Along with a million wishlists, the demo for zombie apocalypse management sim Quarantine Zone: The Last Check got a lot of feedback. The demo was massively popular when it launched in May, and linked to a survey for players to fill out when they finished playing.
Boy, did players fill out that survey.
"We got almost 100,000 surveys fulfilled," said Brigada Games CEO Stas Starykh when he talked to PC Gamer this week.
That's a lot of feedback—so much that Google Docs couldn't even view that many tables of data and the Starykh says they had to use an AI engine just to sort out all that data. "But now we know our weak points [and] we understand our strong points," Starykh said.
The biggest weak point? That damn cart.
"Half of negative reviews contain the World 'cart.'"
Stas Starykh, CEO of Brigada Games
In Quarantine Zone, your main job is to examine survivors of an apocalypse and look for signs that they've been infected by the zombie virus. You use high-tech gadgets to check for symptoms, then send people to the safe zone if they're healthy, to quarantine if they're a bit sus, and to their deaths if they've been infected.
But periodically you have to put down your sci-fi tools and push food and fuel around the base in a large, unwieldy cart that controls like a busted supermarket shopping trolley. It's awkward as hell to steer around, and players aren't shy about letting the devs know it.
"The cart was our biggest problem, and people hate it. It's very annoying. It's like a boss in Dark Souls," Starykh said, chuckling. "We analyzed reviews on Steam. Half of negative reviews contain the World 'cart'."
Not everyone is furious with the cart though. "Many people said they like the idea, but they don't see the connection between [the cart section] and the game, like it's a separate game which doesn't have any connection with the game itself."
But it sounds like most players had such a good time with everything else they were willing to overlook that damn cart: reviews for the demo are 91% positive on Steam.
Today, Devolver Digital announced it will be publishing Quarantine Zone: The Last Check this November. A new demo is also planned for October as part of Steam Next Fest.
