In Quarantine Zone: The Last Check, you play one of the hazmat-sporting goons at a government checkpoint during a zombie apocalypse. Your job is to let refugees through the gate one by one, and appraise them for evidence of infection. You know the kind of thing: hidden bite marks, weird heartbeats, high temperatures, people ripping your face off without showing appropriate documentation, etcetera.
You can pop vagrants who are looking a bit oozy in glass-walled cells, but do bear in mind that not every illness is a case of the Romeros. That groaning woman might just have indigestion. Still, best keep her in the same pen as the guy whose arms have mysteriously rotted off, just to be safe. When not working out whether pink-eyed civvies are potential shamblers, you’ll set up military defences and fend off hordes of 100% confirmed zombies. It’s Papers Please with base-building and wave survival elements, in short.
The Steam demo has been very popular, attracting 1.8 million players in two months and garnering one million Steam wishlists. Like a stack of meat strategically left out in the baking midday sun, that popularity has attracted the hideous ghouls of Devolver Digital, who have signed on as publishers. To mark the occasion, here are some Key Features.
– Immersive Inspection Mechanics: Use tools like UV flashlights, thermometers, and manual scanners to uncover signs of infection or contraband in people and their belongings.
– Resource Management: Balance limited supplies of test kits and inspection tools while maintaining order and ensuring your checkpoint remains secure.
– Dynamic Threats: Face an evolving queue of refugees–some healthy, some carrying ordinary illnesses, and others harboring deadly zombie pathogens.
– Intense Decision-Making: Choose whether to admit, quarantine, or liquidate individuals based on visual clues, document verification, and medical tests.
– Strategic Progression: Manage daily routines, from morning base reports to nighttime defenses, as the stakes rise with each passing day.
I think this has the makings of an engrossing sim, but also a very bleak one. I’m interested to know whether there’s any accompanying commentary on real-life border politics, or whether all of this is just yucking about with well-known movie tropes. In the absence of anything more substantial to say about the mechanics and supporting fiction, I would like to propose a more wholesome variation in which you try to work out whether every person at the checkpoint is secretly Buster Keaton or Barney the Dinosaur.
Is this the Barney the Dinosaur or is it just a regular dinosaur called Barney or is it Buster Keaton dressed as Barney the Dinosaur? “I love you,” you growl, caressing the barrel of your flamethrower. “Do you love me? Are we a happy family?“
If the subject remains silent, that’s surefire evidence you’ve got a Keaton on your hands, and you should on no account permit him access or he’ll start doing comical things with ladders and reduce your crack squad of grizzled exterminators to a laughing stock. Actually, that sounds great, let him in already. Anyway, Quarantine Zone is out in November.
