Touch the Dead

Touch the Dead is a rail shooter. Players use the stylus to point at oncoming zombies on the bottom screen. Pointing fires the weapon Steiner has equipped, and shots can be delivered to the head, arms, legs, and stomach.

To reload, players must simply grab a clip icon (located in the bottom right-hand corner of the touch screen), and drag it to the bottom left hand corner which has an image of the 'magazine'.

Protagonist Rob Steiner, or Prisoner #1809, has been transferred to Ashdown Hole State Penitentiary. Steiner has been accused of and sentenced for a murder that he did not commit. The intro movie shows him being transferred, and his mugshots. Resting in his cell, Steiner's cell door opens.

Seeing his chance for escape, Steiner flees his cell into the Penitentiary, which is mysteriously occupied by zombies. By the game's end, Steiner has gone through the entire prison, the sewer system, the prison hospital, and the rooftops of the prison. Steiner eventually escapes, but realizes that there is much more to go. He finds an airboat that he uses to dredge through a thick swamp, until he eventually comes to an abandoned military base.

In March 2006, Spanish publisher Virgin Play announced they had acquired worldwide publishing rights to Touch the Dead.

The game was distributed under Eidos Interactive's Secret Stash Games label in North America. A week following its US release, it reached the top 10 in game sales for the DS that week.

The game received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. It was heavily criticized for its "blocky" graphics and repetitive sound; however, it received great appreciation for its innovative gameplay which makes excellent use of the touch screen. Most complaints stemmed from its reloading system which requires the player to move a magazine from one side of the screen to the other to reload, wasting precious seconds in an already difficult game. IGN cited its mediocre graphics and poor originality.

GameSpot also criticized the graphics, but still appreciated its original gameplay. GamePro said that the game was "laughably bad at points but there's a loveable [sic] camp quality to it that makes it worth enduring through." Nintendo Life gave the game a positive review while it was still in development.