What can you say about Project Zomboid? Not enough people will believe that this is the most realistic simulator of self-survival in the zombie apocalypse until they play it alone. Let's start with this, that the abundance of game environments simply rolls over. Here is a survivor, intending to get hold of at least some loot, slowly and carefully makes his way to his personal house, trying not to interest the attention of the ghouls wandering around. Pulls on the door handle ... Locked. Tries to raise the nearest window. No way! Then, in despondency, he breaks the window with his elbow and tumbles inside. And only after a certain number of seconds. realizes what an error it was. A triggered alarm summons undead from all over the neighborhood for lunch, and some, especially playful ones, are already thrusting their own bony hands through the broken window. Panicking, in a desperate attempt to find at least some means of defense, the survivor rushes to the 2nd floor. Under the incessant howl of a siren and the roar of corpses, he hears with fear how the front door has fallen off its hinges and putrid feet are already shuffling to the side of the stairs. Locked in the bedroom, he frantically searches wardrobes and dressers. Nothing, nothing at all, apart from the clothes, bedding, and a plush yellow raccoon doll. The alarm went off and now the wheezing of the dead mass is louder. The bedroom door was already shaking.
In the final attempt to stay alive, the survivor rips the sheet, blanket from the bed, grabs coats from the closet and ties them into some kind of analogue of a rope. He had already tied this simple structure to the radiator, intending to descend on it from the window, when at least five walkers burst into the room together with the door. Without hesitation, he jumps out the window, holding on to the rope, practically descends to the ground, but very late he notices that the house is surrounded on all sides by corpses. It may seem to him at first glance that the undead are already tearing at his flesh, scattering guts in a 2-block radius. But at one moment, a loud bang is heard from somewhere in the city center. Shot. The undead, all as one, turn their own useless gaze of empty eyes to the side of the newest sound and spread out evenly. The survivor exhales and descends to the ground, rejoicing in his own good fortune. And here he feels a sharp pain in the leg. The legless undead, whom he did not see, bit his ankle with his teeth ... Six hours later, he sits in some black basement in a hug with a bottle of bleach. The wound on his leg festered, he has a fever, hallucinations, the pain is unbearable. He had already seen how this was done with his comrades. He knows this is the end. With trembling hands, he brings the bottle of bleach to his lips. Just a couple of sips, and soon everything will be over ...
And this is just one of almost all the alternatives to unwinding incidents. The setting in this video game and the feelings it provides are analogous to occasionally who gets to provide. This is where we really survive. And this process forces us to constantly think about the consequences of our own decisions, even long-term ones. Would you like to feel like a terminator and make fun of the belly from a shotgun? Yes, because of the Almighty! But keep in mind that the sound of the shots will be just a dinner bell for the ghouls who will be drawn to you from all over the city. And your cartridges are far from endless ... Would you like to eat? You can eat the final canned food, but what are you going to do tomorrow ..? And, in the end, after some time spent in Project Zomboid, you realize everything. You won't be able to stay alive permanently. No matter how cool you are, no matter how many ghouls you destroy, no matter how many tomatoes you grow ... You will die. What will it be? An accidental scratch from the undead? Hypothermia? A putrid rat eaten in a fit of hunger? A fire over a stove that was left on? Death is inevitable, and most importantly, unexpected and unpredictable. The video game is simply saturated with hopelessness and despair. And I attribute this to one of its most important advantages. "There are no happy ends." Summing up the result, I would like to announce that Project Zomboid is one of those rare games in which the gamer is not led by the handle. She is not friendly to the gamer, and for some time gives him a test, throws a challenge. The real challenge, not your "press X to win". There would be more of them. And even in spite of its own early stage of development, the video game deserves huge praise. I will watch its development with pleasure.
