Australian indie game developer, Binary Space releases "Class 3 Outbreak" (C3O), a real time strategy zombie game running on Google Maps. C3O gives players the impossible task of holding back waves of zombies with a hopelessly outnumbered police force.

We caught up with developer, Jay Weston, to talk about Class 3 Zombie Outbreak.

Christine Caprilozzi: Class 3 Outbreak works with the Google Map technology and interacts with the specific terrains. What was the inspiration for that?

Jay Weston: Well the initial game concept was describing a view that was probably 2d, and on a scale which is 'like Sim City', so that you could manage/defend a city while it's under attack by zombies. In some initial talks that Saxon and I had about the game, I mocked up a google maps screenshot with some dudes on it, explaining some gameplay concepts. That may have led to the idea to actually use google maps, I'm not sure, its so long ago now!

I emailed a guy who had made a little Google Maps game and asked if he thought it was possible to do anything much more complicated than what he made (a flight game maybe?) and he said no, not possible, can't interact with the scenery or anything. Soon after, I asked Saxon if it was possible, and he had actually been using Google Maps where he was working at the time. Before long we had zombies crawling all over Google Maps :)

Christine Caprilozzi: Visually the game is unique looking with the graphics alongside the google map imagery. What was that process like?

Jay Weston: Well I can't really speak for Saxon on the programming. All I can say is I've had a look at it and it looks a bit complicated! In a nut shell though, we're using Flex and actionscript along with the Google's Maps API, and displaying some little animated gifs of zombies and civilians on top of it.

Christine Caprilozzi: How does the characters interaction with the terrains affect gameplay?

Jay Weston: Each character in the game reacts to terrain semi realistically - they can enter houses, bump up against walls/cars, fire through windows, walk under trees and so on. If a character is behind a building, zombies won't see him, and he will have no line of fire on his target either. The simplicity of the window/door system we have at the moment means you might see some rather epic shots that travel through a front window and out the back window of a house, and into a back yard to head shot a zombie!

Christine Caprilozzi: Zombie games are always great. What sets Class 3 Outbreak apart?

Jay Weston: I think that running the game on photorealistic terrain, in an actual location is quite interesting, especially for the zombie genre because people always love to imagine how they would react in real life if it ever happened. In the future, if we get an editor going, allowing people to "create" maps of their home town on google maps would allow them to live this out in some respect. Players would be familiar with the layout of their local streets, shops and be able to defend from their own house or local shopping mall if they liked.

Christine Caprilozzi: What can fans of horror video games expect in terms of gore, especially in terms of the zombie kills?

Jay Weston: Once we start putting some more explosive weapons in, there will be lots of red stuff flying around everywhere :)

Christine Caprilozzi: The player is in the role of being a member of the police. What sort of arsenal is available for the player during the attack?

Jay Weston: For the first version its just the police. The game has been under development 14 months (part time) so we wanted to release something on the way to a more feature rich game. The arsenal available will come down to play testing, what's most fun, and what provides the most interesting combinations of zombie killing hilarity!

Christine Caprilozzi: Are you already planning another installment?

Jay Weston: We have enough ideas for features for a million installments of this game! Now that we have finally released, we are about to start planning on exactly what the next one will be.

Christine Caprilozzi: Where can our readers get more information about the game?

Jay Weston: You can play the game at http://www.class3outbreak.com/zombie-games/c3o If you'd like to yack it up with us, we have a facebook page at www.facebook.com/class3outbreak and forums, accessible via the C3O website.

Christine Caprilozzi: Thank you for your time! Best of luck with Class 3 Outbreak!

Comment on the Class 3 Outbreak Interview.