From the beginning of development, we had already decided that frankies (loyal zombie followers) should be growable like crops and that the main character would be a half-zombie, but we wanted to give the game an even stronger hook that players hadn’t seen before.
When I was thinking about reasons to make the main character a half-zombie, I decided that we needed to make a crafting game that incorporated zombies. That is how zombiecrafting, a process in which items are made from corpses and other undead materials, was born.
The first zombiecrafting item I thought up was the zombie car (a.k.a. The Sleigh).
I needed to present my plans internally before beginning full production of the game. The Sleigh was easy to understand conceptually and had great visual impact, so I ordered the design even before deciding where it would be used in-game.
Normal tools have engines, motors, and other kinds of power sources, but items made from zombiecrafting have none of the above—they are able to operate simply because they are zombies repurposed as tools. With this new perspective on crafting, I had my unique hook for this game.
That’s also when we decided “DEADCRAFT” would be the title.
Hisashi Fujii
DEADCRAFT Producer
*Screenshots captured from a game still in development