You know that game we all dream about, the game everyone wants to be real? Yeah, it's real.
Like Dwarf Fortress, the community of which has a motto which is ‘It’s fun to lose’, what we’re offering here isn’t a game where your characters goal is to save the world, find a cure or flee to the promised land.
Surviving isn’t just about blowing zombie’s heads off.
• Depression
• Starvation
• Trust issues
• Loneliness
• Illness
• Insanity
These are just some of the things you have to deal with in Project Zomboid.
FIRST OF ALL — YOU WILL DIE
You’re trapped in a quarantined city with a million zombies. There is no escape. There is no cure. The end is coming, so get used to it.
Project Zomboid is about the choices you make, and how you choose to live your last days on Earth. As a hero who goes out in a moment of heroic self-sacrifice to save a defenseless family? Or a callous coward who saves his own skin and leaves his companions for dead?
It’s these choices, and the story you weave in your adventure. That is what Project Zomboid is all about. Not saving the world with some pie in the sky cure, or flying away in a helicopter where everything will probably be okay. This is the apocalypse.
MIND AND BODY
You can sustain injuries to any part of your body, from a broken leg to a concussion. These will need to be bandaged, set, cauterized or otherwise dealt with to keep you going. Illness and disease is also a real possibility, so better bury those corpses in the garden or set light to them before you catch something, because the hospital’s a long way away!
But it’s not just physical injuries that you can be inflicted with. The zombie apocalypse is hard to deal with, and it’s easy to sink into depression, or worse. You must try and keep your morales high, your stress down, and take some time for the little things to keep you and your companions sane. A hot shower, a cooked meal or a bit of music will go a long way.
If people are at the end of their rope, they may become withdrawn, fight, cry, or even stick a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger (which makes a lot of noise!). Paranoia can fool the senses and outright insanity isn’t easy to come back from. Cigarettes, alcohol and drugs can keep the darkness at bay, but rely on them too much and you may get addicted.
THE WORLD
As Project Zomboid develops, we will be adding new areas to the world, so that eventually you will have a huge city and surrounding suburbs and countryside to explore. Any building can be used as a safehouse, and any building can be looted for equipment to help you survive. You can hunt out weapons at the local gun shop, anti-biotics at the pharmacy, and food at the local market. But at a pinch raiding people’s fridges, sheds and medicine cabinets will keep you going.
THE STORY
Right now, the outside world knows nothing about the zombie threat. The government has quarantined the city, and cut off all communication with the outside world. The news is rife with speculation about the events that are occurring in the city borders. Soon they will know, and wish they didn’t. The quarantine can’t hold forever, and just outside the exclusion zone lies the still operational local power plant. Once that goes, batteries and canned food will be worth more than their weight in gold.
As you play Project Zomboid, the longer you survive, the game-world changes around you as the apocalypse develops. You can keep up on current events by turning on a radio, and those events will affect your situation as time progresses. You may even be able to influence them.
Combat is a tricky business in Project Zomboid. Unlike Left4Dead or other more shooter-based zombie games, you can’t expect to go head to head with a horde of zombies and walk out of there. Unless by ‘walk out of there’ you mean ‘shuffle out of there — groaning’. You may be able to handle one or two zombies without too much concern, but when 100 of them are thumping at your door….
In Project Zomboid, you’re hit by the ‘weapon safety paradox’. That is, the weapons that are safest to use tend to make a lot of noise, and bring more zombies your way. The weapons that are safest to use also tend to have limited ammunition, so by the time they’ve attracted a hundred more zombies, you’ll likely only have a hammer or baseball bat left to deal with them all.
And remember: In this game, you’re not immune. You can be infected by something as simple as a scratch. Melee combat is extremely dangerous.
This is why, generally, fighting a group of zombies is a BAD IDEA, and should only be attempted as a last resort.
LINE OF SIGHT AND CHARACTER AWARENESS
In Project Zomboid, we simulate the character’s awareness of their surroundings will a full line of sight system. A demo of which can be seen below:
Different things will affect the arc in which your character is able to see, such as drugs, drink, paranoia, tiredness, or otherwise distracting elements in your periphery vision, such as the rain in the demo.
You also have small zone where you are able to detect zombies close to you for a full 360 degrees. Both the arc and this detection zone can be increased with various skills and perks, as well as some performance enhancing drugs, to simulate the character’s increased awareness of his surroundings.
uild and craft items to help you stay alive. From weapons, food or traps to a simple plank of wood nailed to a door. In Project Zomboid you will be able to craft hundreds of items.
Using the crafting panel, you can combine or dismantle items found in houses, backyards, shops, hospitals or any other location, in order to create new and more useful items.
As your various crafting skills increase, or you find more useful tools and equipment for crafting, then you will get access to more complicated crafting recipes,
Weapons
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/batcombo2.pngYou will be able to construct makeshift weapons, or modify and improve existing ones, out of looted or salvaged items you find upon your travels.
Each weapon has a range of characteristics, melee weapons for example will have differing ranges, swing arcs, min/max damage thresholds, weights and resistance, which will make them differ wildly in application and effectiveness. A hammer may be great for crushing the head of one zombie, but when surrounded by five of them is not going to get you very far. A baseball bat is great at pushing multiple zombies away from you, but can quickly tire you out swinging it wildly through 20 groping hands.
By combining them with other items, or using tools on them, you can alter their attributes. Hammering nine-inch nails through a baseball bat will increase its damage potential, but will reduce its ability to knock back zombies. Where using a hacksaw on a shotgun’s barrel will improve its close-range capabilities and lower its weight, but will reduce its range.
Food
While you can always eat cold raw food at a pinch, health, morale and a sense of normality are important when the undead are shuffling outside your door. In Project Zomboid, you can use your crafting skills to create a culinary treat to help keep up the spirits of you and your companions, which may help avoid any inconvenient mental collapses.
Defenses
Some planks of wood and a few nails could be the thin line between safety and being zombie food. Pushing furniture against the door may give you the additional time you need to jump out the bathroom window and leg it to safety.
As Project Zomboid develops, we will continually add new craftable items, as well as hundreds of base items you can find around the world.
Join your friends and survive the apocalypse together in co-op multiplayer.**
FAQ
“How come you can’t climb out of windows?”
Answer: Because the art hasn’t been done yet.
“How come you can’t climb over obstacles?”
Answer: Because the art hasn’t been done yet.
“Why are the zombies bald?”
Answer: Because the art hasn’t been done yet.
Actually, this last one requires a slightly longer answer. Characters in the game will ultimately be assembled out of component parts – head, headwear, shirt, trousers, etc. So you’ll be able to customise your character to your heart’s content. The same goes for the NPCs which will use the same system. And since any NPC or, indeed, you the player can become a zombie, the zombies need to reflect the look of the character from which they turned.
http://theindiestone.com/binky/http://projectzomboid.com/blog/** No multiplayer yet.
