S U R V I V A L

G U I D E

THIS IS HOW YOU DIED

Welcome to Muldraugh, Kentucky - population 3566. Just how many of that number are still alive is another story, but were definitely in the minority Dont let the title of this guide fool you, youll be joining the dead soon enough, the only question is the how and the when. Will you go down fighting off a Zombie horde, guns blazing, or will you succumb to sickness, thirst, or starvation first? This guide will give you some basic information, and if youre careful, play smart, and plan ahead then maybe, just maybe youll survive a little longer

PLEASE NOTE:
This guide is written for the current Public Test Build of Project Zomboid, which at the time of writing this is RC 2.9. More information can be found here: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/2011/04/buildstatus/

TITLE SCREEN
From the main title screen you can choose Options, allowing you to change various game preferences like screen resolutions, key bindings, and more. The title screen is also where you can choose the Survival or Sandbox game modes.

The Title Screen:

SURVIVAL OR SANDBOX?
Survival is the standard and official way to play the game. It is designed to be extremely difficult to survive for long periods of time, and doing so should be a massive achievement. After dying you will get the you survived for message. Sandbox mode gives you additional options, allowing those players looking for different experiences, or with different tastes or skill levels, the option of customizing the gameplay in a multitude of ways.

OPTIONS MENU
This is where you can change various options for the game, including display settings, key bindings, and reloading difficulty.

Display Options:

Display:
Choose your screen resolution, and enable or disable fullscreen mode. You can also choose the level of video card memory the game will address, and whether to enable video shaders. (The video card memory and shaders may assist if you are having trouble running the game smoothly).

Key Bindings:
Change/edit the default keybindings to suit your playing style. The default keyboard commands are shown below:

Key bindings:

PLEASE NOTE:
This guide will cover mouse and keyboard controls, but you can also use an Xbox 360 controller, or other compatible gamepad to play the game. We will cover the basic gamepad controls at the end of this guide.

Reloading:
This option sets the default difficulty for the technique used when reloading pistols in the game. The three options are Easy, Normal, and Hardcore. The default mode is set to Easy. In Easy mode, if you have a pistol and suitable ammunition in your inventory, you can right-click on the pistol and choose reload. (If you already have the pistol equipped as your primary weapon, you can press the R key to perform this function). In Normal mode, you need to right-click the pistol and eject the magazine first. Then, you can right-click on the magazine and choose reload. Finally, you can right-click on the pistol and choose insert magazine. (If the pistol is already equipped, pressing R will eject/insert the magazine). In Hardcore mode, as well as having to eject the magazine to reload it, then insert the magazine into the pistol, you also have to rack the slide to chamber a round before firing with a fresh magazine. This is done by pressing the space bar.

Reload Options:

SURVIVAL
*NOTE*: Survival and Sandbox games both use the same basic gameplay mechanics. We will be looking at the Survival mode, but will cover some of the differences in the Sandbox mode later in this guide. After Clicking on Survival, you will have the option to either load a previously saved game or, or start a new game. To start a new game, first type a name for the Save Game:

Save Game Screen:

PLEASE NOTE:
How to save a game? You cannot quick save your progress. Instead, when you exit Project Zomboid, your game will be automatically saved. When you die in the game, your world will still be saved when you exit. This means that you can reload that world again, but you will need to start as a new character.

CHARACTER MENU
The Customise Character and Select Occupation and Traits screens allow you to generate or create a new character, choose an Occupation, and assign them extra traits.

Customise Character Screen:

Customise Character
Type a name for your character; choose your gender, body type, hair type and colour, and facial hair as required. Alternatively, you can keep clicking on Random to have a character generated for you, and then make any changes to suit. You can use the left and right arrows below the image of your created character to rotate and view them from different angles.

Occupation and Traits Screen:

Occupation and Traits

You can choose from several occupations. Each has one or more base traits, which offer specific benefits in-game. For Example, the Fire Officer has the Axeman trait offering faster axe swing and door-breaking speed. Once you have chosen your occupation, you can either start the game, or choose from additional traits. For example, the Athletic trait gives you faster running speed, and you can run for longer without tiring. Have a look through the traits, and their description to see what affect they will have on your character.

PLEASE NOTE:
All traits, both good and bad, have a cost associated with them. You CANNOT start a game if your total points are in negative figures. For example, the Athletic trait will cost you -6 points, so you would need to choose some negative traits, (like Weak), that add up to at least 6 points before you could start the game.

Welcome to Muldraugh
Hide, fight, scavenge, build, its all up to you now. If theres one piece of advice I can give you, its find a weapon and fast. If all you can find is a damn pen, its still better than trying to kill one of those things with your bare hands, although running might be better still

THE GAME WORLD

Your character will spawn in a random location in the game world of Muldraugh.. You will start the game with little or no supplies, so before venturing outside, search your spawn house thoroughly. A weapon might be a good start

A Fresh Start:

GAME HUD
The main game HUD consists of the main world view, and several screen elements displaying information about your character and his/her surroundings, including any weapons equipped, the date and time, weather conditions, health, inventory, and Moodles.

HUD Elements:

1 Primary Weapon/item 3 Main Inventory 5 Inventory Window

2 Secondary Weapon/Item 4 Health 6 Loot all Window

HUD Elements:
7 Current Date and Time 8 Time Control 9 Moodles

MOODLES
Moodles offer a graphical indication of the current emotional and/or physical state of your character. For example, the Tired moodle lets you know that your character needs to rest, or sleep. Most moodles have several levels of severity. The Tired moodle for example, may range from Drowsy, to Exhausted. When you see a moodle, hold your mouse over the icon for more detailed information.

Moodles:

PLEASE NOTE:
Youll discover various other Moodles while playing. We wont go into depth in this guide, as theyre easy to understand, and to remedy. For example, for the Hunger Moodle, eat something, Tired Moodle, rest or sleep etc.

MOVEMENT
Move your character using the WASD keys. This will make your character walk in the relevant direction. To run, hold down the shift key while moving. To sneak/aim, hold down the CTRL key - your character will move slower, but quieter, which can assist avoiding detection.

PLEASE NOTE:
You can also use mouse controls to move your character. Hold down the right mouse button, and drag the pointer in the direction you want to move. If the mouse pointer is close to your character, they will walk, move the mouse pointer further away, and they will run in that direction.

Climbing
Sometimes, you will need to climb, such as to get over a short fence, or to enter/exit a building through an open window. To climb, when facing a fence or window, press and hold the E key for a moment.

Climbing a fence:

Fight or flee?
No matter how safe you play it, how quiet or careful you are, youre going to have to fight at some stage. Whether its a couple of Zombies that you stumble upon while searching a house, or a horde shambling into view as you turn a corner, youre going to need skill, tactics, and a fair amount of luck to save your skin. Sometimes, running is the smarter option

COMBAT
Holding CTRL will put the player into a combat stance with whatever weapon is equipped in the primary slot. Clicking the left mouse button will use the weapon, (swing a bat, stab with a knife, or shoot a firearm etc.) You can charge your weapon, (except firearms), by holding the left mouse button for longer before releasing. This will cause more damage to your target. You need to aim with the mouse pointer where you want to strike. TIP: If you knock a Zombie to the ground, you can finish them off before they can get back up by standing over them and attacking.

Combat Mode:

Knock them down:

Finish them off:

INTERACTION
To interact with objects or items in the game world, you can use several techniques: Left-click with your mouse, pressing the Action key, (defaulted to E), or right-clicking and choose an option from the contextsensitive menu. For example, if you are in front of a closed door, you can left-click to attempt to open it, press E to try and open it, or right-click and choose Open Door from the options. NOTE: Right-clicking with the mouse will also offer other options not otherwise available with items. If you right-click on a locked window for example, you will see this option:

Breaking and entering:

PLEASE NOTE:
Another way to smash a locked window is to rapidly tap the E key. Be aware, if you smash a window without a primary weapon equipped, you will cut yourself.

INVENTORY
You can open your main inventory from the window near the top of your screen. If this window is closed, you can open it again by pressing I, or clicking on the box icon at the left of your HUD:
Open or close Inventory window

Inventory window

Manipulating items
To use or manipulate items in your inventory, right-click the item and choose from the available actions. To drop an item, highlight it and click on the drop button: Right-click options: Drop option:

Multiple items
To select multiple items, shift-click on the items you want, or click and drag a box around them. *NOTE*: When dragselecting, click and drag from an empty space beside the items you want to select: Shift-select: Drag-select:

Click Drag

Weight Limits
All items have an associated weight, e.g. an apple has a weight of 0.2, whereas a baseball bat weighs 1.5. At the start of the game, you can carry a maximum weight of 8, (Unless you chose the Strong trait which starts with max weight of 16). Once you go past this figure, you wont be able to run, and your speed will be heavily reduced: Weight limit Exceeded: Heavy Load Moodle:

Sharing the load

If you have exceeded the maximum weight limits, you can either drop/use some items, or if you are carrying a bag, move some items to it. There are several types of bags to be found in Muldraugh, ranging from a basic plastic one, up to a big hiking pack. The better bags will let you carry more/heavier items. To use them, you just drag items from your inventory or other containers directly to the bag:
Drag items to the bag icon:

New icon, new options:

When you have a bag in your inventory, you will have a new icon beneath your main inventory icon. Select this to display the contents of the bag. When selecting an item from your bag, you will have a new option unpack. Selecting this will unpack the items and move them back to your main inventory:
Show bag inventory: The unpack option:

LOOTING
You will find various items essential to prolonging your survival scattered around Muldraugh. You can search and loot most containers you discover cupboards, crates, refrigerators, drawers, even the bodies of dead Zombies. To loot a container, left-click on them, and any contents should be shown in the Loot all window. Alternatively, when standing near containers, you can click on the various container icons that will appear in the Loot all window. This can be helpful when several containers are grouped together, e.g. a row of cupboards, or several crates.
Loot all window:

Container icons: Select from different objects to search.

Contents of Refrigerator

PLEASE NOTE:
The blue and white chequered icon represents the floor/ground. Selecting this icon will display any items available there.

ALL GOOD THINGS TAKE TIME

Many actions in the game take a set amount of time to perform: eating, drinking, sorting/moving items in your inventory, reloading firearms etc. A small progress bar will appear over your characters head as this is happening. Some actions will take longer if the item is currently not in your main inventory. For example, to eat an item that is in your bag, you can unpack the item to your main inventory, and then eat it, or right-click on the food item and choose eat, which will automatically unpack the item first before consuming.

Packing items to bag:

Action progress bar:

CRAFTING
You can use two or more items together to perform additional actions, create new items, improve existing items etc. As long as you have all the necessary items in your inventory, right-clicking on the item will give you additional actions that can be performed. For example, if you have a hammer, nails, and wood in your inventory, you can right-click in the game-world for building options. Another example, if you have the can opener and some canned food in your inventory, then right-clicking on the canned food will give you the option to open the can: Basic crafting:

PLEASE NOTE:
There are many other crafting functions and recipes in the game, but well let you discover those for yourself!

BUILDING
Once you have the appropriate items in your inventory, the right-click function will give you access to the Build Menu, which has options to build items, such as a simple wooden fence, staircases, tables, and much more. Select the item, and place in the game world with left-click. Press R to rotate the item before placing. The Build Menu:

Building Info
The different items you can build each have their own requirements to craft them, and can be seen in the info panel for that item. If you dont currently have the required items, or skill level, the item name will be displayed in red. In the example above, you still need 3 planks, 2 hinges, and a door knob to craft the wooden door.

Back-breaking work
Some of the materials used in building items are very heavy, and trying to carry too much in your main inventory will quickly exhaust, and possibly injure you. However, you can drop items on the ground, and as long as they are close to where you want to build, will be available for that item. Eg: place a pile of planks on the ground and they will be available to build and item with, even though not in your inventory. Piles of planks:

PLEASE NOTE:
If the pile of items is not close enough to where you want to build, you will not be able to use them.

Too far away

Items available

FARMING
Similar to building, once you have the appropriate items in your inventory, the right-click function will give you access to commands to allow you to sow, plant, grow, and harvest a variety of vegetables. The first item you need is the Trowel, to dig/plough a plot of land. Once you have the trowel, rightclicking on the ground will give you the option to dig. *NOTE*: The trowel will automatically be equipped in your primary slot when you dig. Can you dig it?

Choose location
Choose where you want to place your plot, then left-click to dig at that location.

Ploughing:

Seeds and Sowing

Before you can plant any seeds, you will need the seeds in your inventory. To do this, you need to open a packet of seeds by right-clicking on them from your inventory. Once done, you can right-click the plot of ploughed lad and sow the seed. Some basic information regarding the plant, and water requirements will be displayed. Open seed packet:

Sow the seed and info panel:

Plant info and Watering

Now that you have sown the seeds, if you right-click on the plot, and choose Info you will see some information regarding the plant, such as last time watered, health, growing phase, and more. As your farming skill increases, the information displayed will be more detailed.

Plant info Panel:

Watering menu:

Watering your plant

To water your plant, you must have a container of water in your inventory, eg: a watering can. Right-click on the plot and select the amount of water to use.

SKILLS
As well as the base traits you choose when starting a new character, you can level-up several skills during the course of playing the game. To upgrade/level-up your skills, you need to gain experience, or XP points. To gain XP points in a particular skill, all you need to do is actively use it. For example, to upgrade you skill in combat using blunt weapons, (such as the baseball bat, rolling pin etc), then you just need to kill Zombies with that weapon. There is one other way to upgrade skills by studying that subject. For example, if you find a book on Carpentry, reading that book will help level up that skill. Skill window:

To bring up the Skills window, press the C key. The various skills will be listed, under the main categories of Combat, Crafting, and Agility. Current progress toward the next level will be displayed, as well as any available skill points, and how many remaining XP points are required before the next skill point. Once you have an available skill point, you can level-up any skill that has reached the required XP, displayed as a +, as below: Skill level up:

PLEASE NOTE:
There may be times that you have met the requirements to level-up one or more skills, but have only one skill point available. Once you use that skill point, you will need to wait until you have another to level-up the remaining skill.
Remaining xp until next skill point

Available skill points

This skill has reached level one

These skills can be levelled up

INFO and HEALTH

You may have noticed two other tabs when looking at the Skills window: Info and Health. The Info tab, (Hot-Key J), displays information about your current character, such as Name, age, traits, favourite weapon, number of Zombies killed, and survival time. The Health tab, (Hot-Key H), displays the current overall body status of your character, and any damage/injuries. (Another way to display the Health information is to click on the heart icon from your main HUD.) Info window:

Health window:

SANDBOX MODE
This Sandbox Mode is basically the same in gameplay as the Survival Mode, except that you can tweak many core settings to suit your style and/or skill level: Finding it too hard to find enough loot/supplies? You can increase the rarity levels of loot. Are the Zombies too hard or too easy for you? Change their numbers, perception, speed, intelligence, and many other settings as required. After choosing a game save name in the same way as in Survival mode, you are next taken to a screen with the various options you can change for Sandbox Mode. Once you are happy with the settings, you can proceed to the Character creation screen as you did in the Survival Mode. Sandbox Mode Options:

Choose your Zombies

The Zombie Lore options allow you to change fundamental parameters for what type of Zombies you will encounter in the game. The default setting is to use Proper Zombies, which closest resemble what the PZ team envision how Zombies should behave. (These are the same settings used in the Survival Mode) To change these settings, un-tick the Proper Zombies box. You can now change various options to alter the default Zombie behaviour do you want stupid, slow, and weak Zombies? Maybe youd prefer to take on super-fast, intelligent, and tough Zombies? Its up to you! Zombie settings:

The HUD - MISCELLANEOUS

Here are some HUD components/options not specifically covered earlier in the guide. HUD Icons

HUD Icons
7: Displays the current time in the 24 hour clock format, and the date and month. 8: These controls allow you to pause, play, and speed up the in-game time. Useful when you want to skip forward several hours quickly. For example, if when you wake up its still dark outside, and youre not ready to venture out yet.

PLEASE NOTE:
The Hot-key V, will turn off all of the HUD elements for maximum visibility. This can be toggled back on when required.

GAMEPAD CONTROLS
Currently in experimental testing, you can now use a gamepad/joypad to control your character. An Xbox 360 or compatible controller is recommended. Due to differences between using keyboard/mouse and a gamepad, some game mechanics, and the UI differ when using a controller. We will briefly cover some of these.

Controller Layout
The layout is based on using an Xbox 360 controller. Remapping buttons may be implemented in future releases.
Interact Loot/Inventory Secondary Action Action

Player movement

Navigate Menus

Sneak/Aim

Combat

Cycle Container /Callout

Cycle Container

Button Prompts
When using a gamepad, there are some differences with how you interact with objects in the game world, along with some other changes to the UI and HUD. When using a controller, you will receive prompts for relevant actions when they are available, and the associated button to perform that action will be shown as an icon on screen: Options near closed window:

Options near opened window:

Two for one

The button prompts are context sensitive, and will change depending on whats happening in the game world. For example, if you arent standing near any objects, the button will default to opening your inventory. However, when near a cupboard, shelf, or other container, it will change to prompt you to Loot

Inventory

and Loot

Interaction
The interaction button is the equivalent of the right-click for the mouse controls. It lets you choose from options when there are several available, as in the example below: Choices, choices

Press on an item in your inventory to access additional actions. Use the D-pad controls to highlight the action you want, and then use the button to select.

Item options

Inventory and Loot Panels

When you press the button near a container, the Inventory and Loot All panels will open. You can use the D-pad to move between the two panels, and to navigate up and down. The active panel will have a subtle green border around it. *NOTE*: The panels normally open side-by-side.

Inventory and Loot

Switching Containers
Whether you are in the Inventory panel, or the Loot panel, you may want to switch between available containers. To do this, press the LB (Left Bumper) button on the controller to change containers in your Inventory panel, (eg: between your Primary inventory and a bag). For the Loot panel, press the RB (Right Bumper) button to switch between any available containers, (eg: drawers, refrigerator, box etc).

Switching

Changing between containers

SPLIT SCREEN
Currently in experimental testing, you can now play local split-screen co-op with up to four players, although probably best experienced with two players. To start a split screen game, start and setup a Survival or Sandbox game as per normal. Once the first player spawns, press on the controller, and you will be given the option to either Take over player 1, (for using a controller in singleplayer mode), or Add another player. For a split screen game, choose Add new player, then press again. Lets split!

PLEASE NOTE:
Due to controller support still being at an experimental stage, several in-game controls are currently disabled for controller use, for example, the Building Menus are not accessible via the controller.

LINKS and Disclaimer

Support Forum http://theindiestone.com/community/viewforum.php?f=22

Project Zomboid About and Contacts http://projectzomboid.com/blog/about-us/

The Project Zomboid Wiki http://pzwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page

DISCLAIMER:
All information in this manual is subject to change without notice, as Project Zomboid is still in active development, and features may change at any time.

Thanks!
Thanks to The Indie Stone for developing THE Zombie Survival RPG game, and thanks to the great bunch of people that frequent the PZ forums Manual created by: Mark EreWeGo Sanders