Yesterday we gave you all a release date for the all-new Zombies, Run! and season four. Today we’re giving you an even better present: the third and final part in Shannon Ehrola’s amazing Zombies, Run! comic series. Check it out below and don’t forget to give Shannon the praise she deserves!
It’s finally time. You’ve heard about the new features and the new interface, about our improvements to Season 1 and the Base Builder.
Now it’s time to tell you the all-new Zombies, Run! is launching on Thursday May 14th and with it, the first missions of Season 4!
The new version of Zombies, Run! represents the biggest set of changes to the app since we first launched back in 2012; it looks better, works better and has a whole raft of brand-new features. This really is the best ever version of Zombies, Run! and we can’t wait for you all to get your hands on it.
To celebrate, we’ll be having our Season 4 wrap party in North London on Monday May 11th, and we’re giving away a handful of tickets to Zombies, Run! fans!
We can’t provide travel to or from the venue, but if you can get yourself there and fancy coming along to celebrate the launch of Season 4 with us, email matt at sixtostart dot com.
We’ll draw names out of a hat on Thursday May 7th and get in touch to let you know whether you’ve been successful, and where and when the party will be. We’re excited to see you!
We always knew Shannon Ehrola’s work was something special — and your amazing response to her first Zombies, Run! comic proved it.
Never wanting to let good feels go to waste, we figured we’d keep the ball rolling this week by showing off the second of Shannon’s three awesome Zombies, Run! comics. So, here it is for your reading pleasure. Make sure you let Shannon know exactly how much you love it!
Season 4 approaches, and with it, a massive update to the game you all know and love. You’ve heard about the reordering of Season 1, the myriad new features, and the brand spanking new design.
Today, we want to look at one more improvement: rebalancing the Base Builder.
First things first: Don’t worry! These changes will not affect your existing base. Anything you’ve built will stay built. Any supplies you’ve gathered will stay safely inside their stores. The following improvements will only affect runs completed after the launch of Season 4 and buildings built after that point.
OK, with those honking great caveats out of the way, here’s how we’re making your base builder so much better with the next update.
Rebalancing resources gained from runs: You’ll now gain three materials the first time you run any story mission, from the start of Season 1 right through Season 4. This should make runs more rewarding for new players, who otherwise had to do a lot of work to grow Abel. We’ll also be fixing a bug which has caused people to gain far too many supplies from some missions.
Result: No more massive surplus of supplies! No more materials drought in Season 1!
Changing building pre-requisites: A lot of people have told us that pre-requisites for buildings can be too complicated and difficult to achieve, especially in the early game.
We’ve taken a long, hard look at how a typical player progresses through the base builder and we’ve rebalanced the costs and pre-requisites to make this all a lot smoother and more intuitive. Taking Abel Township from a small pile of rubble to a thriving post-apocalypse metropolis has never been more fun!
With these changes, we hope you’ll find rebuilding Abel as enjoyable and rewarding as running to save it.
Here at StS HQ, we’re always on the lookout for opportunities to show off fantastic work created by our fans, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or in our regular community round-ups. We’ve taken this even further by commissioning the amazing Shannon Ehrola (who you might remember from this favourite) to create three one-page comics that help explain the glory that is ZR.
We’ll be releasing the others a little bit closer to launch, but we just couldn’t resist sharing the first in the sequence with you right now. Check this out, and don’t forget to share the love with Shannon!
This Spring, we’re planning an Abel Township-sized upgrade to Zombies, Run! Along with adding 40 new missions in Season 4, auto-playing of multiple missions, estimated run durations, and improved Spotify and Google Play Music support, we’ll be redesigning the app to make it easier and more fun to use than ever.
It’s tempting to redesign apps just for the sake of making them look shiny and new. The problem is that redesigns take time that could be used on other features, and they can confuse existing players. But there were a few specific issues we wanted to fix.
Note: These are all real screenshots (not mockups) taken from work-in-progress versions of the app.
For example, when you’re deep into Season 2 or 3, it can be difficult to remember what’s happened in the story without going to the ZombieLink website. By bringing back individual screens for each mission, we can now show longer descriptions of their plot, and you can also reveal a full in-app scene-by-scene synopsis once you’ve completed a mission.
Another issue is that Zombies, Run! can be difficult for new players to understand and navigate. We’ve streamlined navigation in the app so it’s easier to find and change run settings like Music, Tracking, and Zombie Chases, with more tips on how to choose the best settings.
Both new and long-time players will appreciate the changes we’ve made to our News and Help sections. Our redesign means they can now include images and links to useful and fun resources; and we’re adding a ‘Known Issues’ list so you can see which bugs and improvements we’re working on.
Yes, that really is a ‘Continue to Next Mission’ option; as well as a much more flexible way to control the length of your missions and runs. And thanks to popular demand, you’ll be able to turn off our new ‘Previously on’ and ‘Next’ on clips!
This is all aided by the fact that most phone screens have grown considerably larger. The first version of Zombies, Run! was designed for 3.5" screens; these days, a lot of players now have 4", 4.7", and over 5" screens.
We’re using that extra real estate to highlight important run options, and to include gorgeous illustrations for every single mission and running mode; not only do they help signal where you are in the app, but they also make sure the entire app is as atmospheric as our missions.
On Android, the entire app will be updated with a streamlined ‘Material Design’ that should work across Android 4 and 5 devices.
There are plenty more improvements coming to Zombies, Run! that we’re excited to tell you about in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
Picture the scene, if you will: exactly a week ago, a lovely bar in Midtown Manhattan, and the night closing in as a veritable horde of Runners 5 gathered to trade running stories, compare feels and discuss every possible aspect of everyone’s favourite post-apocalypse running app. It was the first ever official Zombies, Run! New York meet up and it was bloody wonderful.
Sean Palladino and Adrian Hon (Six to Start CEO & ZR co-creator). Image courtesy Sean Palladino – thanks Sean!
This is a post to say thank you to everyone who turned out to say hi to us, and to share a few glowing memories with those of you who couldn’t make it. You are all awesome, and it was unbelievably wonderful to meet so many fans of ZR and to put faces to names!
Swapping running stories. Image courtesy Adrian Hon – thanks, Adrian!
In no particular order, here are some of my best bits:
If you were there, let us know what your favourite part of the night was in the replies!
We know how it is. You’ve spent all this time running for Abel Township, bringing back food and books and sports bras. Keeping people fed and clothed and entertained. But what does Runner Five get? A few words of thanks and another mission.
Not any more. Now you can bring back some supplies of your own, and at a $5 discount! How do these sound?
We only have a few supply packs left, so head over to our shop and use the voucher code SP5 to claim your $5 discount and get some sweet, sweet supplies all for yourself!
Collected a Sports Bra by Run-like-a-zombie
It’s Friday! That means it’s time to grab the curly-wurlies hidden at the back of your desk drawer, put your feet up and enjoy a relaxing look at the month-that-was in the Zombies, Run! fandom.
Up next, we have some utterly fantastic audio fan works this month. For obvious reasons, we’re huge fans of audio here at Six to Start, and it’s incredibly exciting for us to listen to such incredible audio created by our fans!
Radio Breet broadcast their pilot episode this month – a really exciting original work which gives us an entirely new (and grisly!) spin on the “people in a comms cabin” idea. A lot of love and attention has clearly gone into making this, and its well worth a listen! We can’t wait to tune in to the next episode.
Mary Crowell sent us this astonishingly catchy number about all the trials and tribulations of being Runner Five. I’ve woken up three times in the past week with this one stuck in my head. Amazing. Also, don’t say I didn’t warn you about this earworm.
Rolling on with the musical theme, check out this window-rattling remix of Season Two Mission Twenty [WARNING: SPOILERS FOR S2M20]. There’s only one thing we like more than a bit of heavy bass, and that’s listening to Major De Santa kicking ass. So you can imagine how excited we were to get both things in the same white-hot audio wonder. Excellent work, GoAbelRunner5!
Finally, we have your monthly installment of Podcast Detected! This time, the team are taking us through all their most emotional moments from the past three seasons, from weeping when Maxine hears [SPOILER REDACTED] to getting angry at [SPOILER REDACTED] and being relieved when Eugene [SPOILER REDACTED]. As usual, it’s massively enjoyable and great fun to listen to, even if this episode stirred up a lot of strong feelings! For the record, I miss Mildred Van Der Graff as well.
There’s been so much amazing art from our fans this month. Here are just a few of the pieces we’ve gotten a real kick out of.
Tiny Sam Eats a Cake by Did-you-reboot.
Limelight by Soupwhale.
I’ll Spin For You by Crownleys.
Holy wow has this been a month for Radio Boyfriends-related fic and feels. Check this stuff out:
As usual, if there’s anything you’d like to recommend for next month’s Community roundup, drop me a line at matt at sixtostart dot com.
This Spring isn’t just about just about launching a brand new set of awesome, heart-pounding, tear-jerking missions in Season 4. It isn’t even just about how we’re polishing, tweaking and improving every aspect of the game.
We’re also going to improve Zombies, Run! for all those poor souls who’ve yet to become Runner 5 — in other words, for new players. We want to shorten the time from “who’s this Steve Yoo person?” to “I AM RUNNER FIVE”. One way is through our “Next Time on Zombies, Run!” preview clips — and another way is by improving Season 1.
This Spring, we’ll be tweaking the order of Season 1 to give new players the best introduction to Abel Township we possibly can. In fact, this change actually partly restores the order in which some of the missions were originally written. Here’s what we’re talking about:
That may well be hard to visualise, which is why we’ve made this handy diagram!
We’re excited about these changes, and we’d love to hear what you think. Let us know in the comments!
Zombies, Run! 