Unturned is like Minecraft if someone turned the survival element up to 11. It’s an interesting take on block-based survival gaming.

Coming from small developer Smartly Dressed Games, though, Unturned turns out to be an impressive title that manages to keep you on your toes at all times. The style makes me think of Roblox as much as it does Minecraft, in that the land and buildings are more rounded off than the squared shapes of Mojang’s game. That’s no bad thing, it’s clear and uncluttered so always easy to see what you’re doing. There’s also a lot of blood, everywhere. Zombies splatter it all over the walls when they’re killed. Cows bleed all over the place when you accidentally run them over, it’s hilarious.

The game world you play in for the single player mode isn’t saved as far as I can tell, so when you turn off and come back to it, you’ll be starting again. This makes me think the multiplayer was always the main focus as the game stays server based and you can come back. Both feature a range of pre-built buildings with nice attention to detail and some humour thrown in. Visit a beach and you’ll often find some sunbathing shorts-wearing zombies next to a handy coolbox and some drinks for you to keep your health up. Go to the farm or city and you’ll find tractors and cars to ride around in. I’m impressed by the different areas you can find in the game from a marina to a cave system. It’s a well thought out playground.

Single player still has quite a bit of content to keep you busy. Though they seem to be hard to find, you can talk and trade with NPCs, build your own bases (eventually), even build on vehicles or fortify existing buildings to survive the dark nights where zombies become more frequent.

While I didn’t stay too long on single player, it’s far more fun to play with friends than it is alone, anyway, each finding your own weapons, of which there are many. My favorite weapon is the silent but deadly crossbow, which you can use to sneak up and kill one zombie at a time without alerting all the others. This is a useful tactic as the game world seems to be designed to attract zombies by doing anything that will make any sort of noise, from car engines to jumping. Sniper rifles offer long distance shots and melee weapons are plenty, including chainsaws.

There are downsides to this being much more of a small indie release, felt most prominently in the bugs in sound effects and graphics that are present and the twitchy cursor that makes picking up items a pain at times, but that doesn’t stop this game being playable. I’m hoping more updates are made to fix some of the issues and add more content because this could well be (and still is) a lot of fun for those looking for a simple multiplayer survival game to play with friends.