Project Zomboid - Sandboxy Horror? - The Teege Conducts An Indie Game Review

So the zombies are coming, I hear. Excellent... let me just pop to my bedroom and choose from my arsenal of weaponry what to kill you with. Not enough to choose from? Oh well, the frying pan will do, or a good baseball bat.

The UK and Canadian based developer Indie Stone have set out, in Project Zomboid, to make their 'ideal version of a zombie game'. Retro in style, with a couple of comedic twists and turns among the plentiful atmosphere of dark and grim horror, this really does set the scene. And the Tutorial? Well. Informative, I'll give you that, but the sadistic ending! What a twist!

So the game itself opens, and you're alone, in a building. Apparently this is your home -- you have no choice over furnishings or location, that is what you're lumped with -- but you do, and personally I like this, get to modify your character by what they may have experienced prior to the apocalypse. 

So I went for a carpenter. Thinking good with making things and above all else... AXES! Lopping heads off with joy, I thought, would be a great start. Now to find an axe. Which you will find is damn near impossible.

Resources in this game are so damn accurate I actually find myself praising them. There was no gun for the first (in-game) week and a half! Kitchen knives, spades, baseball bats and frying pans are common. Food resources are good as well -- plentiful to start with but lacking later on. The complexity of this game is strong as well; the tactical play, considering there is line of sight at work, increases the tension. So entering a building looking for an apple because you haven't eaten for 12 hours is nerve-wracking, especially if you're wearing sound-cancelling headphones and your dad walks in right as a zombie appears!

The one problem is that if you want to play multiplayer with your friends at the same time, it's nigh impossible without paying for the privilege of your own private server. Now honestly, this is shambolic if I must say anything about it. If I want to see if me and Mr White can survive together, and we can't even find one another, well... there's something wrong there. I even checked the local coffee shop!

 

Startling as it may be to realise, I don't think I'd actually hide in a coffee shop in the event of a zombie apocalypse. One would run the risk of seeing the only thing worse than a zombie -- a HIPSTER zombie. It'd shamble over, all ragged plaid shirt, maggot-ridden beard and an urgency to only enjoy eating your brain ironically, droning about how it was undead before everyone else was and ruined it.

So a good start to what may be a great game, but with overpopulated maps, and no multiplayer locally, this game is lacking some major points! Why, Indie Stone?! Why... do you as developers go and create an idea that could expand beyond the American boundaries and yet only develop two maps (yes, they're expansive in themselves)? But yet they do not contain different continents! The UK is one of your biggest markets next to the US... (sorry to the rest of the English-speaking world but this tends to be where most of western marketing hits...). So stop sitting there in your board meetings sucking on one another's arms going "can we be more zombie like?" and sit the the f**k down, grab a hold of your balls and put pen to paper designing London and local multiplayer maps!

My advice for new players of Project Zomboid? Hide for the first couple days, venture out to the nearest local building and hope you get lucky. You can always run away from zombies -- just don't get trapped by a hored, because I promise you, you will die quicker than a man not delivering my pizza!



I leave it there. My opinion is 3/5 stars. Could be a lot better... but it's a start! Develop it more and you could have a strong, promising game here!