Zombies Ate My Neighbors was originally developed by LucasArts.
Each level has at most ten neighbors, and each neighbor type is worth a different amount of points. 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 in the current stage are killed. At least one neighbor must be saved from each level to progress to the next. If the player does not find a neighbor fast enough, an enemy will kill the neighbors when touched, preventing them from being saved. In each of the 48 stages, which includes seven optional bonus levels, the goal is to rescue the surviving neighbors, at which point a door opens that will take the player to the next stage. 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, merman, evil dolls, aliens, UFOs, giant ants, blobs, Giant worms, and the game's namesake, zombies. The player chooses between two characters, Zeke and Julie, or both in a two-player mode.