This game really caught me by surprise. Many of the things I was considering to levy as criticism I actually reconsidered to be good design decisions once I understood the game as a whole a bit better. My first run went pretty badly, but probably in the best way because I learned everything I needed. At first I was trying to aim the syringe with my mouse, and ended up wasting them all not realizing they were limited; or how powerful just one of them can be. More often than not on my second run I had more syringes than I needed. I thought the base move speed felt slow in the start, but I think its actually fairly well balanced against the zombies, and the slow pace of repositioning yourself ultimately synergises with the function of the syringes and waiting for the cure to spread while you carefully herd your horde of soon-to-be-living back to a safe zone.
The one main criticism I held from the start is that the audio balancing could definitely use some tuning. Some sounds are jarringly louder than most (like some of the cheers that happen when a rare item drops), and most of the sound effects are a fair bit louder than the baseline volume set by the music and steady ambient noises. The sound design itself, however, I think is very good! I wonder if you did all your own foley, because it was definitely worth it if so. I would consider maybe using a Volume Limiter on some of the sounds to bring their peak volume more in line with the subtler noises, so we don’t miss out on all that detail by lowering the volume as a whole.
I really really enjoyed the twist later into the run where you get to pick a perk/upgrade for the zombies instead of yourself! I think there’s a crazy amount of potential in there to spice up the game and make runs feel unique. You could even choose the “more zombies” perk in an intentional bid to get more XP, if you feel up for it.
Unfortunately, my second run met an early demise, as around the time I had rescued ~400 survivors, the game started to run progressively slower, down to 1 FPS territory. During this I noticed a very large number of zombies and survivors getting stuck in a small spot just above the pond on the right side. Rescuing a number of the survivors did improve the fps momentarily, but sadly the lag grew faster than I could rescue them. Otherwise I would have been happy to try to finish a full run.
Overall I love this take on the genre, and of the games I’ve seen this jam I think this one has some of the most potential. This game belongs on miniclip in my childhood memories :3