
Scoring points earns players neighbors to save and extra lives. The game is lost if the players lose all of their lives or if all of the neighbors are killed. At least one neighbor must be saved from each level to progress to the next. Upon nightfall, tourists transform into werewolves and cannot be saved the game counts it as if they had been killed.

On some levels, daytime gradually turns tonight. Īll types of neighbors will be killed if an enemy touches them, preventing them from being saved for the remainder of the game or until an "Extra Bonus Victim" is awarded. Once all neighbors on a level have been saved by the players touching them, a door opens that will take the player to the next stage. In each of the 48 stages, which includes seven optional bonus levels, the players must rescue numerous types of neighbors, including barbecue chefs, teachers, babies, tourists, archeologists, soldiers, dogs, and cheerleaders. They navigate suburban neighborhoods, shopping malls, pyramids, haunted castles, and other areas, destroying a variety of horror-movie monsters, including vampires, werewolves, huge demonic babies, spiders, squidmen, evil dolls, aliens, UFOs, giant ants, blobs, giant worms, mummies, chainsaw-wielding maniacs, "pod people" (aggressive alien clones of the players), and the game's namesake, zombies. The player can choose between Zeke and Julie, or play both in a two-player mode. Tongue himself and defeat him to put an end to his plans. Ultimately, they will come face to face with Dr. Two teenage friends, Zeke and Julie, having witnessed the attack of said monsters, arm themselves with a great deal of unconventional weaponry and items to combat them and save their neighbors from certain death. Tongue has created a wide variety of monsters within the bowels of his castle and has unleashed them on nearby suburban areas, terrorizing its inhabitants. Both games were re-released as part of Lucasfilm Classic Games: Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Ghoul Patrol for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows in June 2021. It spawned a sequel, Ghoul Patrol, released in 1994. While not a great commercial success, the game was well-received for its graphical style, humor, and deep gameplay. Various elements and aspects of horror movies are referenced in the game with some of its more violent content being censored in various territories such as Europe and Australia, where it is known only as Zombies.

Aiding them in this task are a variety of weapons and power-ups that can be used to battle the numerous enemies in each level. One or two players take control of protagonists, Zeke and Julie, in order to rescue the titular neighbors from monsters often seen in horror movies. Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a run and gun video game developed by LucasArts and published by Konami for the Super NES and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis consoles in 1993.
