Dead Island stars in new Facebook apps

Dead Island publisher Deep Silver has commissioned three Facebook apps to promote the upcoming zombie survival adventure.

Developer Neoco has already released the first of the three apps, Become A Zombie. You can upload a picture of yourself in your bikini, wearing a zombie mask, and vote on your favourite beachwear undead. The most popular zombie will score a prize pack.

So far, entrants seems to be recycling old Zombie Walk photos sans bathers, offering holiday snaps minus zombies, or adding completely random photos. So if you stick to the rules you probably have a pretty good shot at winning.

The next two apps will allow users to pimp out their Facebook profiles with Dead island content, and answer trivia for a shot at more prizes.

Interestingly, in describing the apps, Deep Silver's presser made mention of their potential to "identify Dead Island advocates and build a two-way relationship for future releases". Hello, future franchise!

"Dead Island offers something new and exciting in the saturated zombie genre marketplace. It's going to be a blockbuster and the start of a franchise for sure," Neoco's Benn Achilleas agreed.

"Learning more about our fans is hugely important as it means we can deliver the games and downloadable content they really want," Deep Silver's George Larch said of the game's push for social network prominence.

Other promotional efforts for the game include a tie-in novel.

Dead Island arrives on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in early September.