Streamline
  • Home
  • Spotlight
  • Reviews
    • Action
    • Strategy
    • RPGs
  • Most Hardcore
    • Devices
    • Gifts
    • Gadgets
  • About Us
  • Android-Turnip Boy Robs a Bank-001
    Turnip Boy Robs a Bank Review
  • Android--Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs--001
    Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs Celebrate Thrilling Anniversary
  • Rail rescue New release
    Infinity Games Sets June 30 Release For Rail Rescue
  • Android-Human Fall Flat-Candyland-001
    Human Fall Flat Mobile Launches Brand-New Level: Candyland
  • Feature image
    Dunk City Dynasty Launches Globally on May 22
  • feature image Sky
    Sky: Children of the Light Review
  • Android--Carrion--001
    Carrion Review
  • Odin: Valhalla Rising title
    Norse Mythology-Inspired MMORPG Odin: Valhalla Rising Launches This Month
  • Android-MythWalker-001
    MythWalker Expands Adventure With Over 20 New Story Quests
  • Tribe Nine feature image
    TRIBE NINE’s Chapter 3: Neo Chiyoda City Arrives
  • Android-Blade of God X: Orisols-001
    Blade of God X: Orisols Review
  • Android-Darkest Hero--001
    Darkest Hero Review
  • Bleach: Brave Souls feature image
    Bleach: Brave Souls Launches Gift Campaign With Smartphone Wallpapers
  • Collect Or Die Ultra Title Screen
    Collect Or Die Ultra Launches On Google Play And iOS
  • Duck Detective: The Secret Salami Android
    Duck Detective: The Secret Salami Review
Hardcore Droid
Hardcore Droid
  • Home
  • News
    • News
    • Spotlight
    • Interviews
    • Consoles
  • Reviews
    • Action
    • Adventure
    • Strategy
    • RPG
    • MMOs
    • Racing
    • Indie
    • Hardware
  • Best Of
    • Top 10 Games
    • Best RPGs
    • Best Action
    • Best Puzzlers
    • Best Strategy
    • Best Indie Strat
    • Best Indie RPGs
    • Most Hardcore
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Game Jobs
    • Archives
    • Attributions
    • Opportunities
  • Simulation

Rebuild: Gangs of Deadsville Review

  • September 15, 2015
  • Sharang Biswas
Interview with a Game Designer: Sarah Northway
Spread the love

Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville | Best Android StrategyDid you know I used to be a war photographer? I’d head out into the battlefield, alongside the men and women risking their lives to protect us, and document their brave actions for posterity. Even with all that, none of the horrors I’ve witnessed prepared me for what I‘d see when I came back home. At least out there, the enemy wasn’t trying to eat us.

It’s moments like these that made me pause while playing Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville. In between scavenging for supplies, shoring up defenses and clearing out buildings infested with zombies, I took a moment to talk to one of my survivors, who until then I’d considered simply as a useful soldier armed with a pistol. Now he was a person. I was touched. I gave him a pet bulldog.

Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville | Best Android Strategy

Indie designer and developer Sara Northway, creator of the ingeniously zany Incredipede, is back with another sequel to her successful post-apocalyptic city-builder, a franchise that seems to always find itself on our Best Android Strategy Games of All Time list. This time, the game features a long story mode with multiple cities to develop, various factions to compete or ally with (including a commune of earth-loving hippies, a boys’ boarding school that managed to hold out during the zombie apocalypse, and even a small colony of…more enlightened…zombies), and host of new perks, equipment, events, and, according to the Play Store at least 200,000 words of story text. And just like the original, it’s super addictive (think the “just one more turn” syndrome of Civilization games), and incredibly fun.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Rebuild 3 is a city-builder/strategy game where you’re trying to reestablish cities that are infested with zombies or “zeds”. You start each level (or city) with just a few buildings under your control, and gradually expand by clearing out and then reclaiming surrounding buildings (and sometimes repurposing useless building, say an office block, to something more necessary, like a hospital). It’s not all that easy of course: you’ll have to scavenge for construction supplies, cultivate farms to feed your small community, find and encourage survivors to join you, maintain your population’s morale, and of course, fight of frequent hordes of invading zeds.

Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville | Best Android Strategy

Along the way, you get to use equip your survivors with weapons (And pets! And orphan children to take care of!), train them in different skills, and manage your sometimes shaky relationships with other colonies of survivors. You even get to found a new government, picking your policies as you see fit. Overall, the gameplay is fast and highly enjoyable. While the updated user interface is a little less user-friendly than its predecessors (equipping survivors with weapons, for example, can only be done through a very specific menu, and not any other menu that features equipment), it’s only a minor setback to the otherwise awesome experience. And quick word of advice: play on the classic, turn-based mode. It’s far more satisfying to wait and see what each day brings, and also easier to micromanage, than the real-time mode (I mean, do you really want to deal with survivors’ grievances while simultaneously fighting off a zombie attack?).

The standout parts of the game however, are those little narratives that emerge about your survivors. From hilarious moments during paramedic training (“Then people worried about catching STD’s from giving mouth to mouth so they took the breathing part right out”), to the harrowing decision to leave behind a sick survivor, to the professional skeptic who had a change of mind after the zed apocalypse, Northway has lovingly woven together a rich tapestry of personal stories and touching human moments that help us connect with the survivors as people. More than expendable builders, scavengers, and soldiers, your people dream for a better future, brood over the past, agonize over their decisions, and sometimes decide on their own course of action. Sure the characters aren’t actually autonomous, but Northway has managed to create with prose and clever scripting what the Sims has failed to achieve over three sequels and countless offshoots and expansions: bring your characters to life.

In short, get the game. Fight some zombies. Establish a community. Rebuild.

 

Hardcore?
4

Yes!

A great city-builder with engrossing narratives, and of course, the ever-present threat of ZOMBIES!

Related Topics
  • Android Strategy Games
Sharang Biswas

Sharang Biswas finished two engineering degrees before deciding to attend Art School, studying Interaction Design and Creative Technology at NYU-ITP. He fondly remembers Age of Empires II, the source of his interest in Medieval History, and Neverwinter Nights, which spurred his passion for Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop RPG's. He's currently, a writer, game designer and "sort of an artist," though he still questions what an artist actually does.

Previous Article
  • Simulation

Fallout Shelter Review

  • August 25, 2015
  • Steve Dourountoudakis
View Post
Next Article
VoxelCity Review | Android Strategy Games
  • Simulation
  • Strategy

VoxelCity Review

  • October 12, 2015
  • Nick (Catfish_Maw) Walker
View Post
You May Also Like
upjers feature image
View Post
  • News
  • Simulation

Upjers Brings ‘Love in Pixels’

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • February 23, 2025
View Post
  • Miscellaneous
  • Simulation
  • Strategy

Time Blast: Puzzle Game Review

  • Christelle Nfor
  • December 3, 2024
View Post
  • News
  • Simulation

Cooking Fever Inspires Chefs To Achieve Guinness World Record In Real-World Burger Challenge

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • September 19, 2024
Methods2 feature image
View Post
  • Reviews
  • Simulation

Methods2: Secrets and Death Review

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • August 23, 2024
Identity V feature image
View Post
  • MMOs
  • News
  • Simulation

Identity V launches Persona 5 Royale Crossover Event

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • August 21, 2024
Gods of Cricket Official Promo Screenshot
View Post
  • News
  • Simulation

Multiplayer Cricket Game Gods of Cricket Coming Soon to PC and Mobile

  • James Bell
  • July 15, 2024
L.O.L.-Surprise-O.M.G.-Fashion-Club-mobile-game
View Post
  • News
  • Simulation

L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. Fashion Club Shortlisted

  • Barbara Walker
  • June 9, 2024
Love and Deepspace feature
View Post
  • Most Hardcore
  • RPG
  • Simulation

Love and Deepspace Review

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • April 25, 2024
The Latest
  • Turnip Boy Robs a Bank Review
  • Castle Cats and Dungeon Dogs Celebrate Thrilling Anniversary
  • Infinity Games Sets June 30 Release For Rail Rescue
  • Human Fall Flat Mobile Launches Brand-New Level: Candyland
  • Dunk City Dynasty Launches Globally on May 22
  • Sky: Children of the Light Review
  • Carrion Review
  • Norse Mythology-Inspired MMORPG Odin: Valhalla Rising Launches This Month
  • MythWalker Expands Adventure With Over 20 New Story Quests
  • TRIBE NINE’s Chapter 3: Neo Chiyoda City Arrives
Meta
  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Hardcore Droid
  • Reviews
  • Spotlight
  • Hardcore
Core Gaming on the Android OS

Input your search keywords and press Enter.