Project Zomboid: This is how you Died

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Project Zomboid title sits at the bottom middle of the screen. In focus is a man on top of a car with one hand on an axe and another wiping their mouth with a backpack on their back. Surrounding him is a large amount of zombies eager to grab the human and this plays out to a backdrop of wind and rain

Project Zomboid, a game by The Indie Stone, is an isometric zombie survival simulator that takes place in the early 90's in Kentucky, USA.

When one starts playing the game, it best to recommend making use of the sandbox difficulty setting to get to grips with the game and then when one feels confident to try either the other default settings or continue in the sandbox to tailor the game to your ideal zombie apocalypse.

The character creator is quite robust with a good selection of  trait modifiers and professions to start a life with some it having a marked effect on some aspect of the game. An example being a Sunday Driver perk that limits the top speed and acceleration profile of any car the player drives or a veteran that is desensitised to the horrors of blood and gore.

Once character creation is complete, a basic character selection allows for some customisation and you are ready to begin.

The game starts soon after the outbreak occurs and your character, with some weighting on profession, will start in an enclosed building. The question now is what do you do?

The safest and most boring option is to try stock up on some food and beverages and make a walk away from civilisation and try lose your pursuers in the woods and attempt to find some form of shelter out in the middle of nowhere and become a new world survivalist. 

That is probably the easiest way to survive until winter, however I would say that it is probably the easiest once one has played the game a bit and has become accustomed to the game and  familiar with its game systems.

"You Survived 4 Hours" as the player is grabbed and bitten by a nearby zombie. The bite is fatal as the room is covered in blood which caused the player to die by blood loss
A more educational experience would be to try find a weapon in your house like a frying pan or a pair of boots and get use to how the zomboids behave. It will most likely be a miserable experience getting bit and dying a lot but I do think if one can learn to survive how to manage them and their movement and general mannerisms then death can be easier to avoid and can even setup a base in their starting location and secure it without incident baring any significant meta events.

That is not to say you will be completely safe there is always a chance that a house or car alarm goes off near your base and you will have to think quick to avoid being surrounded. The biggest benefit of securing a base in one of the towns is ease of securing loot and it gives you a lot more freedom on how to play the game as your everyday survival needs can be more comfortably accomplished as there is an easier access to resources and survival needs such as food and water will be lot easier to maintain until you can become self-sufficient.

The game is open ended enough that anything can work so long the player is able to maintain their health and is either creative or brave enough to handle zombiods. Everything else is in service to improve your survival or improve your chances against those that wish to threaten your survival.

Project Zomboid is a game that on the surface is relatively simple, the goal is to not die in a a game that expects you to die.

The challenge comes from trying to survive and once you can survive, one pushes oneself to survive well and when you can survive well then the chance to die increases, as the chance for something to go wrong increases the more confident you get believing "I can take one more zomboid", "I can carry that extra item" or "I don't need to carry that extra tool." 

A player makes a miscalculation an attracts a massive horde that is covers the whole screen. The player is barely seen amongst the zombies as they try to make a run for it through the horde. The zombies notice this and move on masse towards to the player who is now starting to panic 
 
Simulation emulation that takes place in the game is good and there are plans to make it better, the environmental effects in particular are great with fog being oppressive, rainstorms feel imposing and the effects of winter feel organic where it gradually ebbs and flows with snow forming and disappearing until eventually it gets cold enough for it to settle and covers the world in white.

Survival aspects are being planned to improve, but what is there is enough for a knowledgeable player to abuse with things like roof top farms, clean water rain barrel filters via connecting it to a sink and making creative impassable walls.

A player decided to use fire to thin the zombie hordes, unfortunately they do so near their base and in doing so the zombies on fire start to spread the it over to the player's base and finds the player running increasingly out of options as the fire spreads to the roof of their base.
Music and sound, can be improved and is planned to be, but what is there does its job where an attentive player can discern danger from a general direction and adds tension when it starts to ramp up in gameplay. The general sounds in game, at the moment, are serviceable and provide the enough effects to associate with an action or to provide enough feedback to know if an action had an effect.

The meta-narrative events, which for the moment, are relegated to sound effects and finding random encounters in the world. Sounds travel and can cause zomboid movement in areas and it can lead to potential dangers, otherwise it is an effect that keeps up the illusion that their is still life out their in the world.

A special mention to the helicopter event, that by default happens once and can be a game-ending nightmare if it finds the player as it tracks and hovers over them or an inconvenient nuisance that flies overhead for a couple in game hours. It is because is creates a massive noise that draws attention from a large area and with that causes a large migration through the general active area the player is in.

With default virus settings all it takes is one mistake, with other settings it can be something like eating poisonous berry or two, walking too close to fire or falling off the side of building when you are carrying too much gear.

A player underestimates their ability and the zombies are able to group up and swarm the player to overwhelm them
There is value in a character's life, in that value, a player will invest and although losing that character investment is painful it can be a strong motivator to be better on the next life.

It can be that or a zombie isometric horde fighter or a very mature "Sims" game. It is a game that is still being developed and with the upcoming build 42 - date not yet confirmed, promising new additions such as animals, basements and new content for "late" game play to name a few.

One can follow their news blog here

Whatever it is, the fun is in the players' hands and in those hands the game allows one's freedom to die. Whether it is through multiplayer or single player, the game provides plenty of options to get the desired play experience, add in mods and one gets a great sandbox experiment to explore and test how would one survive in a zombie apocalypse.

 

Images Sourced:

IGDB Project Zomboid

Video Sourced: 

Project Zomboid "This is how I died" Trailer

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