Well, since my last update, poor Echo Bunniman has stood as one of the living dead at the Randal Monument, waiting to be revived by a passing lab assistant (filling in the time by attacking, and being attacked by, the other zombies also waiting) and with so much waiting around Urban Dead maybe doesn't sound that amazing. But it absolutely is.

What makes Urban Dead special is that in the world of MMOs (where the temptation is to add more and more features) the designer, Kevan Davis, has made the limitations inherent in the HTML-based world strengths -- part of the reason its one of the most successful MMOs I have played in terms of adherence to its themes.

The themes of the zombie genre are generally loneliness, hopelessness and desperation, and the game makes the most of these while never stopping being fun. It's lonely because although everyone in the world is a human player, talking takes effort and many of the players are your enemies; it's hopeless because attacking zombies is hard (the hit percentages for most weapons are shockingly low); and it's desperate because finding anything of use, or anywhere safe to hide, is a difficult and lengthy quest.

Just survival is hard, and so the world is deeply compelling, without requiring missions or obvious playthings to keep users entertained -- users truly do make their own fun by trying to defend (or ransack) locations such as malls. The design decisions don't only fit the theme but are what make the game work functionally -- for example, hit percentages are low to give everyone (zombie and human) a fair chance of surviving one on one attacks.

There are a few problems here and there. While the lack of chatter between players is an interesting decision, I can't help but feel being able to talk a little more might make the game feel a bit more alive -- as would an improvement in the graphics (which is actually offered by a third-party add-on, the UDtoolbar). Players can't trade items either, but I'm not disturbed by the lack of an economy -- it's something that would crumble in a zombie apocalypse anyway. The biggest problem I've found is the length of time I've spent as a zombie when I don't want to be one -- players who wish to play zombies seem to have an easier time of it as they can never die permanently, while humans face a long slog if they succumb to a zombie horde. It's be nice to see how a "hardcore" world would work where both zombies and humans could die permanently and the world was rebooted after one side or the other won; but that's a personal idea, not a complaint one way or the other.

Urban Dead is a great example of the possibilities that MMOs have when you think outside of classic RPG or social world formats: a genuinely scary and compelling world that needs no embellishment to the central concept of survival in a dangerous world -- one filled with other human players.