Dead Estate for Windows

Get to the top of this horror mansion

Dead Estate is a free action video game wherein you have to survive zombies and other creepy monsters roaming inside a crazy mansion. Developed by Milkbar Lads, this indie isometric roguelike shooter game is a fast-paced adventure through procedurally-generated rooms in order to access the next area. This game can be played on both a desktop client and on your web browser. 

Duck and weave to survive

Dead Estate is reminiscent of frenetic shooting games but is filled with monstrous surprises at every turn. An animated introduction cutscene shows your choice of two playable characters: Trucker Jeff and Hitchhiker Jules. The two characters have varying strengths and weaknesses. Jeff can take more damage and has a quick-shooting handgun at first but is slower in movement. Meanwhile, Jules is much faster but loses more health and uses a slow-shooting shotgun at the start.

Your goal is to find the key and its locked door that leads to the boss fight before the next floor. You need to go through four floors, and all playthroughs have random rooms filled with different kinds of monster enemies—and sometimes deadly fixtures like floor spikes. You need to kill all visible enemies to unlock the doors; pots can be broken, and they will sometimes spawn money, hearts, and additional enemies. 

There’s also a merchant NPC somewhere on the map if you need helpful items. There are 25 different weapons you can pick up and 50 different items. However, each floor scales in difficulty with the monster types, and there’s no save progression. Plus, all rooms are small and have little wiggle space. The controls are pretty easy, though: WASD or arrow keys to move; Spacebar, Z, or right-click to jump, and left-click to fire.

A unique challenge

All in all, Dead Estate is a pretty fun game for any roguelike fans. The controls are easy enough to master, but the challenge in facing different kinds of enemies and mapping the floors make it exciting the higher you go up the mansion. While it’s a bit different compared to roguelike games with bigger spaces, there’s still strategy involved with trying to survive the close encounters here.