gloves still does not work for me, I'm afraid.
Ok, so my specimen's an animal lover, yet he bit a bunny and decapitated a rat. Weird.
I've just started this game and think it's quite good, although the zombie's eyes are kind of creepy, but the only reactions I can get are neutral. How can I sort this out?
Does the game just ends at
Research Terminated or is there something I am supposed to do like complete all achievements (thus completing the research 100%) to trigger an ending? :S
how do i complete "try all food items"? I've accomplished every other achievement and gotten 4/4 or 3/3 on all the items. Any tips?
@ Kes:
It does work now. It is the same as stick though - you have to try a LOT of times (for me it was like dozen or so until I got the deserver reaction).
I'm with R.
Could anyone let us know?
New version up (v1.34):
Fixed research speed modifiers to show up correctly in the review research note.
only for those who have finished the game:
is there only one ending? at cpt. Wood test I performed poorly and ended up killing everyone with a syringe
P: I don't think so.
How else would you be able to collect human meat?
for the human meat reactions, sharing is developed by getting the advanced reaction from the candy bar, and i believe patience is developed by getting the advanced reaction from the kabob, though i'm not sure about that yet.
How many days does this game go on for??
In response to X and R,
sadly, once your research is 'terminated', so is the story. Getting 100% completion earns you nothing but achievements
@JIGuest: it's a little over 90 days.
Has anyone seen any endings other than:
Cpt. Wood shooting my test subject, I kill everyone to save the research subjects/zombies and harvest some human meat, then nothing.
After killing everyone I had one more round of objectives, completed them, then it just ended. My Research Objectives paper says:
"No more objective
Research terminated.
Conclusion:
I was not able to find anything conclusive that could help resolve this crisis. Due to lack of equipment and assistance, the results I found were insufficient. I will leave this place as soon as I can.
When Cpt. Wood demanded I show my progress I had advanced reactions in every item and my zombie was at 100% mood, 100% humanity, 0% hunger. His bunny-petting and guitar playing skills weren't enough to stop him from being shot.
This has been a fun game, but if the only possible ending is me murdering everyone to save the research then total failure/giving up on the research, that sucks.
How to get... like... ANY advanced reactions? I got pretty much EVERYTHING 3/4. I can't get a bloody advanced one. What to do!?
@ Villies:
Have you research the items? That will tell you what stats you need. Just click and hold on an item to get to the research screen (this also shows you the current stats of your zombie).
So, I've got a question:
My loading time is fine, but when I actually play, sometimes the animation will slow down to about half-speed. Everything else is at normal speed: the sounds, the voices, the research, etc. But the interactions with the zombie are all in slow-motion. No matter how many times I refresh the page, lower the quality or wait a few minutes and come back, this problem persists and won't go back to normal until the next day or so.
What do I do about it?
[Download speed and playing a Flash game are two different animals. The first is a limited by your broadband internet service provider, the other by the brand and model of CPU in your computer. A couple of things to try. First, if you're using Firefox to play Flash games, try either closing all other tabs and windows, or use Chrome. Firefox is not yet multi-threaded and Chrome is. Multi-threaded means Flash games should run faster for you. Also, if you continue to have performance issues, try to close any other applications that may also be running in the background. I hope that helps. -Jay]
so i made up my own ending...
after getting 100% achievement, etc..
The good doctor gets the blond zombie all happy, calm, and what not... Then makes sure she doesn't eat the human meat (so she won't eat him). He decides to name her Pah-mella and then lets her try her profession as a singer (since the microphone is her preferred item) and she performs for the other zombies in the storage room during happy hour. They live happily ever after watching the toy plane fly around while ripping off barbie's legs and eating scrumptious kabobs. The end
i got 2 out of the basic reactions and i need the aggressive reaction but im at 100 mood 100 humanity and i don't want to go all the way down again
I really wish there was a way to set a zombie aside and work on a different one for a while, then come back to the first one. The way the game is set up it forces you to put your zombie through daily mood swings in order to get all the different reactions. It would be really great if I could get one zombie into a good mood and a different one in an aggressive mood, and just keep them in those moods. It would really cut down on the grinding needed to complete the game.
Basic tips:
Earn RP to advance research especially in improving RP award and lowering costs.
Do your research and read what it says. Some of the advance reactions need you to have done some other reactions first.
Days are completed once you've met all of the objectives, and food even if not eaten doesn't count as an item
for those looking to knock off the jaw this is what i got...
stick (multiple times) crowbar boxing gloves, fan, bat
pretty disappointing that there is no real ending, i spend 2 hours trying to reach 100% completed, i was very curious about how the story would end
Hewitt, I had almost an opposite playthrough.
I'd start out with using just weapons- after achieving all the basic reactions I could, I'd torture the zombie to go after the aggressive reactions. Then, I'd get new items, kill the zombie, rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, the scientist was under a lot of stress and seemed very angry with his situation, which was mainly caused by the zombies. So, what he was doing seemed fitting.
Then, when he made the log saying, "I need to set my emotions aside and focus on my work", that was around the time my research had lost its momentum. So, I started to work on making the zombies docile- setting aside the scientist's feelings of hurt instead of taking them out on the subjects. I started to connect with the zombie. She was becoming more humane and passive, and I was getting her to do all kinds of things that made me laugh, stare in awe, and even tear up a little.
That type of playthrough gave the ending a much more emotional impact for me.
The guy came in and shot her just after I'd achieved the advanced reactions with the animals and the cell phone. I felt like the scientist's rampage was kind of justified, because this was not only the specimen on which he worked the hardest, it was the only "living" thing in the whole complex that he could relate to. I think it was beyond that, too. He loved that zombie.
I do agree, though, I want there to be an alternate ending. I imagine the key lies in
impressing the commanding officer when he asks you to show him reactions.
completed the game and got one hundred percent of the research completed no final video, damn my need to complete games!
I'm playing for a while now. But I can not perform the aggressive reaction to the dead cat. Could you help me?
This game is very easy if you approach with a logical attitude, however, bad code ruins enjoyment. I Got down so the only item remaining was 3/4 on dead cat, this was before woods comes in and shoots your subject (several levels before the human meat) As soon as the meat appeared I got 4/4 very quicky. I have now reached the end of the game and still no 4/4 on the dead cat. I'm fuming, what a waste of time if the game gets stuck in a loop. yes be creative and make in depth games that require latteral thinking, but if you can't code without open ends then don't make such complicated logic requirements on your coding. good game, lacking in delivery. I will not be paying for another one of your games.
I think that to (maybe) get an alternate ending, we need to show wood good progress. As I recall, when he walks in, he had already found the Alpha team logs and understands that the whole thing was intended as a military weapon. So here are some reactions that I think might make him happy.
Advanced reaction for "Loaded Pistol" where zombie salutes to the player.
Advanced reaction for "Firecrackers" where zombie is able to kick away danger.
Advanced reaction for "Meat Bucket" where zombie eats using fork.
Advanced reaction for "Radio" to show zombie competence with handling a radio
Then finally maybe kill the zombie and let him walk out, or some other nice reaction like using the cell phone properly.
Perhaps if you just show him only advanced reactions he'll be impressed and you'll get a good ending?
How can I make the zombie have an aggressive reflex to get the advanced reaction for the firecrackers?
Kiyoshi - You need aggressive reflex with the LEGS.
Because there is a separate aggressive reflex requirement involving the beach ball.
Pillowyay, there's a problem there.
I don't believe Firecrackers are even unlocked by that point, due to them being the last Object; and, you cannot use weapons, aside from Objects like the Loaded Gun (I tried using a weapon, it ended up saying "Woods won't take kindly to me using a weapon... (sic)") So, I don't think it changes, any way you do it.
I've gotten every reaction, almost every achievement, which contributes to your Research Completion Percent. Eh.
It's a great game, really, and it's story is incredible... just, I want to see
if the "good" doctor ever leaves, as he states he'll leave "the next chance I get." Except, well, you don't. It is, like stated above, linked to the Road of the Dead.
SkylerF - But what itens should I use? I already used all aggressive and neutral reactions so what's missing?
Nice game with a stupid ending. Nothing happens! get 100% researched and that's it? Boring!
When he talks about his stupid brother and talks about being worried about and not being sure what
happened to him, is that supposed to be the guy from road of the dead
Nice game. Did take some hours to complete but was totally worth it.
Breaking jaw was probably hardest achievement for me... Luckily i did find some hints here.
Totally agree with Joker on this one. Seeing how much effort went into this game, I half expected an amazing storyline... If it was up to me, I would have trained my zombie pal to hunt down the soldiers- after they've been taken out, use Zack's newly found skills to train the others... Wasn't that the point of the experiment in the first place?
I love the concept, and it's one of the few zombie games where I felt that zombies were actually a necessary artistic choice, and not just a lazy catch-all baddie tacked on to get the "zombie" tag and resultant increased pageviews... particularly because of its brilliant inversion of the trope.
(seriously, I think almost every zombie-killing game would be loads more interesting if there were some other monster besides zombies... but a zombie RESEARCH game? Now this is interesting).
That said, the implementation had some problems. Here are my suggestions:
1. If we must level-grind for points, don't make us grind for "improved research TIME." The tedious waiting part was the most obnoxious part of getting started in this game, and it almost put me off the whole thing.
Either that, or let us have more than one research project going at a time. That might almost redeem the wait-times, actually.
2. Speaking of waiting, perhaps if they didn't have quite so many voice-over snippets, the game might load faster? The voice-acting may add "Flavor," but I got really annoyed hearing the same breathless "I've researched this thus-and-such!" after each research of a specific type. Just have the voice files for the journal entries rather than repetitive punctuation.
3. If there is a better ending, at least make it SLIGHTLY easier to get. If there isn't one, make one. Seriously. Give us a POINT to all this at least.
4. Let us work on more than one zombie at a time.
Perhaps if we could even get two subjects to witness each others' reactions for the "understanding" requirements, so we don't have to keep dragging each one's meters back and forth just to cover the necessary cross-requirements?
If a sequel does this stuff, I will rank it as one of the greatest games of all time.
Whether or not you have fun playing this is the true test of a scientist! Killing zombies? Naaaw, let's research that ****!
I just finished this. The only real problem I've seen with this game is how inconclusive it is. I thought I would get a good ending if I got 100%, and a bad ending if I didn't. But no, no ending either way. I spent four days on this. Never closed the window. The advanced reaction for
the dead dog
broke my heart.
Good lord, will someone tell me how to get the advanced reaction to the taser? Ive done all the basic and my stats are correct.
I've already got 94% completion
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