Fight for your life inside laboratories filled with
zombies with a taste for your flesh.
Find the keys to open access to more floors of the
laboratory, take life packs to recover your energy and save scientists
for extra points.
There are rumours about zombie bosses waiting to crush
you!
Zombie Near is an original game that I wrote for MSX
computers in my free time, between January 6, 2011 and January 26,
combining various ideas in this fully functional retro-style action game
of 128 KB. Some features are:
Big maze to explore (three-hundred different rooms).
Two-players simultaneous mode, see who wins first.
Two different characters for playing.
Retro-style graphics and sound.
Smooth animation inside game.
Underlining story.
Spanish or English language selectable.
Lots of zombies!
Today there exists several thousands of
MSX fans
and even there are competitions for creating demos and games,
one of them is MSXdev, an annual
contest for new MSX games, where
I sent Zombie Near for the
2010 edition contest.
It won 2nd place over eight entries, sharing title of the
Most Original Game. It got
good
comments from MSX users, and surprisingly for me this game has been
compared by the judges with the classic Metal Gear.
Downloads
zombienear11.zip
(link at MSXdev'10 website), right-click and select 'Save As', it sizes up at
433 kb. Includes ROM, cartridge sticker and PDF manual.
After downloading the file zombienear11.zip into a folder (by
example, My documents) and uncompressing it, install one of these suggested
emulators for the MSX platform:
BlueMSX, after installing click File
- Cartridge Slot 1 - Insert, select the ROM file.
Meisei, after decompressing click File -
Media, select ROM file for cartridge slot 1 and press Ok + Reset.
OpenMSX, after installing
launch Catapult and click Browse for Cart A, select ROM file, then
press Start.
If you're the fortunate owner of a MSX or Colecovision then
I strongly recommend you to buy the improved cartridge version ;).
Enhanced version
Matra's box, cartridge and manual, graphical design by @star2024.
Matra at Spain and
Bitwise at Netherlands showed
interest to manufacture Zombie Near cartridges playable in real MSX computers,
I've crunched it to 64K and greatly improved it with new graphics, music,
enemies, rooms, challenges and an extra ending. It was sold for the first time
at the 39th MSX user's meeting in
Barcelona, Spain, you can see
event's
photos and videos.
I've made also a 32K version for Colecovision
consoles, that includes new graphics, music, challenges and enemies, this
cartridge was
available for preordering from
Collectorvision, with option to
two striking boxes :) which started shipping in December 2012.
The limited quantity of cartridges was sold out. A few remaining
copies are available from Good Deal Games.