For my 2nd play I chose the studio challenge, which was a very small map taking place in a film production studio with the zombies being slower than normal during the night and all sprinters during the day. I considered playing an actress with no useful skills but instead settled on being a support worker. My guy was a repairman, who was likely responsible for set construction and general maintenance of buildings and equipment. I gave him all the low impact negative traits of my other character except for overweight. I also added fear of blood, smoker and near sighted. I gave him the same positive traits too except for brawler and speed demon. No point to drive fast on such a short map. With all those points he also started with 9 in both strength and fitness. I let the name and appearance be random; some old guy with long grey hair and full beard. Fear of blood and smoke definitely worked well together because smoking got rid of the anxiety caused by wearing bloody clothes. I liked the additional micromanagement and loot value for cigarettes and fire sources but he needed to chain smoke to not be constantly depressed and was noticeably less effective in combat due to being bloody. He had to do laundry every day. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy this kind of character in the main game. It did make books and other sources of happiness more valuable though, gave more tension for combat and probably wore out weapons a bit more due to less damage from anxiety. I still didn't find much use for magazines and newspapers. They were useless while bloody or craving a smoke because the anxiety rose back up so fast that it felt like a waste of time to read. Nearsighted was easily fixed by wearing glasses but that prevented wearing some face gear and the glasses fell off every now and then. This was a bit annoying and made me loot some extra glasses to keep around when mine fell off though I usually just looted a new pair. The worst part was not getting any kind of notification that the glasses were off so I had to zoom in on his face or check my inventory. The combo of glasses, panic and night time hid many zombies so I had to rely on sound a bit more. 1 fight early on he could barely see the zombies right next to him and I had to fight only under the street lights.

He started in a trailer where I found a solid load of weapons; griddle pan, screwdriver and 2 bread knives. Right outside the 1st zombie was a fire fighter with perfect condition gear, and another in the next door burnt out trailer. Damn this guy was set and I even found a loaded 9mm pistol early on, but no bags. I did not like the slower zombies and felt it was completely unnecessary. They moved just as fast as normal when in melee range so fighting was not any easier. Instead it took much longer for them to get to me, which was bad when picking off from a horde but good for adds or running away. When I had multiple after me I got close enough to trigger only 1 to charge then kited it away a bit to kill. I originally took fear of blood because something I read online said the zombies were mannequins so I figured they would not have blood. Not so. I looted the 3 trailers and checked out 3 cars in the lot; all good condition but no keys or gas. I was not sure when the time boundaries were for when the zombie speed changed so I got into a fight with 4 sprinters and died. They were no joke! The safe time was 2000 to 0600 and I used sleeping tablets to switch into night shift.

I knew the trailer was not a viable base so I went south into a cluster of large buildings. They turned out to be sets with storage rooms and kitchens; plenty of amenities and security for a base. I moved all my stuff to the closest but the 2nd turned out to be the better base because it had a hospital set with actual beds, and a living room set with functional fire place. No need to make a campfire when the power goes. I tried to balance moving and sorting all loot into the base (including moving shelves and bins for more storage), and going out for fresh loot. There was a lot of tension caused by those sprinters so the hours before dark when I woke up too early and around 0500 onward were best spent sorting out the base. There were 4 more trailers near where I started so I wanted to hit them next. Along the way were an office and clinic, which netted expected supplies. It was approaching 0500 when I went to the last trailer, 2 garbage bags full of loot. It had an alarm. Fuck. I took a bag in each hand and marched back to base. Along the way were a few zombies in the road so I dropped my bags to kill them. 0530. More zombies approached so I ran back to base only to find the door blocked by several. Shit. 0540. I ran to the back entrance only to see it swarming with like 20 zombies. 0550. Oh shit I'm so dead. 0600, I run into the 1st set closing doors behind me and make it to the kitchen. All my food from day 1 was still there and there was no sign of pursuit. However I could hear them outside. There were 2 windows and 1 was open, with only closed curtains keeping me safe. 0800. Nothing happened. Should I move to a more secure room? The shower, laundry and storage rooms only had 1 door, while the main room that linked every other had a couch for sleeping. Should I stay here huddled for 12 hrs despite having already been awake for longer than that? The tension was incredible. This is how a zombie game should be and now I am considering playing the main game with all sprinters for certain time (night makes more sense, like I am Legend). Not sure of what to do I considered making a backup save but took my chances instead. I took 1 step crouched then moved back to where I was. That was enough, they heard. They dived into 1 window and I killed 2 with a hammer. Then the other window broke and more dived in. I may have taken out 1 more but it was just a few too many. Maybe if I had the pick axe from the storage room. Too bad because this was an interesting turn of events.

I had to repeat the trailers, office and clinic and things turned out much differently. I found 2 duffle bags from random zombies so I finally had a backpack. There were more zombies in the street and there was a zombie inside the alarm trailer who broke the window from inside. No alarm this time. I still almost got in trouble with barely making it back to base before 0600, really emphasizing how important it was to head back with ample time to deal with threats. They smashed open the garage door at the back of my base which was a straight shot to the beds. I had 1 sprinter run in from off my screen so looks like I will be sleeping on the couch. A little over a week has passed and the TV no longer works. Too bad because I had settled on a routine of catching the 0600 and noon shows then going to bed with the tv left on to wake me up for 1800 show. This character did not get as much skill gain as my kingsmouth guy, but carpentry was at 3. I had tools and nails so I began disassembling stuff to wall off that broken garage door. I also planted some cabbage and strawberry seeds, and boarded up the windows.

No more messing around with weapons, I equipped the pick, hunting knife and hand axe while using up pans, rakes and rolling pins for easy battles. I looted a few more nearby set buildings, then the office and construction site across from my base. That office had a lot of zombies inside and I used the axe + flashlight to handle them, but died due to a slight miscalculation. I went in via a broken window rather than a door and hesitated to jump out because he was lined up with a different window that still had jagged glass. That was enough for a zombie to catch up. Should have just went for it, or I probably would have been fine standing my ground. The water and power went off around then so I moved the water dispensers out of that office and made sure to regularly hit those bathrooms to fill my bottles. Laundry was a problem though because I did not want to waste my limited clean water on it. I could see water on the map to the north so I headed up there. Along the way was a warehouse, train set, car crash set, and gate leading outside the compound. There were 2 terrible vehicles outside and a little wilderness before the edge of the map. To the N was a graveyard set with a small pool of water; mission accomplished. Now I had place to wash and get water to boil when the clean supplies run out. The doors to the crypts were locked but probably nothing in there. Next door was a forest set with a tiny pond. I later came back after finding the magazine to craft a fishing rod and emptied the pond of its entire fish population of like 4 fish, 2 of which were small bait fish. Something tells me that fishing will not be very useful on this map and that I might as well eat the worms and roaches. Next to this was a shack set, then a very large pool, then a parking lot. Loot was scarce up here and I gave up on the parking lot in hopes of finding more food before it spoiled.

More warehouses, set buildings, offices, voice recording studio, theater, police station, motel and another parking lot came next. I was again suffering from over abundance of melee weapons; having swapped out my back slot for a machete, several picks and fire axes, 3 or 4 crow bars, several shovels and hunting knives, and plenty of low tier stuff. Sauce pans were especially plentiful and I used them to haul dirty water back to base. The police station only had a tiny armory with a few guns and ammo boxes. I had a double holster with 2 9mm pistols, and swapped the firefighter helmet for police motorcycle. Hard to tell which helmets are better than others. I shot the gun for the first time when a zombie got stuck on the motel stairs but I was quickly interrupted after only 1 shot. A huge plus was 2 vehicles in this south lot finally had gas; a pickup with a key but only a small amount, and a nearly perfect condition car with almost full tank. I went to the gate to grind mechanics for hotwiring but died 3 times to a sprinter while fast forwarding because I didn't go back to base during the day. One time I almost lasted until dark while killing about 5 sprinters over the day only to die just before dusk. Getting sick of dying I went back to base during the day like normal. For some reason the sprinters only became active after 0800 now, so that gave me more time outside. I discovered that simple tasks with 0% failure only gave xp once, such as lights and tires. By this point my farm was pretty big, bigger than the kingsmouth farm since I just planted almost every seed I found, and I was finally getting yields to eat. This was important because my stockpile of non perishable food all fit inside a single cupboard. It was a good thing I had so many pans because it allowed me to turn stale food back fresh, but my guy was constantly depressed.

My first loot run with a car took me back to where I had found it for a building with locked doors and an alarm that went off upon breaking in. Not really a big deal but it took 2 days to clear out the zombies. That was just an office. Nearby was a gas station and warehouse with significant weapons and food. I slept the day in the gas station bathroom on a stool since it got too late while I was in there. Then I found another exit gate and a trail with a fair amount of water, so this will be a future fishing spot. I did make a few hastey retreats in the car as sprinter time approached and now it was good until 0900. On 1 trip I drove around the last area on the map, weaving around zombies and hitting a few; there is not much left to loot. A lot of my crops came in and most of the potatoes rotted before I could harvest. Radishes were a pain because they had such low nutritional value that that I had to eat them nearly constantly. I did notice that most crops can be harvested before they are seed bearing, but not tomatoes and strawberries. Cabbages had the most value and were the least tedious while potatoes and carrots seemed to stat fresh longest.

It took a long time to finish the rest of the map. It was mostly entertainment venues with small amounts of food and alcohol. My guy was mostly surviving on crops and was constantly losing weight. I found a generator and hooked it up to the gas pumps, but did not need the extra fuel. I died while staying out too late and attempting to drive past the horde of sprinters in the NE corner. They swarmed the car and easily stopped it. After this I went on a shotgun killing spree lasting about 2 full days to clear the area. The very last buildings to loot were a gun store with firing range and jewelry store. Then I drove around killing random zombies with a rifle with 4x scope to see how it worked. It had impressive long range but accuracy went down significantly at pistol range. There are still stragglers to kill and that water to fish but I am dubious about the ability to survive indefinitely without any way to preserve food for winter. It took 2 months to clear this map and about 2500 kills. Ending skills were: 9 fitness, 9.2 str, 1.9 sprinting, 3.2 lightfoot, 2.2 nimble, 3.1 sneak, 2 axe, 0.9 long blunt, 4.9 short blunt, 1.8 long blade, 2.8 short blade, 0.2 spear, 6.6 maintenance, 5.1 carpentry, 4 cooking, 6.2 farming, 0.1 first aid, 4 electrical, 0 metalworking, 2 mechanics, 0 tailoring, 4.5 aiming, 2.6 reloading, 0.7 fishing, 0 trapping, 0.2 foraging.

Thoughts on the character. Repairman was great with maintenance, allowing more use for every weapon. But this was pointless here with the overabundance of weapons again. Would be an excellent job for a world lacking in weapons, like wilderness survival. The short blunt and carpentry bonuses were only a tiny benefit because I would rather use better weapons and carpentry was easy enough to grind. Fear of blood and smoker definitely go well together but I want to try fear of blood by itself because I think it would finally make magazines useful. Cigarettes can still be used without smoker too. Near sighted was slightly annoying so I will not likely use it again. Hearty appetite was helpful with stuffing his face with crops to slow down weight loss a bit. My thoughts on the scenario. It was a nice bite sized experience that showcased the sprinter and inactive settings for custom sandbox, and that those settings are not worth using. I would rather the zombies alternate between sprinter and normal, not slow. I liked the added pressure on flashlight and batteries for nighttime looting, though I did plenty of night looting on kingsmouth. Sleepyhead would be a good trait here because of how much time could not be spent outside. Better off sleeping through it, I often used sleeping pills to go back to sleep until dark. I tried a custom sandbox with random zombie speed and it was impossible to survive the start because more zombies were sprinters than not! It might be doable with lower population and starting with the baseball bat since it only takes 2 to 3 sprinters to royally screw over an unarmed character. I did find a mod to specify the exact % of zombies to be each speed (including crawlers) and another that made them all sprinters at night. Though I also seen that build 42 will improve on these settings.

Started my 1st game on Kingsmouth rather than the main map. Running on my media pc for now so it takes a long time to load and there is some lag while playing. I made more or less my real self, only adding some negative traits I don't really have for real, and adding wakeful to max the night owl perk when in reality I am sleepyhead: security guard with overweight (I probably just barely qualify but I did not realize it came with only 4 fitness when mine for real is more like 6), thin skinned (maybe for real), prone to illness (definitely not for real), high thirst (most definitely me), hearty appetite (yes), slow reader (maybe. I do tend to wander off on thought fantasies while reading), slow healer (not for real but I doubt I am fast either) weak stomach (hell no, I'm pretty much immune to food poisoning in real life), conspicuous, unlucky. Positives: brave, dextrous, fast learner, stout, keen hearing, eagle eye, cat eye, brawler, graceful, speed demon.

My guy must work security on the island and started off in a cabin. Must have either just got off work or just getting ready to go, or maybe this was his very 1st day. No weapons and only a garbage bag to carry stuff, so I began exploring the other 5 cabins on the street. 1 had several zombies inside and I got into a big fight when I had only fought 1 or 2 at a time thus far. The cabins had hedges around them so I went through that and looped around the cabin, which spread out the zombies enough to only fight 1 or 2. Eventually I cleared all the cabins, getting food, leather jacket, poor condition fry pan, and rolling pin. My plan for combat was to kill solo zombies with stomps or terrible weapons like butter knives and forks after shoving them over. My back weapon would be for multiple zombies at a time, a knife for back stabs, and a short blunt for backup. I made regular backup saves for scumming and the 1st time I had to use it was when I put a roast in the microwave since there was no oven. Oh right, metal is not supposed to go in there. I could have saved my stuff and let the place burn down, but nah. To the NE was a high fence that I could not climb; some kind of compound. Instead I went SW to 3 more cabins. It was during the trips to those cabins when I first died for real, after about 4 game days and maybe around 20 to 30 kills. I died multiple times as I got used to fighting with weapons. I think the 1st time was infected from a laceration. Sometimes I got bit and sometimes surrounded and killed, mostly from mechanical failure with the controls, rarely from being completely surprised. After having watched many videos of people playing this, I noticed I do something that I have not seem them do; micro pause all the time. I bound pause to Z and use it all the time while interacting with the UI; looking at loot, switching containers, queuing stuff to grab or drop, looking through my inventory, looking at the map etc.

There was a car outside 1 cabin and I tried breaking into it by attacking the window with my pan only to later realize there was a command to smash the window on the vehicle menu. Got a garden fork out of the back, which is one of the best weapons in the game. It certainly helped me continue towards the SW, past some tennis courts and to a warehouse where I found a lot of weapons. I decided to leave them there all in 1 crate and dumped out all paint cans to bring back to base to fill with water; I hoarded all water containers to fill with clean water before the water shut off. I did watch a fair bit of TV, getting carpentry and cooking almost to 3, as well as xp in fishing, farming and trapping. Continuing on, I found an office and another huge office that turned out to be a large dock. Save scumming was occasionally doing weird things, like duplicating my fry pan, deleting my crops, and some items (I later lost 200 shotgun shells). I eventually solved this by quitting to the menu each time, rather than copying the file while the game was paused. I took that dock as my base with the heart being the kitchen with attached bathroom. I used offices for storage, including a large reception area with numerous 50 storage cabinets. Only a couch to sleep on though. There were also crates and boxes out on the pier, as well as a generator and gas pumps. And I did find the generator magazine a little later. The place was very defensible with long straight walkways along both sides, with another similar hallway inside that lead to a large open lobby, then to the massive pier with shipping containers to break line of sight. Most of the perimeter was water or chain link fence so it was safe to kite zombies for a very long distance, and believe me that I needed to. There was also a parking lot towards the road and I found the key for a decent pick up with some gas siphoned from another vehicle, which I used to drive back to my cabin and move most of my stuff back to the dock.

Across the street were some large buildings but I reckoned it was safer to continue SW to keep 1 flank secure as water. The garden fork eventually broke so I switched to 3 shovels. The shovel was a great weapon with a good balance of range, speed and damage, but the garden fork was better due to the spear insta kill. On my belt I kept a night stick, which I had found 4 or so from zombie cops. It was a great weapon that worked very well against multiple enemies due to its speed and only a little less damage and range. On my other slot I kept bread knives for backstabs; it was not very good as a straight up weapon though due to low damage, durability and range. It had speed and was ok for a few zombies, but was not good when they were stacked on top of each other (multi hit must be off here because nothing hit more than 1 zombie and my leading cause of death was zombies piling up like that). The next target was a police station, which netted me 1000s of ammo and a large number of guns and attachments. Next door was a gas station which provided some much needed food, though it was mostly candy. It was around this time that the power went off and I had to build a campfire out on the pier to cook the remaining meat.

Next up was a series of floating cabins on the water as I reached the S edge of the island. Reminding me of Dead Island, especially with all the bikini zombies. Not every cabin had worthwhile loot though I made off with some food, ammo, guitars, and plenty of alcohol from the central bar. The narrow walkways were a problem because of corpse rot, so I moved some bodies into the cabins. At one point I set off an alarm and with only that narrow walkway connecting to the shore I sprinted the Jesus out of there just in time to meet 1 zombie at land, and get out of sight before the horde approached. It turned out there was another connection to land towards the SE though. New weapon analysis: the 1 keytar did not last long but seemed to have decent speed, range and damage. The actual guitars though were slow and somewhat unwieldy but did high damage and more often than not knocked zombies down with the 1st strike. Decent weapons overall but nothing special. There was a road leading off to the SW corner of the island which led to a lighthouse. That place would have made an excellent base, especially with the stairs destroyed and sheet ropes set up; it was secluded with the 1st oven and washing machine I had seen. I preferred the dock though and made off with a nice haul of food and weapons.

Next I started on the buildings across the street, going all the way back to that warehouse. Of course zombies repopulated the area so it took quite some time to get access to that building, which turned out to be a clothing store and bar. I had more booze than actual food at this point! There was also a working van parked outside which chugged along as a brisk jogging pace. Directly to the S was a massive 4 story building with a pool on the ground floor. This building obstructed the road so it was sometimes difficult to see if it was clear. I had also aggroed zombies from the pool and others falling down from up high. I figured it would be a bad idea to check out that pool so instead I followed the road to a restaurant, which mostly had more booze, some bikers and a sweet blue motorcycle helmet to replace my hard hat. Unfortunately it took about a week before I got back to that restaurant to finish looting because there were groups of 20+ zombies blocking the way. I would slowly chip away at them using stealth to lure a few away, and kiting all the way out to the pier when too many noticed me, but corpses were everywhere. It was a real struggle to even find safe spots to fight. I did die once to corpse rot and learned to get away and rest as soon as queasy appeared. I did finally make it to that restaurant but had to run like hell back to base because the way back changed from clear to packed in that short amount of time.

At this point my food and weapon supply was dwindling. I used up my weaker back slot weapons. Fry and sauce pans had below average performance in all but speed, but still were worth using up. I discovered that broken fry pans could still be used for cooking but a broken sauce pan could no longer be filled with water. I used up a metal bar and couple pipes, which were good weapons comparable to the night stick. Maybe slightly worse performance while taking up the back slot. Rakes had high range and speed but did not last long, which was a shame because they were good for kiting. The wood axe got me killed though. Despite most often killing in 1 hit, the swing and recovery speed were so slow that it was pretty much useless against stacked up enemies. I cut down a couple trees instead, and since foraging did not seem to work on this map, saving the axe for trees seemed the better play. That just left me with a pickaxe and 4 baseball bats for back slot weapons. The pick proved to be a devastating weapon with excellent damage and range backed up by good speed. Which I found odd because as someone who owns both a pick and wood axe in real life and has spent considerable time swinging them around, they both should perform like the wood axe; powerful but exhausting.

I still had plenty of short blunts and a ton of knives so food was the biggest concern as I was cutting into the canned goods. I knew it would not be long before I was down to only alcohol. But what I had plenty of was maggots. All those pathways, roads and parking lot packed full of rotting bodies, and with so much water around, it was time to figure out fishing. I sawed up a plank to get sticks then combined that with twine and paperclip to get a fishing rod. And all this time I thought paperclips were garbage. Worms and cockroaches were bait too and soon I was feasting on fish roasts and stir frys. I figured it made more sense to use the foods with terrible happiness penalties as meal ingredients rather than just eating them straight. Things like salt, pepper, lard, butter and sauce. Putting stale food into these dishes also made them fresh again. Fish availability went down as I caught them but with so much waterfront available on the pier alone, that was not an issue. Soon after my first crops came in and I was feasting on cabbage. I figured it made more sense to keep eating unhappy food (stale cabbage) and use the candy and alcohol to fix that later. I had used a few books to cure depression and had around 100 stockpiled. Unfortunately, the magazines, newspapers and word searches only cured boredom and stress. I never had stress and killing zombies was plenty entertaining so I am not even sure those were worth looting. So my food issue was solved and now I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. I set up the generator at the fuel pump for infinite gas and decided to go out exploring in that van. It was so unbelievably slow that I bailed on that plan, getting out at the restaurant and zig zagging past probably 100 zombies to get back to base. Took a while to clear out the ones that followed me all the way. A couple even made it into the hall outside the kitchen, and the window to my sleeping room was broken. After that I figured it was a good time to practice shooting with a shotgun, since the zombies could only come from 1 direction. After several shots though I decided to go explore in the pickup truck to give the bodies a chance to decay. I drove around the S side evading the hordes until I found a clear area just after the road turned NE. Still had to kill the dozen or so that followed me. Then I looted the building on the corner, which was a daycare or preschool. It had some food, jars that I should be able to use to preserve food, a mouse trap and 2 handguns (lol).

I spent the night at the daycare and resolved not to go back home until the truck was fully loaded with loot. Next to the S was a fenced area with vending machines, locked bathrooms, basketball court and exercise machines. Just beyond that was the beach which had a campfire and lifeguard shack packed with medical supplies and even first aid books. Next door was a jewelry shop which had reinforced windows that zombies could not break down. There was a water dispenser in the back behind a locked door. I didn't think that was worth breaking into, and what would a jewelry store really offer to help survive the apocalypse? I left those zombies trapped inside. The next building was a clinic, which was harrowing due to the amount of zombies in such tight spaces. I died when I went to stealth kill a doctor and 3 more suddenly burst down a door right next to me. I decided to change up my weapon plan slightly by saving low tier weapons like scissors, letter opener, butter knife and broken bottle for stealth kills rather than using them up on downed enemies. I began using the better short blades against smaller groups that were spread out a little so I could save the best weapons for the toughest fights. The kitchen knife, hand fork and screwdriver were risky to use with their incredibly short range but it was satisfying to be so good at combat. The bread and hunting knives were better with longer range, with the latter also having good durability. It also helped to use 1 handed weapons so I could use a flashlight. I did not clear out the entire clinic as the truck was full, so I went back home with a LOT of zombies in tow. I had to drop my duffle bag and flee because they were getting into the core of my base. I had to sleep on a bench in the lobby and hope nothing approached because it was not a secure area at all. In retrospect I should move a chair into one of the lobby bathrooms so there would at least be a door to protect me. Even better idea would be to set up a place to sleep far out on the pier; build a shack, break into those shipping containers, or get a car out there. It took days to clear out all the zombies in and around the base, and more to sort out all the loot. With my new cooking pot I began boiling water each time I cooked fish, though it sucked that I could not directly pour from the pot into my dispensers. I also finally found stuff using foraging; a bread knife on the pier and extra maggots near corpses.

So at this point I was a month and a half into the game with around 2000 kills. Halfway to getting 5 fitness, 2 nimble, 9 lightfoot, 6 sneak, 3 axe, 4 long blunt, 3 short blunt, 2 short blade, 4 maintenance, 1 spear and crafting skills still where they started. I took my truck to the restaurant where I had abandoned the van and got into a ridiculous fight against something like 50 zombies. Pick axe was wrecking them but it broke soon enough. I spent the entire day and into the night kiting them around cars and picking them off with a hunting knife. He was getting tired but never went past moderate exertion, so I got into the truck and tried running them over in reverse State of Decay style. It just attracted more and was barely killing any. I crashed into a little wooden barricade on the way home and the dash lights started flickering. I didn't like how that went so I restored the save and set out on foot to the van, since the way was surprisedly clear. The next building over was another warehouse with lots of weapons and planks. Had to sleep a few nights there to clear it out and lug everything to the van. I got a fire axe, more shovels, couple pick axes, crowbar and some smaller stuff. After more days sorting it all out, killing around the base and fishing a little too much, I set off in the truck with all the fish, and pans to reset their freshness. I drove all the way past the day care to hit the next location, which turned out to be a drive in theatre. At this point my biggest limitations were twine and bait, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of twine in multiple cars. Not much else of interest, though I did get the key for a car there. The screen building was locked so I tried luring a zombie there to beat the door down. I let it beat on the door for a good while in fast forward mode with no result. I doubt there would be anything good in there. Next up was a security gatehouse, maybe where my guy was supposed to work. The doors were locked and reinforced but the windows were just normal glass. That seemed like poor design. No worthwhile loot.

Beyond this was a bridge leading to a town, which was a, walk in the park in terms of zombie population compared to the resort. I looted some houses and a big warehouse with most notable loot being metalworking vol 1 (which somehow I lost later) and a fitness contraption that looks like it would allow bench presses if I find weights. I foolishly jumped out a window in the warehouse thinking there was a 2nd floor, and took serious injury. Nothing broken though. I also got overweight and depressed from eating all that stale fish. Looks like I will be living off booze and candy for a bit. After a few days sorting loot I drove back to town without packing any food and found out what starvation feels like; not too bad actually as the hp loss was so slow that it would take days to die. I checked out an empty for sale house and could hear the zombies upstairs. I had a foreboding feeling; please don't tell me I die looting an empty house. I go upstairs and hear them banging but was not sure which doors. I went into 1 room and seen a closet door moving, and just as I opened it to let the zombie out, 2 more bust through into the main hall and flanked me. Shit, totally should have closed that door behind me. A bit of circle strafing and a few well placed hits from my shovel took them all down no problem. There is no messing around with indoors combat. I then looted the last house, which was barricaded. The zombies inside broke the way for me but there was not much inside. Now at what looked like the corner of town I found a gas station which was sure to have food. Unfortunately I broke into a truck outside and set off the alarm. I ran back into the for sale house and then to my truck as zombies converged on the gas station from all directions. I only had to kill a few coming from outside town, and the horde congregated far enough to the N that I could ignore them to hit the gas station. Several zombies had to be cleared out before I could feast on junk food. The town continued SE with a clinic next door to the gas station and a massive block of apartments or row houses across the street to the NE; approximately 8 residences per building with 4 buildings separated by parking and back yards. Checking several cars I found a car key but the car was not in good condition.

After sleeping the night, the horde had disappeared and I moved my truck into position for looting. I looted the 1st apartment building, which was fairly tame. There were zombies smashing out from the next building over, and trapped inside, but nothing too dangerous. The clinic however was another story, which was not helped by the fact it was night time. The entrance lobby led to a T shaped hall with zombies just standing there at the intersection. A couple more came down from the stairs, and another was at the end of the right branch. It was not too difficult to clear them out and the side rooms were clear, but I could hear more very close. They had to be upstairs. Nothing visible at the top of the stairs, but I see a smashed door right where the sounds were coming from. I check the rest of the 2nd floor and found it clear, including a nice open helipad. I tried to make a little noise to lure them out, and shimmy to see in. The layout was terrible with a narrow 1 tile walkway leading past the stairs to that broken door. I would either need to walk directly in front of the door leaving no space to react, or strafe to the little bit of space in front of the door to potentially allow them to cut off the only safe escape, other than the 1 floor drop down the stairs. Shouldn't there be a safety railing? I steel myself and take the latter option to see only 1 tile wide space inside with a path going right. The zombie noises were coming from the left so my mind was racing with an imagined maze of narrow hallways, but it turned out to be just a laundry room. There was a significant room sized square where the noises were coming from that had no access point from either floor. What is this clinic hiding? Or did the map designer forget to add a door.

I pushed the loot hard this trip, filling up the truck and a car for which I found the key, and of course personal extreme encumbrance. The plan was to tow the car but I was not prepared for the excessive save scumming that was to follow from that terrible decision. Trying to tow a vehicle while weaving around horses of zombies was NOT a good idea. The issue was that the road was not wide enough to allow the towed car to clear zombies so it always got brought up. And once a few zombies accumulated in between the truck and car then I was going at such a slow crawl that more zombies easily surrounded the truck. I had to completely give up on going the long way around because at best I didn't even make it to the further entrance to the floating cabins, and going the shorter way was not an option because of a traffic jam. I could navigate the tight turns past that jam if I was not towing something, or maybe if there were no zombies putting on the pressure. Instead I had an idea to cut through the forest behind the drive in screen. This 1st attempt failed as I died exhausted after cutting down trees, and it did not help that I had tried the traffic jam route only to give up and turn around, stirring up the hordes, and drove through the trees without scouting first. But the next time was relatively quiet as I took my time. I parked the truck out on the road and rested inside a car in the theatre while reading a skill book; new habit I like, always having a skill book on me to read whenever I need to sit down for a break. It took about a full day the cut through the trees and zombies but I did not do enough because there was a wide turn around another traffic jam just past the path I cut. The truck got brought up on some saplings as the zombies were closing in. I bailed and went back to the theatre, stashing excess weight in that car. It took about another day to clear out the 25, 30+ zombies that were milling around my truck, which I had left running. Then it was just a straight run home, past that warehouse, restaurant and clothing store on 1 side with the resort pool on the other, but the zombies were too thick. I tried a few times and at best I made it to the corner of the pool and restaurant before having to bail and go the rest of the way on foot while dropping my backpack and a few items. I made it safely back to base but died a few times from dumb errors, once from not realizing just how much rolling pins suck (I wanted to use up my weakest weapons). Oh my, spoiled on the lack of movement speed penalty on short blades. Another time the game crashed after I had nearly cleared the way to the truck, and though I tried to mash shove, then alt f4 and close in task manager, I logged back in with multiple bites. Can't remember if there was another attempt, but I was getting sick of the lack of progress. I had considered fighting all the way back but did not want to get bogged down outside the pool fighting god knows how many. I compromised by clearing out the horde just before the pool, which was the main reason I could not get further. Then I floored it and got all the way to the office building just south of my base before having to bail due to the overwhelming horde. I dropped my pack and a few other items and kited them all along my base and out to the pier. There were a lot. After killing the first dozen or so I decided to thin them out some with the 38 and 9mm I had in my double holster. Out there was an excellent place to go nuts with gunshots, and it went surprisingly well considering my aiming skill was still 0. I even got them to bust open 2 of the shipping containers, and I bust another using a plank. The contents were nothing great, mostly empty crates and boxes. There were 2 containers still left to access, 1 which would need a ladder or stairs.

It took a week or more to clear out the base, get the vehicles back and loot sorted. I went around gathering up all the burnable clothing from the base and filled the 6 dumpsters near the fire, and then made a huge pile on the ground. Now it was getting to the point where I had too much stuff; like 400 weight worth of melee weapons, 1000s of bullets, multiple guns of each type, more meds than I will ever use, and enough food to fill the fridge and 6 cupboards. It was raining most of this time so I did not want to venture outside much, instead working on stuff around the base and reading. I finished reading the carpentry book and got it to 4 disassembling useless furniture. I removed the toilet from my weapons room and moved a bunch of random plants and chairs to block the hallway in the NE, since that exit led straight to my sleeping room. I took road barricades from across the street and used them to replace missing doors and block the internal access to the front offices. I did not use that area for anything and figured it would make a good zombie trap. Now the only ways into the core of my base were the door from the entrance hall (now with 1 of 2 doors and the other tile replaced by barricade) and the broken windows along the N outer walkway. I liked going out my sleeping room window as shortcut to the pier and my fire and I had never seen zombies wander in that area unless they were specifically chasing me that way. I also put paintings of beautiful women on the walls. I found 2 different kinds, 1 blonde that kinda looks like Terra from FF6, and a black haired elegant lady. That's the kind of aesthetic I want around my base, along with that hottieZ book. I found even more copies of those pictures as I went back to clear out the rest of the apartments, and even had to put all my extra water bottles (and empty ones) on the floor where the break room table used to be. I was also watching VHS tapes on the tv I long ago put at the generator, which got me enough mechanics to finally hotwire. I parked the tow car outside the blocked exit for even more protection, which attracted a sizable horde of 20+ and forced me to bail out. My pickup was in overall 50% condition, with the fuel tank and hood being severely damaged. It was noticeably more difficult to start, seemed to perform a little worse, and the pan seemed to have lost like 25 capacity, so my trusty beige beast may be nearing the end of its life. I don't dare take that lumbering red van out, but there is a 60% condition white pickup already parked at my base. And more vehicles nearby, including a box van. The utility pickup at the warehouse next door was overall 75% with every part in the green, so I began using it. Still not quite as much storage as the beige used to have though.

I did more loot runs to town, working on the road connecting the apartments to the entrance, which was all houses. 1 house was severely burned and had 2 firefighters inside. Their jackets were an upgrade but could not be repaired, while the pants were in between my leather pants and jeans. I never seem to take damage on the legs though. Another house had an alarm and I stuck around to kill them all. It was not that many. Seemed like the zombies from the resort were migrating to the town because the gate and bridge areas were getting pretty thick. I stopped at the gate to kill a couple while leaving the truck running, and that turned into a huge fight against like 30. I don't know where they all came from! Still mostly fighting with random short blades with short blunt as backup. Got to try out a hammer and wrench, which were good. Seemed slightly slower and shorter range compared to the night stick. Also used some umbrellas, which counted as spears and performed as a lower damage much lower durability version of the garden fork; they lasted about as long as a rake and could not be attached to the back for some reason. That's why I used them up around base. I did more carpentry disassembling, finishing around base and moving to the warehouse. Then I built walls to block that NE exit hal, boarded up all the N windows except in my sleeping room, and built stairs up to the top shipping container. It had a bunch of fridges and freezers which I moved to base for more storage. Miraculously 1 tub of ice cream was not rotten.

I apparently forgot to make a backup save as I has to redo that burned house run due to failing in basic combat. I blame not having played for a few days and how my media pc struggles to run the game. I got into a pattern of driving past the resort to just beyond the path I cut behind the drive in theatre, then walking back to kill any zombies that followed. Once the horde was so big that I used all 21 rounds in my pistols to thin them out. On the way back to the truck I actually got foraging to work, finding some herbs, sticks and stones. So the map is not entirely devoid of foraging. I stopped to kill any zombies I seen beyond this point because I wanted the road clear for the heavily encumbered return trip. I did discover that I could drive through the hedges around the resort parking lot, giving more room and options to get by. I also started carrying 2 extra backpacks because their weight reduction only applied when equipped on back and both hands, so I could get a bit more loot home. I finished looting the houses and 2 mansions across the street. The mansions were surrounded by high see through fences with plenty of room outside to fight, and inside to store stuff, so they would make decent bases. Next up in the NE corner of town was the commercial shipping dock. I guess my base was only for the resort and more for passengers than cargo. I alerted zombies inside and let them path away before hopping the fence and killing the ones that did not see me. Then hopping back over to kill the first lot. Suckers. I looted the parking lot and had to spend the night there before clearing out the main building. Then I used an axe I found to chop down a tree to saw up a plank, totally forgetting I had looted a hammer earlier. I then spent a ridiculous amount of time beating open shipping containers and discovering that I gained maintenance skill doing that. So all the using forks and spoons on downed zombies was kinda unnecessary when I could smash stuff with planks? Later I noticed gains while stomping and shoving. Still going to use up junk weapons. All the containers were empty until I moved to the next stack. Of course it makes sense they would keep empty and full containers in separate stacks. It was then that I hit gold by finding a sledgehammer. Oh god yes. It destroyed the containers doors and walls like nothing and was the only way to access the ones that had their doors blocked. Unfortunately I had my most stupid death here after building stairs to get at the 2nd tier of containers. On the empty stack I thought there was a 3rd tier, so I built another stairs on top of the containers and a bridge over only to later realize after falling 2 stories that I was seeing the 2nd tier of the other empty stack. I had to redo something like 3 in game days and the parking lot and main building were different this time. I was worried that the sledgehammer would not be there, but it was. Seems like the game populates an area with items, vehicles and zombies when the player gets close rather than at map generation. Interesting. This time I built a bridge on top of the empty stack only to verify that the entire 2nd tier was indeed empty. Except for 1 zombie trapped inside. Now how a person (either before or after zombification) got trapped inside an empty shipping container that was locked and stacked on top.... Who knows. Several of the containers had a zombie inside, including a cop. These containers had a motherload of loot. Some just had junk like furniture, clothes and hay. I found a ton of food from containers that were clearly meant for grocery stores and gas stations. Too bad about all the rotten sacks of veggies. There were car parts, 1 container packed full of generators, a 2nd sledgehammer, and 1 full of guns and ammo. Seriously, there were dozens of ammo boxes in there. It took 2 trips to get all this loot back. Also, while I was disassembling stuff for stair materials I did most every wooden thing in the containers and building to get carpentry to 8.

I had to move the wooden crates from my pier inside for more storage space. I also had to replace the metal door at my base entrance. Almost every time I get back from a loot run a zombie follows me and I have to let it beat at the door until I unload enough stuff. Next trip out I got the rest of the dock loot and checked out the building across the street. It turned out to be a clothing store, bakery, pharmacy and office. Not much interesting loot, but oh man if only those pies and donuts were not rotten. In the large parking lot outside I found an 80% condition car with nearly a full tank of gas. It was then that I realized I had been checking gas levels incorrectly. Just getting into the car and looking at the dash was no good as the indicator only worked when the car started. Instead I had to look at the full mechanics or have a gas can to siphon. I rechecked many of the cars in previous areas and found some with gas. I also paid more attention to trunk condition because on the trip home the resort zombies were particularly thick and my truck took a beating. It lost 50% capacity in the pan! Still a good truck otherwise (except the hood) so time to look into repairs and grind metalworking to 2. But before I repair I wanted to get that car so set off on foot all the way past the dreaded resort and through the town. I packed light with a machete, hunting knife and night stick. First time using the machete and I was very impressed. It had similar range, speed and movement penalty as short blunts but killed in 1 to 3 hits. Not quite as deadly as the 2 handed axes but lighter and faster. The walk was pretty uneventful though of course there were enough zombies to kill to gain 1 in long blade. I got the car, spent the night there and ran out of food. Been mostly living off tomatoes, little bait fish from the fishing traps I found, popcorn and tv dinners. Damn those tv dinners burn easily over campfire. I lost like 4. In between I eat random non perishables and even baked biscuits and cooked pasta. Since storage space for food was an issue I started placing all the stuff that would be used as ingredients on the counter. Back to the loot run, I cleared out the interior of the town, the area in between the apartments and mansions. There was a bar (the booze and snacks prevented starvation), spiffo fast food place (not much left to eat though), a garage, a large abandoned building that had a lot of zombies inside but no loot, and a construction site that didn't have much. I got better stuff from the zombies than some of these places. Lastly back at the large parking lot was a hair salon and I did not have any hope for that place. Probably be a complete waste of time with nothing good, but the zombies inside were cops and others in camo gear. Probably not soldiers but it looked like they were survivors holed up on there and they at least had some weapons and ammo. Next I followed the road NE out of town to find another lighthouse, which had a lot more than the 2 zombies in the previous. When the car was finally full I drove back along the unexplored west road to see what I have to look forward to; the entrance to the military base, a large police station and 2 large buildings. Oooo. I did mass electronic disassembly to get electrical to 4, finally getting rid of my stockpile of gadgets and working on the clocks and computers at base. I see I will have to start disassembling stuff while looting.

Next I did another walking trip to town to grab a new vehicle. I went for the black pickup at the gas station, the one that had that alarm way back on my first visit to town. It was in excellent condition and low on gas, but still enough to get back to base. Driver probably stopped for gas for the very last time. Just past this was the largest building in town, which turned out to be a school. I entered from the gym, which gave me plenty of open space to kite and even a couple sporting weapons. It took a few days to fully loot the school and I barely staved off starvation by scrounging random junk food from the desks and lockers. There were a lot of zombies in the school but stealth allowed me to fight only small groups at a time. The only big fight was in the principal's office. I killed 2 zombies inside there and for whatever reason 8 to 12 zombies converged there, I assume from breaking out upstairs since there were numerous broken doors and windows up there. I only seen 3 at first and decided to make a hasty retreat outside to the road by smashing the window. This was the correct decision given how many zombies eventually came out that window after me. The school netted me mostly various books but also my very first katana, and another decent pickup with a tiny amount of gas.

The other large building was the grocery store and it took about 5 trips to haul all that food home, which meant about 5 new vehicles too. I began taking crappy weapons to use up during the walks to town, breaking all of my umbrellas, keytars and an acoustic guitar. The guitar performed like the keytar; fairly fast with decent range and damage but terrible durability. I also used up some of my lousy shortblades and switched to using pens for stealth kills. 1 butter knife killed 5 zombies in a row but most broke well before that. Letter openers seemed slightly less effective and the occasional wooden stake was about on par with these weak blades. Then I used a lead pipe followed by a metal bar and got a much better feel for how they performed; good damage and durability, decent range, but a little slow to swing with significant movement penalty during each recovery. These blunts struggled against large numbers of closely packed enemies and I had to do a lot of shoves, often ending fights in moderate exertion. Nightsticks definitely have the edge above them. The walks back were usually not too difficult but 1 time the zombies were so thick it took 2 days to break through, and I still had to sleep in that restaurant. And 1 trip back my truck ran out of gas just past the drive in theatre. I took that opportunity to start looting the resort parking lot. Had to sleep on top of the movie screen again and had to bail before finishing because of the numbers of zombies. It was clear when I started and I had hoped to check out the building to the south, but I got enough gas to get home. Then was the combined police and fire station, which got me some more fire clothes, melee weapons, guns, ammo and a good condition police car. Of course I had to try out the siren and that attracted a lot of zombies from the woods and army base. 1 bunk in the fire station had a desert eagle + ammo; what kind of fire fighter has that? The very last building in town was just a locked bathroom at a small beach. Not worth breaking into.

With plenty of room still left for loot I finally entered the base. The road leading up to it was packed with burnt out cars and the entrance itself had sandbags. It was a bit of work to squeeze my truck through there. Inside the base were plenty of soldier zombies mixed in with the other types. They always had military boots and occasionally other military gear. I upgraded to a military backpack , which was only a very tiny bit better. I took some helmets but they did not seem any better than my motorcycle. Military clothing was not as protective as firefighting but better than the leather jacket so it was worth collecting. The gatehouse had a stash of guns and ammo, as did guard towers throughout the perimeter. They had reinforced doors but regular glass windows much like the resort gatehouse so it was very easy to get inside. I looted the parking lot, a warehouse with another sledgehammer, bathrooms, officer houses, a lounge, cafeteria and office building. Nothing special, until I found the armory. I beat down 1 reinforced door with the sledge while the zombies inside got the other. Inside was more guns and ammo than I had found thus far combined, including m16s. The cabins where I started were right next to the base wall so I had the idea to make a shortcut to avoid having to go all the way back through town and the resort. When I got to the fence however, there were probably 50+ zombies on the cabin side, right where I wanted to make the shortcut to line up with the road. Nothing to it but to start shooting them. Probably used about 400 bullets between 9mm and 45 pistols, getting aiming to 2 and reloading to 3. Of course the noise attracted some from inside the base but it was not too bad. Some zombies seemed to bug out near the fence and were not targetable, so I made a spear out of the 1 plank from the warehouse to poke through the fence. Then it was just a matter of walking home to get food, the wood axe and something to read while resting in between chopping trees. Foraging worked there too but did not seem to work inside the base. It was soon after this that I had my first death in a long time, while walking to town to collect another car. My guy just suddenly turned around in the middle of combat, getting bit. I can only assume I accidentally released the right mouse button. Maybe combat mode should be toggled rather than hold the button down. I finished looting the military base, getting a surprising amount of ammo from the barracks. There was also 2 hangars, a barber, a communication command building and a locked building with no windows that was likely just showers. The rest of the base was just a runway and couple more guard towers. There was even significant forest to the NE such that I could not see the shore from the base fence.

So now with pretty much the entire map looted the only thing left was the resort and adjacent buildings. However I have not been finding any maggots at all and wondered if they were seasonal. Looking it up they indeed do not spawn during winter so perhaps I should not kill more until spring, in the interest of more food long term. So I went to town for a load of rotten food from the grocery store, shipping containers, and a few other spots. That will get me a lot of compost for the farm. I spent Christmas going around the military base disassembling electrical during a blizzard and was surprised he never got sick. I later went exploring to the north where there was more forest there than I expected, and I did some foraging; probably the best place on the map for deep forest foraging and trapping. Then I explored the trail at the center of the map, which had locked bathrooms, zombies and nothing really worthwhile. And completed the southern beach, which had a food shack and boardwalk leading to a bar. Unfortunately my game became unplayable when I logged out in my kitchen; it took so long to load that the game kept crashing. I tried upping the RAM allowance to 5 gigs (my crappy pc only has 8 gigs) by editing 3 instances of xfx in projectzomboid64.bat and .json. Apparently that allows other people's games to run more smoothly with lots of mods, but I still could not load my character. I made another character in the same world and walked to the base. It took almost a week in game to clean up the base as I threw way too much stuff on the floor. I put various junk and broken door pieces into a dumpster for deletion and moved my empty sacks and fertilizer to the other half of that dumpster. I deleted the huge pile of scrap electronics and other stuff while moving all the bins, filing cabinets and 1 bookcase from the unused area. I had almost 100 leather jackets, as many boots and several 100 leather strips on the floor. I moved all that to the nearby garage shop, making use of its shelves and cabinets. I had around 100 bottles of water and another 100 empty bottles on the floor of the kitchen, which I moved to the fridges outside. I had a ton of melee weapons on the floor which I moved to the storage room that was only being used for belt attached short blunt. I moved all my crappy back attach weapons there and enough good back weapons that I could fit all short blades in the bathroom. The 100s of scrap wood and even more books and clothing I had on the pier I moved into the campfire as fuel. For some reason I was under the impression there was a cap for fire fuel. I had a dozen or so duffle bags on the floor that I moved to a container, and lastly the ridiculous number of ammo boxes and loose bullets from the base that I just threw on the floor out of laziness. This worked and my character loaded in within seconds. Meanwhile the mule suffered the entire time with the cold she caught walking to my base as well as barely letting her drink and only eat a few cans of dog food. Then I sent her back to the nearest cabin to never be used again. It did raise interesting possibilities though of multiple characters working together on the same map with different specializations; warrior, scavenger/hauler, electrician, instant hotwire from burglar or electrician with mechanic, farmer, fisher, etc. But since all characters can raise skills and learn to hotwire and use generators, it would probably be more trouble than it is worth. I could see 1 character logging out to escape from a dangerous situation while another character comes to clear out or lure away zombies. When I eventually start the main map I could see having a different character in each starting town that eventually link up and pool resources.

I did a lot of exercising, reading and cooking around base but it was very boring. It occured to me that winter was the best time to fight because of all the extra layers of protection; under the armor I had long johns, bandeau and denim shirt all upgraded with leather patches. I went to assault the resort. Much like earlier in the game, it was slow going and the area was so congested with corpses that it was difficult to find safe spots to fight. I found another katana and had the other equipped for when I eventually made it inside the hotel. Outside I was getting rid of my junky weapons. A violin in full condition broke on the 1st hit. Pool cues impressed me because I expected them to be fragile. Instead they lasted quite a while and were fast, long range and decent damage. I did die once or twice from making a slight error and getting overwhelmed. At one point a gunshot rang out so I whipped mine out and wasted a few of them. Clearing out the hotel was slow going with 100s of corpses all around. Getting sick was frequent and once I slept in the car too close and went to nauseous. Going back to base and taking antibiotics fixed it. I finally got inside the hotel, checking out the pool, hot tubs and sauna though it did not take long for the inside to be littered with corpses too. Sometimes I kited them around with lousy weapons while others I used the sweet katana. Got into some hairy situations in there with zombies coming from multiple directions. I went through 2 large bathrooms and looted a huge storage room in the back; good stash of weapons there. Then I realized I could shoot the zombies on the balconies from the parking lot. This was fun and the parking lot was soon packed with corpses too. I had a couple of deaths, once from a random bite just from the clunky fiddling that sometimes happens when trying to stomp a lone zombie. It did not help that my framerate around the hotel was pretty low. The other death was another crash where the visuals and input no longer functioned but I heard my guy get torn apart. I tried to force close the game but nothing responded until long after I was dead. I could feel the crash happening as the performance got worse and my hard drive was working furiously. In task manager it looked like system maintenance processes were using up all the hard drive read and write. Another crash happened later but I saved myself by hard rebooting. Loading back in after that gave a bunch of error messages, warped my character back a short distance, the zombies were no where to be found, and the time went back a bit.

Eventually zombies stopped falling from the upper floors around the pool. I could not see them on the north side of the building so I assumed I could not shoot them there. I put my police car with siren going against the back of the building in hopes of luring the upper zombies to where I could shoot them. It did attract a few while also attracting a ton from the ground. Then I built stairs to the 2nd floor using materials from the storage room. I wanted to get up there to loot the zombies I shot since at least 1 had a rifle of some kind and I was doubtful about finding the proper way up. Surely there would be stairs somewhere in the parts I have not explored. I would think there would at least be fire escape stairs where near the pool. The closest rooms were empty but soon I encountered the zombies. I took a couple hits at broken doorways and quickly realized I had to make noise and wait a bit before entering or leaving the main hall. Multiple times there were zombies suddenly behind me, coming from places I had checked to be 100% empty. Once I even lured zombies into a room to kill, passing by the kitchen with nothing visible. Immediately after the kitchen was out of sight there were 2 zombies there and there was no other way in. I don't believe there were holes in the ceiling so the game was definitely teleporting or spawning out of thin air. I never found out if I was infected because I bled out from a neck laceration before I could bandage.

Instead of clearing the 2nd floor I set up the police car siren under a balcony a few rooms down from the stairs. The zombies below did not path all the way back to the stairs so it was like shooting them in a barrel. I actually had to use beta blockers to control the panic. It did not take long to run out of ammo, including the last of my 38 bullets, so I went back to base to grab a few 9mm and 45 pistols, 2 shotguns, over 1000 9mm rounds and about 500 each of the other types. I used the shotgun because it was ideal for shooting down into a mob. Several zombies attacked from the room but both balcony doors were intact. One harrowing fight was when 4 attacked at once while I was heavily loaded and exerted. I don't know how I managed to avoid getting bit from the 2 that came through the window. Good thing the other 2 were attacking the doors. I did die during a later interruption because my katana broke and I tried to use handaxe without kiting vs 4. I would have survived if I went in through the other patio door to create kiting room. By the time all was said and done I had 3 different massive piles of bodies, multiple guns used up, and most of that ammo gone. I built a door to close off the bedroom on the NE corner and blocked the balcony with a couch so I could sleep there. I also stashed any food I looted from the rooms. This was my staging area to clear out the hotel once and for all. I made it to the center to find a huge elevator lobby which also had stairs. So that is how I was supposed to get up, and now I don't have to wonder if I can somehow use stairs and a sledgehammer to get through the ceiling. There were more stairs in the south wing and it was a lot of trouble getting past there. I was hiding in a room watching the zombies stream by towards the siren, and my katana got a lot of use. I did clear out the south wing floor and went to shoot the horde around the police car from the 1st room on the south wing. This attracted a lot of zombies from behind me and I barely made it out of the room. It was dark at night then and I decided to kill them in the lobby with hand axe and flash light only to make a slight mistake and die from auto drag down. I should have used gun with them so tight together, or maybe katana in 1 hand; I had already been using it with flashlight during the night and it still most often killed in 1 hit. Next try I shot from the room N of the lobby. The zombies still came for me but fewer and more spread out so I killed them easily with katana.

From this point on it was fairly quiet as I cleared out the upper floors, ground floor and surrounding buildings. The top floor had 1 room without a kitchen, as if the resort designers said fuck it we can't fit a kitchen here so this is the economy suit. Overall I felt the hotel rooms were way too big and luxurious, especially to account for the huge numbers of zombies. The ground floor had a restaurant with zombies trapped in bathrooms that were blocked by seats, and there were other shops, main lobby, gym, lecture hall and offices. There were zombies trapped behind the stairs too. I left all the trapped ones alone. The other buildings were a clothing shop, barber and that big restaurant, plus outdoor pools with change rooms and life guard tower. I filled up on loot and dove into the police car with a few straggler zombies after me. The short trip home revealed that the zombies had taken over the area as I drove around them and smoked 1 in high speed head on collision. I still had to kill several while extremely encumbered, tired and exerted, which was when the katana didn't always kill in 1 hit. I was hugely disappointed that I was pretty much done with the map and yet only made a tiny dent in the amount of guns and ammo I had. Plus the ridiculous amount of melee weapons; 2 katanas, like 12+ each of machetes, fire axes and crowbars, literally 100s of short blades, and everything in between. I wanted to try out weapons I had not used yet so I grabbed a garden hoe. It was pretty good, swinging like a pick axe with good range and knockdown. Damage was variable with some 1 hit kills, and some taking 3 or even 4 hits. I own one for real and it really is the same as a pick axe and should just be a visual variant of that. An actual hoe (like the item icon) would have performance somewhere between a shovel and pool cue. I cleared out the zombies around my base and then the game crashed multiple times as I went towards my farm. I disabled sysmain in services.msc since I always seen it using a lot of the hard drive during crashes, and looked it up revealed that it preloaded info into memory in anticipation of future program use. That does not sound useful. I want as much resources as possible for the game now, not what I might use later. Once I got back into game I seen that the mini fridge I was using to store seeds was gone and there were 1000s of seeds loose on the ground. No wonder it crashed. Between this and wanting to only grab certain amounts of ammo, I see the value of keeping stuff in the package. There were still a fair few zombies around as I walked to the hotel to get my other car and do more looting. The hoe broke and I tried out a baseball bat; fast with good damage but less range than many other 2 handed weapons.

Next trip I brought gas for the excellent condition ranger truck only to somehow get bit by a lone zombie. I don't know why my guy wasn't facing the correct way, damn clunky controls. I started on looting the 2nd floor rooms and moving the stuff to the 2 rooms by my stairs, though this was very boring and I stopped playing. There was still a ton of food to loot from the hotel and enough food in total to survive for months . Add to that fishing, farming and the forest and the guy should have no trouble surviving there indefinitely. He had just under 10000 kills and going on 8 months. Skills; 5.8 fitness, 8.2 str, 3 sprinting, 10 lightfoot, 4 nimble, 7.8 sneak, 3.5 axe, 5.5 long blunt, 4.2 short blunt, 2.5 long blade, 4.9 short blade, 2.2 spear, 6 maintenance, 9.4 carpentry, 5.9 cooking, 7 farming, 2 first aid, 8.2 electrical, 2 metalworking, 3 mechanics, 1.5 tailoring, 5.5 aiming, 5 reloading, 2.2 fishing, 1.5 trapping and 3.7 foraging.

Thinking about my build, security guard was the best for maximum time spent productive. With night owl and wakeful I was going to bed at midnight, getting up at 0500 and staying alert all day. The bonus to lightfoot and sprinting reduced time spent moving around. I hated exercising because it auto unequipped the backpack and fanny packs, which was added tediousness on top of something already tedious. So no more playing with overweight. I also did not like brave because it made beta blockers mostly unnecessary when I like having additional loot and resource pressure. The other traits I liked though was disappointed at how minimal impact some of the negative traits were. Weak stomach should make you sick from stale or disgusting food like roaches and rats. Prone to illness should make the character extremely vulnerable to corpse rot and colds, even occasionally causing sickness from nothing. While conspicuous should probably not even be a trait. Maybe merge it with obese.

My take on the scenario was that I would be incredibly impressed if this was the entire game! The map had a lot of cool places and was a great 1st play experience. The only thing I really did not like were the huge luxury apartments full of residential loot in the hotel instead of more numerous smaller hotel rooms that would better account for the number of zombies. Would be cool if there were signs of the hotel being used as an evac shelter, which gives me a cool idea for a similar scenario; a,FEMA refugee center absolutely packed with zombies while also having the vast majority of supplies. The map had way too much supplies for my taste and not nearly enough zombies in the town and base. I'd say there was more than enough ammo to clear the entire map with guns, so playing as a veteran or cop could be a good idea. If I had to play the map again I would loot the NW coast as fast as possible then move ti the city to try for as much perishable food as possible. Probably live in the supermarket.

My overall take on the game: it is incredibly fun and engaging but a lot of mechanics are not as fleshed out as they should be when compared to cdda. The action combat was fun but it was too easy to accidentally slip up and take wounds that could end the run. I did like the tension of how easy it was to die but I hated how often it happened from clunky controls rather than tactical blunders. And of course I have zero tolerance for hardcore permadeath, especially when it could end 100+ hr runs. Save scumming is the only way. I greatly enjoyed the survival mechanics and overall gameplay but there were a few things that need improvement. Infection (regular not the zombie virus) should be incredibly serious and life threatening. Even with antibiotics it could force the character to be bedridden for weeks. Using ripped sheets from clothing and curtains to bandage wounds without first disinfecting either should be risky. Using dirty or bloody bandages (especially bloody clothes from a zombie) should be a VERY bad idea, potentially infecting with the zombie virus. It should be possible to sterilize bandages with bleach. Wearing dirty/bloody clothes and not having regular baths should give penalties, possibly unhappiness, anxiety and increased risk of infection and zombie. I enjoyed having to manage unhappiness but was very disappointed at how trivial boredom and anxiety were. Boredom rose quickly while indoors and decreased quickly while outdoors. All those 100s of magazines I stockpiled were pointless. Boredom should instead work like hunger and sleep; slowly rising over time and only decreasing from consuming entertainment; books, magazines, TV, VHS, music etc. There would need to be some kind of balance for extreme scarcity though, some infinite but less effective way to relieve boredom. Even positive and negative traits that cause or relieve boredom. For my real self example, I would get bored doing any crafting, disassembling, repair, farming fishing etc, while having fun hitting/cutting down trees, fighting zombies, shooting, exploring, and finding loot. Anxiety didn't even come into play for this character and should have its own set of causes, cures and traits. And traits for unhappiness, like melancholic giving a constant small rise in unhappiness while optimist doing the opposite. I would also like to see more enemy variety, weapons and armor. Getting a functional weapon early on is entirely based on chance when you should be able to use bare hands to obtain very basic improvised weapons; rip off a cupboard door, make a shiv from broken glass or dishes, toilet basin lid or even the seat, curtain rod, rocks, full tin can, even blinding them with curtains. I liked how random the zombies seemed with how many shoves, stomps and hits they took, and how much variety there was to their clothing and appearance. Not sure how much difference there was in their sight, hearing and strength but some should definitely be deaf or blind, especially if they were damaged. And tougher variants in armor, like SWAT, soldiers, and survivors in makeshift armor. Some basic special types, like spitters and screamers could be cool. My only other complains are around the interface. Like having to face a container to be able to click on it, not being able to click on corpses to loot, difficulty keeping track of which corpses were looted or not, awkward placing and rotating objects, and tediousness with tasks like cooking and repeatedly eating. There really should be more convenience automation and hot keys, like eat and smoke buttons to automatically use stuff from the inventory. Even right click commands to repeat eating until full and add stuff to pot/pan until full. And finally I love being a loot goblin but hate sorting it all out when I get back to base. This is not unique to this game though and helping it with infinite sortable containers would hurt immersion. Personal inventory sorting would help.

Very fun game and I will be trying other scenarios, the main mode, custom settings and mods.

Been playing this with a group of friends the past few weeks and I'm really enjoying it. Played it a year or two ago solo and struggled with its harsh learning curve and brutal survival mechanics.

I think the server owner has tweaked the settings slightly to make it more forgiving, we have quality of life mods installed like being able to write in journals to save our skills (something you usually lose when you die, which is often). I actually haven't died once since playing which is a miracle but it also helps to have a group around you who is gathering supplies and weapons. Staying alive for this long has meant I can finally delve into the stuff the game to offer that I think many people will miss simply because they die too often and never get the skill levels high enough to unlock certain features.

I've found my purpose in the game now which is to be a park ranger, similar to my real life job, and now I go around clearing road blocks, gathering fire wood, searching for herbs, and driving people around. I really enjoy being a jack of all trades and learning different skills and mechanics off other players is nice. I had no idea you could dry yourself with towels you find for example, or disinfect rags using cologne you find in houses, or scavenge propane tanks from peoples bbqs to use in metal work tools. There's so much depth to this game and I love it!

I played the demo many years ago but can't remember exactly when. The demo had the character start off infected with 2 days to play before dying. I tried it a couple times but did not get much done. A little bit of looting and fighting. I vaguely remember some prisoner zombies with cop zombies nearby implying they were laying siege to prison escapees holding up in a house. The survival mechanics were very in depth but the controls were incredibly clunky. I slapped it on my wishlist and have been waiting for several to 10 years. Just recently I began watching videos of other people playing and I am getting the itch to play this. So I plan on buying it the next time it goes on sale.

In the mean time I played the very first alpha demo. I had to install the java SDK to be able to play. These graphics were more primitive than the demo I played long ago. This one was about Kate and Bob. On my 1st try I got as far as looting the next house. Inside was a harmless zombie for learning combat but I instead went after a zombie outside. The combat was similar to the modern game only holding down ctrl to be in aim/strafe mode. The hammer had terrible range though and attacks could out right miss randomly. These 2 things led to me taking damage as more zombies approached. I bandaged my injuries but became stuck in the corner of a fence. I could not turn or move backwards, only forward into the fence. He died. That was probably a bug. Ok next try I managed to survive for 14 days exploring the entire map. The baseball bat was so much better than the hammer, with enough range and knockback to deal with misses and multiple zombies. I cleared out buildings and accumulated loot back at the starting house, sometimes sleeping in other houses. I left the survivor in the food store alone. Later I found a fire axe which killed in 1 hit. It seemed overall less forgiving than the bat though as I more frequently took hits if I missed and did not flee. At 1 point I was in a bad situation after coming out of a building, with multiple zombies coming from every direction. I bust out the shotgun and began mowing them down only for their numbers to skyrocket. I barely managed to escape that, weaving through the hordes at walking pace until I got inside the fenced park and lost them. Another time I hid behind a white picket fence slowly killing a horde of 50+ that did not think to move up a couple meters to the opening. Near the end I got bit. Not sure if that was a death sentence in this early version. It healed but I was getting mysterious pain. This pain eventually messed up his carrying capacity despite taking a lot of painkillers. Or maybe he overdosed. Either way he could no longer move faster than zombies and was eaten alive trying to get back home with the last little bit of loot.