A really awesome interactive movie entitled “The Outbreak” puts you in a starring role against an advancing zombie horde. It’s part choose-your-own-adventure, and part Night of the Living Dead.

Warning: not safe at the average workplace due to language, violence, and gore.

Play the movie once (or whatever) and then read the rest of my entry.

I died during my first play because I chose mobility over staying in the house. According to the logic of Max Brook’s Zombie Survival Guide, staying on the move is (often) preferable to staying put. Why wait for a zombie horde to swarm the house when you could be one step ahead? Furthermore, I wasn’t happy about the random car-crash that killed me. According to that kind of “random accident” logic, I could have also died by falling down the stairs if I stayed in the house.

However, the abrupt ending of my first experience with The Outbreak reinforces its thematic elements: this is shot like a zombie movie, where anything could and might happen. When the characters tried to start the car in the garage, I was like, “shit, it’s not going to start, just like in every movie.” Then when the car started I thought, “shit, it’s only going to have a quarter-tank of gas, just like in every movie.” And when the zombie was clinging to the hood and got blood on the windshield I knew that we were going to crash … just like in every movie.

The Outbreak may not appease your inner zombie survivalist nerd, but it will definitely engage your zombie movie-loving spirit.

Check it out, maybe you can survive The Outbreak.