Dead Trigger is a single-player only, zombie-themed First-Person Shooter/Survival Horror video game authored by Micah Nathan that was developed and published by Madfinger Games. It was released in June 2012 for iOS and Android mobile devices.
A sequel, Dead Trigger 2, was released in 2013, with better graphics and more weapons, but online only. It was also playable in Facebook, but was shut down in 2014 due to the massive hacking it suffered. It also received a film adaptation
in 2017, directed by Mike Cuff and Scott Windhauser, but Madfinger withdrew its support of the film upon finding out the movie had drastic changes in comparison to the original game.
Another game by the same team, Unkilled, is considered the Spiritual Successor of the second game, and has also been acquired by DECA Games as of May 2023.
Both games provide examples of the following tropes:
- Attack Its Weak Point: Both Ragers and Panzers from the second installment have weak points at their backs.
- An Arm and a Leg: The player can blow zombies' limbs apart by aiming at them. However, they'll still crawl towards the player unless they receive a headshot, collide against walls, or their bodies give out.
- The Armorer: The first game features Benjamin Rockstock, a former cop turned gun clerk, while the second game features Buck (Gunsmith), who provides the player with weapons to fend off against the Zombie threat.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The Rocket Launcher, by definition, is capable of one-shotting hordes of Zombies over a wide area. Moreover, its exceptionally long reach and AoE damage are also helpful when searching for the hidden Golden Pigs scattered through the missions. That said, its magazine only holds four rockets and it has no reserve, on top of having a sluggish rate of fire and its weight slowing you down.
- The Minigun has a high rate of fire and is capable of tearing limbs off of Zombies and even making them explode into paste. However, like the Rocket Launcher mentioned above, it has no reserve and can still slow you down with its weight, on top of its low accuracy.
- The Desert Eagle, at its strongest, can one-shot Zombies even at a long distance due to its high accuracy, and it's capable of killing Special Zombies in a few shots. However, it has a slow rate of fire and a low magazine size, which means you'll end up running out of ammo when facing a neverending horde, which is detrimental in Search & Destroy, Power/Supply-Run, and Operations missions due to the high spawn rate.
- The Beneli 828U [sic] is an exceptional shotgun whose accuracy and tight pellet spread makes it capable of one-shotting lines of Zombies and at the same time, blowing off one or more of their limbs and earning you lots of Brutality/Lethality bonuses. However, being an over-and-under shotgun means it has an abysmally low clip size, which added to its slow rate of fire and low reserve size, on top of its aforementioned tight pellet spread, becomes a hindrance when facing hordes spread horizontally, which makes it easier for you to run out of ammo and get overwhelmed by hordes of Zombies, especially red-eyed ones.
- Balloon of Doom: One of the random Daily Job Missions in the second game involves shooting as many balloons as possible before time runs out. Of course, said balloons have Zombies attached to the other end of their strings.
- The Berserker: The second game features the appropriately-named Rager. It makes a "roar" motion upon seeing the player before charging at them, felling them to the ground and killing other zombies in the way.
- Bling-Bling-BANG!: The Desert Eagle from the second game has gold camouflage by default. The Shop also features golden versions of the AK 74, Peacemaker, SCAR and even Butterfly Swords among its premium weapons. By far, the only golden weapon that can be obtained through blueprint drops from Special Zombies is the Golden Jackhammer at Gunsmith Level 10.
- Boom, Headshot!: While Zombies can be killed without aiming at their heads, shooting them in the head will kill or at least stun them long enough for another headshot or run.
- Boring, but Practical: The LAR Grizzly may not be as powerful as the Desert Eagle, but it compensates for the problem with higher accuracy, faster rate of fire, and higher ammo reserve.
- Chainsaw Good: Both games feature the chainsaw as a weapon.
- Demolitions Expert: The Engineer produces all sorts of explosives. Even the Sentry Gun, Sentry Chicken, and Ammo Chicken explode once they're out of ammo.
- Dual Wielding: The second game features melee dual-weapon sets such as Butterfly Swords, Golden Butterfly, Viking Swords, and Z-Hunter Machetes.
- Fast-Killing Radiation: The Scienfist from the second installment emits radiation that can deplete the player's health if they're within range. The radiation damage rate increases as it closes in on the player.
- Gatling Good: The Minigun from both games, with its high rate of fire and clip size of 300, is almost guaranteed to disintegrate zombies in seconds. However, it's only effective when zombies are grouped together or corner the player, as said high rate of fire and lack of reserve ammo causes it to deplete quickly.
- Gratuitous Spanish: The Engineer uses Spanish words from time to time when addressing the player.
- Guns Akimbo: The second game features Dual Uzi, Dual Glock, Dual Mauser C90, Dual Peacemaker, Dual MAT 49, and Dual Rhino 60DS, which are two-gun sets that can be wielded at the same time.
- Healing Potion: The Medic produces two types of this in the form of Painkillers and Autoheals. The former, produced in batches of four, is an interesting example, as they not only restore a decent chunk of your Health but also increase it. However, the health increase is only for the remainder of the missions. The latter, on the other hand, automatically replenishes your Health whenever it's below full capacity, but can only work when you're not being attacked for a while and are rather slow.
- Holy Hand Grenade: A literal example is found in the aptly named Holy Grenade from the second game, obtainable only through Premium packs. Despite being far weaker than a Frag Grenade, it has a wider range and is cheaper and faster to produce. Upon exploding, the Holy Grenade completely disintegrates the zombies it kills into nothing.
- Landmine Goes Click: The Triple Mine beeps after you plant it on the ground and it's completely visible. However, it's justified because the beeping is arguably meant to attract Zombies, whose inability to discern booby traps causes it to go off three times whenever they're nearby.
- Large Ham: When you enter the Arena of Death or any Tournament, T.N.T. will serve as the commentator, cheerfully delivering bombastic lines as you fend off the increasing difficulty of each Zombie wave.
- Ludicrous Gibs: The Chainsaw T-800, Minigun, and stronger shotguns allow the player to disintegrate zombies and thus earn them a Carnage/Brutality bonus.
- Katanas Are Just Better: The Katana is one of the game's strongest melee weapons without counting the Premium weapons, blueprints obtainable at Tech Level 9 and unlocked at Gunsmith Level 10. However, its weight will slow you down and it has the longest delay to attack.
- Kill Tally: The SCAR has one engraved into its magazine holder, titled "ZOMBIES".
- The Medic: Tara (Medic) produces Painkillers and Auto-Heals for the player to regenerate their health.
- No-Damage Run: In the second game, it's possible to complete the missions without getting damaged, but it takes a lot of skill, patience, and in the case of free-to-play players, Boosters, Painkillers, and a good Internet connection. Moreover, the game has a three-tier achievement for when you complete a specific number of missions without getting damaged.
- One-Hit Polykill: In the second game's Sentinel and Defense missions with the Sniper Rifle, the player can fell two or more zombies in one shot provided they are all in the line of fire.
- The shotgun Benelli 828U (spelled as Beneli 828U) can do the same in open-field missions.
- Play Every Day:
- The first installment has this in the form of Daily Missions, which earn the player 5 Gold upon success.
- The second installment has both Daily Challenges (which earn a small amount of Gold upon completion and range from healing/increasing 100 HP to setting booby traps at the Arena of Death) and Daily Job missions (whose income is doubled or tripled at the end of the mission).
- Proj-egg-tile: A variation is found in the Boom Egg, which is thrown as a distraction for nearby zombies like the Boom Chicken. While they deal the same damage and have the same range as their Chicken counterparts, they have a shorter production time. However, the Boom Eggs are only produced in batches of two.
- Real Money Trade: Being online-only, Dead Trigger 2 offers packages of powerful weapons that can only be obtained through buying a package with real money.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the second installment, red-eyed Zombies are far faster and more aggressive than green-eyed ones. Moreover, they are also intelligent enough to wield metal pipes as clubs and deal extra damage.
- Sentry Gun: The Engineer produces them in batches of four, but the player can only have two of them active at the same time. Still, it can come in handy to handle any zombie that comes from behind.
- The Sentry Chicken serves the same role, only that it follows the player around and will run away when attacked by the zombies. Like the Sentry Gun, the player can only have two active units at the same time.
- Shoot the Fuel Tank: In both games, all missions have fuel barrels that the player can shoot in case of being chased by too many Zombies, or to take down a Special Zombie, provided it's close enough to the tank.
- The Smurfette Principle:
- Until the second installment, this game only had one type of female zombie, unlike the male ones who could be either policemen, SWAT agents, or civilians. This female zombie also has the tendency to flail her arms around while running at the player to attack them.
- In the second game, Tara (Medic) is the only female in the survivor group.
- Starter Equipment: It varies between games:
- In the first game, Kyle (the player character) starts off with a Colt 1911, which becomes weaker as the player progresses.
- At the beginning of the second game, Kyle is equipped with a CZ 75 and a wrench, both of which become useless as the game progresses.
- Stuff Blowing Up: In the second game, the Engineer produces explosives to deal with large crowds of Zombies, and even the stuff that's not supposed to explode (like Sentry Guns) does, causing mild damage to nearby Zombies. The Grenade Launcher and Rocket Launcher are also obvious examples.
- Suicide Attack: The Kamikaze from the second game is a Special Zombie who has a fuel barrel strapped to its body. If the player gets too close or the Kamikaze is killed, it will crush the barrel to blow itself up, killing or dealing heavy damage to the player depending on how close they got. However, in the former scenario, it won't drop any items if the player survives its explosion.
- Boom Chickens and Rocket Chickens kill zombies by blowing themselves up.
- Timed Mission: The Sentinel and Defend missions have a defined timer as you have to respectively protect secured areas from Zombies and stay alive. Power/Supply - Run, Assault, Search & Destroy, and Escort missions also become this when you take too long on meeting the stated goal, giving you five minutes to do so.
- Token Minority:
- Yusif (Smuggler), whose role is to give the player money/health/damage/speed boosters and Second Chances in exchange for gold, is a black man.
- Roberto (Engineer), a mechanic who produces explosives to equip the player with, is implied to be Mexican, what with peppering his speech with Spanish words.
- Zombie Puke Attack: The Vomitron attacks by expectorating red spit at the player, which on top of dealing heavy damage, it can mess up with their aim for a short period of time.
