House of Spain — Zombie Panic in Wonderland

Lions and tigers and zombies, oh my. Cliche and tired for most, that tag line is actually well-deserved and made fresh again by Spanish dev Jose Manuel. With a penchant for transmuting literary gems into epic zombie shooters — well before Pride and Prejudice got infected — Manuel and his team at Akaoni Sutdio are set to follow up Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ with Zombie Panic in Wonderland. NintendoLife caught up with Manuel to ask him about his love of undead–folk tale mashups:

[F]olk tales and zombies are two themes that I’ve always particularly liked. When I was a child, my mother used to tell me stories before I went to sleep, and it was something I loved. Moreover, I've felt fascination for horror movies since I was very little. I think it all started when one night I got up while my parents were sleeping and turned the television on. It was past midnight, and The Night of the Living Dead was being broadcast. It was the first horror movie, and the first zombie movie I saw. I was really scared [laughs], but I loved it. Since then, every Tuesday I got up at the same time to see the horror movie of the week.

 

The idea of mixing the two genres (zombies and fairy tales) occurred to me for the first time when I was still a student in the HAL College of Technology in Japan. Now many people take interest in this mixture when they see the game...When I first proposed the mix of the themes, the idea wasn’t received warmly until the project progressed very far. For me it is to combine two of my favorite subjects to enjoy both at the same time. Also, I think that when you succeed in blending two things which in principle would never go together, the energy they emit is very powerful, and no one can escape from its charm [laughs].

The charm is definitely there. One of Zombie Panic's challenges involves a bunch of love-struck zombies who lust after your heart more than your brains. Play as Snow White, Dorothy from Oz and five other characters snatched from their comfy homes in Storybook-land and dropped into a grim grudge match with the walking dead.

Originally slated for holidays 2009, Zombie Panic in Wonderland should be out sometime this spring on Wiiware.