Zomboid build 42 released today and i decided to give it a try. My character is Darren Floyd. He’s a young 20 something Night Guard for the Knoxville Mall. I spawned in a house and made my way into town on foot, eventually making it to the Gas Station in the screenshot. I ended up clearing it out and making my base in there.
I also went down to the Basement of the Gas Station and checked it out. I found a lead pipe down there i took to replace my Baseball Bat and then sat on the stairs eating canned peaches.
The game added a ton of Ambience which i love as it adds to the feel of the game. There’s wind wipping around and i’m pretty sure zombies make ambient noises. Doors swing open and the lighting has been expertly redone. While exploring the gas station i had to go into a dark hallway and used a lighter to see.
The way the lighter lit up the area raised tensions in an exciting way, as i didn’t know what was down the hallway. For all i know there could be 10 zombies and i’d only be able to tell when i got close. Luckily there was only one though.
After taking him out back using the new dragging mechanic, i buried him and took his ID. I’ve started keeping a collection of IDs. I feel like it’s something Darren would do to try and cope with it. After that though it crashed, which is to be expected for an Unstable build. So i ended up stopping there.
You have any pointers on this game? Not sure if I just sucked at it or had bad starts but never was able to make it through more than a session without dying.
Zomboid is really, really tough.
First off, I want you to know that you can customize the game rules, and I’d honestly suggest doing so. I often describe Zomboid as a toolkit for building your own zombie movie. You can change how long it’s been since the “event”, how the infection spreads, how it works, whether survivors have immunity, how long it is before power and water shut off, the spawn chance of different item categories. It’s extremely flexible. Don’t be afraid to treat it as a toolkit. Make the game that’s fun for you.
In terms of actually playing Zomboid, it’s a stealth game first and foremost. You must evade zombies wherever possible. Stay low, avoid noise, avoid lights. Close curtains to about being seen from outside. If there aren’t curtains, make them from bed sheets. Don’t break windows unless you have to (and if you have to, remember to clear off the shards of glass in the frame or you’ll cut yourself climbing through).
If you have to fight, keep moving. You want to string the zombies out then hit a few, then string them out again. But extended fights will kill you as fatigue and panic set in. Remember that if you play by the default rules any scratch from a zombie has a 25% chance to zombify you, any bite is 100%. Zombie virus under default rules is a death sentence. Personally, I turned that off, went with the “Any survivor by now is probably immune” logic.
Your immediate goals are always a good backpack (backpacks reduce the weight of their contents, but that reduction depends on their quality), a good melee weapon, food and bandages. You can make bandages from torn up clothing, and with a pot of water you can boil them to sterilize them. This helps avoid infection.
Longer term, a big goal is to get your skills up. You want books for the big multipliers they give, and watching the right TV shows will give certain skills a huge boost. There are also certain things that you simply cannot do if you haven’t either read about them or started with the right character, like maintaining cars or hooking up generators.
The golden rule of Zomboid is that whenever you find yourself thinking “Surely they didn’t bother putting that in the game,” well, they did. You have to really start thinking about what you would actually do in these situations if it was real life. If you could do something in real life, you can probably do it in the game. If something would be dangerous in real life, it’s probably dangerous in the game. Don’t drink stagnant water without boiling it. Don’t eat food without cooking it. Etc, etc. (Yes, that includes the time my wife tried to make a can of WD40 and a lighter into a flamethrower and immediately exploded). It’s less of a zombie game and more of a survival sim with zombies (seriously, once you get the hang of this game you will spend way too much time thinking about the value of potatoes).
Wow thank you for the detailed type up! I’ll have to give this a shot.
I support the idea of changing the game’s rules. It’s one of the first things i do. It definitely is up to player’s preference but i like playing it much more like a sandbox survival game then how normally difficult it is. Usually i’ll lower the zombie count and that’s enough for me though
It’s a weird game. You’re not really supposed to play it like a game and have fun like in a game lol, if that makes sense.
For example - you should avoid combat if you can. Take only one or few enemies at a time and that’s if you are in good condition (not panicked, exhausted, in pain, malnourished and drunk at the same time)
Never run anywhere, it just tires you out and creates noise. Calmly walk away from zombies and lose them by breaking LoS. This takes practice and is generally tedious
Don’t do fun stuff like rely on vehicles or guns too much, at least in the early game. They are noisy and attract too much attention, you use them once you have enough ammo and a place to fall back to in case it goes wrong. Cars are great once you have a secured base away from the main city areas but aren’t that useful for city exploration.
Bases are not really safe. You can barricade all you want but if one zombie starts banging on it, soon the others will join due to noise. Generally you want to be out of reach and hidden rather than well defended. Proactively clear out the areas you spend a lot of time in.
etc. etc. It’s much more of a simulator than a game at times, for better and worse. I have a love hate relationship with it xd
Thank you for the pointers. I’ll keep these in mind!
It’s just a brutal game. I suck too. My main tip is to use curtains to make sheets or find sheets and put them on all windows and doors for your base. Oh, and fill as much stuff (pots/pans/cups) with water before the taps turn off.
Dying is very common on default settings, and it’s how the game is prefers to default too. My suggestion though would be to play with the sandbox settings and see if you can get it how you want. the game is best enjoyed in how you would want too (Friends are far more fun to play it with though)
What’s giving you trouble? Combat just takes some getting used to, but you also need to recognize when you’ve got too much heat and bail - you walk faster than the zombies, after all. Walk into the woods, do a big loop, and come back out with maybe 3-4 zeds still on your tail.