Why Project Zomboid Is So Awesome

Enjoying the video? Check out my latest challenge where I try to escape from Project Zomboid in 30 days: https://youtu.be/zdrruUmv1eE?si=A4LYkJL8MMhgqPdG

I was doing a nomad run, never settling in one place for longer than I needed to. It was just me and whatever I could fit in my car. One day while I was playing, my buddy irl texted me, and I was on a long stretch of highway, so I put my car on cruise control and started texting my buddy back not really paying attention to the game. Then I hear a crash and look up. My character hit a tree while I was texting and broke several bones and was bleeding pretty badly. The noise attracted zombies and my car wasn't starting. I got out and immediately tripped bc of my character's broken leg, and my character was swarmed and eaten. You can imagine my disappointment when my month-long character died getting into a car accident texting while driving.

I spent days DAYS clearing out the entire prison outside rosewood. I went up a watch tower to survey my new kingdom. Accidentally fell to my death from the tower. Excellent.

So one time on an rp server I made a cook character, gained the trust of some rebels who captured me and they forced me to cook for them. Well this lasted a while and I managed to get my cook and foraging skills pretty high, high enough to find white poison berries and ended up poisoning a rebel group of about 12 ppl. Greatest end to an rp game I've had

Also the fact that you could see your old character zombiefied is just amazing

The most frustrating run-end for me was when I spent an actual real life week fortifying and supplying a cabin in the woods, only to crash my car in the middle of nowhere while on my way to do a supply run, get cut up bad, realize I didn't have medical supplies, tore up my clothing to bandage it, while in the middle of winter. Bobby Pistoletto died a lonely cold and bloody death there on the side of the road.

I was 4 months in, had thousands of zombie kills under my belt. I was a competent Mechanic, Carpenter, Tailor and Master Combatant with both Long Blades and Long Blunt. I had literal decades worth of both food and fuel in my base on the top floor of an apartment building in Raven Creek. I had built a bridge from the fire escape over the alley to the building next to me so I could easily set up a farm on the neighboring rooftop. I had carried dozens of sacks of dirt to the roof, had dozens of every type of seed, hundreds of pounds of fertilizer and dozens of rain collectors with which to keep them watered. I had multiple generators and the parts to keep them running indefinitely. I had turned the apartment across the hall into a kitchen, mega-freezer and library and I was literally set to live out the rest of my days comfy and happy in my sky high fortress to which no undead could ever hope to encroach. While on the way to my freezer after collecting my very first harvest from my massive garden, I took an uncareful step crossing my bridge and plunged 10 stories, shattering every bone in my body and dying a quick but agonizing death, helpless on the pavement.

The first time my bf and I played PZ we got really into it, we loved how detailed it was and just kept marveling at all the little nuances like needing to wear gloves or cloth around our hands to remove glass from a window, the fact that you needed a pencil And an eraser in your inventory to write on the map and remove the marks, etc. Anyway during our early days playing we experienced everyone's "favorite" Helicopter event while we were out exploring/gathering supplies. We couldn't figure out why so many Zeds were being attracted to us until we realized they were following the sound of the helicopter.....so we made eeeevery rookie's first mistake and fled back to our main base to try and cover the windows and lay low until the Helicopter passed, not yet realizing that the damn thing was Following Us the Whole Way. We got home, hid inside, covered the windows and started reading. At some point we heard banging at the door....then the window...then another window. We threw open the curtains and were horrified by the huge mob of Zeds that had gathered outside our house. We were completely surrounded. Panicked I started gathering all the curtains/sheets I could get in the house and started trying to make a sheet rope to escape from the second story window. My bf died trying to hold off the horde at the top of the stairs, I made it outside and got about 20 feet away from the building before I was overwhelmed. Needless to say....we absolutely hate that helicopter event lol

I played a character named Agatha. she was an old chain smoking woman that hated everything and was glad that zombies had taken over. Agatha killed nearly 600 zombies in the apocalypse and got to being a master carpenter. one day Agatha decided to build a stair case up to roof of her base and in the process of making the landing fell from one story up but with a large amount of boards, nails, and tools on her and died immediately.

I tried to live in the wilderness run and it was fun, I farmed and built a roofless house because making a roof requires a stair, I basically fish and farmed all day, everyday, and the moment I left for a supply run to get more seeds, a zombie sneaked behind me while I was fighting 2 zombies in the front and I got bit, so I did a last stand and shouted to my heart's content and died bravely like a maniac.

I love the fact, that in the last update they added, that if you try to microwave canned food (or anything with metal) it will explode and light your house on fire.

The moment that made me fall in love with this game is the down time between all the fighting and scavenging when I joined my friends server. We sat down in the middle of the road at night on our way to Louisville, used the head lights of our vehicle to light up the road and sat. we talked about real life stories until the in game sun started rising and it was one of my favorite experiences

On my friend's first day playing this, I assured him that he couldn't break or ruin the game with traits. I went in blind and learning all the little details was a great experience for me, so I wanted to give that to him as well. My friend spawns in and we set about looting houses and looking for a car. He gets pretty competent killing zombies, so to save some time I send him down one street and I go down another. All of a sudden he starts yelling for help so I run over and find the entire block full of smashed windows and a horde of 50+ zombies surrounding him. This is when I learned he took deaf and had been smashing every window not realizing it made noise. We have melee weapons only so I start herding the zombies and fighting them; we back into a nice looking truck, I tell him to hop in and see if it drives. Lo and behold, small miracle, there's a key in it. He starts the car. And then he speeds down the highway. Away from me. And directly into a three car pileup. The car is ruined but he's okay despite some minor injuries, so I tell him to wait in the car and I'll be there in a second. At this point we're both laughing our asses off, I'm still backing up towards him fighting off the rest of the horde, and I hear the sound of a car horn going off. He's been pressing the horn nonstop without thinking about it while sitting in the car. I turn around just in time to see another horde coming from the opposite direction, summoned by the car horn. You can guess how this ended

9:55 "It takes a lot of thinking about what you're doing to survive in this world" Robokast says whilst doing donuts on zombies and wrecking his car

Favorite moment. I survived 16 days on one character. This character had survived 3 trips to Louisville, falling off a 2 story building, almost getting bitten, killed over 800 zombies only to die to me ODing because he had schizophrenia and he had an episode so I took too many pills cuz I am stupid and this was my first character with schizophrenia. 11/10 experience still play on that server.

I survived for an extremely long time through countless zombie attacks. I finally decided to leave the city and settle down in the woods. My first night in the woods, I drank a bad pot of water, contracted dysentery and died the next day.

I love on Zomboid that you never die because it's unfair. You always die because you make mistakes and mistakes are deadly in zomboid. After every death I asked myself "WHY TF DID I DO THAT!?" And as you say, the deadliest thing in zomboid is overconfidence. ^^

One of my favorite Project Zomboid moments ever: In the base game, broken down or deteriorating cars can spawn in random locations, sometimes acting as roadblocks that you need to remove. I used a mod to add in NPC's, which added in bandits that attack randomly. These two systems would then intertwine in a unexpected and brutal way. I was traveling to a new town, scouting out supplies, when a police roadblock stood in my path. I got out of my car, equipped some gas so I can fuel the police cars and move them, only to be completely surprised when I was ambushed and sniped IMMEDIATELY by the bandits. The whole thing was a set up, and it was like the bandits had set up the roadblock to lure unsuspecting survivors. It was hilarious and completely demoralizing, but that's Project Zomboid!

I remember my one run I was a chef. His name was Dougie FuFu. I survived 8 months and 16 days. had guns galore, plenty of ammo for them, food to last me months without having to do any supply runs, plenty of medicine if I needed it, etc. The crazy thing about this game is all it takes is one wrong move and you’re done and that’s exactly what happened. There were a couple zombies (that I knew of at the time) banging on my door so I was going to go out the window to sneak around and kill them. Well my dumbass clicks break window instead of climb through and the noise attracted this giant ass horde of zombies I didn’t know was there. So I grabbed as much of my stuff as I could and put it in my truck then made them follow me away from my home. I get back to my home after leading them away and grab the rest of my stuff and decide to relocate. I found a house that seemed suitable to live in and moved in. I was going through the house to make sure it was clear. Well it indeed wasn’t clear. I opened the bathroom door and FIVE zombies came running at me and I jump scared super bad so my mouse shook and I missed the swing then got bit and I tried running away but my characters dumbass tripped and then the zombies got me and killed me. I was super upset cuz he was one of my longest runs. What was even more sad was when I started my next run I spawned a block away from the house Dougie FuFu died in so I headed over and sure enough I found the zombified body of Dougie and I didn’t wanna kill him due to the fun memories so I made him follow me all the way to where I had set up base and I trapped him and barricaded him in the bathroom. To this day I still have Dougie in the bathroom on that run

The thing I love about Project Zomboid is how much the game hammers into your brain that you are no one. You could have plenty of great armour equipped, but you'll end up like the zombies you robbed them off. You could have a big, fortified base, but not strong enough evidenced by zombies breaking down anything in seconds if there's enough of them. No matter how much loot you own, no matter how many traits you have, no matter how many skills you've gained. This is the story of how you died. And man, does it make the game feel miserable, when you don't have any distractions at least.