They Do Not Die

The Basics

They Do Not Die is a top down dual stick 2D indie zombie shooter. In a similar vein as classics like Crimsonland or Alien Shooter.

The Origins

This is like a remastered/remade version of a Wii homebrew game that I made a decade ago. Shout out to all three of you who remember playing it on your Wii! Along with just porting it to love2d (which meant rewriting everything from C++ to Lua) I've also tweaked a ton of things and added a ton of new features.

The World

The game is set in procedurally generated and entirely destructible cities. Overflowing with both ravenous zombies (represented by green circles with an arrow pointing in the direction they're facing) and fleeing human NPC survivors (represented by a pink circle).

The Weapons

You're equipped with an assault rifle (perfect for mowing down zombies) and a rocket launcher (it can dynamically destroy any wall you see, but you'll have to be careful not to hurt yourself in the blast). There are also a few other weapons to try out though once you beat the game.

Multiplayer

Every part of the game can be played with up to four players in shared screen multiplayer.

Game Modes

There's a simple little trans girl story mode, a score based endless mode, a courier mode where you have to try to get from one place to another, and a deathmatch mode (that tbh mostly just exists for testing purposes, but does let you wander around the city in multiplayer without being disturbed by zombies).

Objects

The city is full of cars and crates. Some crates will heal you if you break them open. Other crates are explosive. Car will explode if you do enough damage to them too.

The Achievements

It's got steam achievements! Try to collect all of them!

The Controls

You can play with just a keyboard, with a keyboard and a mouse, a gamepad (using gamepads is required for multiplayer), or a touchscreen (if you take the game over to an android or ios device). A mouse and keyboard is definitely the best way to play, but I've tried to support as many options as possible.

Portability

This steam release natively supports both Windows and Linux, but you can also take the game's dot love file and play it anywhere that love2d games are playable. I have an R36S (a low end linux powered emulation handheld) and it's playable on there (if you don't mind a lower frame rate) (I made a serious effort to be sure all of the menus work well on a 640x480 screen) (I'd recommend using the Balatro port from portmaster instead of ArkOS's built in love2d support). You can play it on a phone or tablet (if you have a gamepad or something then you can disable the mobile touch screen controls in the settings). There's apparently even a (totally rewritten) version of love2d for 3DS and I don't think it'll run on that, but I am looking into it.

Bonus Facts

I was originally told by valve that my description of the game wasn't long enough, so I'd like to pad it out even further by saying that I think you're really cute! I hope you have a great day!