…as disembodied cartoon heads!

Kwok’s added the final few faces to the team icon gallery (my glorious mug being one of them), which depicts the whole doublesix team as they might appear in All Zombies Must Die! If you’ve met any of the guys in the flesh, you’ll realise how eerily accurate these icons are.

A preview for All Zombies Must Die! has found its way onto the pages of Destructiod. This is the first of many due over the coming days, and hopefully indicative of the rest of the media’s thoughts. (Read: they liked it!)

“All Zombies Must Die hopes to offer a few laughs and multitudes of zombies to kill come this fall when it officially releases. Developer Double Six has pledged continuing support for the title through numerous DLC and considers the game a long term proposition. AZMD looks to be a fun little title to burn the midnight oil with and in all honesty, it plays quite brilliantly.”

For more on AZMD – including photos from events and musings from the team – ‘like’ the official page on Facebook.

I’m a shiny new person here at doublesix, so thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Benjamin – or Jamin – Smith, and today is my first day as Community Manager for doublesix games. This is that obligatory introductory blog post where I wave a big virtual hand at you through your computer screen. Hello!

Before joining the studio here in Guildford, I was a journalist over at VideoGamer.com. It was my job to furnish the site with reviews and previews, as well as throw cleverly worded questions to game developers with the intention of squeezing a news story or two out of them. One of my last articles for the site took the form of a soppy blog post looking back at my time with the company, so if the life of a games journalist is something that interests you, do have a gander.

Jumping the fence to the development side of the industry is an opportunity for me to flex new muscles. Having studied computer game technology at university, I have a keen interest in the process of bringing a game to fruition, and am looking forward to playing a small part in that here. As I sit here typing up this post, actual game development is going on behind me. There’s been QA meetings, conference calls and the phrase ‘vertical slice’ – a personal favourite of mine – has been thrown around on several occasions. It’s all very exciting.

As Community Manager, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me on the blog from here on out, and hopefully not just in text form, either. When I’m not updating the blog or badgering the team for new information, chances are you’ll find me running my mouth on Twitter.

Well, that about wraps things up. Thanks, and see you around!

At this year’s PAX we showed off the suitably awesome and equally upcoming All Zombies Must Die We even had people become zombies through the aid of movie make-up, something the game’s associate producer, Aaron Yeung, chats about below on the electric playground. As for the game itself, the video shows lots of lovely new footage so that should hopefully pique your interest further. We’ll also have some more updates about the game in the coming months, so keep an eye on the site (as well as our Twitter feed obviously).

Back in March we talked about Burn Zombie Burn getting released in Japan and the Zombie Sushi DLC would follow suit. We’re now in September and where the hell is it? Good question but it has a rather complex answer. In truth, Zombie Sushi was basically done (from an art and design standpoint) in September of 2010. What was left was for a code pass to fix some bugs. The reason this still hasn’t happened is due to the other games in development, such as All Zombies Must Die and Strike Suit Zero, and until at least one of those games are done and out the door our management have put Zombie Sushi on hold for the time being. From a personal standpoint, as I scripted the levels in Zombie Sushi (as well as In Space and worked the core game too), to not see the DLC released is indeed frustrating but our other games obviously need the resources. With any luck, it will get sorted by the end of this year but we’ll keep you posted either way.

Strike Suit Zero was also at this year’s GamesCom and has had a bit of coverage from the press already. From a lovely piece at Machinima about the game, to a smaller article over at Gamers Hell. We especially liked the Omega Boost reference, as that was definitely an under-appreciated gaming classic. Feel free to join in over at the game’s Facebook page too.

What with GamesCom just finished, All Zombies Must Die! has had quite a bit of coverage. From IGN to Destructoid and even gamesradar. Everyone seems to be really enjoying the game too, which is always nice. If you also want to get more involved and follow how the game’s coming along, then check out the official site and Facebook page.

We are proud to announce Strike Suit Zero. An arcade space combat game, which has transformable spacecraft known as “strike suits”, that can shift between two modes of flight. The game will also feature the work of mechanical designer Junji Okubo (Steel Battalion, Infinite Space) as well as music from composer Paul Ruskay (Homeworld).

Strike Suit Zero will have players controlling the eponymous transforming strike suits during Earth’s final hours. The game will also be shown at this year’s Gamescom, so stay tuned for that, and is set to arrive on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC sometime in Q1 2012. The teaser trailer is below.

Finally, finally, finally we can tell you all about the game we’ve been working on (not so) quietly here at doublesix games. It’s called All Zombies Must Die! and there’ll be lots more to talk about in the coming months before release but, for now, here’s our teaser…

For those curious, Kavcom have announced today that Burn Zombie Burn is available on the App Store. At the princely sum of £5.99, the Mac version comes in at 147 MB and needs Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later to run. There are extensive controller options available, from mouse and keyboard to a plethora of game pads. Enjoy!