Video Game / Zombotron

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Zombotron is a 2D-action-Platformer/Metroidvania game developed by Anton Karlov, a Russian programmer, designer, and founder of the one-man indie company Ant.Karlov games. Initially made with Adobe Flash, as the series progressed the entries from around 2020 were instead created using the Unity engine.

Planet Zombotron, in the aftermath of a cataclysm that wiped out most of it's population, is a wasteland infested with zombie-like monstrosities that used to be it's people, sentient skeletons, malfunctioning mechas and insect-like mutants, and they're chewing and ripping each other apart for dominance over the planet's surface.

Each and every entry places the player in control of a human explorer who crashed on Zombotron, where they'll need fight their way out because on a Crapsack World with Everything Trying to Kill You, nothing's on their side.

Anton Karlov created the original Zombotron trilogy - Zombotron, Zombotron 2 and Zombotron 2: The Time Machine (which is more of an Expansion Pack of the second game) using Adobe Flash as part of a "freelance" gaming project, where it's hosted on websites like Miniclip and Armor Games. Released over the course of three years - 2011, 2012, 2013 - before Karlov moves on to other projects, the series was later revived after a six-year wait, with a 2019 entry simply titled... Zombotron 2019. With players in control of an explorer with a name this time, Blaze Rush.

2023 sees the release of Zombotron Re-Boot, where despite the name it's a Video Game Remake from Anton Karlov himself.

"Biobot Activated."

• 20 Bear Asses: This is a recurring objective throughout the series, you're often tasked with collecting "twenty zombie heads", "fifteen skulls" etc. to clear a level.
• Abandoned Mine: The entirety of the first game, and most of the sequels, are set in some mining tunnels that stretches on and on, the player exploring for an exit while killing whatever's not on his side. After the cataclysm that wiped out almost all life on Zombotron, of course there's nothing alive left in the mines.
• Acid Attack: Most enemies from the mutant factions are capable of spitting green acidic slime as a ranged attack.
• Action Bomb: The zombie faction has an enemy type present in all games, headless zombie mooks carrying a Cartoon Bomb that purposely tries tagging you as it blows. You can actually shoot these guys and trigger their bombs prematurely, taking out plenty of different monsters at the same time.
• Arm Cannon: From 2 onwards, the robot faction introduces a new enemy type whose right arm are replaced with a cannon capable of launching exploding projectiles.
• Art Evolution: From the entries made near 2020, thanks to Karlov switching to the Unity Engine from Adobe Flash.
  • 2019 has more detailed designs for onscreen enemies, better refined 3D graphics, improved lighting, and onscreen monsters now actually looks scary instead of cartoonish. Blaze also looks more like an Action Hero than his predecessors.
  • Downplayed with Re-boot, an improved remake of the original 2011 game, but other than brighter colors it's not too far off from it's predecessor.
• Assist Character:
  • Time Machine begins with you getting captured alive by rival scavengers and rescued by another lady explorer (simply identified by the game as "friend"). Later stage allows you to team up with her and kick ass together.
  • In 2019, Blaze comes across a benevolent android miner identified as "Harry" (amidst destroying hostile robots left and right). When Harry motions Blaze with a "Don't shoot!" signal, Blaze convinces Harry to follow him as backup
• Bloodier and Gorier: 2019 has far more graphic onscreen gorn and overkills whenever you execute enemies. A grenade from point-blank easily leads to a Bloody Hilarious situation.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: In all the games collecting armor will add a separate bar under your health, and it offsets most (if not all) taken damage.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy:
  • The dog-like Shaggy Behemoth, in both 1 and 2 where it appears as a boss, is fought in an area containing a very obvious hidden tunnel you can use to take cover when it tries trampling over you. Besides running to the other side to take potshots.
  • The King Mook giant spider boss, whenever it appears in one of the games, tends to be surrounded by platforms where you can helpfully hop on to avoid it's attacks. Besides gaining an advantageous, elevated position where you can get a clear shot on the boss.
• Death from Above: You can be hurt, or even killed, by falling debris. But the trope works both ways, where you'll very, very frequently come across ledges containing objects that can be pushed and dropped on enemies, elevators which can be activated to flatten mooks right below, or alternatively in the case of hanging crates, Shoot the Rope when a monster's underneath.
• Dead Weight: Muscular zombies shows up from 2 onwards, capable of tanking more hits and dishing more damage than the mook-variety undead. They're more muscular than fat though.
• Dem Bones: We did mention this game has skeleton enemies, right? ...oddly enough, they're not affiliated with the zombie faction despite being another type of undead, zombies and skeletons will attack each other as well.
• Disaster Scavengers: There's an area in 2 where you come across some survivors on Planet Zombotron, who had taken to killing everything not on their side, and of course a shootout is inevitable.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Zombotron 1 has its moments.
  • No dialogue at all, your character is a Heroic Mime through and through. Re-boot at least gives him some dialogue.
  • The game is surprisingly straightforward for what's supposed to be a Metroidvania, with fewer emphasis on exploration elements.
  • Many enemy types prominently featured in the sequels isn't in the first game, with the entire mutant faction being absent. For factions that are present, Giant Zombies and robots with ranged attacks aren't in this one either.
  • No melee weapons in the first game, you can't even execute a Pistol-Whipping for enemies close enough.
  • The HUD depicting your stats and equipped weapons are shown as neon, single-colored avatars instead of realistic looking icons. Your stats also takes up the entire top of the screen, with your firearm and ammunition count on the left, your cash tally the center, and your health and armor on the right. In the sequels the HUD has all your stats stacked on the top-left leaving the center and right free.
  • It's also the only game where you play as a red-suited scavenger who doesn't appear anywhere in the sequels, because the second game literally opens with your character from the first dying in a random spaceship accident.
• Enemy Civil War: The creatures overrunning Zombotron's surface isn't willing to share the planet, where zombies, robots, skeletons, as well as mutants and scavengers (in the sequels) programmed to attack each other on sight. If you're within vicinity, expect a Mêlée à Trois anytime soon - alternatively, Set a Mook to Kill a Mook by tricking enemies to attack each other.
• Equipment Upgrade: Upgrading stations are present in all games, allowing you to purchase better armor, weapons, and assorted goodies.
• Exploding Barrels: Helpfully colored red, marked with an exclamation mark, and can be triggered by a handful of shots (or just hitting real hard). Onscreen enemies will also stupidly attack clearly dangerous barrels and... KABOOM!
• Falling Damage: You can lose health or die from stepping off a ledge or cliff too high. But the same applies for enemies, and given how mindless zombies and skeletons are you can simply collapse a platform or bridge over a steep drop, jump over, and trick them into following you.
• Featureless Protagonist:
  • The red-suited masked scavenger who serves as the player-protagonist of 1 never removes his mask, all the way to the opening seconds of 2 where he's unceremoniously squashed like a bug. This same guy returns in Re-boot, mask and all.
  • 2 has the player controlling a different scavenger in a green outfit, and he similarly remains masked... until Zombotron 2: Time Machine where he's finally unmasked for the first time.
  • Finally averted in 2019. You play as a scavenger named Blaze Rush, a spiky-haired white guy whose face is visible for most of the early stages... and then he obtains a face-concealing helmet upgrade and remains masked for the rest of his screentime.
• Grenade Launcher: One of the upgrades you can obtain in all entries. Grenades sold in threes separately.
• Happy Ending Override: Spoofed in 2, where the first stage literally opens with the first game's protagonist getting killed by the second game's protagonist's spaceship landing on his predecessor.
• Heart Container: The aptly-named Life Containers, not-so-common pickups in all entries, that boosts your maximum health by 10%.
• Ground by Gears: Rotating gears are a hazard in all the games, turning you or unfortunate enemies into a bloody pulp for being too close.
• Giant Spider: Most of the mutants resembles oversized arachnids, with a boss literally called Giant Spider showing up in more than one of the sequels.
• Javelin Thrower: 2019 has a new zombie type capable of throwing spears from a distance. They generate a new one instantly after each throw.
• Mecha-Mooks: The robot faction is expectedly populated entirely by these.
• Mini-Mook: Present only in the mutant faction, you fight scaled-down versions of the giant spider-insect enemies the size of rodents who tends to appear in larger quantities alongside their regular-sized counterparts.
• One Game, One Boss: Only in the first game, where it ends with you facing a giant, pink-furred, bipedal canine monster blocking the exit of a cavern, the sole boss-grade type. The sequels have far more bosses, including bringing back the original game's lone boss which is now identified as a "Shaggy Behemoth".
• Pistol-Whipping: If enemies are too close for you to shoot, you'll use your current firearm's butt in Quick Melee fashion.
• Robot Buddy: In 2019, Blaze is assisted by a sentient hovering drone nicknamed "Ash". Who provides some comical banters in cutscenes before reattaching itself to Blaze's bagpack during gameplay.
• Shovel Strike: Most malfunctioning robot miners without a ranged attack tends to carry shovels as a melee weapon (either that, or a Powerful Pick). They can also use their shovels to send rocks and debris at you from a distance.
• SkeleBot 9000: Also from 2019, there's an independent robotic faction separate from the usual robot mooks in the ancient pyramid level, whose members resembles mechanical skull-faced creatures. Including a huge hovering skelebot as a boss.
• Skull for a Head: Thanks to improved graphics, the lowest-level zombies from 2019 now have sunken, near-fleshless visages in their faces resembling skulls.
• Time Machine: Zombotron 2: Time Machine, befitting the title, where said time machine turns out to be a secret prototype Fina and her father are developing as means to escape Planet Zombotron. You spend the game trying to obtain batteries and parts for their machine to work and the game ends with you and your new allies entering the machine, but it's unknown if it worked since the next game in canon, 2019, features a different hero.
  Would the capsule work as it was expected?
  Where did the capsule take the character and what would happen to them?
• Vehicular Turnabout: There are several areas where you get to commandeer a vehicle of sorts - a runaway train in 1, a construction truck in 2, buggies equipped with machine-gun turrets in the sequels (2019 calls it a Zombomobile) - and send them across the landscape to kick all the ass, either by way of Car Fu or clearing a path with bullets.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: Time Machine begins with your capture by enemy scavengers as you passed out, until fellow explorer Fina comes to your aid by killing everyone. You then wake up... sans armor, in your boxers, in Fina's secret lab, where the robot butler mistook you as an enemy until you destroy it. And then Fina shows up with her father and calls you out.
• A Winner Is You: Whoo boy...
  • Zombotron 1: "Your main mission has been competed. But it's not over..."
  • Zombotron 2: "You completed the main mission."
  • Zombotron 2: "Time Machine: Probably we'll find the answers soon. Thanks for playing the game!"
  • 2019 simply ends with Blaze crashing the Zombomobile and realizing he's still stuck... then the credits roll.
• Zombie Apocalypse: This seems to be the fate of Planet Zombotron in the backstory, where the entire population are reduced to shambling undead of different varieties.