Perished: The Zurkez Project

Perished: The Zurkez Project is a first-person stealth and melee combat game where players control Zurkez, a genetically altered child with clawed hands who escapes a cloning facility. The narrative follows his journey through four distinct missions—beginning in a forest, progressing through an underground base and facility, and culminating in a town—as he seeks answers about his origins. Gameplay emphasizes sneaking past armed soldiers, attacking from behind with claws to avoid gunfire, solving simple environmental puzzles, and utilizing a free-floating camera mode for exploration, all presented through pencil-drawn cutscenes with voice-over narration.

Perished: The Zurkez Project: A Forgotten Experiment in Stealth and Claws

Introduction

Perished: The Zurkez Project (2010) is a game that defies easy categorization—a bizarre, flawed, and often derided experiment in first-person stealth and melee combat. Developed by the Australian indie studio Modern Day Industries, the game casts players as Zurkez, a genetically altered child with claws for hands, fleeing a cloning facility. With its crude mechanics, rudimentary storytelling, and polarizing reception, Perished has become a cult oddity, a cautionary tale of indie ambition, and a subject of fascination for those who study the margins of gaming history. This review will dissect its development, narrative, gameplay, and legacy, arguing that while it is far from a masterpiece, it remains a fascinating artifact of early 2010s indie game development.

Development History & Context

Modern Day Industries (MDI) was a small Australian studio founded by Alexander Bishop and Campbell Robinson, with Jared Kidd joining as a 3D modeler. Perished was their debut title, developed using the Torque 3D engine, a tool that, while powerful for its time, was not without limitations. The game was announced in 2009 and released in April 2010, a period when indie games were gaining traction but still struggled for visibility against AAA titles.

The studio’s youth (one critic noted that “nobody on board was over 18”) and lack of experience were evident in the game’s execution. The team’s ambition—creating a melee-focused stealth game with cooperative multiplayer—was ahead of its time, but the technical and design limitations of the era (and their own inexperience) led to a product that was widely panned by critics. Despite this, Perished stands as a testament to the DIY spirit of early indie development, where passion often outstripped polish.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The story of Perished is as simplistic as its execution. Zurkez, a genetically altered child with clawed hands, escapes a cloning facility and embarks on a journey through four environments: a forest, an underground base, a facility, and a town. The narrative is delivered through crude pencil-drawn cutscenes with voice-over narration, a choice that adds to the game’s amateurish charm (or lack thereof, depending on one’s perspective).

Themes of identity, genetic experimentation, and survival are present but underdeveloped. Zurkez’s quest to uncover his origins is never fully fleshed out, and the lack of meaningful character development or dialogue makes the story feel hollow. The game’s attempts at world-building are similarly half-baked, with environments that lack detail or coherence. The soldiers Zurkez fights are indistinguishable from one another, and the setting feels more like a series of disconnected levels than a cohesive world.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Perished’s core gameplay loop is brutally simple: sneak up behind soldiers and kill them with Zurkez’s claws. The game enforces this with extreme consequences—approaching enemies from the front usually results in instant death after two bullets. This “one-hit wonder” mechanic, combined with the lack of weapons or abilities beyond jumping, makes the game feel punishing rather than strategic.

The stealth mechanics are rudimentary at best. Enemy AI is predictable, with soldiers either standing still or following simple patrol routes. The lack of environmental interaction or distractions (e.g., no objects to throw or hide behind) makes stealth feel more like a chore than a challenge. The cooperative multiplayer mode, where players could team up locally, was an interesting idea but suffered from the same technical and design flaws as the single-player experience.

The UI is equally barebones, with minimal HUD elements and no clear indicators for objectives or health. The free-floating camera mode, which allows players to explore the environment independently of Zurkez, is an odd inclusion that feels out of place and serves little purpose.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Visually, Perished is a relic of its time. The Torque 3D engine was not known for its graphical prowess, and the game’s textures, models, and animations reflect this. The environments are sparse, with repetitive geometry and a lack of detail that makes the world feel lifeless. The pencil-drawn cutscenes, while unique, only serve to highlight the game’s budget constraints.

Sound design is equally underwhelming. The voice acting is amateurish, and the soundtrack is either absent or forgettable. The audio cues for enemy movement and attacks are functional but lack the polish of even mid-tier indie titles from the era.

Reception & Legacy

Perished was met with near-universal derision upon release. Critics awarded it an average score of 9% on MobyGames, with reviews calling it “hideously diabolical” and “rotting garbage.” Players were equally unimpressed, giving it an average rating of 0.9 out of 5. The game’s technical flaws, repetitive gameplay, and lack of depth were cited as major drawbacks.

Despite its poor reception, Perished has gained a niche following as a “so bad it’s good” title. Its cult status is fueled by its sheer audacity—few games have been so unabashedly amateurish while still attempting to tell a story and offer a unique gameplay experience. The game’s legacy lies in its role as a cautionary tale for indie developers, a reminder that passion alone is not enough to overcome technical and design shortcomings.

Conclusion

Perished: The Zurkez Project is a game that exists at the intersection of ambition and incompetence. Its developers had a vision—a melee-focused stealth game with cooperative play—but lacked the skills, resources, and experience to execute it. The result is a game that is frustrating, repetitive, and often unintentionally hilarious.

Yet, in its own way, Perished is a valuable artifact of gaming history. It captures the spirit of early indie development, where small teams took risks and pushed boundaries, even if the results were flawed. For historians and curious players, it offers a glimpse into a time when the barriers to entry for game development were lower, and the outcomes were often unpredictable.

In the grand tapestry of video game history, Perished is a minor thread—a forgotten experiment that, while far from perfect, deserves recognition for its audacity. It is not a game to be played for enjoyment, but one to be studied for its place in the evolution of indie gaming.