The player is responsible for saving as many citizens as possible from the various regions of Nuevos Aires, a large fictional city being invaded by zombies, by deploying and directing a range of military units.

Regardless of whether the player wins or accepts defeat on a mission, this will affect the larger world map, which displays the entire city divided up into territories.

[2] In the creation of Atom Zombie Smasher, Chung's focus was on procedural generation, including the layout of the city and each zone, the events that affected the larger game, and what resources would be available to the player.

He desired to avoid any detailed modeling of the people, and found that his original simple dot representation during development was sufficient, with players able to easily surmise what the humans and zombies were doing at a glance.

[2] Rock, Paper, Shotgun gave a positive review, noting how the game felt "fresh and clever and oh-so-PC-gaming-in-2011: no rules but its own".

[8] Atom Zombie Smasher was one of ten independently developed games that was featured at the 2011 Penny Arcade Expo.