Naomi sits down with guest writer Janni-Lee Simner to talk about her experience writing a mission for the game.

It’s been a particular thrill to me as lead writer that the game’s attracted so many writing fans, and whenever I see a writer tweeting that they’re a fan, I instantly grab them and ask for a guest episode! So, we have a very exciting roster of guest-writers coming up for Season 3 of Zombies, Run! 

First up is award-winning fantasy and young adult author Janni Lee Simner, creator of the Bones of Faerie series. She’s got a fantastic episode coming up, so I asked her what attracted her to writing for the game: 

“When I first heard about Zombies, Run! my reaction was pretty much, "Oh, that’s brilliant,” because this was the first running app I’d heard of that actually gave one something to run from. I downloaded it because I thought it’d be a good way to get back to running, and was surprised to find myself invested in the characters and the story – it turned out the game wasn’t just a cute gimmick, but a really awesome piece of writing.

There’s so much I fell in love with: the characters, the fact that no one was a token anything (and the fact that no one, not even the children, existed just to be placed in danger, but everyone was a real character), the craft required to consistently tell a story in the second person, week after week, in a way that allowed every player to imagine they were the main character. And iI discovered that wanting to know what happens next is pretty much the best running motivation out there.

Also, I adore the fact that my 4.5 mile/7.25 km per hour running pace is always just fast enough to save the entire world. Every Single Time. 🙂

So I was already pretty invested in all the Zombies, Run! characters when I got the invite to write an episode.

There might have been some squeeeeeeeeing involved. Of course I wanted to enter the Zombies, Run! universe as a writer as well as a runner, and it’s been tremendously fun to get to do so.“

And of course we all have our favourite running songs, so I asked Janni Lee what hers was:

"My favorite running song changes over time, but I especially love when something wildly inappropriate comes up. Lisa Loeb’s "Snow Day” is one that does that a lot. Lyrics like “It’s not gonna matter if you fall down twice” are pretty entertaining when you’re running from zombies and it very much does matter!

And then there was the weird phase where I was running from zombies to the soundtrack from The Muppets. These things happen.“

They do. In my version of the game, Jack did something "you don’t want to know” to the theme song from James Bond. 

Naomi returns to the blog to talk about some changes that have been made to the player’s interaction with the story in Zombies, Run! 3. 

I’m really so excited to be starting to let Season 3 of Zombies, Run! loose on our audience. It’s been months in the planning – we started talking about our plot arcs and returning characters back in October 2013 – and we’ve got some fantastic surprises coming up, both in plot and in the guest writers we’ve managed to snag for this season. 

One thing we’ve wanted to do for ages was to introduce a bit of *choice* into the game for players. I know we’ve already got the base builder, and many of our Runner Fives have made amazing and beautiful Abel Townships. I thought it’d be fun to extend this kind of choice just a little bit, and give Runner Five a couple of options about what they’re actually going to do during the game. It’s this kind of thing that makes games-writing so dynamic and engaging. 

So, once or twice this season, you’ll be asked to make a decision. We had to think carefully about how to do this – for one thing, you don’t want to be having to stop and press a button while running! And it’s been a design principle from the beginning that we’ll never ‘punish’ the player too much. After all, you’re already out there running, so you’re already a hero! 

All this means that you won’t be able to destroy Abel with a single bad decision – but some of the things you do will have knock-on effects later in the game. And I’m excited to hear what you make of what we’ve done! 

Zombies, Run! lead writer, Naomi Alderman, pops into the blog with the first in a series of posts about the writing and development of the story in Season 3. First up, an introduction to the writing team.

With only a few days to go until Zombies, Run Season 3 is available, I thought it was a good moment to say a bit about the core team who’ve been working on the story with me. 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they realise that they might need a bit of help in coming up with more ideas for why an unnamed genderless protagonist is running away from zombies – and start to think that a more American ‘writer’s room’ model might work better. So, this season I’ve been privileged to work with a fabulous team of writers. 

Rebecca Levene – author, editor, TV writer and general ‘person who puts up with my terrible zombie-related moodswings’ has been my right-hand woman on Season 3. We’ve spent days walking up and down hills shouting at each other about plot. She raises the awkward questions (“but *why* would he have done that, since there’s another much simpler way to do it like this?” “shut up” “I’m right though” “shut up”) which means that the thing actually makes sense and we’ve worked out the major plot arc together. Bex has also written a bunch of hilarious, creepy, exciting, scary episodes!

I’m thrilled that our “up from the ranks” fan writer Andrea Klassen is back. Andrea’s writing is always so incredibly characterful and rich. She comes up with ideas for character backstory that are just *perfect*, and makes me wonder why I didn’t think of it myself. 

This season I’ve also brought on a couple of new-to-Zombies, Run! writers: Gavin Inglis and David Bryher. David’s an accomplished writer of games and audio drama. He worked with me on some storylining for The Walk – the creepiest missions in The Walk came from his ideas so I knew he could do a fab job on giving all our Runners Five a good scare. Gavin’s a writer and performer with a brilliantly distinctive voice and style. Check out his Cthulhu-esque Choice of Games ‘Eerie Estate Agent’, with the combination of comedy and terror that makes him a perfect choice for ZR. 

There are some fantastic guest-writers to announce for this season too… but I might just save that for another post! 

Estee Chan, the lead artist here at Six to Start, has been pretty busy recently. We grabbed her for a quick chat to discuss her work on Zombies, Run! and what else she’s been working on.

There are a lot of zombies games and TV shows out there – how do you tackle the challenge of making Zombies, Run! look different?

Good question. At the start when we were designing the first Zombies, Run!, we didn’t initially have the intention to draw in zombies for the app, since the story and audio did very well in conveying the feel of the zombies’ presence and atmosphere. The majority of the art in the ZR series is focused on the buildings in the base and environments which play an important role in the story.

The art reflecting the urgency of the situation via the damage states in the Base structure and deteriorating landscape seemed more powerful and ‘realistic’ than putting in loads of zombies. I guess that’s one visual difference of ZR compared to other zombie games – the lack of zombies in it.

We did, however, later on decide to draw in zombies for illustrative purposes e.g. in the tutorial screens, promotional poster and some of the T-shirts. However, the look of the zombies differ from the norm seen in films and other games (bloody, fleshy and gory aesthetic) while still recognisable as zombies, perhaps in a more conceptual form.

Silhouettes of dark figures seemed to work well with the clean and crisp look of the app design and even in the logo (it still feels kind of surreal to see my hand silhouettes everytime I look at it!). I remember in our early discussions one of the rules was to have NO BLOOD in the art, and so I guess we already wanted something clean and different in mind very early on.

What are you able to do in Zombies, Run! Season 3 that is different or better than in previous seasons?

We introduce artefacts in Zombies, Run! 3 and graphics are created for these to give visual detail to their text descriptions instead of just showing icons like in the previous seasons. Artefacts were used in our other app successfully – The Walk, and they help give the game richer content and add more impact and texture to the story.

In terms of the overall visual design, perhaps it’s not as big a leap as from ZR1 to ZR2, since many of the assets from ZR2 still fit very well and in-line with the design of ZR3, as it is meant to be a continuation. So we felt that it was not necessary to make a major change in the art direction as we still want the users to feel familiar and ‘at home’ with the base they know. Much of the focus was put in polishing-up the artwork and adding new content (artefacts, new buildings, add-ons and amenities) to make it richer and more relevant.

Looking at the art style, if you compare the art in the first game to the new ones you may notice that the graphics have become a lot cleaner with flat-shaded colours and outlines around buildings, as well as being less gritty. I am still surprised to hear that some people thought it was ‘pixel-art’. Perhaps the clean straight shapes and isometric perspective eluded to that. But basically it was all simply painted with various brushes in Photoshop. This proved quite tough at first especially drawing in isometric perspective for everything, keeping things properly aligned to each other and maintaining the correct scaling of buildings consistently throughout the Base, etc.

Tell us about your personal creative process.

I guess that differs between projects. Since I began work at Six to Start in 2010, every project had been fun and challenging. For example, early client work such as The Code for the BBC involved a lot of planning for the exact art assets needed to complement the design. It was mainly working very closely with the game designers and developers and producing batches of graphics to set schedules, and the tasks were managed one after another until completion.

Only later with Six to Start’s own projects was there more creative freedom and input in the artwork and style of graphics. For the Zombies, Run! series and its C25K app there was flexibility in how they could look, and the artwork was iterated and revised throughout many discussions until a final preferred style was adopted.

Often while working on the main projects I will be working on other projects in the same time. During the client work period I was working on The Code plus art for several smaller projects for other clients; and during the Zombies, Run! series I was also working on the art for The Walk whilst brainstorming and mocking-up designs for a few other new games (more on those later).

Being the only artist in the team, it was very important and my responsibility to manage and balance the amount of time spent between projects and allocate tasks accordingly to meet various soft and hard deadlines. At times when it was tough it was necessary to hire other artists to help out, in particular for some of the Base art in ZR2 and the maps art in The Walk.

In terms of how I go about with developing the work creatively, after getting the brief or concept of the design, I usually start by sketching out ideas and then mockup some designs in Photoshop. I use a lot of reference and inspiration from things I see, images online, books, etc. in order to make the designs I create look more convincing. Mockup art is shown to the team throughout early development to allow feedback and comments which helps further the design and art direction.

Often ideas will be bounced around for a period between the designers, writers, developers, etc. until more solid concepts can be realised, and I find that the various input from everyone helps inform the art I create in the end. In the latter half of development, I usually work more closely with the developers to complete the assets needed for the code and resolve any problems that may sometimes arise in the process.

Other than artwork for Zombies, Run!, what other projects are you working on?

We recently finished The Walk which is a very beautiful app thanks to the amazing map artists Kasha and Dakota. We’re currently putting the final few touches on ZR3 before release and I’m working on two new games – one is very different to other games I’ve worked on in terms of tone, style and content; as well as being more ‘action-based’ I guess and probably Six to Start’s first game with 3D content and animations!

So I’m really excited about that. The other game is smaller in scale (however would probably end up being quite addictive) and the idea is a lot simpler with probably cuter-looking art – which is something we haven’t really done before – think cute, colourful, brighter, happier game perhaps?

Zombies, Run! has changed a lot since its humble beginnings two years ago. We’ve added many more game modes and features and, with the impending launch of Zombies, Run! Season 3, this seems like the perfect time to take a look at what’s currently available in the game. We’ve got long runs and short runs, light hearted frolics and epic odysseys. There’s something for every runner and every gamer!

Season One

Where it all began: this 23-mission season throws you straight into the world after the zombie outbreak, and introduces you to the characters and stories of one of the last outposts of humanity: Abel Township.

Supply

Set during Season One, these seven supply missions are replayable, randomised runs during which the residents of Abel will request specific items for you to find. Great for when you don’t fancy listening to a whole mission, but still need to gather supplies to develop your township!

Race

These special race missions are set during the latter part of Season One and differ from normal missions by requiring you to run a set distance. Six races exist in all: two 5ks, two 10ks and two 20ks. During these missions, the story progresses each time you hit a new distance milestone (rather than at the end of your songs). These are a must-play for Zombies, Run! completionists out there!

Season Two

Zombies, Run! Season Two includes a whopping 40 main missions, with 23 side missions. That’s 63 new runs, during which you investigate the mysterious Van Ark and find out how he was involved in the initial zombie outbreak.

Season Three

A new 60-mission season arrives in April: the next chapter in the war against the zombies. Zombies, Run! Season Three will be bigger than ever and take you further from Abel than you’ve ever been before…

Radio

Fancy a more light hearted run? Jack and Eugene’s Radio Abel will keep you entertained without having to worry about pesky zombies or saving the world.

Airdrop

Another special type of mission, Airdrop allows you to set your own airdrop waypoint using real world maps. Run to-and-from the waypoint and you’ll be fed a specially made mission, just for you.

Is that everything? Probably. For the next few weeks, at least…

As previously mentioned Zombies, Run! Season 3 will feature plenty of improvements. Today we’re ready to reveal the game’s vastly improved Statistics page (still work-in-progress), which will give you a detailed breakdown of your running history and in-game activity.

Many of the stats you’re used to seeing on ZombieLink (and a few new ones) will now be also presented within the app, graphed week-by-week. Along with tracking running stats such as total distance, average pace, and average time running, we’ll also be keeping an eye on game-related information, such as how many supplies you’ve collected, your base population over time, and how often you’ve evaded zombie chases.

Even better, we’ll also be showing you a top 20 list of the music and artists you play most frequently. All of this, right from inside the app!

The Android version of Zombies, Run! Season 3 will feature a statistics page too, of course, and we’re working hard on making that as fully-featured as possible. And don’t forget that whatever platform you’re on, you can still access detailed stats from ZombieLink!

Players who’ve been with us since Season One may remember the Codex, an in-app catalogue of all the items and artefacts you encounter as you play the game. We’re pleased to announce that in Season Three, we’re bringing the Codex back!

We’ve refreshed the look of the Codex and expanded it to include more detailed information about each item within the app itself. We’ve also completely redrawn the artwork for all of the Season One artefacts – and most importantly, we’ll be including plenty of new and important story artefacts for you to discover in Season Three.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to improvements to the Zombies, Run! app for Season Three. We’ll have more information and new screenshots about further enhancements for you shortly!