Swarm The City: Zombie Evolved is a real-time strategy game.

Every mission basically starts the same. You use some mana to infect one human which will turn into a zombie. He will then be on his way to infect more humans. For every human who turns into a zombie, you get 5 mana.
With mana, you can use abilities like summoning generals, turning humans into normal zombies or generals, or turning some of your zombies into generals.
Aside from that, there are Souls. Souls are generated by infecting humans and are used for unlocking and upgrading special zombies within missions.
There are a handful of different humans. Normal humans are easy targets, while police officers are harder to infect. You need a swarm full of zombies to overwhelm them. Then there are airmen, gunners, etc. These are way harder to infect. You will need either a bigger swarm or/and special zombies.

You can't just overrun all humans by having a bigger army - You will need a strategy because usually there aren't enough humans on the map to just overrun everyone. Some buildings will be surrounded by gunners AND fences to keep distance between your army and them. In this case, you need a general and his special ability to attack from a distance. This way, you can use him to destroy the fences before going in with your full swarm.
This is just one of the different strategies. You can also use a general with his special ability to throw cars (if they are nearby) or use mana to turn some humans within fences into zombies while attacking from the outside - both at the same time. This can very well be a strategy through it's very risky.

The campaign consists of 5 chapters, each with a handful of missions and more to come. In total, there are around 15 missions right now, depending on how good you are and if you speed up the game, it could take you 10 hours to complete them.

After every mission, you can get materials, runes, crystals, and eyeballs.
You can permanently unlock and upgrade things for your King or your generals. The King basically strengthens the normal zombies. First, you need to unlock a slot with crystals. Then you can equip one rune to it (like +10% und attacking speed for all zombies, etc.).
Generals each have four abilities you can level up. Each level grants a bonus. You will need materials and eyeballs to level it up. Every few levels the ability will get a higher rarity, granting even more bonuses.

• It's tactical demanding. You will need a strategy to win and can't just overrun every building with a big army of zombies. This is needed for a strategy game.
  
• You can speed up time by a lot (three different settings). While I had the discussion of RTS games should have this option in the comment section about other games I reviewed, I think this is a needed and great feature in a single-player strategy game.
  
• Overall progression in form of a campaign, unlocks, and upgrades. It's engaging to be able to strengthen your swarm.
  
• Different generals change up the game and add a lot of depth to the tactical layer.
  
• While the story is just minor, the presentation is very nice and the overall atmosphere is just great. There are little cutscenes, the voice of the evil protagonist is terrifying, the music is oppressive (in a good way) and within missions, humans will scream for help, etc. All of this adds to the great atmosphere.
  
• I've played some of the game over the course of a few weeks. I saw how they changed things and polished them up. The UI and the balance were polished and improved a lot. So much, that I'm sure the game will turn out great after early access and that these Devs will keep their promises.

• Unlogical tactics required to win missions. Like I said above, every mission requires tactical thinking but some of them use unlogical tactics. In one mission there are spikes, so you can't move your zombies over it (they will easily die). Behind the spikes is a pylar (the mission let it seem like you need to destroy it, to get to the energy core - spoiler: You don't). That's why you will send flamewalkers and Almageddons (Generals) over the spikes. Both of them have ranged attacks (The pylar doesn't have a wide range) but they just don't use it. I was able to finally destroy it after I've sent 10 Almageddons to it which is a lot in that specific mission. Later in the same mission, I needed to destroy an energy core. It says that normal damage won't do anything to it. I thought I needed to destroy the pylar first, so I can damage it. Nope, that's not it. I was able to bypass the spikes in front of the energy core and get some Almageddons and normal zombies to it. Both didn't do any damage. Well, okay. It said "normal" damage doesn't do anything - so fire damage (your only other option) it is. Spoiler: Won't work. While I think fire damage isn't normal damage, the game does think so. But it gets better: You can unlock a stomp attack on your Almaggedons. While it is a physical attack, this was what was required to finally destroy it. In case you wonder: The game nowhere tells you any of this above. It just tells you to destroy the energy core, no matter what. It's literally just one sentence. Maybe that's just me but all of this doesn't seem so obvious. It's more like a riddle to solve and rather a bad one (IMO).
  
• Invincible walls. Usually, your zombies can move over meadow but for example, in one mission, they don't want you to go over it because there are spikes on the street. Instead of creating a bridge, so you can properly see where to go, I wanted to move my units over the meadow next to it to bypass the spikes. Yeah, no. Doesn't work because there is an invincible wall. It feels like they just want to force strategy into the game while not giving much effort (though in other missions there are bridges!).
  
• Units will sometimes move "fly" over walls, abysses, etc. when you select too many zombies and the way is too small. This also lets you cover spikes with some zombies and the other will easily walk next to it (even if they shouldn't be able to do so).
  
• Bugs. Sometimes the game won't properly work, it doesn't load, you can't click on the menu, on buildings, etc.

Swarm the City: Zombie Evolved is a solid real-time strategy game. It's fun, very atmospheric, tactical demanding, already offers enough content and possibilities to upgrade your zombies but it also has its flaws. It's (of course) unfinished and has bugs but the biggest flaw is the tactical approach in some missions. They just seem unlogical and unnecessary hard at some points.
Still, I have followed and played (from time to time) the game over many weeks now so I can see how they improved it. This shows, that they will be able to further improve on what they already have. This is exactly what early access stands for.

Get it if you're okay with early access games, otherwise put it on your wishlist and wait for it to be finished!

I played the demo and loved this, but somehow they made the game worse since then.

The pathfinding on your units is horrible and frustrating. Sometimes they will randomly wander off triggering an enemy response that you're not prepared for. The biggest problem though is how boring the boss enemies are. They are nothing more than massive HP sponges and require less strategy than attrition to beat. I wish game devs would learn that simply fluffing HP levels is a lazy approach to difficulty.

Fun for a couple of hours and then dives heavily into boredom and frustration territory.

After a period of silence everyone thought the game was dead and abandoned. BUT.. it's not. The devs have secretly been working on a remake of the game and boi did they do a good job.

After finishing the 'old' game it left a empty feeling of wanting more. But the grind of better powers just wasn't worth it.

Their remake on the other hand is much better in many ways. Better graphics and animations, better tutorial (which can help new gamers), new overlord progression, new everything. It's bigger and better.

I'd recommend

Unfortunately the "full release" of the game is still buggy and has performance issues...
The game stops responding to your commands randomly and after spamming orders the 100th time it finally recognizes it.

Beneath it all I can see a fun and working game if the basics are fixed. Wait for fixes before buying if you can't stomach hiccups.

TL;DR: 4/10, not the strongest performer.

While the premise and concept are both very promising, the execution unfortunately falls flat.

The game has a few mechanics that sound good in theory, but due to buggy implementation they don't quite manage to bring the game up. The UI is clunky, the units don't always listen to commands which can cause you to lose engagements, sometimes the units just straight up ignore the enemy that is attacking them causing needless losses, the translation needs polish, the performance dips at random intervals, story is rather generic IMO but that falls down to taste and the game just feels empty after a few missions.

You can only level up your character to level 15, something which goes by rather fast, and there's no possibility to become truly OP which is a shame. The commanders are generally ok, but could also do with some more oomph. You'll probably end up using a set of maybe 4-6 spells, depending on which difficulty you're playing at. The difficulty itself is quite a problem, since the hardest difficulty is yet another example of "make the enemy a bullet sponge".

The game features a random drop mechanic that, for the most part, feels rather lackluster. I ended up limiting myself to only one commander in the hopes of getting a higher chance of getting some good upgrades but was mostly left wanting. The UI has a wheel which shows how many powers you've collected, but the effects are shown in the top-left corner which is poor UX design. The wheel shows 3 more slots than the game actually allows you to pick up, even though the crystals are on the map. When you reach the cap it just stops giving you more powers.

The graphical design is pretty standard, nothing much to write about here other than the poor UX. The unit information screen has a drop down menu for showing attack speed and range, but you have to be EXTREMELY precise or you'll end up closing the window. The window doesn't always pop up so you'll often have to repeatedly click your target to see the stats. The target's shield value is NOT displayed on the info screen, which is somewhat bewildering.

All in all I can definitely say that I don't regret buying the game, but it's also not something to write home about. It's pretty much just brainless action. The game has a lot more potential than they managed to achieve and I hope they give it a lot more polish.

The game offers little to no replay value. I beat the game on the hardest difficulty within 13 hours, 4 of which were spent taking a nap, and the "world domination" tracker doesn't track any progress unless you play on normal. Unless they release a procedural mode or something like that I can't say I'm particularly likely to play it again.

Being a long time RTS enthisuast, I can easily say that if you don't want anything too serious to manage and just want to play casually and have some fun in an RTS setting, this is easily your game.
Plus it has zombies and brainz.
Micro-managing is kinda fun too and I love the fact that our Z's can use the friggin human weapons. It was such a nice surprise to see that twist.
Looking forward for more updates though since the more the merrier.

Great 10 dollar game. Reminds me of the online game infectionator. I will say there is quite a few frustrating bugs. Some buildings and vehicles are untargetable. For example, two buildings next(left) to where the boss spawns(last level) and a shaking car in one of the frost maps. I think this might also be why i cant get all notes. Also, destruction level says 95% but gives credit for 100% which still gave me the achievement. Achievements unlock after you exit the game not during, or wont show up during. The select generals and zombies is more reactive but still feels slightly not responsive at times. I also feel like artifacts are kinda weak for the impact they should have. If you're someone that loves lite games i "softly" recommend.

What do zombie bodybuilders crave? Gains. What do zombie plumbers crave? Drains. What do zombie vegetarians crave? Grains.


🟩 Pros:

+ Story, setting, and overall atmosphere are all well presented
+ Gameplay elements are fluid and complement each other
+ Maps designed to deter brute forcing your way through
+ Utility offered varies greatly between generals

🟥 Cons:

- Some may be deterred by the lack of replayability
- Sudden unexpected difficulty spikes slow pace of play
- Not an RTS in the traditional sense (don't let the description fool you)


Swarm the City (StC) brings a unique concept and delivers a fun loop all for an affordable price. Missions begin with an initial infection of your choosing (human or animal), slowly spreading from there all while earning you mana which you can use to empower your army or debuff the enemy. During missions, zombies will find upgrades (armour and weapons), various resources, along with special zombies with their own unique powers, usually matching the generals (lead zombie) element.

The resources found unlock various benefits, some are mission specific while others serve as the meta progression and apply for all future missions. Ranging from increased zombie health when near the general to improved zombie attack damage and movement speed, there’s a lot to unlock. While the upgrades aren’t all that exciting, they can be felt in game, and are needed for harder difficulties and levels.

StC is an enjoyable game, offering a fun loop with enough content to keep you busy for a while, especially for the price ($1.50 AUD on sale). Be aware, replayability is lacking and a second run will provide more of the same. Regardless, for the price you cannot go wrong – Give it a try.

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Right now, you cant go into the menu of the game. When you press ESC, you get the chinese menu, even though the rest of the game is fully in english. Rest of the game feels slow even on 2x.

worth $3 or less
It's just infectinator - not a better one mind you.