Infectonator: Christmas - Holiday-Themed Sequel

Infectonator: Christmas is a flash animation puzzle game submitted to Newgrounds.com by Newgrounds.com user toge-games, with music by Newgrounds.com user Custom Audio Composers (SoS). The game was programmed by Sudarmin Then, and game art and animation was done by Kris Antoni. Special thanks is given to Jonathan Hadiprawira. This holiday-themed parody on the Infectonator! game was submitted to Newgrounds.com on December 23, 2009 and won a daily second-place award on December 24, 2009, as well as a weekly second-place award on December 29, 2009.

Game Background

The creators of Infectonator! are back with a special holiday edition of their beloved zombie puzzle game. Just as before, instead of saving humanity from zombies, you must continue to spread the zombie virus and infect as many people as you can this holiday season.

Gameplay

The goal of the game, as in the game's predecessor, is to infect as many people as you can.

To begin the game, click anywhere on the screen. Your cursor will then turn into an infectious disease that will turn people into zombies. When you click on the screen again, the virus will spread. Once the virus comes into contact with an individual, he or she will turn into a zombie. You only get one chance per stage to spread the virus, so make it count! The infected individuals who are now zombies will chase around other non-zombies to try to infect them as well. Coins will appear for you to collect. Simply move your cursor near the coins to collect them. Although your zombie minions will go around and infect non-zombies, they only live for a certain amount of time before they die.

At the bottom-left of the screen, you can see how many people you have to kill for that stage. To the right of that, you can see how many coins you have collected. To the right of that is the grenade that you can use to kill more people. These grenades need to be bought.

In the first version, there was a timer to the right of the grenade count. In this holiday special, instead of a timer, you have a value that tells you how many days left you have to infect people. This value does not run down during a stage, but rather lets you know that you only have so many number of stages left to play. If you are unable to kill the designated amount for a stage, you must replay the stage, but your number of days left will go down. During the stage, however, you have as much time as you like to make an infection.

At the end of each stage, you can choose to upgrade your zombies and buy other equipment. These include:

-Lifespan
-Speed
-Damage Resistance
-Attack
-Infection Chance
-Increase virus speed
-Increase money collecting radius
-Grenades
-Giving your virus the ability to penetrate walls
-Giving your virus the ability to penetrate people

The last upgradable option is new for this holiday-themed sequel.

From the main menu, you can access not only the game but also a few other things. These include:
-options: where you can toggle game graphics and sounds
-scores: where you can view the global online leader board to determine how high you have to score to be number one
-credits: where you can view the game's credits

Infect as many people as you can and you can be virtually awarded greatly with special in-game medals.

Game Review

Like its predecessor, Infectonator: Christmas is a fun little puzzle game that will keep players playing all the way through. With its many upgradable options, this game has high entertainment and replay value. The holiday-themed touch was a good way to keep the game concept fresh.

Infectonator : Christmas scores a 9/10 for continuing to provide fun and entertainment this holiday season.