Raise a rabble of bony lads in Undead Horde
Lads lads lads
Rowdy meat-free lads have risen from the grave and only you have the will and the power to channel their boisterousness into productive behaviour. That's Undead Horde, a game about a necromancer raising the dead to rampage across the kingdom for fun and profit. I am only now realising that I'd rolled Undead Horde and Skeletal Dance Party into one game in my memory but no worries. Undead Horde is made by 10tons, the gang behind games including Crimsonland and Jydge, so I guess I'm glad to now be fully aware of it. They make some fun video games.
Right so, Undead Horde is... ah! Undead Horde is the action-RPG sorta one, where you romp through levels raising corpses to serve in your unholy army, murdering all sorts of men and monsters in your path, then raising their corpses to continue the good fight. And your necromancer fella levels up and finds new weapons and magical trinkets and... right right, that's it.
So that's maybe a touch like Overlord. Except instead of sheep-bothering gremlins you're parent to skeletal warriors, scorpions, bears, and chickens. And with more customisation and procedurally-generated bits and not a linear story campaign and... but it has evil minions, right.
Undead Horde is out now for £13.49/€16.99/$16.99 from Steam and GOG. It's on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I do see skeletons are the lads of the Monster Manual. Resurrected without the fear of the soul or the worry of the mind, they're pure sinew and bone, pure action and attitude. They play thighbone flutes, they chug flagons of real ale knowing it'll cascade right through their ribs, they'll happily give someone a laugh by getting punched so hard their skull spins round and round, they're always cackling... great lads, top banter.
For years my favourite skeleton lads were the ones in Dark Souls who lunge at you in a corkscrew attack and explode into a shower of bones before reforming. They can't get enough of that move. They think it's hilarious. But I think they were surpassed by Dark Souls 3's big boneballs of lads who endlessly roll around together squishing adventurers. They know you too can resurrect so it's not malicious, just banter.