Notch releases free browser-based zombie FPS Shambles

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson has released a new free browser-based score-attack zombie first-person shooter entitled Shambles.

It was originally made for 7DFPS, a game jam where creators were tasked with making a first-person shooter in seven days. Shambles tasks players with collecting as many yellow orbs dropped by dead zombies as they can. In an interesting balancing act, the only way to get guns and ammo is to obtain them from dead cops and the only way to get health is to pick up first-aid drops left by killed civilians. The latter won't hurt hurt you, but the police won't hesitate to shoot if you open fire on them. Also, cops and civilians can turn into zombies when bit.

As such, it's often a mad scrambled for ammo as a cluster of cops is at least as deadly as a pack of the undead. Thankfully, you don't need to be the one to kill in order for people to drop stuff, so it's often best to take the path of least resistance and grab the goodies other leave in their wake. Of course, this means rushing into a hail of gunfire and the undead, but no one said surviving an apocalypse was going to be easy.

This is a good thing, I think, because most rounds of Shambles won't last longer than a couple of minutes - until you instantly click the mouse to start again and try to beat your score, that is.

Shambles is certainly rough around the edges with shoddy hit detection that makes most deaths feel a bit unfair, but it's a really inventive premise that's still fun in short bursts. It would be easy to imagine someone creating a more refined variant of this chaotic system, and part of me hopes they do.

Give Shambles a shot at it's official site.