Melbournites might remember one fine day just over a year ago when our fantasies of the dead walking the earth was turned into a reality. That was Patient 0, a real life zombie apocalypse game. And now its sequel, Lazarus, has broken the record for Pozible campaign funding — but whether it reaches its goal or not in the week left is going to be a nail-biter.
The game currently sits at about $258,000 of its $308,000 target with seven days to go, making things very exciting but uncomfortable for the organisers. It’s enough to break the record for a Pozible campaign — but not yet enough to actually get funded.
It looks like Lazarus will be far from just dumping you into an arena with nerf guns and zombies at the other end. It looks like you’ll be communicating with game officials and working your way deeper into a facility to uncover the history of the zombie outbreak — with equal time runnning, fighting, solving puzzles, and hiding.
In their own words:
Lazarus isn’t a deathmatch, you and your team will have your own unique experience, only meeting other teams in selected areas where you can complete secondary mission objectives. How these set pieces play out is up to you, you can co-operate and work together against waves of undead and vile deformed mutants; or you can fight them. Who lives and who dies in Lazarus is entire up to you.
It looks pretty damn cool — though some will want to know that this game will feature a “pain belt” worn over the clothing which gives a small electric shock when you’re taking damage. As they say, “real pain gives you real fear.”
Yesterday we mentioned that you can see the founder of the company behind these zombie games, IRL Shooter, giving a talk to promote the campaign. And if you want to help make Lazarus a reality, you can do that here.
Comments
5 responses to “One Week To Make Melbourne’s Next Zombie Apocalypse Happen”
I was super excited about Patient-0, so I got a full crew together very early on and we were some of the first round purchasers. We are all regular fps players who gamed together frequently.
It’s hard to explain the disappointment and frustration we experienced after Patient-0, because for all the moments of fun we had with the game, there were moments that completely ruined the experience and our memories of the event.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as belittled in a short space of time than I was during Patient-0. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it was a consistent effect for the game. But I witnessed some other team’s briefings and that attitude and demeanor we received was not there. Maybe if I hadn’t seen that, I wouldn’t have known any better. But the fact was, I did. Myself and people in my team were made to feel like fools and we essentially paid them to make us feel like that.
Also, I’ve understand the psychology military use to break someone down to get them to focus, but if that was the intention here; it was a huge failure.
Another big issue was one teammate had his three weapons’ holosights all fail, to the point where they pretty much said “bad luck”. Afterwards I asked how he coped and he said he couldn’t shoot shit. We were towards the end of the first sessions. I’m not sure if they ended up fixing them later on, but irregardless of that fact: we paid the same amount of money as others, we expect the same level of service.
For these reasons, I just don’t trust these guys to back them again. However I still think they’re doing something exciting, so I hope to hear better things if they get it past the funding mark.
I never ended up hearing much positive feed back from these Patient-0 so probably you weren’t the only ones who weren’t happy with the experience. I have heard of another bunch of people putting together something similar that sounds pretty exciting also looking for funding called Inversion VR from Zero Latency, they are using oculus and other VR tech to create a similar experience.
I thought Patient 0 was an absolute blast, personally. I really hope this gets funded, because I can’t wait to go round 2.
Is it just me or is the pozible page for this not working?
Every start up company has it’s hinks in their first years of operation! I played patient 0 and agree that things could have been better, especially since the scoring didn’t happen but given that they are the first to do IRL games, I was able to just appreciate the effort! From what I’ve read they’ve replaced everything that sucked about the first game, the new guns alone look AMAZEBALLS. They are getting rid of that barking military style stuff too, there are posts about the improvements on the forums!
Good luck to them, if they stick to the improvements they have listed, Lazarus is going to kick ass.
And HELL YEAH to zero latency 🙂 Pledged for that too.
I was one of the first backers for Patient-0. I played the first Patient-0 on the first night it was open. Were there teething issues? Yep. Were they all the organiser’s fault? Nope.
First off, they hadn’t accounted for just how long people would spend dawdling. So session times blew out. They also hadn’t accounted for the fact that some people are just dicks and were using the guns like battering rams to break through doors. This ended up with a few guns not working properly and having to be replaced.
That said, the night was an amazing one. For about a week before the game we got emails instructing us of secret missions & which alliances we should make within the team. We were also pitted against each other psychologically. We read all the briefings and watched all the tactics videos to get ourselves in shape for it.
The briefing was fun and storyline was great. My favourite part was trying to rescue a survivor, only to see a whole horde of zombies come running at us, my mates scrambling to safety through an airduct, then watching a survivor get dragged off, screaming while we ran for our lives. One of the best things i’ve ever seen. My team-mates were actually scared when I ordered them to go on point for clearing rooms.
You get out of this what you put in. I know groups who went in laughing and joking and acting like idiots who just didn’t like it. They expected Zone 3. We went in completely immersed in the story and came out pumped.
If you’re on the edge about this one, buy a ticket. You won’t regret it. Just remember: you get out what you put in.
I was in the first few people to buy a 6 pack of tickets again (my friends all wanted to do it again, one of them flying from Perth just to do it). I hope more than anything that this gets funded again. I’d do this once a year without hesitation.
Great series on zombie apocalypse or other emergency preparedness