Project Zomboid, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Zombies

When you first boot up Project Zomboid, the developers make you read a little warning, explaining that this is not the full game. In fact, it’s not even a demo. In fact, it’s not even a beta test, or an alpha test. This is a pre-alpha tech demo, whatever that means. In most cases, such hedging would sound alarm bells, but there’s a woeful tale behind this early release which I won’t relate here but which inevitably led to myself and what I imagine to be hundreds of others hurling money at the poor dev team, The IndieStone (www.rockpapershotgun.com has some excellent explanations of the issues).

Project Zomboid is about zombies. Alright guys, there’s no need to yawn so rudely in my face. I know zombies have been done to death (I would apologise for the pun, but you yawned at me. If you think I’m boring, you get cheap puns. That’s how I roll). But they’ve never been done quite like this.

The IndieStone team have managed to distill MineCraft's best narrative elements- that feeling of trying everything to desperately survive, of sitting in a hole in the dark while zombies scratch at the walls, and have transplanted it into a bleak and emotionally traumatic world. This isn’t a cutesy Lego box of goodies, but a Lego box where all the Lego has been taken out and replaced with blood, guts, and a stark reminder of the inevitability of death.

In the game world, that reminder is the moaning and banging at the door of your supposed safe house by the zombie horde outside. "I was sure they hadn't followed me!", you cry as you frantically count your shotgun shells. You take a gulp of some soda for a slight energy boost and wait for the horde to smash through your barricade. Then you open the door and let rip. Brain matter flies everywhere, and in the confusion you rush out the door. You don't emerge unscathed, however, for a lone zombie scratched you on your way out.

In search of medical supplies, you happen upon a supermarket. Inside, you are met by a fellow survivor. He seems less than friendly, however:stay where you are or ill shoot! I don't give him a chance to. This game has turned me into a murderer, though I try to justify it to myself by suggesting he would have shot me first. My barbarity is rewarded, as he has loads of shotgun shells, allowing me to survive just that little bit longer.

Of course, you don’t start the game off with a shotgun. I only got the shotgun after a fantastic and heartwrenching tutorial, probably one of the best tutorials of recent gaming times. In it, you are caring for your wife, who has broken her leg while escaping from assailants. The game teaches you the basic mechanics by making you craft bandages, find some painkillers, and then board up the house to make it safe. You go out in search of food and find your first zombie, an experience which made me jump out of my own skin. After quickly reattaching my skin, I managed to thwack the zombie in the head with my trusty hammer, sending brain matter flying everywhere. Satisfying, but also an indication of the difficulty level of this game-it took me two very slow swings of the hammer to fell a lone undead, so I immediately began to worry about how I would take down a horde of them. I put these fears aside and returned home, informing my wife that I had made soup. In my first playthrough, I rather stupidly left the soup on for too long and burnt the house down. The fact that such an act is even possible in this game highlights the emphasis here on survival. You are not an action hero, but a simple guy who makes mistakes, like everyone. Leave an oven on for too long, forget to board up a window, leave your painkillers at home, and you’ll soon be rat food. In my second more successful playthrough, I boiled up the soup, turned around, and was met with a shotgun in my face.

‘Howdy, neighbour’, he said to me jovially, though I think the shotgun in my face possibly counteracted his apparently friendly tone. He forced me upstairs after I stupidly revealed that I was not alone, and he stood by the side of my wife’s bed, point his gun at the both of us. At this point my palms became sweaty, and my mouse cursor edged towards equipping my hammer. I knew that if I equipped it, he would shoot me the first chance he got, and then he’d have his way with my wife, which I simply could not allow to happen. But I kept the mouse cursor there, because something in me knew that this man was not going to leave us in peace. The tension began to mount as I waited for a sign that he was about to shoot.

It came. I equipped the hammer and smashed his head to bits; although he let off a few shots, they seemed to miss me. Rarely have I felt such tension and then subsequent elation at the goings-on of a video game. The key to the success of this game on an emotional level is that it places you in literally the worst place imaginable, but unlike many games you don’t merely have to fend for yourself. You have to be almost entirely selfless; after all, there was no necessity for me to stay at home with my wife. In fact, I could have simply skipped the tutorial by smothering her with a pillow to save her from having to die painfully. That act filled me with regret, made all the more palpable by the fact that I foolishly left the house after doing so (carrying with me a framed photo of my recently deceased spouse), and died a stupid death surrounded by a horde of the flesheaters. This is a game about death, its inevitability and our futile attempts to stave it off. No matter how much I board up my house, they eventually get in. No matter how many shotgun shells I accumulate, I eventually run out. Perhaps it was better for my wife to die by my hands, with love, rather than have her gobbled up by a bunch of brainless zombies. These are the kinds of issues touched upon in this pre-alpha tech demo, and I can’t wait to see these ideas fully realised.

I have played through this pre-alpha tech demo many times now, and each time I have felt a variety of emotions that are often reserved for the best of literature and cinema. Few games can do that. But this isn't a game, its a PRE-ALPHA TECH DEMO, and its one of the most exciting things I've ever played.


(Project Zomboid can be purchased, via some Google Checkout tomfoolery, on http://projectzomboid.com/blog/ for £5, £10, or £15!)