Simon Pegg once wrote a brillopops article on why zombies should never run. It’s something that seems to have happened with zombie films and, since Left4Dead, zombie games too.
I suspect that a lot of this is due to the zombie genre meeting head-first with the FPS game. Arm the player with a machine gun and throw waves of useless shuffling idiots at them and, well, it’s probably not going to be the hardest game on the planet.
Of course, chuck super fast zombies into an FPS and another thing has to go as well – if a scratch from a zed means death the game would be utterly impossible, and so another modern zombie game cliché is born: the conveniently immune player character.
But Left4Dead was a glorious game and even if running zombies and immunity irritates the hell out of you, it’s difficult to criticize it for that when the game’s so beautifully crafted. Left4Dead even went one step further: by including a versus mode and having human players take on the role of the “special infected”, the zombies suddenly became smart – planning and executing ambushes and generally co-operating. But it’s just a game, the versus mode was incredible fun, and it’s their game and therefore their rules on how the zombie virus works.
So the trouble is essentially, slow useless enemies don’t lend themselves to a fast-paced action FPS. They do, however, suit a slow-paced survival RPG – the sort of game which is to Left4Dead what “The Last Man on Earth” (the Vincent Price adaptation of “I am Legend”) is to the Resident Evil movie. Except where black and white film has become retro pixel graphics. Or something. I haven’t really thought this comparison through, if I’m honest.
The beauty of “The Last Man on Earth” is that the problem isn’t so much that there are (well, they’re really sort of a zombie / vampire hybrid but I’m going to call them zombies because it’s easier) zombies everywhere, but that there aren’t any other humans. The zombies are pretty much ineffectual for the entire film – Price as Robert Morgan is quite safe in his house as long as he boards up the door and windows, and hangs up some garlic. Instead, they serve as a constant reminder of his loneliness – every night, shuffling around outside moaning. It’s enough to drive anyone mad.
Of course, this level of isolation would make for a pretty repetitive game – but there’s a lot to look at for inspiration. The day to day life of Richard Morgan involves travelling outside by day, clearing areas of the city of zombies, taking the bodies to the pit to be burned, fetching supplies and then at night returning to his house, checking the defences and then having dinner and putting some music on to stop himself going insane. It’s the basic blueprint of the survival RPG.
If zombies were to run about in this sort of game, not only would it make it impossible to survive but it also wouldn’t really suit the atmosphere. Finding yourself surrounded by the horde because you broke into a house, set a burglar alarm off, and failed to check if you had another escape route is a much more exciting turn of events (to me, at least) than finding yourself surrounded by the horde because they can run as fast as you but have no stamina limits to worry about.
In every good zombie film, it’s the slip-up which leads to death. I went to bed without checking the back door was locked. I came home from a supply run without checking that no zombies had followed me. I failed to keep my comrades sane, so one has walked out in the middle of the night leaving the front door wide open. Those sorts of things.
The other final beauty of the slow zombie, is that you can never be entirely sure you weren’t followed. You’ve arrived home, the streets are empty – you’re safe! But who’s to say that hours and hours ago a zombie didn’t look up and see you creeping past and begin his slow relentless trudge after you, alerting more and more zombies as he does? Who’s to say that somewhere out there, there isn’t a hundred zombies all stumbling ceaselessly in your direction? Are you really certain? Sweet dreams.
Clicked this hoping you’d side with the slow zombies, glad to see we are singing from the same hymn sheet!
Can’t wait
Fast zombies never made sense, and I’ve never liked them in zombie books/movies/games.
…fast zombies don’t make sense, but animated corpses shuffling around do?
Yes, zombies make perfect sense. Haven’t you seen ‘em in all those nature documentaries? They don’t look as well fed then when you see them at the Zoo.
Oh yea, i saw that documentary … the walking dead if i remember? Supurb look into the life of zombies. Almost as good as that documentary on Dinosaurs, Jurasic Park.
I think Jurassic Park and The Walking Dead should team up and make a zombie dinosaur documentary…that would make even more sense…i mean if you think about it where did the original zombie infection come from?! (*Hint* some dinosaurs infected piss)
Why not? I like fast zombies more, because you have less chances of survival against them. The slow ones only can get you if they surround you with a huge mob. While it takes 2-3 running ones to catch and pin you down, imo.
The problem with that line of reasoning is.. well, those arent zombies. You could replace the running things with anything: even other people, which is what they are. Werewolves, vampires, aliens, whatever. if they’re running after you they arent zombies anymore and have lost every defining feature of what made the genre except they’re dead. Sometimes (can be changed at a whim to ‘infected’)
Oh really?
Who decides what is a zombie and what is not? Can you please link me the official international definition of zombie? Or can you give me the number of the ISO standard containing the criteria of a zombie?
If not, then stop being the smart guy. Since zombies are creation of fantasy, there cannot be set rules on what is a zombie or what is not. Also there are no rules about if they are slow or fast. It is just like with every other fantasy genre, authors can implement them in different ways. In one dragon game, dragons are simply big beasts, in the other, they are intelligent, talk and use magic…. Fantasy is fantasy because there are no limits or rules.
wel thats wisdome
Ya really.
Ever heard of the unicorn? A creation of fantasy. You couldn’t call it a unicorn any longer if you were to add a few legs, make it furry and give it human breasts. Just because it isn’t real doesn’t mean there aren’t “rules” set or to be followed to be able to recreate it. Fuck with it and you need to give it another name.
They may run depending on “Are they decomposing or not?” and for the survival RPG fast zombies are not ok, simply not. Plus them being thousands of slow monsters makes you more nervous, gives you more timeto react, and makes you more unaware of them being following you.
@Try to think
There are pretty clearly rules for fantasy, and everything else for that matter.
Lightsabers aren’t real, but they have definite characteristics and rules that they MUST go by. George Lucas invented the concept, said this is how they work, and that’s how it is.
The One Ring from LOTR is the same. Can only be destroyed in Mount Doom, makes you invisible, lets Sauron know where you are. Tolkein designed it that way, and no book, fanficition, or moron’s imagination will ever change it or make it any different.
Saying otherwise makes you an idiot. Similar to how zombies started out slow, and anyone saying they should be fast is an idiot. Those are “Infected” at best.
I know it has been a while, and you probably don’t check this, however I would just like to stick my two cents in.
I understand what you’re saying, what with Zed’s being the creation of fantasy therefore they have no set rules, but what about the originals? Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or whatever that movie was called didn’t have a single running zombie from what I remember, though some of them can shamble about rather quickly. Besides which fact, looking at it as realistically as possible, would a dead corpse have rigor mortis after around twelve hours, as well as rotting muscles? If a zombie is running, in my opinion, it is someone who has not succumbed to the eventual death caused by the virus but instead is someone who is a victim of their brain being shut down.
Perhaps I’m wrong in this, but the intention of this reply is for you to prove me wrong, so please don’t get sarcastic with me.
Dawn of the Dead is what it’s called, and though it is considered THE zombie movie, it is not the first.
Zombies were based off of old voodoo magic, and none of these people were ‘able’ to run, therefore the creation of the zombie dictated that these monsters were to be psychological in nature. They were to inspire dread, not ‘Scare’, and besides which fact. All fantasy IS fantasy, but what makes a majority of the population love fantasy is the details, the parts that make it even slightly believable. Ever tried running with a cold? How did that turn out? Could you imagine doing so when you’re dead?
As I said, no need to get defensive and nasty, I’m just attempted a discussion. So, prove me wrong.
dont be a smart ass because you fail at it zombies are ment to be slow because 1 they are rotten corspe 2 have no enegry but zombies can be fast based on them being fiction but not science fiction so shutup
There is no set rules, but as stated before, there are common criteria that a majority of zombie fans use to determine a zombie. Everything evolves, the original zombies didn’t even eat people and some even talked! Maybe this is an evolutionary step from walking to running?
I love both running and slow zombies, however i feel that running zombies (or even fast walkers!) make better sense. Slow zombies never prove a threat until there is way more than the local population and even then in every slow zombie movie the people (99% of the time) die from running slower than the zombies, use up all their ammo when not necessary, allow zombies to surround them when they clearly see them, and never aim properly (shooting too far away or after killing 100 zombies still shoot the arms and torso)
the whole runing zombies thing is epic adds so much more exitment to the game you panic when you see a hoard coming if there slow you you can just calmly walk away if there fast you panic get back inside pull out you gun and start shooting fast zombies give you more of the feeling of a real apocalips
There are two types of fear, horror and scare. What you’re describing is the increasingly popular scare due to zombies or what have you running quickly towards you screaming like a banshee from a dark corridor. This is fine if you like to have a quick jump and the pop a cap in it’s ass, but this is more suitable for games like COD.
Horror is knowing that these slow zombies you can ‘calmly walk away’ from will follow after you as long as they can, attracting more and more zombies until there is a massive horde trudging in your direction until they lose interest. (Given that zombies have no brain power, it’s likely they never will)
How could you calmly walk away if you NEED that food or water in the store? How could you shoot if you don’t have enough bullets for all of them, and even if you did, that would attract more. A quick zombie would run out of the dark alleyway you were trying to pass through, whereas a slow one would quietly shamble towards you and due to how slow it’s moving and how dark the alleyway is it might be on you before you even know it’s there.
Fast zombies feel wrong, and horror is much more ‘epic’ then scare in my own humble opinion, simply because it instils hopelessness where scare instills adrenaline.
Yes, you can calmly walk away. That’s nice.
But you know what? Eventually you have to stop walking. You have to rest. You have to sleep.
They don’t. They’re still following you. They won’t stop. They don’t need to sit down and have a breather. Stop for lunch. Take a dump. When you’re getting your 8 hours sleep, they’re closing in on you. Every second you’re not moving, they’re coming closer.
And closer.
And closer.
Sweet dreams.
You should watch Highschool of the Dead (which is why I’m here; I just finished watching the series). The enemy strikes invariably under two conditions: When they are ready and when you are NOT.
The problem with L4D is that they start you off with a pistol as your basic weapon. It is in perfect, working condition and possesses infinite ammunition. Furthermore, all of your weapons in general have copious amounts of ammunition and you occasionally come across an ammo stash that fully resupplies everyone’s weapons. Hold out at that spot and you’re made. Every checkpoint has four medkits, some weapons, and infinite ammo.
Now imagine you’re in a REAL Z-ap. Those checkpoints, assuming they even EXIST, would probably NOT have the right bullets for whatever gun you have and you’re lucky if someone else hasn’t swiped the medkits.
In real life, there is no unlimited ammo. Try playing Fallout 3 with zombies everywhere.
In short, it’s less about chances of survival and more about impressive game mechanics and whether or not your CPU can handle a hundred Zeds as opposed to a dozen Infected.
Running zombies are a foot race. Slow zombies are an endurance rally.
Tal i totally agree with your whole post, well said! especially the last line about endurance.
Did you play L4D or L4D2?
You criticize ammunition and weapons, but you don’t seem to understand, that since they are designed to be a fast-paced game, these things are needed to make it possible to complete even a single level.
There are many different game designs, slow and fast, action centered, atmosphere centered, logic centered, creation centered and so on. You criticize a game for it is what it is, and not something els… your argument is invalid.
If you want to play a different style of game, then do play a different style of game, so simple.
REAL LIFE?!?!
SERIOUSLY, man! This is a GAME, moreover a FANTASY game, who the damn hell cares about real life? Why don’t you criticize Diablo II because in real life, you shouldn’t be able to insert a gem into a socket without being a jewelry maker and having the proper tools?
Yes, well done, it is a game. I think you missed the point about what he was saying.
“You criticize a game for what it is, and not something else,”
…Did… Did you really just say that?
Actually, strangely enough, Tal did that. He criticized the game for what it wasn’t. The lack of logical realism, which is part of the appeal in a world you’re trying to simulate, unlike a world like Diablo.
why do you even argue here? if you like L4D then get away here dont waste time and play it… this is not for you alone. everyone who is agueïng here about those 2 games, should quit and play what they like and talk to people who agree with them
personally i think both games are awesome in their own way but the fact that in a first person shooter is soo much easier to survive because you get a good shot and 1 zombie down… unlimited pistol ammo… i survive by my dual handguns alone… and when i reach the safety zone i can walk to the supermarket get some drinks make some food and go on makes it surealistic… come on… zombies who see you should swarm the door luring others in and break trough that door… and how long i wait they never get hungry or whatever… they dont eat they dont drink and i just cant get that feeling when someone is attacked like “nooooooo why didn’t i safe him or her”
the fact that i try PZ over and over again and still cant survive means it is so much more relieving to finally achieve something and the horror stil haunts you even when u are safe… because you are never safe it is just temporary and you gotta move on and keep your guard at all times… and have to find ammo to get 5 or so bullets and keep hunting for food… and you have to guard your wife at all times knowing she wont make it alone with a broken leg
on the other hand it such a relief to just mow hordes of zombies down with my shotgun and handguns and know im gonna win the battle because i kill then at least 10 meters before me
(ps. sorry for possible mistakes in the text im not english)
its a game not real life in a game who cares if zombies run in real life you would say “crap”
if zombies ran someone who spends there intire life playing video games one of two things will happen youll go bling or youll die playing a video game
As a zombie ‘purist’, fast zombies aren’t really zombies… they’re “infected”. Personally I hate the ‘infected’ in movies and games. They just aren’t frightening to me. Basically they’re nothing more than hard to kill cannibals… but there’s a supernatural, frightening aspect to the shambling zombies that is more appealing to me. It’s more frightening to be trapped by hordes of slow zombies rather than just being outrun by one that’s faster than you. If they’re supposed to be dead (undead…) then they shouldn’t be fast. A rotting corpse just can’t have that range of movement. (I know, adding logic to even the concept of a ‘zombie’ doesn’t fit, but still…)
I always found the ‘infected’ MORE scary, because it seems more plausible. The part that never sat well with me on the infected hordes was: why do they seem to only attack uninfected people? Illnesses that effect the brain to that extent are much more random than that. A small group of infected, like a family, might work together, out of remembered familiarity, but the total-change-killing-and-eating-people infection would more likely have the infected eating other infected all over and the uninfected just trying to stay out of the way.
I would imagine that a possible explanation for that would be that the zombies (either fast or slow zombie version being discussed), because of the altered state of their flesh, may give off a different “scent” or signal of sorts that sets them apart from the living, and thus they would ignore others of their own kind and target the living. Just a thought though.
You are mostly right. The way it is usually explained is that zombies don’t really see very well but they can hear and smell better. So since other zombies are rotting they give off a different scent. It’s also conceivable that since they are infact dead their hearts wouldn’t be beating and their heightened hearing allows them to hear a living person’s heartbeat.
So aparently zombie’s lungs are also alive, not just the brain since they can smell things lol. i suppose we dont have to worry about headshots anymore.
lung shots?
spot on
The infected in L4D1 and 2 DO attack each other, sneak around, watch the main menu screen. You will see fights between them.
i think zombies are more plausible. indeed, they exist in humanity from old old times like middle age and antiquity (sorry im french) but infected are really new in the story of the humanity. yes people in the year 1000 (and before) thought zombies were real (because of dark magic).
The infected or zombies can smell you, in a “He/She doesn’t smell dead” way.
See, though, the fast zombies, the infected, are not really zombies. It’s been said before, but they’re sort of a 28 Days Later type of zed, a person who’s been infected with (in several stories) a rabies virus offshoot that causes extreme violence and a desire to eat human flesh. It’s got holes all around it, but then again, so does the explanation for slow zombies. It’s really just a pick-your-poison deal.
Me? I choose to embrace both. They’re both equally interesting in their own ways. Still, glad to hear that slow-moving zeds are what they’re using. I can imagine the fright coming from a huge shambling horde would mesh well.
There was also an explanation used for Left 4 Dead where it showed that the Green Flu somehow screwed with one’s brain chemistry, causing them to see the uninfected individuals as a threat or something scary that must be killed.
In Herbert West: Reainimator the explanation for the undead being fast was because the chemical that raised them from the dead was meant to “jump start” their muscles and organs. Hence fast zombies.
The only problem I have with this, or slow zombies for that matter is that no matter how long the zombie apocalypse seems to last, they never seem to starve or become fatigued. And you never see them eating each other or anything, and I feel like they wouldn’t be able to rely on wild animals.
since you like those kind of zombies, you must love the T.V. show ‘The Walking Dead’ on AMC. im with you man, fast zombies would just fall apart the second they run. but zombies do have a brisk jog… SLWO ZOMBIES FTW!!! \(*o*)/
Yet again,
Who decides what is a zombie and what is not? Can you please link me the official international definition of zombie? Or can you give me the number of the ISO standard containing the criteria of a zombie?
If not, then stop being the smart guy. Since zombies are creation of fantasy, there cannot be set rules on what is a zombie or what is not. Also there are no rules about if they are slow or fast. It is just like with every other fantasy genre, authors can implement them in different ways. In one dragon game, dragons are simply big beasts, in the other, they are intelligent, talk and use magic…. Fantasy is fantasy because there are no limits or rules.
You’re an asshole man.
There is a good reason the ‘Infected’ are called the Infected. their bodies are taken over by the virus, and once it has fully taken over, it kills the existing ‘host’ (the human) and takes over, and aims to help its species grow by infecting other people. so the body never really dies, it never starts decomposing, and there is no reason for it not to run. the only reason i liked the ‘infected’ version of the zombie is because its more realistic, and I’m not really into the fantasy version of the dead coming to life
Who decides what is a zombie and what is not? Can you please link me the official international definition of zombie? Or can you give me the number of the ISO standard containing the criteria of a zombie?
If not, then stop being the smart guy. Since zombies are creation of fantasy, there cannot be set rules on what is a zombie or what is not. Also there are no rules about if they are slow or fast. It is just like with every other fantasy genre, authors can implement them in different ways. In one dragon game, dragons are simply big beasts, in the other, they are intelligent, talk and use magic…. Fantasy is fantasy because there are no limits or rules.
I think the idea of a fresh zombie (very very recently bitten) could have the ability to run, albeit somewhat slowly and mindlessly (pun?
) But after a small amount of time they have to start trudging because the body is cold dead… just my thoughts
Great article. I had to repost this on my facebook. Every hardcore zombie fan understands this, even if they don’t explicitly know it.
Love the post. Especially if it’s hinting at gameplay.
I did a poll about this a few years ago on one of my Blog’s, the outcome was most prefer the slow Zombie’s, I know I do !!
http://bsmbow.blogspot.com/2009/09/zombie-poll.html
This looks like everyone’s dream zombie game that was never made for some reason. I love you.
like SCZ you can (you should) drop slow zombie and fast infected… and create a story about it (dunno… maybe for the begin infection the people who are infected became speed infected but with the time he are old slow zombie)
This is basically the logic that they used in the “Dawn of the Dead” remake – the zombies were capable of running as well when just turned as they were in life. Over the course of the movie as they decayed they became slower and eventually useless.
This is about the best way of wangling fast zombies into a film without diverging too far from classic zombie rules as I can think of. When I first heard that they were having the zombies run in the remake I was appalled. But actually, it was handled pretty well.
But that said, while there is a case to be made for zombies being fastER when they are freshly turned, Olympic-level sprinting is, to me, a stretch too far.
So the explanation was that as rigor-mortise set in since they are, well, dead, they eventually become your more traditional zombie.
This isn’t actually true, about the Dawn of the Dead remake that is. At the end of the Dawn of the Dead remake every zombies they encounter is still a fast runner even though it’s supposed to have been months since the outbreak. So in that movie either every zombie is still fast no matter how decayed and rotted they are, or the film makers totally failed to get that concept across to the audience by actually showing any zombies that weren’t. I think the film would have made a lot more sense and many scenes would have had a lot more tension if they had actually emphasized this point, but they didn’t even bring it up, and instead just had every zombie be fast and agile. I think Dawn of the Dead 2004 is still a good film, and handled the fast zombies about as good as anyone could have, but it still could have been so much better if they had put more thought into stuff like this.
Well in most sense in a way to make sense zombie are kind of a walking infectious bag of skin the only thing they need is their brain which processes a main thing and that is to pass the virus it holds to the nearest host body it doesnt matter if its body is falling apart its going to get to you any way it can… now if u think on the terms of fast zombies thats just an added bonus they can run to you and even if their legs are decayed and start to fall apart running at you they will get to you… zombies dont have a thought of self preservation if u hadnt noticed they dont care how they look they have no limit in studys it says we only you a fraction of our strength because our body tells us not to push ourselves so much that we end up hurting ourselves so why should a running zombie care if its legs are coming off or how fast it can run or how long it can run sense it has no stamina depletion and its endurance is an absolute 100 zombies fast or running feel nothing their only thoughts are to pass on the virus so i support both walking and running
I’m only 17 and yet I have browsed a lot of forums [this being one kind, although is still only a comment page] and god be my withness [sorry if i misspelled it, english is not my native language], I haven’t seen so many strong arguments and correct theories about any other subject. And we’re talking about zombies!:)) There are forums about social problems, political dillemas and so on and, the ones talking about them are idiots with stupid opinions and no arguments. Still I find all of you here, on the comment page of a zombie game, commenting and arguing with valid arguments about something inexistent. Don’t get it wrong, it’s a good thing, I’m happy about it, but I’m just astonished [this I definitely mispelled...or have I?] at how odds gather educated people in the most unexpected places.
In fact, Left 4 Dead (and it has to be written with two spaces, not in a single word) does not utilize any zombies, even though the infected are called zombies by the game characters sometimes, it’s a common mistake (the mentioned article by Pegg explains a similar situation that happened with 28 Days Later which was considered to be a zombie-movie by many, while it isn’t). Left 4 Dead enemies, just like in 28 Days Later, are rabid (and sometimes severely mutated) LIVING humans in a constant state of rage. They can run and do lots of other things and are not at all zombies.
While I utterly agree with you that games like “Left 4 Dead” don’t *really* feature zombies in the same way as “28 Days Later” doesn’t, the ‘infected’ as opposed to ‘undead’ is really more a matter of justification than distinction.
One look at the box art for “Left 4 Dead”, featuring as it does possibly the most iconic zombie film imagery that exists – the grasping hand, is enough to demonstrate that it clearly regards *itself* as a zombie game.
That their flavour of zombies is quite distinct from the slow shuffling zombies that we might call *proper* zombies doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t include them under the umbrella term “zombie” in the same way as we would include “The Last Man on Earth” in a list of zombie films despite them being repelled by garlic and mirrors.
Well, in no way I doubt or imply that slow zombies are a much better choice for a sandbox game than the quick ones. For many reasons (apart from obviously sticking to classics), like it would make the gameplay deeper and richer (as fast zombies always lead to constant running around saving your ass, which is of course not a suitable setting for a survival RPG).
I would, on the other hand, argue that Left 4 Dead isn’t and doesn’t even feel like zombie game, especially the first one, which (to me at least) has a strong 28 Days Later feel. L4D’s zombies don’t spit blood, don’t moan deadly, are never seen chewing on somebody’s guts. L4D2 is a different, though, feels and looks much more like Dawn of the Dead remake (and that’s why I don’t like it).
Anyway, I agree with your choice and I honestly could never imagine a sandbox RPG-like zombie-game with fast zombies. I’m really looking forward to getting your game.
infected past participle, past tense of in·fect (Verb)
1. Affect (a person, organism, cell, etc.) with a disease-causing organism.
2. Contaminate (air, water, etc.) with harmful organisms
un·dead adjective /ˌənˈded/
1.(of a fictional being, esp. a vampire) Technically dead but still animate
there is no simularity between them, you are eith alive and infected or undead (i.e. dead)
Well, in general “infected” people only have the flu, and not some kind of mutant rabies, so a dictionary look up might be a little misleading
If you look to the origin of the z-word, where voodoo priests brought dead back to life to do their bidding, I think a popular theory says that the victims had been poisoned. This poison would put them in a deep coma, making them appear dead and damaging the brain, turning them into mindless shambling husks. So technically I don’t see why the zombies necessarily have to be dead.
But if you want to get really theoretical about it, maybe you could separate corpses having been brought back to life, i.e. zombies using their hearts and lungs to power their muscles, versus corpses purely animated by magic.
Personally I like movies/games with either type, just gives a different feeling to them.
This is in response to fhein… the word “infection” doesn’t only apply to the flu. It applies to any infectious disease. If you got bit by a dog with rabies and then you developed symptoms you would be said to be “infected” with rabies. Hell if you get athletes foot you are “infected” by the fungus that causes athletes foot. Just because the disease in question is fictional that doesn’t change the usage of the word “infected”.
Also the origins of the word “zombie” do indeed come from voodoo, but they also are firmly tied to that religions belief that a person who becomes a “zombie” is the reanimated dead. The voodoo priests who were making the “zombies” fully believed that the person they were performing the ritual on was in fact coming back from the dead as a reanimated corpse. With modern day medicine we know that they were actually using neurotoxins to induce a temporary deathlike state in a person, which also resulted in severe brain damage to that person, but those voodoo practitioners fully believed that they were using magical potions that were killing the person and bringing their lifeless body back to life as a “zombie”. No matter what they were actually doing, to them the word “zombie” meant a reanimated corpse. And that is the only thing that ties classical voodoo “zombies” to the modern flesh eating variety created by George Romero. They are supposed to be the reanimated dead. Whether you want to get into the technicalities of “are their heart and lungs working again”, “are they fast or slow”, “are they smart or stupid” etc. that is all pointless. The only thing that makes something a zombie is that at one point they were alive, and then they died (really died, like no coming back, total brain death died, not ‘died for two minutes on the operating table but was quickly revived’ “died”), and then AFTER they died they got back up and started moving again. That is why 28 Days Later is NOT a zombie movie. The people in the film infected with the disease have not yet died, and in fact are shown to eventually die from dehydration and starvation, and to NOT come back to life. 28 Days and Weeks Later are post apocalyptic films, and so are many zombie films, but the post apocalyptic setting is not what makes a zombie film a zombie film. Featuring corpses that get up and walk around is the only thing that makes something a zombie film. There are plenty of zombie films that do not take place in a post apocalyptic setting, but they feature the living dead, and that makes them zombie films. There are also plenty of films that DO take place in a post apocalyptic setting, but DON’T feature the living dead, and so they are NOT zombie films. Before he even made Dawn of the Dead George Romero himself made the film The Crazies, which is much more like to 28 Days Later than any of his actual zombie films, but no one ever called that a zombie film. That’s because the dangerous “infected” people in The Crazies are actually still alive. They may be sick and dangerous, but they are living, and so NOT zombies.
Don’t forget that Frances kept calling them vampires
So tomato tomahto, to each their own.
It’s really a question of what sort of effect you are going for, scare or horror.
Scare is about adrenaline, the rush of battle, the fear of facing a foe who is at least a match for you, if not at the advantage. Games like Left 4 Dead use “scare” to get at you. In that game, when the Tank charges around the corner, you get scared. When you hear a Witch but can’t find her, then her her start to growl, you get scared.
Horror is the opposite. It’s that cold, dead feeling when you realize that you COULD have survived, had you not made a mistake. It is the knowledge that your doom is inevitable, that death is waiting for you to make the one mistake. When someone has been bitten by a classic, slow moving zombie, where the infection will kill you in short order, and nothing you do will change that, and you realize all you had to do was skip this one house and you would not have to die, you feel horror.
I dislike scare games, for the most part. But I am quite looking forward to this project.
Ahh yes… the two flavors of fear. being scared is the rush. The Roller Coaster… pointing your trusty well used berreta and aiming to plant a round purely in that charging creatures skull and rushing the door it was blocking as the Horde shuffles closer from behind.
That turns to horror when the trigger’s squeezed and the clicking noise lets it sink in that you didn’t count your rounds properly. That creeping finality that your struggles are futile.
You react when scared. You freeze up when you feel horror
I love Dead Rising 2, and if i were to be in a Zombie film, i would want them slow. Not only does it make me live longer, but the longer life also creates more fear.
While fast zombies run around the corner to get you, a slow one might wait and kill you once you pass. Knowing you will die isn’t as scary as there being a chance somebody is going to eat you until you die.
Lets look at the Left 4 Dead ‘special’ “zombies”.
Hunter: Rips out my insides – Instadeath.
Charger: Pummels me to the ground – Instadeath.
Smoker: Chokes you – Depends, but kinda painfree death.
Witch: May not kill you, but i find the sitting silently one the scariest in L4D.
And let us look at the slow Zombie(s)
Zombie: Will eat you without killing you first – O_o
Zombies: Will surround you and eat you without killing you – O_o
I agree one hundred percent. Although I do like fast zombies, that is more along the lines of liking a bologna sandwich over a fine sirloin. And it is tiring hearing people argue that fast zombies are scarier. The thought of slowly going insane is far scarier than having essentially a wild animal chase you down.
I loved ‘I am Legend’ (book) and always thought it would make an interesting game. Consider me a customer!
Yeah, Always liked slow Zombies ALOT more, I would love to see some movable objects in game though. ya know… moveable cars, moveable descks,lamps,tables,fridges and ect.
(A GOOD FEATURE IS A FLARE/FLAREGUN)
i think the idea of slow moving zombies for this game is the best. because its an rpg and it includes sanity,sleeping. its not fast paced action fps like left for dead. it`s extreemly creepy going to sleep when you know the zombies might crush trough your door while you`re asleep.
love that the game is realistic:)
In my opinion fast zombies are good in games that are fast paced, unlike RPGs, fast zombies only fit to RPG games if they decay and become slower over time, if I were to make a zombie RPG game I would make fast, decaying zombies about 20% of the zombies, while the rest being slow, and maybe 10 percent of the slow zombies are smarter than the rest, and apply the same rules of PZ of sanity, hunger, thirst, etc. but make it a little bit more open, like making multiple outposts and bases, leaving survivors to care and protect them, while having your house at the main base, sending expedition, scavenging, zombie killing groups, going yourself, or you and a team etc. and be able to clear a part of the city, which will be one custom made, randomly generated, or even be able to select a few of the world’s important cities, also, as real life, there would be rival gangs, thieves, or even other organized survivor groups around the city.
I looked at the videos for the game and it immediately struck me as ‘I am Legend’ having to go down tot he shed to craft things to help live every day life, having read this post you have completely reaffirmed my hunch, and have earned yourself a customer in doing so.
Thank you for giving us a Real Zombie game.
Every time I read a big block of text about how My Conception of Horror is the One True Conception of Horror, I die a little more inside. It’s a stylistic choice. You use what works for your movie/game. If you ever even for a moment entertain the possibility of posting a pseudo-logical explanation for why your way is better, or some imagined scare/horror dichotomy that no one but you subscribes to (because you made it up) then you are literally a big baby.
@Blue Foot: Thank you. I could not agree more. So many people complain about why it should be this way or that. I love BOTH, Fast and Slow Zombies. Each one has their own fell of Scary and Horror. The slow moving Zombie represent a slow, inevitable death that you can’t escape. You’re death is assured. While the fast zombie represents a horde you cannot outrun because its almost always right behind you no matter how fast or far you run. Either way you’re basically F#*$ED.
I’m currently writing a paper on Night of the Living Dead so here’s my two cents:
The vampies of I am Legend are markedly different from zombies, though I’ll grant that they inspired Romero’s zombies, in terms of the metaphor of America-as-graveyard. Zombies obviously have their roots in Haitian zombis, who were either the living reduced to mindless slaves or the dead brought back as slaves. Either shambled. Romero, in Night of the Living Dead created the modern living dead zombies, and they shambled. The shambling, slowly encroaching horror is why they function as allegory for social decay and collapse.
Fast zombies are a different kettle of fish entirely and whether they work or not in a media depends hugely on how’re they’re used. While dawn of the dead (2004) was a fun remake, the allegory of consumers-as-the-living-dead failed because the zombies weren’t trapped in conditioned behaviour but were active predators. Conversely, in 28 Days Later the infected, who owe more to The Crazies than other zombie lore, function to ask the Twilight Zone question “Who is the true animal?”
Perhaps Dawn of the dead can be asking the same question, making someone ask “If it weren’t for reason, is this how we would act?”
While realism is sort of thrown out the window to begin with when your dealing with zombies, in a way I think running zombies make some sense when you think about it.
They have at minimum SOME level of brain activity, otherwise they wouldnt be able to move at all. Added to that we know they can see, hear, and smell their enviroment because that is how they find/track people to kill in the first place. And we know of course that they eat because thats the end result of them getting their hands on you.
Now, if they have partially functioning brains and eat food (well, people anyways) what seperates them from being living creatures? If they were truely completly dead they wouldnt be able to move, and none of their muscles would work including their hands or mouths. If they were ‘dead’ dead, then they would constantly be rotting and would in a *very* short span of time (less than a month depending on weather conditions and other factors) fall apart or die of starvation.
Basically, though it is a fictious subject to begin with, zombies would have no physical reason that would prevent them from running.
Now for a game such as this, running zombies would be bad and make it impossible to survive, but in general terms its actually very logical and makes perfect sense. After all they only have basic instincts to run on, and no starving creature WALKS to the nearest food source (including us normal humans lol)
Not just dies of exposure or starvation, but there are other predators that are not going to simply ignore free defenseless meat.
You are correct that there is no physical reason that a corpse that can move around shouldn’t be able to run as well, BUT (and this is a big but) this would only apply to more recently deceased corpses. A well decayed corpse with rotting muscles that tear away from the bone every time they tried to move would probably not be in much of a physical condition to do much more than shuffle along, and would soon be nothing more than a twitching pile of decaying meat laying in the street. But I think even Romero took this stuff into account in his films. He often had the “fresher” looking zombies being much more active, faster to a point, and also more intelligent, while the really badly decayed ones were usually the slowest of the shambling hulks. It’s all just a matter of how much agility and strength you are going to assume would remain in any reanimated corpse, which is totally open to interpretation, as there is no such thing as a reanimated corpse. I think it’s reasonable for a storyteller to imply that there could be newly dead zombies running around, or at least moving in a relatively quick way towards it’s prey, but I’d find it hard to accept that any zombie that has been dead and decaying for months, or even weeks, let alone years, would be able to manage anything more than a slow stumble, no matter what the story. So to me a zombie being slow and plodding is not a matter of a lack of determination on their part, but the impaired physical state of being a rotting corpse.
Also I find that the biggest mistake anyone can make is to completely throw realism out the window just because you are talking about one fantastic element to a story. In fact when your story contains something a fantastic as the reanimated dead realism becomes all the more important to the rest of the story. For instance you have the classic Romero zombie movie trilogy (from before he went all George Lucas on us) where the situation required a great deal of suspension of disbelief, but the characters were treated in serious and believable ways, which allowed for actual drama and meaningful stories to be told. On the other hand you have the abhorrent “Resident Evil” movies where every bit of realism is thrown out the window, and you have some of the most pointless, shallow, and boring movies ever made. We are thrown into an already highly unbelievable world where the dead are walking around, and then we get nothing but shallow, highly unbelievable characters doing idiotically unbelievable things, and we get lost in all the unrealistic idiotic BS. When dealing with a fantastic concept such “zombies” it is vital to have as much realism in the OTHER aspects of the story as possible. I think people can only suspend their disbelief so much before it breaks and they simply stop caring. So when your basic premise has pretty much asked them to stretch their suspension of disbelief as far as believing that the dead could walk again you had better give them something more realistic in the story to hold onto their attention. That is the case with most good zombie films, and I find it’s also the main downfall of most of the bad ones. I think it’s also the problem with Romero’s more recent zombie films, especially Survival of the Dead. There isn’t anything even remotely believable in that film for the audience to relate to. The characters are all either shallow cliches or unbelievable cartoon characters, and so no one could possibly care about them or the story in any meaningful way.
You are correct that there is no physical reason that a corpse that can move around shouldn’t be able to run as well, BUT (and this is a big but) this would only apply to more recently deceased corpses. A well decayed corpse with rotting muscles that tear away from the bone every time they tried to move would probably not be in much of a physical condition to do much more than shuffle along, and would soon be nothing more than a twitching pile of decaying meat laying in the street. But I think even Romero took this stuff into account in his films. He often had the “fresher” looking zombies being much more active, faster to a point, and also more intelligent, while the really badly decayed ones were usually the slowest of the shambling hulks. It’s all just a matter of how much agility and strength you are going to assume would remain in any reanimated corpse, which is totally open to interpretation, as there is no such thing as a reanimated corpse. I think it’s reasonable for a storyteller to imply that there could be newly dead zombies running around, or at least moving in a relatively quick way towards it’s prey, but I’d find it hard to accept that any zombie that has been dead and decaying for months, or even weeks, let alone years, would be able to manage anything more than a slow stumble, no matter what the story. So to me a zombie being slow and plodding is not a matter of a lack of determination on their part, but the impaired physical state of being a rotting corpse.
Also I find that the biggest mistake anyone can make is to completely throw realism out the window just because you are talking about one fantastic element to a story. In fact when your story contains something as fantastic as the reanimated dead realism becomes all the more important to the rest of the story. For instance you have the classic Romero zombie movie trilogy (from before he went all George Lucas on us) where the situations required a great deal of suspension of disbelief, but the characters were treated in serious and believable ways, which allowed for actual drama and meaningful stories to be told. On the other hand you have the abhorrent “Resident Evil” movies where every bit of realism is thrown out the window, and you have some of the most pointless, shallow, and boring movies ever made. We are thrown into an already highly unbelievable world where the dead are walking around, and then we get nothing but shallow, highly unbelievable characters doing idiotically unbelievable things, and we get lost in all the unrealistic idiotic BS. When dealing with a fantastic concept such “zombies” it is vital to have as much realism in the other aspects of the story as possible. I think people can only suspend their disbelief so much before it breaks and they simply stop caring. So when your basic premise has already asked them to stretch their suspension of disbelief as far as believing that the dead could walk again you had better give them something more realistic in the story to hold onto their attention. That is the case with most good zombie films, and I find it’s also the main downfall of most of the bad ones. I think it’s also the problem with Romero’s more recent zombie films, especially Survival of the Dead. There isn’t anything even remotely believable in that film for the audience to relate to. The characters are all either shallow cliches or unbelievable cartoon characters, and so no one could possibly care about them or the story in any meaningful way.
Zombies ive heard of are always reanimated corpses. There are to main reasons for the reanimation, Supernatural or Biological (virus, whatever). With the supernatural zombies, they cant run because the forces controlling them are not adept at it, and also, with the body being dead its constantly fighting itself. Zombies created from viruses are the same. Theyre being controlled by micro-organisms, theyre not going to be very precise when controlling the limbs of something so different.
What seperates zombies from animals? zombies are dead my friend.
I have to agree with Kenju on this one. The “classic” zombie (or zombi as the case may be) may not have been a runner, but there appears to be no physical limitation to enforce this. If zombies decay at the same rate as dead flesh and do not regenerate, then they would easily be able to run shortly after being turned. Actually, they would probably be able to run faster than they could when they were alive because there is a part of the subconsious mind that prevents a person from exerting themselves to the point where they do serious damage, and this would likely not be present in a zombie as they are usually regarded as being mindless. Over time though, the muscles decay and to not function as they once did. If the zombie *does* run, then it will tear small amounts of muscle fiber with every step which will not be able to be healed. Eventually the zombie will be lucky to be able to stand let alone chase prey.
Of course, this line of thinking is approaching the creature from the perspective of “what would logically happen to a corpse that was reanimated and moving around?” The question of fast vs. slow zombies really needs to be approached from the perspective of “what will benefit the story and produce the atmosphere that we want for this story?” In this case I side with MrBright01, fast zombies are good for a scare and are good for keeping the adrenaline pumping through the game or movie.
Slow zombies represent a constant, inexorable threat. They are the monsters in all of our closets. They are the creatures under all of our beds. You can run, you can hide, you can even outrun them and think that you are safe for the time being, but they will always come. They will always be following you. They will never stop. And eventually you will make a mistake. The one time that you forget to check behind you, or you take one too few turns attempting to lose the pack, you will lead them to your hideout. When they are battering down the doors and breaking in the windows, and you are down to your last bullet yu will know the real meaning of horror.
@ Paladin Revenant – Just to say that you should watch “Colin” http://www.colinmovie.com/! Great film and disproves, IMHO that you can’t identify with the protagonist in zombie form
Really, there are two questions to this one. The first is “What would happen if there were zombies?” If we make the concession that corpses could be reanimated by some force either natural, magical, or man-made, then we have to ask “What would happen to those corpses?”. In this, I have to agree with Kenju. If zombies retain enough brain activity (or have enough magical influence if you like) to remain coordinated enough to put one foot in front of the other at running speeds, then there is no physical limitation that would prevent a freshly turned zombie from running. There is a part of the subconsious mind that keeps a person from exerting themselves to the point that they do serious damage. If this part of the mind no longer functions, then the zombie would probably be able to out-perform their living selves for at least a short while. Over time, though if the zombie does not regenerate, then the muscles will begin to decompose, small muscle tears from exertion will not heal, and the zombie will be lucky to be able to stand, let alone chase prey.
The second question is “What will benefit the story and produce the atmosphere that we want for this story?” I know I’m going to sound like a heretic when I say this, but in my opinion “Zombie Movie” (or book, game, what have you) should not be considered a genre in and of itself. Zombies are a good tool, but they are not the story. I’ve never seen a movie where the zombie was the protagonist and I don’t think it would work well, because the viewer would have a hard time identifying with him. The zombies are the setting. They are the forces arrayed against the protagonist as much as they would be if it were aliens, Huns, or Nazis. The real story is how the protagonist reacts to and deals with the world they are now thrust into. As tools for creating a story, both slow zombies and fast zombies have their place.
As MrBright01 said, fast moving zombies are good for a scare. They keep the pressure on, the adrenaline up, and the viewers on the edge of their seats. That’s why I don’t regard the Resident Evil movies as horror, they are action. Fast zombies may startle you, but when they are featured in an action sequence they rarely induce real fear.
Slow zombies, on the other hand, represent a constant, inexorable threat. They are the monsters in all of our closets. They are the creatures under all of our beds. You can run, you can hide, you can even outrun them and think that you are safe for the time being, but they will always come. They will always be following you. They will never stop. And eventually you will make a mistake. The one time that you forget to check behind you, or you take one too few turns attempting to lose the pack, you will lead them to your hideout. When they are battering down the doors and breaking in the windows, and you are down to your last bullet you will know the real meaning of horror.
in regard to “the conveniently immune player character” in L4D that is actually part of the overarching plot between L4D 1 & 2. The 4 people in each game are plague carriers. That’s why the rescue helicopter pilot changes and they crash leading to the next mission were you hear a character rehash what happened. “Why’d you shoot the pilot?!” “Ah, because he was a zombie…” I actually think it’s kind of clever.
The pilot got bitten, he says he had some problems under way to them, but it’s indeed very well possible they are carriers, much like in 28 days later
It’s said over and over again during parts of the stories and in the comics Valve got made. In fact during a radio conversation in Left 4 Dead 2 the protagonists are indeed referred to as Carriers.
The main issue here is an issue of taste some like slow, some like fast. Attacking this from a biological angle isn’t going to lead to anything. Think of the movie “Return of the Living Dead”, the first one with just about nothing notable except the goth chick who strips for absolutely no reason (as teens are wont to do). Anyways in this movie they took a little bit of biology and ran with it. The whole motive of the zombies was that being dead hurt, and eating brains quelled the pain by eating up the serotonin or something, i don’t know,i guess people in the eighties didn’t know about heroin or something, either way this movie made no sense. That’s really what happens when you try to write a zombie that makes biological sense. it just can’t make sense, that’s why confused survivor types work better as characters than say doctors or scientists, they’re not going to try and explain the situation and come up with some half assed explanation, they’re just going to run away and survive. That’s also why the rabid crazy types from 28 days work well, they aren’t actually dead, they’re just so mad they don’t care enough to not try and eat a person. the name of the game here is suspension of disbelief, you can’t think of these things logically, they just are what they are, and what they are is an expression of the directors taste.
I think slower zombies do work for this game but watch out not to make them so slow Where they become too little a threat and more of a joke like in Dead rising
Slow zombies could never lead to a world epidemic though.
I always wondered something about the logic of immunity.
We accept that, for instance, to become a vampire after being bitten, you have to die first. why not with zombies?
Why do you have to be immune to not turn into a zombie while you’re still alive? Why can’t the infection kick in once you bite it, either of your own volition, violence, or accident? Think about it. Part of the point of zombie apocalypses are the hopelessness, the loneliness. Why not have the added idea that all you can do is survive, because if you’ve even taken a scratch from a zombie, you WILL turn into one when you die. No chance of immunity, no cure, it will happen, even if you off yourself.
Not only does this give a larger sense of futility, it gives extra incentive to keep oneself and loved one alive, instead of mercy killing or killing oneself in the face of certain death. It also allows for much more dangerous zombies than just slow, or even fast zombies, because then they’re more dangerous for how they can murder you in the face, not for how easy they can infect you. Finally, though more seeming more futile than if immunity existed, it does allow for Hope Spots in the idea that maybe someone will find a cure, someone will figure out how to reverse the process, etc. And if they do find a cure, this doesn’t erase the danger, because even if you won’t become one when you die, those things can still kill you very easily.
Something to think about.
i agree with the thing that zombie infection kicks in when you die
for this game zombies should be slow
apart from the fact that originally zombies ARE slow,this game can’t support the fast ones, you’d have to change the entire concept of the game
Alright, well here’s what it comes down to, there are three main types of zombies.
The first kind is the classic zombie, supernaturally afflicted and undead. They are shambling, walking corpses. There is no real biological reason for them to be able to walk around, it is through spirits or magic or something that they are re-animated. Because they are supernatural, there is no way to protect yourself from becoming one (aside from some sort of supernatural protection, if there is any). Traditionally, the only way to kill these zombies is by removing the head and destroying the brain. Which makes no real sense, because disembodied limbs can move about by themselves. Because these zombies are supernatural, I expect that anyone could turn fairly quickly. Magic doesn’t tend to have many rules.
The second kind is the new “zombie” that isn’t really a zombie. They’re infected. These are not dead at all and retain their vital functions. In most cases this is caused by some sort of virus or bacteria or alien infestation. These tend to be fast zombies, and dispatching them wouldn’t be much different from taking down someone raging on meth. They’ve become feral animals that feel no pain and have no emotions. They appear to have heightened senses because they merely react. They appear to have superhuman strength because they don’t feel the pain of tearing muscles and ligaments. They require food to survive, as they are still biological beings. They could also be slow moving type zombies, but generally the ones used are fast. Because of the nature of the infection, this is the easiest to explain why some people do not become infected. The scariest thing is that these are the most realistic “zombies” because they just combine massive rioters with the plague hopped up on meth. As far as turning people (those that don’t become carriers, or those that aren’t immune), I would expect it to resemble most biological processes, and probably take about four hours or more, with a steady decay into infected zombie. Since its biological, the dead can’t be reanimated, though still pose a risk of infection if handled.
The third kind is the original zombie, or “zohm-beh” from Voodoo curses. This is where someone is more or less drugged to resemble death and remove higher brain functions, turning them into an ever obedient slave providing they are continually drugged and not given the “antidote”. Although this is where the zombie word came from and where it all originated, they aren’t very zombie-like except maybe in appearance. Though they may look dead, they still need food and water and everything else that a human being needs to survive, though since they’re drugged up, that could probably be kept to an absolute minimum. Its a sad state of the world when there are probably drugged up slaves out there in the world right now, looking like they’re a few minutes away from death. These zombies obviously cannot turn others into zombies.
There are other kinds, but they tend to fall into those categories. Everything has exceptions, like the zombies in Stranger Tides, sort of a cross between the undead, the original, but also retaining higher brain functions.
Anyways, I’m not an expert on zombies or horror movies, but I have tended to notice those kinds over time. The zombies chosen are normally picked for the qualities required within the story.
It seems here that the pacing of the game and its story requires slow zombies. Going out guns blazing with fists full of bravado like Duke Nukem is a quick way for anyone to get killed in most situations in real life. Since this game simulates real life (more or less), I’d expect it to treat those guns blazing players the same. Though for some reason it might be a greater challenge to have an adjustable slide bar in the options to increase the zombie speed maybe to double, just for those who are gluttons for punishment. Call it “hard mode” or something.
I’d prefer infected over undead, but as long as they’re slow and fit the story and setting, I’m sure I’ll like it.
Sorry if this double posts, it looks like it didn’t go through before.
Alright, well here’s what it comes down to, there are three main types of zombies.
The first kind is the classic zombie, supernaturally afflicted and undead. They are shambling, walking corpses. There is no real biological reason for them to be able to walk around, it is through spirits or magic or something that they are re-animated. Because they are supernatural, there is no way to protect yourself from becoming one (aside from some sort of supernatural protection, if there is any). Traditionally, the only way to kill these zombies is by removing the head and destroying the brain. Which makes no real sense, because disembodied limbs can move about by themselves. Because these zombies are supernatural, I expect that anyone could turn fairly quickly. Magic doesn’t tend to have many rules.
The second kind is the new “zombie” that isn’t really a zombie. They’re infected. These are not dead at all and retain their vital functions. In most cases this is caused by some sort of virus or bacteria or alien infestation. These tend to be fast zombies, and dispatching them wouldn’t be much different from taking down someone raging on meth. They’ve become feral animals that feel no pain and have no emotions. They appear to have heightened senses because they merely react. They appear to have superhuman strength because they don’t feel the pain of tearing muscles and ligaments. They require food to survive, as they are still biological beings. They could also be slow moving type zombies, but generally the ones used are fast. Because of the nature of the infection, this is the easiest to explain why some people do not become infected. The scariest thing is that these are the most realistic “zombies” because they just combine massive rioters with the plague hopped up on meth. As far as turning people (those that don’t become carriers, or those that aren’t immune), I would expect it to resemble most biological processes, and probably take about four hours or more, with a steady decay into infected zombie. Since its biological, the dead can’t be reanimated, though still pose a risk of infection if handled.
The third kind is the original zombie, or “zohm-beh” from Voodoo curses. This is where someone is more or less drugged to resemble death and remove higher brain functions, turning them into an ever obedient slave providing they are continually drugged and not given the “antidote”. Although this is where the zombie word came from and where it all originated, they aren’t very zombie-like except maybe in appearance. Though they may look dead, they still need food and water and everything else that a human being needs to survive, though since they’re drugged up, that could probably be kept to an absolute minimum. Its a sad state of the world when there are probably drugged up slaves out there in the world right now, looking like they’re a few minutes away from death. These zombies obviously cannot turn others into zombies.
There are other kinds, but they tend to fall into those categories. Everything has exceptions, like the zombies in Stranger Tides, sort of a cross between the undead, the original, but also retaining higher brain functions.
Anyways, I’m not an expert on zombies or horror movies, but I have tended to notice those kinds over time. The zombies chosen are normally picked for the qualities required within the story.
It seems here that the pacing of the game and its story requires slow zombies. Going out guns blazing with fists full of bravado like Duke Nukem is a quick way for anyone to get killed in most situations in real life. Since this game simulates real life (more or less), I’d expect it to treat those guns blazing players the same. Though for some reason it might be a greater challenge to have an adjustable slide bar in the options to increase the zombie speed maybe to double, just for those who are gluttons for punishment. Call it “hard mode” or something.
I’d prefer infected over undead, but as long as they’re slow and fit the story and setting, I’m sure I’ll like it.
Okay now I want to tell you what I think about Zombies:
Everything depends on what caused this Zombie-thing. Magic? A virus? Aliens?
I like the virus idea. The virus keeps the dead body “alive”, stopping it from rotting. Because the body is dead, it can’t move itself and unless further mutations occur, the zombie is slow.
Now after some time, the virus can mutate. Maybe some of you know the Crimson Head Zombie from Resident Evil. These are fast and strong zombies. But this mutation is rare, so most zombies will stay slow.
When the virus continue to mutate, even stronger creatures can appear, like the Hunter or Boomer from Left 4 Dead or giant monsters from Resident Evil.
But living people can also turn into zombies, without dying first. After the virus takes control over the body, it can still act like a normal human, running fast and all that (like in 28 days later). So Zombies like in 28 days later are living humans controlled by the same virus that turns dead bodies into zombies.
It’s with zombies like it’s with elves, demons and other fantasy stuff. There’s not THE Zombie, like there’s not THE Elf or THE Devil. They’re all different depending on the createor of the fantasy world. And same goes for Zombies. It’s up to the creator of the fantasy world what kind of zombie and what kind of background he choses.
Technically a “infected” slow moving zombie could exist. All it would take is a pathogen that causes a degenerative auto-immune disease, which would be perceived as “rotting” and would cause neural damage, but which would also keep the host alive as long as it consumed meat. The pathogen could also cause weird urges, like Cordycep fungi on bugs.This would be the reasoning behind them attacking humans (cuz the pathogen wants to spread to new hosts) and not other “zombies”. This would also make sense in a socio-historic context because that type of pathogen attacks population that are dense and intricate (so it would probably start in india or china or maybe in a major city.)
I’m in to minds about this, fast zombie’s are cool in things like the left 4 dead genre, if you had those guns and slow zombies i’d get bored really quick, i love killing me some zombies, but i want it to be hard, so in games i understand.
But now we have them in films, i like the original Dawn of the dead but not the new Dawn of the dead (not mentioning 28 days/weeks later, being as it was a rage virus.) i mean it suck to be them, unless you can sprint for miles on end you am screwed, but it’s not just that, zombie’s am dead, no pulse and no blood circulating around the body.
So these thing’s are going to be slow, perhaps not at the start, but will after a while because their muscles are going to disappearing when they die, the only thing they have got going for them is, basic motor functions, so zombie film are going the wrong way about this new genre zombies.
I’d much rather watch slow moving zombie’s than fast.
i like the idea of zombies whose speed is dependent on the body, and who get somewhat smarter in packs, like in the book feed. If the zombie is recently infected/converted it should be a bit faster and smarter than one of the left-overs from thanksgiving, and lets face it, nobody wants a “thanksgiving zombie” for christmas.
Thanks man. I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight anyway….-_-’
Fast zombies, also, don’t fit into the zombie symbolism. Zombies are symbols of the slow moving, dull witted masses who are trying to assimilate everyone who is different. The heroes in zombie films are quick moving and intelligent, the antithesis of the zombie, and they are meant to symbolize people who are more progressive and enlightened. (Alright, they were originally supposed to be communists versus capitalists, but it still stands.)
Fast moving zombies invert the original symbolism, and turn the heroes into Luddites. Conservative crusaders who fight against fast moving new technology.
So… the zombies were capitalist and the heroes were commies?
Yup, the undead were created as a political foil, not to scare medieval children into staying in their huts…
*facepalm* No, zombies were not originally symbols of extreme conformity.
The movie that made zombies into a big thing instead of the C-list monster they were before was Night of the Living Dead, and the point of that movie (other than being a zombie horrorfest) was that humans who could not work together would die. That’s a central theme in zombie horror. Go see for yourself. Watch almost every zombie movie since that one. The protagonists almost always die because they can’t trust each other or work together, not because the zombies are too good at what they do.
The slow zombies are the best because they bring fear with them, for example when you look out the safe house window in the game (Project zomboid) and you see alot of zombies coming from the park, you have time to prepair but the first thing you feel when you see that many zombies coming for you is fear. I have played Left 4 dead one and two but they are not zombies they are infected and I dont like the cliché of conveniently immune player character’s, (Also in Dead rising) because it dosn’t add the horror of when you have been bitten and you think, how long do I have left before I become one of them but instead it says, work as a team and get to Point A to point B! All in all in my opion is that the slow zombies are the best because they are much scaryer than the fast zombies can ever be because of the sheer numbers that they can come in and the more the is the less chance you have of surviving! (P.S) I cannot wait for the game to be finshed it is amazing!
Project zomboid zombies charge at you for a few steps when you get near enough. That’s adding the scare factor to the horror factor of the game.
*opens door*
Oh sh~~~~!
Night of the Living Dead shambling zombies are a product of the Cold War. Something irrational, scary, and slow-moving wants to actively kill you. You don’t know when it’s going to end you but it will eventually.
28 Days Later infected fast zombies are a product of 9/11. Something irrational, scary, and very swift wants kill you. It will happen suddenly and without much warning.
I love me some slow zombies.
I found that they were best done in resident evil, especially the remake of the original for the game cube.
They were the old school, unrelenting slow zombies. The type that if you shot they’d just get up later because really, how do you kill something thats already dead ?
(yah yah I know, light it on fire or shoot it in the head but shhh)
Well, To be honest i definitely love the slow zombie factor. IMO if there is a fast zombie it gives more adrenaline realizing that you cannot run from it, and if it’s like a HL2 Fast zombie it basically jumps all over the place like mad and dodges most of your bullets… If you use fast or sprinting zombies in a game correctly you can sometimes get a good scare out of the player. Or otherwise in a movie, There is usually a background explaining the outbreak and zombies, and it usually doesn’t give as much pure sense as you would like it too, just because zombies… They aren’t technically “living” They are the deceased brought back to life and reanimated with only several organs actually working. In which case you have to think of the decaying flesh, bones and tissue. If they are dead and decaying… After a good period of time they should be nothing but bones unless there is blood or something else letting their flesh regenerate and work like normal or other vital parts of the anatomy keeping them together are there. Nerves and other affects are also affecting a zombie, Naturally its a dead bag of flesh and bone reanimated with a somehow WORKING BRAIN but with a natural instinct to kill the living. There is no rational explanation of a zombie’s anatomy without creating a argument. In the other hand to stray away from that is, Slow zombies. In this game, “Project Zomboid” The effect of slow, grouping and shambling along living dead that you know has the only purpose of killing you and will stop at nothing to get at you works really well. The insanity of having no one to watch your back or having a place to sleep and stay for a long time, always on the run adds to the horror. Having zombies follow you slowly to your hideout thinking your safe, then BANG… BANG… they start knocking and you panic. When you stare a zombie in the eye, nothing will make them go away till they die, again. Pointing a shotgun at them or threats do not scare a zombie, they are mindless and destructive. If a game or movie is looking for more horror than scare, IMO The slow, mindless zombie is the better solution. Project Zomboid executes the slow zombies in the best manner imaginable. Zombies are usually just infected because how do they just become reanimated? Behind most zombie stories is a virus or a infection that spreads to make the dead alive once more to kill everyone still breathing, with a sub conscious mind with only one instinct. Eat the flesh, but not for survival…
All in all i favor the slow and shambling to the fast and rowdy.
They add the most flavor and can show unbelievable teamwork without question.
With only one mission.
Focusing on you and what you should do. (Speaking of Project Zomboid)
And then you fuck up.
This is how you die.
—————————
But not to make fun of other things like 28 days later and L4D, They execute the fast zombies as well as Project Zomboid creates horror from the slow ones. But if you go into detail with movies and games there is the lowest excitement and i see why they stray from that. Instead of questions there is action with little reasoning. And i respect that most of the time, but what makes a good zombie game is a good back story, and lots of gore, action, and if you dont go for the shooter game… Strategy is key. Movies are just about watching it play out, since you’re not playing it so i cant really say anything about a zombie movie, they differ from comedy to horror.
I’m truly surprised no one mentioned world war Z or the zombie survival guide… when I heard about this game, that is what I thought… I had thought ‘holy hell… someone turned WWZ into a game.. finally!’ those two books, involve a zombie that is created from a virus.. yes an infected, it is a slow moving zombie. It’s dead. The virus entered from a bite, or by having the virus touch an opening into a living humans body, it then works it’s way into the brain… and kills you. It then takes control of the dead body, by using the brain, and commences to do what zombies do.. eat and spread the infection. They make sense to me… zombies I mean, they all do, fast or slow. (not magic zombies though.. those make no sense) Though WWZ is more a mixture of how the governments of the world would respond to the threat of zombies, and how different people lived out the infection, more than an actual zombie horror book. The zombies in it are dead, slow moving zombies, caused by infection. And they work, to me they are the perfect zombie
and they are making a film about it now. about wwz
Lol gonna check out that WWZ book right now, I do have Zombie Survival Guide though, its a must have for this game for sure!
Why cant anyone just say its gonna be a Great Game? Why?
Slow zombies work much better here, we know that from practice, in either the alpha we have bought, or the demo. You can think you’ve got things going well, but the enemy is always coming. Slowly, but definitely surely. It may look far off, but there is still no escape. Slow zombies are the embodiment of the theme of this game – you WILL die.
speaking of the zombies slowly coming to your house to eat u. in the demo i thought i was safe but in stead 30 zombies were waiting for me
There is always something about the ability to simply run past a zombie rather than engage it (which in reality would be the intelligent solution to an encounter) that balances the field when there is 1 v 100.
Faced with 100 slow zombies (hopefully nicely spaced out) you know that you have a chance as long as you are fit and alert.
The fast zombie removes this chance or reduces it so much that it’s no longer an option and would not make for much of a game, well it’s have to be a different game where you have to kill the zombies.
Dead Rising was good in this respect as the balance between shuffling and the speed with which you could off them was so finely tuned, that if you attempted it with a baseball bat you’d eventually find yourself completely surrounded but you still told yourself it must be possible to do.
Like I always say:
Zombies are the walking dead
Not the running dead
ATTENTION large amount of information here, food for thought …..brain food if you like puns…here it is (goes into other zombie categories (fast,normal,slow,very slow, armored,deaf,quiet variants)
When i think of fast and slow zombies i think of games like half life , where they had the normal zombies that walked slightly slower than walking, the decayed zombies moving faster because of skin and fat decaying and mainly muscle left (being lighter), and the extremely slow zombies that where riddled with head crabs (being quite heavy). Note that the head-crab would not exclude it from other zombie scenarios/types, as it is just merely another reason of explaining why they are re-animated or moving after death, except for the heavy over burdened (by head-crab) zombie, which could easily be replaced with am obese physical form if it was in a different game.
Fast Zombies
I’d also like to point out that survival chances of a zombie deterioration to a level with which it can still be lightweight( with most flesh gone) and still being able to function dexterously, and nimbly would be uncommon, making the fast zombie a possibility seeing as you could change how likely it is zombie will survive that amount of decay, and how they are functional, It could be extremely rare occurrence due to that most zombies would just die from its pre-requisite form)
Extremely Slow zombies (weak)
Just because your fat when you become zombie doesn’t necessarily mean your going to be strong, It could actually be opposite, making you to slow to be able to actually pose a real threat, these could be used as filler zombies that populate the normal zombies, just to add variety.
Extremely slow zombies (strong)
Their are numerous reasons for a slow ‘tanky’ zombie, perhaps the re-animation and what causes it, hardens or strengthens the flesh, making fat people strong instead of weak, making it a threat to keep in mind, Their is also peoples ‘apparel’ (clothing) that where worn at time of zombification to take into consideration, encountering zombies in bikey leathers, welding masks, sport protective gear, to the less occurring, bullet-proof vest clad swat-team member zombie, or if you wanted some far fetched clothing, a bomb-suit zombie from a nearby war-zone ‘cough’iraq’cough’. obviously these types of clothing will protect differently against certain things, and effect the zombies, move speed, attack speed/type or visibility(ninja-zombie anyone?) The player could pick up a high visibility vested zombie worker form quite some distance away, while the camouflage of a soldiers clothing may make him visible at lesser distance.
Sound and Deaf zombie variants
Zombies make an easily recognizable groan,moan or rumble as they stumble along(or if they only make noise on detecting a threat/person/living thing). But what if the zombie, had a gas mask on, fire-man, soldier, bug-exterminator, carpenter they all have em. This could hinder their noise, making them silent to player, and other zombies (reference the main article about one zombie trailing you attracting more). note that the voice-box/lungs also decay upon deaf making some zombies unable to emit sound apart from legs scraping on floor or knocking objects, (fast-zombies could also have this attribute if you use my earlier stated massive decay theory, though fast zombies should be bosses or challenges in my opinion, and very rare)
Thier are also zombies who still have headphones or headsets on thier head, or noise protection, making them deaf to surrounding environments, full face gas masks may also do this.
Note: allot of these ‘silent zombie’ types would be frustrating to the player and probably should not be included. If they are included id make em make sounds jsut, vary muffled and detected at a much closer range,
Fast zombies are the main discussion point, and i think they do not belong in this game, if they are to be included they should be a very rare encounter, or the player should be able to choose whether to include them or not their in game or not as an option, fast zombies, should either be relatively weak, or have little co-ordination, seeing as they are going fast and don’t have much time to think about where they are going(this could be used to defeat them, luring them into traps?). Having the ‘decayed lung = no noise’ effect would make them very difficult and i probably wouldn’t include this.(hardcore mode maybe?)
Also bomb-suit zombies are as i said ‘far-fetched’ but still realistic….
Rift…giving you a massive amount of info….looking forward to the game.
Sounds like fun. Can I help design the content and balance gameplay? I’d love to!
Not to start any war in the comments here, but for a good, I’d say amazing point of view and fictional history about zombies I’d heavily suggest to you guys the reading of the books “The Zombie Survival Guide” and “World War Z”, both written by Max Brooks.
It is amazing the way the author describes them in his books. in the first one, he basically tells you anything you would want (or not) to know about them, like they were real beings. Any proud z-fan out here MUST have read them.
I bet you guys a million dollars that you’re going to make a million dollars. (Or pounds, I suppose.)
For this game, slower zeds seems more, applicable, due to the fact that the Olympic Sprinter types would make nearly impossible to get supplies. If there would be different types of zeds, they should be based on clothing (as Rift-shade has said) For example, a zeds in a firefighters suit has a lower chance of burning, while one covered in motor oil will turn into a walking candle. Also, they could be chosen based on physical fitness before death. Fat zeds will be slow, yet eat bullets, while thinner ones could be quicker, but get torn up by bullets, and some traps could cause decrease of speed (not increase, after all, who wants a FASTER zombie after them?) such as a trap that spills oil or marbles on the ground, or cement (which could freeze them in place). Also, humans should have varying speeds, like the zombies, and this would also affect their health, but also their strength (big bodybuilders carry more than unfit fatties and thin pretzels). But really, just make it good.
Fast Zombies are simply more terrifying.
I’ll agree that in most modern reinventions of monsters they ruin it but a running zombie seems very plausable to me if only a short lived one (not a pun!). Just consider that if a person has recently been infected with “reason for zombies existing” and they eventually die do to something not physically traumatic. They recieve no real terrible trauma to the body but die from… lets say a blood infection or something that’s not going to ruin the body. That body once turned zombie should be capable of moving rather quickly as the corpse was in good condition. Eventually I’d imagine parts would decay and over time they’d lose a lot of their mobility. This does rely on the brain actually still functioning however in this case because I using the corpes as a construct or a doll. It functions after the “human” part is gone, like memories and higher functions, learning ect. but still needs to send signals to muscles and other tissue to do anything.
this game is reminds me of the walking dead! AMAZING
cant wait for multiplayer and more survivors.
when it is finnaly finnished. hopefully if you survive for a year in this game you will always see something new.
Death is an impediment not an energy drink. ^^
Why does every act like running zombies are a new thing? They were in Return Of The Living Dead first..
BBBBRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Great article.
I bought the game on the strength of this, and the tech demo.
I hope you stick to the plan guys.
Loving it so far.
dM
For the record, L4D doesn’t have Zombies, they have infected. This allows them to get a way with the “Fast Zombie” idea. In Left 4 Dead, one doesn’t have to die before turning, necessarily, at least. In on of the Crescendo events, you meet a guy locked in the church, and you hear him change, but he doesn’t die beforehand.
Also 28 Days Later is a virus isn’t it? I don’t quite remember the movie but do the people die before they turn?
I had the pleasure of meeting George Romero at DragonCon a few years back and asked him what the thought of Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead. His response was rather concise: “Eh, it’s a pretty good movie, but if they’re running, they ain’t zombies”
There you have it, from the master himself.
Classic zombie is always the best : Slow
Fast zombie : Modern infected type of “zombie”
I prefer slow one, since I think they are more frightening than fast.
i personally think that Dead Rising did an amazing job capturing the slow zombies movement and reactions to the environment around them. slow moving, moaning, wheezing, bloody zombies that are hoarding all over the place added to the gameplay in a way that i liked! trying to find survivors while finding zombrex for your daughter to keep her from turning was a nice element. adding in looters was also a nice idea (in a zombie apocalypse, wouldn’t people loot for food and other items?) i hate fast ”zombies” because, as stated in a George A. Romero movie, ”how can a corpse move fast, its ankles would snap off!” i like how you added the sanity element and the shock/scare thing. busting open a door to a ”presumably” safe area only to find a zombie chilling there would scare me! great job guys!
Well I have to say I’m a fan of both types of zombies, for different reasons, but in my heart I prefer the slow shambling romero original. Fast zombies have there place. If your narrative demands, or responds well to, fast-paced action and quick tension, then the fast zombie is the way to go. 28 days later (alright, i know, not truly zombies) worked well in creating moments of instant tension because of the fast-moving assaillants. But the classic zombie works to generate a slow (but IMHO) ultimately more foreboding tension in the form of utter alienation and the slow, insurmountable, you will slip-up sooner or later sense of the inevitable.
I cannot agree more with the game designers choice to stick with the classic shambling zommer for the survival RPG genre. It makes perfect sense. As I game designer myself I have considered this game numerous times over the years, I have pen & paper roleplayed it, and I have played numerous zombie computer and board games – I’m something of a zombie fan, as I guess all are who find their way to these forums. And I have to say, for some years now, I have eagerly awaited a zombie survival RPG videogame.
I’ll admit to having only scanned the majority of the responses above – there’s a lot to read there and I have work to do!
– but I just have to say that I utterly disagree with the type of comment posted by people such as Paladin Revenant above. As much as you can voice an opinion and state things like there’s no reason why zombies shouldn’t be able to run fast when first turned it is merely an opinion. You cannot apply a statement of fact to any such thing as different auteurs present different interpretations of the zombie mythos. To state there’s no reason why shouldn’t be able to run fast when first turned but will get slower as they decompose represents just one potential version of the zombie myth, and shouldn’t be confused with what is true, or reasonable, only appropriate for the narrative. If you wanna say your zombies are fast and get slower, good for you, use your zombies in your thing. I’ve actually used the reverse type of zombie in a pen&paper RPG, and I had a rationale for doing so too – but I won’t go into details about why. But it worked for the sort of game I was going for. But just to reiterate, slow, shuffling zombies are IDEAL for the sort of gameplay presented by the designers above. I’m looking for to PZ immensely!
Sorry for the spelling mistakes and poor grammar – I was in a hurry!
sorry for the spelling mistakes and poor grammar – i was in a hurry!
When i picture “Zombies” i’m thinking of walking corpses just wobbling wandering around aimlessly until they see something of interest or so, and when they do they slowly get to their target en masse :O horde of zombies slowly coming closer to you, either grouping up around the building you hid in and maybe breaking in slowly for effect i dunno. Or cornering you lol, god i love the Resident evil 1-3 games trailers XD especially RE: 3 Nemesis intro
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this article, while intended to explain why Slow Zombies are better, it only proves why Fast Zombies are more common now, and ultimately, why they are more compelling.
You stated that in any “good zombie movie”, the slipup leads to death. I would reframe this statement: in a Slow Zombie Movie, the only way death can occur is if someone makes a slip up. Slow Zombies, by their very nature, are no threat to any human being acting remotely intelligent.
Your article, for example, states that someone may not know they were followed by a Slow Zombie. Again, you are unintentionally buying into something that isn’t true; that like humans in a Slow Zombie Movie, said Slow Zombies are a threat. This is not true. I could tell I’m being followed by a Slow Zombie, because it’s going to be 10-30 feet away from me, slowly walking towards me, making loud noises, but having a total threat value of zero. You could as well.
Now, you or one of your commenters may smugly point out that I’m missing the point: that in Slow Zombie Movies, the zombies aren’t the real threat, but the humans not working together is the threat.
My response to that is to point out that in Slow Zombie Movies, there’s human beings and undead walking corpses that want to eat the humans. If the zombies are not the threat in a zombie film or game, the movie/game developers chose the wrong genre of film. The zombies are the threat, and without that threat, I don’t care. What is one of the common criticisms, and reasons why Slow Zombie Movies have failed to be successful recently? The audience doesn’t care about the protagonists. We don’t care about them because they are going to do something stupid in order to make the non-threatening Slow Zombies a deadly threat.
I’m not afraid of Slow Zombies. Fast Zombies scare me.
Fast zombies are easy to kill
Faygel is liek “lolwut? character development en story?LOLGHEY GIMMEH LASOR BEAMZ”
The way I see it, is if a zombie is one that has been reanimated from the dead, then it kind of has to shamble and be slow and whatnot, whereas an infected human being can still do both, but in the case of say 28 Days Later and the Rage virus, it makes them go insane so they run. With Dawn of the Dead they get infected and kinda walk around. If a zombie is undead, then yeah it’s weird if it runs mainly because, of all of the deterioration that’s been happening to their muscles and bones and whatever else. An infected human, if it still possesses some kind of thinking, can choose whether or not to run at you or wait in ambush, like with I Am Legend, and that giant gray bugger that caused Will Smith’s dog to be killed… That’s just my view on it though.
a zombie outbreak is just hard to believe (apart from that it is actually impossible). Have you watched “the walking dead” ? I mean, c’mon, they’re slow as hell, if the army sets a good barricade (as in chap 1, outside the hospital) with machine guns, tanks and all, theres no way zombies can go any further, that totally screwed up the show imo
another thing ive always wondered.. zombies are dead ppl right ? they rot right ? how long would it take them to get rotten ? a month or so ? so if you manage to survive for a month or 2 (its easy if you get locked in inside a walmart or something) then you would have survived the zombie plague !!! what do u think ?
BEAR NOTE, ‘zombies’ share an extreme resemblance to a real life illness:
- Agressive behaviour to anyone including those formerly closest to them
- Biting and scratching
- Bites causing the disease to infect others
- Animalism and lack of intelligible response
These are caused by the disease called RABIES.
Point being zombies can run, they however do not have any more strength or speed than a normal human and they CERTAINLY do not ‘mutate’, the best zombie RPG would instead involve something like:
- Obese zombies, they can barely walk very fast and don’t put up a huge fight
- Kid zombies (possibly), they run but not very well at all and die easily
- Athlete zombies, they run fast and hard
- Brute zombies, they can pack a punch but don’t run as fast as athletes
- Police constable/officer zombies, they fight well based on their previous life and are equipped for a fight too
- Martial artist zombie, not nearly as kung-fu as previously, but still quite a threat
- Reenactor/Fantasy zombie, equipped with weapons and armour, they are rarer due to a lot actually surviving, some still didn’t make it and therefore are very dangerous undead
There can be walking AND running zombies, depending on their previous lives, such will also make them less repetitive and less predictable.
Ever thought of having a system like Fallout 3 and allowing runners to have legs crippled by survivors? It would make the whole experience a lot more tactical.
Hey, whatever suits you, man. It all depends on the kind of movie or game you wanna create.
For Project Zomboid, slow zombies it is. For L4D, fast zombies worked greatly.
The most important: create a lore that embraces it and makes it ‘feel’ right.
Even a simple brain damage, from infected products or whatever, can make brain cells die, the subject is unable to think properly, he can’t control his body (like a person who survives a stroke) so his moving skills are compromised, and he attends to his instincts to satisfy his most basic needs (feeding and self preservation), etc etc.
It’s not technically a zombie, but that doesn’t really matter, as long as the setting is properly adjusted.
In fact, zombies that are back from the dead don’t ever make any sense. We just love them anyway.
I’d love to write something about a zombie apocalypse like that… Maybe someday, who knows.
Always remember the rules.
Rule 1: Cardio…
Worlds gone to hell boys and girls
Where has this game (and crew of developers) been all my life? I salute you all.
tbh, fast at night, slow at day is vastly better than either one all the time. That sense of urgency you would get when you are trying to find shelter for the horrifying night ahead of you is all the intensity you would need; and if someone messes up and makes noise in the night, a siege is inevitable. Hold out for dawn, so you can escape the legions of walking corpses.
I won’t go into much detail, but as a zombie fanatic, fast zombies are possible (in the sense if zombies themselves were possible), but very rare. Coming back from the dead leaves our basic motor functions… if that included the ability to walk there would be no reason they couldn’t run also *AT FIRST*.
After days/weeks of walking/running around, their muscles which would be constantly tearing but NOT repairing due to lack of healing, would basically become stringy spaggetti rotted flesh. This lack of muscle tissue would cause zombies to become slower over time, to the point they couldn’t even walk (crawlers), and at some point stop moving altogether, though they would most likely be so decomposed a lack of muscle would be the least of their problems.
So it is feasible that zombies could infact run, and even be quite strong right after turning into the undead, but would basically turn into a 100 year old woman real quick.
I strongly suggest you all read The Zombie Survival Guide/World War Z. Two great books for zombie lovers.
I am going to purchase this game based on this article alone.
Finally. Someone who understands the beauty of the slow zombie. I was starting to think I was alone on this.
Im not a such big zombie fan. But still in this game zombies would be SO overpowerd if they gave them the abilaty to run. I mean if 1 scratch/bite can turn/mutate (Call it wath u like) you in 1 of them and they would chace u down printing/running? thads just to much i think… just my opinion..
btw I Really LOVE/ADORE the game!
(im sorry if my english is bad im dutch)
hmm… i personality like to se a mix, since moste Zombies are half eaten
so since some might be less eaten and still able to run and some more rotten and slow…
a blend will make it sracy… since you dont know what your up agenst….
but i always got confused about the zombie types…
the “infectet” whit special types and running stuff made by some nano tech or viru
“normal” slow walking cropses trying to eat you… posibly some radioaktive or bad plot kind
and the “magic” kind… you know those you cut in half and there arms and body still crawn on the flor trying to reach out and kill you…. made by some evil necromancer~ or curse…
it make it so hard to chose whitch one theres the worst…
i think i fear the magic moste since they are like the normal exept that if you try and blow there face off…. they still wont die… so what if they are slow… you just cant stop that shit.
Their not magic, they are invincible zombies which will never happen. The fast ones are infections usually caused by a medical treatment that changed the person into a cannibal. And learn to spell. It’s radioactive not radioaktiv but you do have the right idea though. Oh yeah and the people who don’t like fast zombies don’t like running and are obese. And the outbreak the will most likely occur is an infection (fast zombies) because the idea of medicine making people start turning into cannibals makes more sense then an accidental chemical spill that makes the dead rise from the graves. But not all slow zombies rise from the grave. Most do but some are started by people just turning like in the AMC series the walking dead. If a slow zombie outbreak were to occur the walking dead is the most accurate on the way it would start. But in my opinion the fast zombie outbreak is most likely to occur.
This game looks awesome
This is why you need slow zombies.
Herds.
Go read the walking dead, a very good example of that.
Heya i am for the first time here. I came across this board and I to find It truly useful & it helped me out much. I hope to give something again and aid others such as you helped me.
Zombies would never run manly because they will trip, break their legs, or run in to a wall. Though i don’t care that much just as long as the game is fun and Zomboid is fun.
If you read a lot of the comments, especially the one above me who is a complete dumb ass, you guys know nothing. I know a lot about zombies, not trying to brag, and both are extremely hard to survive, as you guys think only the fast are hard. here’s the thing:
Fast Zombies – may seem like they are hard to survive, but really here’s the thing, yet a simple scratch from this zombie type will infect you, they usually come running one at a time, and if they do come in a horde, they will usually come from one side, and if there is another side of a building/tunnel/street, run to it, and if there is none, well then you can live the rest of your life eating flesh.
Slow Zombies- These are pretty hard. Yet they are slow and you may think all you need is speed, your wrong. The slower trype of zombies tend to live their bloody lives grouped and they are not spread, They will surround you and they are really hard to get away from. The slower zombies are very strong, strong enough to take down a giraffe, they can tear your arm off easily, like playdough. You run out of food, and you can just let yourself starve to death.
Here is how the fast zombies can run:
Fast zombies don’t come out of the grave, as you can tell, the zombies that rise from the grave have decayed while their bodies were still in the ground, which also made their bones fragile and weak, causing them to move slowly. Fast zombies (Also known as Rage Zombies [28 Days Later]) turn instantly, and the virus takes over the body, making the bodily functions workable, and preventing decay, and keeps the bones from losing their strength which allows them to run. But since the fast zombies body functions still work, their bodies still require nutrients, making them starve to death if they get no food. That doesn’t mean the virus is dead though, one little touch of something contaminated, and the infection is back.
Now overall the slow zombies are harder to survive than the fast zombies. if you have any questions, email me @ kevindhorvath@yahoo.com
MM KAY GAIS I HAV SAVE JOO ALL CUZ IMA ESPERT IMA GO DOWN TO TEH GLOREH HOEL NAO KTHX
Also I forgot to mention 28 days later ARE ZOMBIES. Their.infection zombies. Anything that is is controlled by something other than a soul is considered a zombie
This game looks amazing, probably be buying it this Memorial weekend.
But Back On Topic, I prefer slow zombies in large numbers, more slaughter equals more fun!
also more bites! suit yourself
you may not need running zombie but what if it was a zombie Dog? I think they would be a good enemy of some games because they will move very fast but not have much health and damage will not come in packs (unless wolves) and will only spawn in foresty and grassy areas! and I mean look at CallOfDuty zombies… there dogs were a sucsess!
Well I have read everyone’s comments… And now heres my 2 cents.
Ive heard that Slow Zombies are the best and the Most realistic….
And Ive heard that Fast Zombies are the best and Most realistic…
And Ive heard that Zombies that are at first fast but slow down as they decay is the most realistic…
Honestly, I do agree somewhat with the third one… and somewhat with the first one… But the best for project zombiod is the first one. The way the game is headed right now… I would hate to see fast zombies in this game. Even if they were rare they would still be way too powerful…. I woudln’t mind the concept of maby different breeds of zombies that show up as you survive longer…. Like maby some of them mutate into more powerful zombies that are still slow but deal more damage and have more life… And maby these zombies would be the most feared of the zombies… i know thats a little off topic… But I think it would be great for longer lasting players to have their skills challenged more.
And it’s why I can’t play left4dead; zombies could be aliens or giants insects, it would be exactly the same thing.
admine haj majke povuci cenzuru ako me ti cenzuriso potpuno sam nov u kanteru tako da neznam ako se cenzura moze povuci ali ako moze molim te povuci i reci sta sam uradijo i necu vise ni radit
I like them both, fast and slow zombies. I think its impossible to a real zombie apocalypse happen with slow zombies… the human race is not that stupid… But with the running zombies is more possible…
How is this even a debate? If someone offers me an apple and when I bite into it it’s sawdust in a plastic ball, do they get to shrug it off with a “Well, it’s my interpretation of an apple” ? Absolutely not!
If I sell an “Xbox” on amazon but ship a cinder block with the letters XBOX stenciled on it to the buyer, it’s not a “difference of opinion” it’s fraud.
Don’t get sidetracked! it’s not about which is better or scarier or more realistic.
There’s a thing called a zombie, it’s a dead body that’s up walking around, it craves the flesh of the living, you kill it by removing the head or destroying the brain, and it’s scary because there are millions of them and they never stop coming for you (Barbara).
There’s another thing, this thing used to be human but then it caught some disease and now it runs around snarling like an animal and killing everyone in sight, it’s scary because it feels no pain, never tires, cannot be reasoned with, and will fight with demonic fury till it’s dying breath to get at you, I don’t know what that thing is called but it’s not a zombie, that’s already a thing.
Up above there was a comment about dying and becoming a zombie no matter what.
What if you blew your brains out then died after contracting the virus (or whatever crap you wish to call it), as headshots kill zombies so they obviously rely on the brain to function and spread, so it seems obvious to kill yourself with a headshot to help prevent contaminatoin.
Tbh Slow Zombies are the best, Fast are just meh boring. But I’ve always liked the idea of the first few minutes that a person turns to a zombie they would be fast, their brainfunction would still be normal in that time they could outsmart you etc, then begin to degrade over a short ammount of time. (Its the only thing that makes sense to me when one spreads in an outbreak)
I have to say that for the past couple of hours i have been hooked by the impressive posts on this blog. Keep up the wonderful work.
Here are my thoughts on the matter lol. I love walkers, shamblers, rots, what ever you wanna call them. classic romeros, shoot em in the head, not enough bullets to take em all out zombies, are the best zombies. people that make zombie games use runners because they don think walkers make for an exciting game… i think they just dont know how to do thier job lol… walkers make for an amazingly exciting game, action or survival, if they are done right. sure fast zombies pose an immediate threat, but it forces the developer to make immunities and “shoot anywhere in general direction” tacticts. Thats all, there is no onther game michanics that can really be added to that… now classic zombies, one thing i have never seen a fps do with zombies is SHOOT EM IN THE HEAD, its a fundamental in zombie killing but yet it has never been used in a game! its either headshots dont do crap (FO3, COD Nazi Zombies, etc.) or you can shoot anywhere on the body and still land a kill (L4D and any other game you can think of).. dont get me wrong i love l4d 1 and 2… but i cant tell you how many zeds ive killed by shooting thier foot. now if a game were to really implement every fundamental of zombies, like hoards, shoot em in the head, bite = infection, then you have your self an amazingly exciting game. games with runners… when theres a hoard, spray bullets in thier direction and you win. walkers, spraying is just a waist of ammo, you need to REALLY AIM and pick those head shots, and as they get closer you have a rush of all sorts of emotions that you dont get from a game with runners. you get a feeling or REAL DANGER, REAL FEAR, REAL ANDRENALINE. you dont want to become infected and endanger your friends, you dont wanna loose everything, all the fears of a REAL APOCALYPSE (other than real death, unless the game has permadeath lol) next thing you know your starting to panic, your aim starts to fail you and your left with a choice, a choice to 1 pull your self together grind through it, work those head shots, and be epic 2 retreat, live to fight another day, be the crafty survivalist that is in every zombie apocalypse and find a way out, or 3 die
choices that you would never have to REALLY THINK ABOUT with runners… with runners you have one option spray bullets or die, niether of which require much skill or are entirely that fun lol. with walkers you have a chance to baricade, build, and survive. with runners theres no time to do anything but pull the trigger and face the right direction (yes you have to face the right direction, ive seen plenty ppl forget about that step in other zombie games)
i dont understand why no one makes an fps with walkers… they feel they need to be runners for fps, they need to think about these things more
now, i dont think runners are a terrible idea lol, nor do i think they are illogical
i actually think they are quite logical. zombies are us, we can move faster than a shuffle, so why cant they?
they are dead, yes they are, but some may not be decomposed? alot of games think about this when they do have walkers (these games still have shoot any where to kill though) games like the recently released DEAD ISLAND (which i find to be an absolutely beautiful game all around) dead island have a zombie type called the “infected” which are recently dead and still have a “fully functional” body (i put that in quotes because they are still dead, some body functions will obviously not work, but muscles and nerve endings are still in good condition) these infected run at you rather than the walkers that you find in the game. i think thats brilliant and they way it should be done. the only thing that annoyed me in dead island is that the infected would always travel in packs of 3-4 which became basically a death sentance if they spotted you (which was all the time) if you were playing the game offline. i think putting them in packs was not right lol
the way runners should be done is throw ONE into a pack of walkers. that way you have an immediate threat that needs to be dealt with, along with the encroaching walkers
that is the best way to impliment walkers, and there you have an absolutely wonderful fps
that gets all the emotions running, has you thinking, and is amazing fun to play because who doesnt like to aim and the feeling of a nice “clean” headshot in a game (quotes because headshots can never be clean lol, brains + wall = mess)
not to mention this game will actually require skill to play, and will have rolls to fill, like the builder, the survivalist, the hero
hero has the aim and has the skill to get consistent head shots
survivalist has the knowledge to flee when needed and knows how to find needed supplies
the builder can build fell defensible forts and bases to hold out in
so yeah those are my thoughts lol… if they would simply do zombies the right way in games they would have litterally a 400x more complex, fun, and replayable game
project zomboid aims to do alot of this which i find amazing and is exactly have ive been waiting for in a game, top down in definately amazing, i would personally prefer fps lol but PZ is its own beast of a game and doesnt in any way need to be fps to be absolutely the best zombie game made to date.
i bought the fanboy option, knowing very well that dev has slowed and people say not to, also knowing well that it offers no benefits. i only hope my extra $40 helps dev run smoother and faster.
Lols,
infected dont eat you, they merely ripp you into peices.
The infected in 28 days later never bit. Only that one army one did, probably caus of the torment they put him through.
Its funny caus I always dreamed of a game like this, and here it is. My eyes are actually tearing at the thought of playing such a miraculous concept. Slow zombies FTW!!!!!!!!
Sorta like World War Z eh,
start of small and slow and the bastards numbers begin to grow
I like both types, on the side of fast zombies, zombies are supposed to be eternally starving right? So it makes sense that if they see human flesh (Living, of course) then they’d try to get it at all cost, probably involving charging at the prey as fast as they can. Also, in quite a few movies/games zombies are more powerful then humans, making it possible to run faster.
On the side of slow zombies, their muscles rot and decay, restricting use of them.
So if you want both in a harder zombie survival, the older the zombie the slower it is.
imo i like the way Dead Island did the whole fast and slow zombie thing…where fast zombies are humans with a special strand that made them “Infected” and not full on Dead head where as walkers WERE full on Dead heads.
i’m much more of a fan of the fast, infected type, because yes, slow zombies are more secretive, but usually the fast ones are more intelligent. I like to think of it as the fast zombies are more like humanoid raptors, as they don’t just attack, but will manoeuvre around your position, until they get to your weak spot, and take you by surprise. My absolute favourite type is left 4 dead, the infected ones that shuffle around until you look at it, and it quickly turns its head to look at you, and just stands there, staring at you (just like the endermen in minecraft), and then when you go to hide, you already know the horde now know, however, instead of them bursting through your window, they would be silence, then you hear upstairs the window smash and footsteps, and you know your dead. However, after watching ‘the walking dead’ I have become a fan of the slow zombies and although I would prefer fast moving zombies, they are both terrifying in their own way (although i don’t really like the living dead idea, too unrealistic, however when you think of genetic engineering you think that somewhere, someone may have created the zombie virus, making infected more scary). I hope you choose to implement fast movers into your game somehow, maybe like half life did and have them in little squads, so very rare but when you see one you need to think fast.
I just need to say this, regarding the “fast zombie is better argument” how many movies have you really seen where Zombies sprint? I’m willing to wager rather few. “28 Days Later”? Not zombies, humans infected with the “rage” virus, which is why they dont have to die to change, and if they do die, they dont reanimate…. “I am Legend”? Also, not zombies, their bodies have been altered by scientist who tried to reprogram cancer cells to destroy themselves, which wound up turning nearly the whole world’s population into some kind of odd vampyric creature. Simply put, Zombies are slow because of how they are created, transferred through bodily fluids from a zombie into a victim. which in the first few hours causes high fever, nausea, vomiting, delusions, and eventually coma and death. 5-12 hours later the virus restarts the part of the brain the virus uses (basic motor skills). furthermore, even if more of the brain came back online to give the Z’s more finely tuned movements, rigermortis, and the clotting of the blood in the veins would prevent this. And about breathing, zombies perform the respitory action of breathing (inhale air, exhale air) however that air doesn’t enter the blood stream or heart…. which is what causes the distinctive moan.
Tom: Although I don’t really like the living dead idea, too unrealistic.
*facepalm*
the definition of zombie is something THAT COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD.
It doesn’t have to desire brains or slaughter people. Thats just the modern propaganda slandered by the damned media. Before George Romero, zombies were just Affrican Voodoo. Myths that superstitios people believed would strangle you in the night if you disshonoured the elders. George remade them into drones bent on one thing, spreading the virus. They’re only goal in afterlife is to bite, tear, rip, slash, and infect all others. In the original movie they were’nt even refered to as zombies.
If it isn’t dead, if the game comes out as some sort of 28 weeks later thing, you might as well play L4D. That game covers that genre already.
Sambo,
Your my man,
Rock on brother
The moderators explain why they chose slow zombies in the beggining.
Did any of the profast people even read that.
Left 4 Dead (2) is the best zombie game of them all. And that’s the bottom line!
Zombies have never been and will never be fast. Just because some games/movies/books have depicted them as fast doesn’t mean that’s the way they are. Most people know that zombies are slow and relentless among other traits. I have been waiting patiently for someone to make a true zombie survival game and here it is.
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first i got that in my opinion the most classic zombie (slow) is what warms my heart. If you ask people what they think what kind zombie is, majority will answer “slow, mindless, trotting around without a purpose”. Its same kind of distiction as if you would ask what kind of creature is elf, dwarf, dragon or orc. But as dude named “Try to think” so discreetly put it, there are no set standards. Basicly this whole thing boils down to what is viewers opinion.
In RuneQuest, the elf was hostile plant that was excellent marksman with bow. I detested it so much it took the whole fun out of it. I can understand if majority zombie-fans have same kind of reaction to fast zombies. Its looks the same BUT there are so big differences that it takes the familiarity from it. How about Santa Claus dressed in neon blue-yellow stripe jacket and hat? It just isn’t the same thing that many of us have grown up with.
At first i though that fast zombies were a “new cool thing” that could breathe more life and variation into zombie-scene. But then they released Dawn of the Dead 2: Contagium….. Oh man, now the zombies ran in the ceiling. Not ON the roof but grasping with their fingernails from the ceiling! If you make zombies like that, you could change their CGI-animation into Alien with big tongue in a heartbeat. Both are fast, run anywhere, sneak, kill guaranteed if gotten into melee… At that point my mind was set: zombies are slow, infected are fast. As much as the Santa’s coat is red!
But again, it’s a matter of opinion. You like fast zombies? No problem. I bet they will still make games/movies/what ever for you.
Peace
Romero set the standerds and people warped and switched around traits for cool new ideas.
But those games aren’t really zombie SURVIVALS
they are zombie shootemups or zombie FPS
The name of this game is zombie survival,
where as said before zombies would pwn you to hard and fast if they run faster than you and you have a maximum of 14 bullets.
Plus, slow zombies are more intimidating. Walking slowly and stumbling, their true strength hidden in their appearingly weak bodies. Little do the unsuspecting victims know that those flimsy slow movers have no restrictions, and can tear your arms strait from your sockets.
Hi there! Wonderful stuff, please tell us when you publish again something like that!
while there is a multitude of variables i think it all comes down to what the “virus” does. If your zombs are just people who eat other people then YES they can run, but if they are DEAD bodies who stumble around with poor coordination THAN NO they can’t.also if they are going to have chunks of their bodys missing, and have flesh falling off then NO. And no matter how the zombies are desgined IF ITS AN RPG they should be slow-medium speed,PZ especial (for the way it is played),while lfd1,2 needs them to be fast . THIS IS NOT LEFT FOR DEAD, so lfd is not a good quality refrence point (i think the walking dead a tv show would “fit the bill”much better)
it would make sense if some zombies were fast simple because there running function has not rotted yet this is common sense enough said
Between the voodoo zombies, the romero zombies and the fast new age zombie I prefer the Romero zombies. I do think that it’s alright to update a monster with the times yet at the same time it shouldn’t replace said monster instead branch out. The Romero style zombie didn’t erase the voodoo zombie but instead created a new separate thing that was unique from the first where one as a mindless living person under the control of voodoo magic the other was an undead shambling corpse. The thing that rubs me the wrong way with the running zombies are that other than the viciousness and the running they are no different the the undead zombies of old, instead of creating a unique new twist, making something different and unique apart from the regular zombies they are trying to over-write the undead zombie image. The sad thing is that one of the movies that started this trend was a great attempt to create something new. 28 Days Later was a great modern day monster movie influenced by zombies, the great thing they did was take that zombie feel but make it their own, they didn’t make them running undead things, instead they made them leving people driven mad by a virus. They did to undead zombies what undead zombies did to voodoo zombies. For a short time we had three distinct zombie subgenres, each of them unique from each other. Sadly they decided to try to revamp the undead zombies instead of continuing the infected sub genre (with the exception of movies like the crazies remake).
I believe that fast and slow zombies can BOTH EXIST. Maybe fast zombies have yet to decay and have mostly working limbs but, since they still have more human characteristics they are easier to kill as they may be more fragile while slow zombies are long decayed and have badly or not at all working limbs though, a lifetime of decay and pain has made them much more resilient. Think, both zombies make sense, i mean why cant they? An original zombie was just the definition of a brainwashed human. Look how much that changed.
I think that having fresh new zombies and old rotting zombies are a good idea. They should both have the same speed,
but by looking upon the misshapen face of a rotting corpse, the foul stench of years of rot and decay, the strangled groan of busted bones bending and breaking as the single minded monstrosity shambles slowly toward you, revealing a toothy grin of green and yellow puke layered in blood of its last victim, should make you PANIC, eh?
More fresh zombies than rotting zombies because those zombies are known to fall apart much faster.
Anyone else catching on?
What i think about zombies is this:
A zombie is a living corpse: that’s the concept of it. you cant give it wings and five legs but why would you criticise it for being fast or slow. As long as it fits within the game or the film or whatever and it makes sense it’s ok to make a few changes as long as they’re not too drastic
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Rigamortis…
This is a simulator, people will be looking for realism. if you want to be a cowboy go play Call of Duty and stfu.
i feel what your saying, like who’s to say that a zombie is a demon that takin a dead body to inflict pain on others,but this game is set to take place in the present, and in my opinion if the zombie body has been decaying it should not have the ability to run fast, but freshly infected can
Absolutely.
this article makes a great point. i hate fast zombies. the slow ones are creepy and mindless killers, like zombies should be. there is no difference between being chased by fast zombies or being chased by panthers, lions, dogs, or other fast animals. they arnt zombies unless they are slow.
Excellent point. Those “zombies”, the ones that run, are not zombies, but rather infectees. Only the “walking” zombies are in fact zombies.
In my opinion, the zombie described in the Zombie Survival Guide makes the most sense. That being said, I think the best zombies in any game I’ve ever played are the Walkers in Dead Island. They shuffle about aimlessly (or lie pretending to be a corpse) untill they see you or hear you, then they walk towards you at varying speeds (but never faster than a walk). Then, when they get close, their steady shuffle turns into a relatively quick stumble toward you, reaching out in a all out effort to get a hold of you or hurt you. Unfortunately, this near-perfect zombie is able to tank about three to four bullets to the head, even from a high caliber revolver, Desert Eagle, or even a shotgun, in a game where ammo for guns is scarce and expensive and guns are even more so (the game is mostly melee-based). That just kinda spoils it for me for some reason.
Well, with an infectee “zombie”, you can kill it like a regular human, but a true zombie (driven by supernatural forces); can take horrendous amounts of damage, far beyond a regular human. I feel nowadays, people are attempting to combine both types, one that has the supernatural origins, but also a scientific grounding. But, I still enjoy the slow monotonous pace of more traditional zombies, because it has a more symbolic and meaningful underlying theme. “Destruction and assimilation is inevitable, but even if you are not among us, even if we do not take you, your mind, your insanity will become your eternal damnation.” This is a truly horrifying prospect. Alone, isolated from others, all humans will go crazy, and may even take their own life as a result. Thus the zombies will get to you, no matter what happens.
Fast zombies are illogical, Rigor Mortis sets in to early.
Irrelevant, Rigor Mortis only lasts about 3 days, after which the muscles have completely relaxed
Interesting opinion, but I personally feel that a zombie game should have BOTH types, running and walking. Reason being, it would be expect that over time, the walking dead gradually decompose, as do dead bodies. A zombie’s body decays, as do their motor skills and muscle function. There for, the longer a zombie has been dead the slower and stupider it will become. The brain also decays too. The zombie will gradually become less and less aware of its surrounding and will eventually be unable open doors, climb stairs, manipulate objects, etc. This will occur to the point that it is totally incapacitated. This phenomenon could be called “third death” (assuming “first death” is the process of transformation and “second death” is any possible premature termination). Also, a “fresh zombie” would be physically and mentally capable of that equal to of the person it used to be. Example, I would much rather be chased down by a 500 pound fatso, who is slow as hell, than zombified Usain Bolt, who would be on my ass in seconds. Also, whether or not a zombie needs to maintain Homeostasis is an issue (although if it is supernaturally resurrected, a.k.a. not a manifestation of an infectious pathogen, this would not be a problem). Conclusion, a movie like 28 Days Latter (and L4D) has “runners” because the “zombies” are not really zombies at all but rather infectees who have contracted a disease, unlike Night of the Living Dead which has supernaturally resurrected individuals which are not subject to normal physiological parameters (i.e. not subject to 3rd deaths). Well, that concludes my shpeel. Hope you found it useful.
Also, 28 Days Latter is technically an infection movie, and does not actually contain zombies. Same with: 28 Weeks Later, [REC], Doom, I Am Legend, Planet Terror, The Crazies, Quarantine, Resident Evil, and Carriers (among others). Many people can argue that they are really zombie movies, but all (listed) have been established to be infection movies by both authors and directors. Note: In order to be a zombie, an individual MUST BE resurrected by supernatural forces (i.e. Black Magic, Voodoo, Hoodoo, Divine Intervention, evil manifestation, etc.). Those resurrected or driven by an infectious pathogen are NOT zombies but rather infectees.
Quite a few deaths caused by slow zombies are those from mental fatigue, it is this fatigue that makes people mess up, and it inevitably sets in once you are in a position where you have to be constantly alert. (Like when there are zombies everywhere, and you need to keep a lookout for them as you also look for resources.)
This is going to be a long one, and should give you enough info to determine if a zombie should run or not (p.s. BOTH are possible, but neither will ever exist without a man-made bio-weapon.)
Also through most of this I will call the disease a virus, as it is the shortest and fastest way to describe it. (and only scientists would care to make the distinction, everyone else would be running for their lives)
There are two inescapable lines that you must always remain in when describing a zombie 1: They were infected by some disease and 2: They died (due to any cause, short of a bullet to the head) and turned into zombies (because they were already infected with the disease)
Because those lines exist, anyone who knows even the slightest about death draw the obvious conclusions that they are also affected (to a lesser degree admittedly) by those rules. Rules like rigor mortis and decay. Has nobody actually read about these events before using them as ‘proof’ that zombies should be slow? Rigor mortis only has an effect for about THREE DAYS after death (the slower viruses take about that long to turn you, though chances are good your organs are working again, and you are just sleeping through most of it. Will explain why below.) after that time your muscles are fully relaxed again. The only slow zombies that can be limited by decay are the ‘necromantic zombie’ or ‘voodoo zombie,’ as it is generally accepted that a corpse can’t be infected if there is nothing to sustain the virus long enough to ‘wake’ them. (only an airborne virus has the staying power to do that, but then again if it was airborne AND eventually killed you to turn you, EVERYONE would die and there would be no fresh meat to eat.)
Even more important about decay, as long as the zombie feeds regularly, there is no reason for it to decay further. The parts of the body essential for sustaining and spreading the virus are reanimated and sustained through the flesh they consume, these parts being, in order of importance, the brain, nervous system,(including the spine) heart, lungs, stomach, and muscles. Everything not related to those parts are irrelevant and can rot without affecting the mental programming important to the virus: to survive and spread.
Ruling out the forms of zombie that make little to no sense when placed into the real world, meaning only fresh kills, already infected, there is only one thing that will destroy a zombie’s mobility, and that’s brain damage. How long is the brain starved before the virus reanimates it?
0-4 minutes, little to no damage (Hello sprinters! Also the cheesy B movie talking zombie would fall in here or the next one)
4-6 minutes, some damage may occur (Possibly including reduced mobility and/or inability to speak beyond “urrrrrrrggghghhh!”)
6-10 minutes, likely that some damage will occur (The sweet spot for slow groaning zombies.)
10+ minutes, entering brain death hazard area. (meaning that unless the virus brings the brain online very soon the brain stem will have decayed too much to offer any muscle control.)
[This is the timeline doctors all around the globe use to determine when they should give up and call them dead]
As you can see there is a very small window to get oxygen into the brain before the body becomes useless, and you can’t ignore the importance of the brain’s condition given that every zombie movie/game ever made stresses the importance of the head-shot in removing this problem. (the magic zombie is exempt from brain condition because hey, it’s magic!!! So don’t bother with them, they play by their own rules, though a bullet to the head is just as effective.)
I could go on and on with this but I suppose that the important parts are already mentioned.
TL;DR VERSION HERE FOR THOSE THAT DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO READ THIS WHOLE POST BEFORE RESPONDING!!!!
1.Rigor mortis only lasts 3 days, after that the muscles are good as new(ish)
2.No Non-Magical Zombie™ Will have been dead long enough for the muscles to rot.
3.A well fed zombie will be able to maintain their brain, nerve endings, heart, lungs, stomach, and muscles, so those will not decay at all.
4.The only factor that controls the speed of a zombie is how long the brain is starved.
0-4 minutes, it runs. 4-6 minutes, it may or may not run. 6-10 minutes almost guaranteed a slow zombie. More than 10 minutes, if it has no pulse by now it will probably stay a corpse.
I believe you have a misconception of what a zombie is. Zombies are created only by magic or some other supernatural force. INFECTED are created when a LIVING individual contracts a disease (be it virus, bacteria, parasite, etc.) that causes them to act in abnormal ways i.e. kill others. Excellent examples of infected (infectees) are those in the movie The Crazies. Unlike zombies, they still need food, and are capable of running, and even sprinting. Of course, many people have begun to confuse the two, zombie and infected. Even so there is a third kind that is mistaken, Un-dead infected. Un-dead infected those who have died and have then been reanimated by a pathogen, appear to be zombies, but are actually infected (due to their no supernatural origins). Un-dead infected and zombies (zombies being used in its correct context) SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO WALK BECAUSE THEY ARE OF DEAD FLESH THERFOR THEY HAVE REDUCED PHYSICAL CAPABILITY. On the other hand infected MAY be able to run if they have the energy to sustain it elevated levels of physical activity i.e. recently consumed nutrients (another factor is what the individual was physically capable of before being infected).
I have never heard of this, ever, in any of the countless zombie films I have seen, (except its use in a couple B movies and the red dead zombie game) or any of the countless zombie sites i have visited, so unless you can point me to where this rule was set as an unbreakable fact, I have to disagree on that one. (To be honest, it sounds like something to help people sleep better at night. Just like people saying that the portal to Abeir-Toril was somehow permanently sealed, as a way to keep diehard D&D fans from killing themselves trying to get to Faerûn.)
But if you are right that ‘true’ zombies can only be corpses brought back through magic, or the supernatural, everything I said still holds true for infected, brain damage is the only limiting factor for whether or not an individual corpse can run. (unless the individual was morbidly obese before being bitten.) No amount of energy can make a brain that has suffered damage send the signals fast enough to allow the body to run.
I also just noticed that you are completely ignoring the fact that my post was talking about a virus that KILLS you and reanimates the body, taking control and reprogramming the brain in the process. Your ‘infected’ counter is for people, NOT killed, but who instead have their perception of the world altered, or have higher brain functions overpowered by their baser instincts as a result of the virus increasing the amount of certain chemicals in the brain. (like the rage virus from 28 days later if i remember correctly)
So this is my idea of a modern zombie (because we don’t have voodoo magic any more) is that there is a virus that infects body that will slowly kill you over the course of a few months by slowing down the rate of your heart beat until it eventually stops. The virus then rises the corpse up from the ground and tries to infect other people by getting the blood of the infected into openings in the body of the non-infected. The virus uses dead bodies because they do not have limits like pain and stamina but in saying this the infected do not care for there well being so if they get seriously injured they just get back up again and so this leads to the “zombies”. So if an infected body gets it’s head crushed or shot in the heart they should be dead but they just keep going.
Hopefully that actually made sense because to me that just seems like a jumble of words but WAT EVAR!!
The only problem with that is the fact that the brain is the only natural thing that can send the required signals to the body in the proper order and timing to make you move. (look at how long it has taken scientists to make a walking robot, and a zombie moves much more naturally than that.) and the fact that unless the body has oxygen and nutrients that can only be supplied by a working heart , lungs, and a stomach, they consume themselves, and after the body fat, the muscles are the first to go. (only magic can make someone walk without muscles.)
That is pretty much where the requirements of shooting them in the head or heart came from. (with emphasis on the head as the zombie can still keep going for a minute or so if shot in the heart, enough time to crawl up and bite you if you aren’t paying attention.
That my fried would no longer be classified as a zombie, but rather an infected. Zombies are created only by magic or some other supernatural force.
Reference link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie
and that my friend is a religious article, not what anyone talking about zombies is even hinting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_%28fictional%29 <— that is the kind of zombie most every movie, game, and book about zombies refers to. Both ARE zombies, one is from an obscure religion that few have probably ever heard of, and the other is from a form of entertainment, made to scare you.
and to clarify under the fictional zombie archetype magical zombies are zombies and infected people killed by the virus and reanimated are zombies.
only people who are still alive (in other words the virus does NOT kill them and reanimate their corpse) are ‘infected’
Ok, I guess I am not as done with this argument as i had claimed below. I was bored so I looked into the Haitian Zombie. It is merely a servant, can not spread through contact (That is a diseased zombie trait) so every zombie has to be turned by the bokar him/herself, and is not in all reality dead. the ‘magic’ that turns them consists of poisoning the victim with a ‘potion’ made from the flesh of a puffer fish and, after the funeral, they dig up the ‘corpse’ and drug them with dissociative drugs to force them into obedience and servitude.
Even in Haitian legends a Zombie truly raised from the dead is still used as a servant and raised one by one through ritual. But you want to know the real kicker? You can banish the zombie back to the grave by feeding it salt.
There is no way an apocalypse can be caused by this kind of zombie. They are completely harmless, unless instructed to kill by their master, and even then will not turn you into a zombie. That can only be done through another ritual, done on your corpse, by a bokar. That lack of spreading through bites pretty much seems to be the case with all magical zombies. A curse will raise ANY dead, as long as the head is mostly intact, being bitten has nothing to do with it. So your definition of what a ‘True Zombie’ is doesn’t even fit with this game at all. It actually mentions the fact that you have to be ‘bitten’ and ‘infected’ to be turned into a zombie. (look at the article above if you don’t believe me)
~MUST READ~
I believe many people have a misconception of what a zombie is. Zombies are created only by magic or some other supernatural force. INFECTED are created when a LIVING individual contracts a disease (be it virus, bacteria, parasite, etc.) that causes them to act in abnormal ways i.e. kill others. Excellent examples of infected (infectees) are those in the movie The Crazies. Unlike zombies, they still need food, and are capable of running, and even sprinting. Of course, many people have begun to confuse the two, zombie and infected. Even so there is a third kind that is mistaken, Un-dead infected. Un-dead infected those who have died and have then been reanimated by a pathogen, appear to be zombies, but are actually infected (due to their no supernatural origins). Un-dead infected and zombies (zombies being used in its correct context) SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO WALK BECAUSE THEY ARE OF DEAD FLESH THERFOR THEY HAVE REDUCED PHYSICAL CAPABILITY. On the other hand infected MAY be able to run if they have the energy to sustain it elevated levels of physical activity i.e. recently consumed nutrients (another factor is what the individual was physically capable of before being infected).
I guess I will repeat myself a bit here too.
You are talking about a religious view, while it did spark the creation of the zombie horror genre, it has long ago become standard that a Zombie is any corpse that has been brought back to life, whether the method of reanimation be through disease, voodoo, occult, satanism, or ancient curse from a Haitian deity or the Goddess Ishtar.
an infected person however is still alive, the disease just increases the levels of certain chemicals in the brain to achieve the required effect. ie adrenalin for aggression.
I have officially given up on trying to show people the logic of zombies in this comments section. Regardless of what I say, or the real world research and evidence I provide, people get stuck on the ‘definition’ of what makes a ‘true zombie’ and ignore the mechanics of how they work and survive.
I really hope that zombies remain a fictional thing. Because if everyone is this busy yelling “THEY ARE NOT ZOMBIES!!! THEY ARE INFECTED!!!” when I try to explain to them that some moron developed a disease that kills you and brings you back to life. and that some are faster than others because the disease brought them back a few minutes faster. They won’t survive long enough to be bitten, I will just kill them and loot their corpses.
Honestly, I don’t really care HOW they turned, that detail is worthless unless there is some link to a cure in that knowledge. Be the reason viral, bacterial, or parasitic, from a Vodou bokor, witch of the occult, small child, the Goddess Ishtar, or any ruler of the underworld or hell, or if it is merely a draugr. The only important things anyone needs to know is if it is alive or dead, if it can spread its condition to its victims; If a disease, is it airborne, waterborne, or just transmitted by body fluids, what is the incubation period, and will it kill you to turn you, or will you turn only after you die of another cause. And the two most important questions, Can it run and how do you kill it?
I have already told you how diseased undead zombies are limited, and it was completely within the bounds of this topic, but that is merely of academic value in a survival situation, and none of it really makes any difference in any argument until the makers’ of the game tell us where these zombies came from. Only they can tell us if their undead are of mundane or supernatural origins.
All I know is… whether a zombie runs, walks, sprints, swims or flies, there is absolutely no correct answer! If a screen writer wanted to have his zombies shoot lasers out their asses, then by all means he may have it so! A zombie’s abilities are completely dependent on what the story is trying to portray. Whether it is more of an action shoot em’ up movie, or more of an allegory to the struggle of the human race, it doesn’t matter. Blanketed statements like “all zombies should run” or vise versa completely disregard the fact that different zombie movies have completely different themes! At its most basic level, zombies are a plot vehicle. How they are used and portrayed, directly effects weather the movie is a horror, action, drama, etc. Also, how a zombie comes into existence has a lot to do with this. As far as I’m concerned, there is no perfect zombie, there is no holy grail of the Undead! It all depends on the story, the characters, and the writer. Also, the truth is, zombies are purely fictional. We will never see a real life example (and thus will never witness any possible, true zombie(s)). The closest thing man has experience to it is rabies, and the fact of the matter is, governments and world agencies do a dame good job of controlling disease. Such a thing like a “zombie apocalypse” would be under control in a number of days. As human technology advances, so does our defense against disease. As time progresses, the chances of a world pandemic grow smaller and smaller. Zombies will ultimately be confined to our imagination.
That is a lot of trust to governments when they have proven time and time again to fail in preparing for any disaster. For one both them and businesses operate on a managment principle known as just-in-time. Basically, deliver the goods and services on a as-needed basis. financially makes sense cause it helps save money and prevent things going to waste, but it is heavily dependent on constant, reliable transportation and is predicted that it could only be maintained for a limited time if the absentee rates rise above 25%, which would go through the roof if a mass infection happened that causes thousands of people to not show up for work. So manageable suppiles for the masses alone is cut off just like that. In the book “Disasters Response and Homeland Security”, written by James F. Miskal, he observes that government typically deals with past failures by adopting a narrow focus on specific problems and generating a targeted solution, which ends up failing because no two catastrophes are ever the same. Plus also have to consider the fact that if a widespread infection happened, the general population would go into a mass panic that even the government would have trouble controlling. If a Zombie apocalypse were to ever happen, it wouldnt be the zombies to worry about, it would be the people as they go into a panic that will lead to the downfall of society.
george romero created the modern zombie in night of the living dead those were slow and therefore zombies should be slow because that’s how they were originally
and dont give me that crap about zobies originating from voodoo as those weren’t zombies but the inspiration for them
Ya the Voodoo zombies werent actually reanimated corpses, but were people that were tranced into a coma and then woken up and told that their souls had been taken from their bodies, then regularly fed hallucinogenic drug datura, or “zombie cucumber,” to keep them under control. They were still living people that had to feed, drink, sleep, etc on a regular basis like us and were simply used as labour slaves. Other than the fact they share the name “zombie,” there is no connection between Voodoo Zombies and Modernized Zombies.
I know how to stop all this fightingz, backstory. if the “zombies” are fast then it is likely a virus.
However how did the original zombie start, hmmm? backstory can save people lives.
I just readed couple posts and i picked some ideas that i personally like
Why not make zombies that are mostly slow but some of them are fast that die even without shot in the head and would randomly fight with eachother like normal creatures fighting over food and stuff.
i also think that it would be fun if there would be ”special zombies” but nothing too hard to kill like smarter ones that work in the pack or bigger ones that would act as bullet sponges or some kind of stalkers that hide in bushes and jump behind corners that would be lot like the new age zombies.
slow zombies are deffinetly my favorite but i understand how movies like resident evil tend to use the faster zombies just to get more action in it, in games, slow zombies would be best though.
Fast Zombie = Action Shoot em’ Up
Slow Zombie = Suspense + Deeper plot theme and meaning
Personally being a runner, specifically a long distance runner, I am certain I could out run a fast zombie apocalypse on foot… but I prefer slow zombies, just because they are classic, timeless, and their application as a plot vehicle tends to create a story that is ultimately more enjoyable and meaningful. I totally agree jory60, slow is the way to go. Although, I wouldn’t mind a mix of fast and slow like Suggestion stated. I think it hasn’t been done before. It would be interesting to see how it would turn out.
Slow zombies are based on the hypothetical biomechanical functions on nucrotic flesh under mobile pressure, and fast zombies suck. Copyrighted by Max Brooks, auther of “Zombie Survival Guide” and “World War Z”
THANK GOD! SOMEBODY ELSE REALIZES ZOMBIES SHOULDN’T RUN!
If you think about it, running zombies make no sense. So you’re saying that a virus took a recently deceased corpse, reused its dead cells (how did it reanimate them in the first place), and somehow got the ability to run? I’ll believe in fast zombies as soon as this game gets a happy ending. But who knows? Maybe it could happen. Murphy’s law still exists, right?
Sometimes slow zombies are good sometimes fast zombies are good like if u randomly had just 1 fast zombie chase u u would have to decide how to lose it weather to kill it, outsmart it or just let it chase u or something.
Also i know this isn’t the place 4 it but may i suggest putting in a story where you have to prepare 4 the oncoming zombie horde that will eventually turn up in the city.
So instead of spawning in where there are allot of zombies u spawn in with no zombies in the town and you have to prepare in the first day or 2 for the zombies arrival, in which there are allot more zombie then and its harder to survive as sort of a hardcore kind of mode or something
also id favor the slow zombie as they r easier to kill than the fast zombies
History of Zombies:
Religion/Voodoo. These religions ARE STILL AROUND TODAY. These zombies are mindless slaves to shamans. (Reference: White Zombie)
Romero. The first and most shocking zombie film ever. It was an innovation off of the original shaman zombies. Slow moving, “fear” of fire, can use simple weapons but have an extremely short attention span. (Reference: Night of the Living Dead, World War Z)
28 Days later. Not zombies. Another branch that came after Romero. No-where does the infected act at all like a zombie.
Rules of being a zombie
1) Reanimates
2) Mindless
3) Consumes Flesh
Until Nazi Zombies, zombies were just known by cults of these movies. After Nazi Zombies FPS shooters of zombies blew up.
In my opinion COD is shit. I prefer good ‘ole strategy. If I wanted to mow down countless hordes of undead corpses I woulda buried all the people I murdered in the Pet Semetary. Hehehe
My favorite zombies are Romero. World War Z has the same “class” of these.
What I like most about it is the fact that the zombies aren’t degrading. If anyone has played the saggiturian series, you would know that it doesn’t take long for a corpse to decompose. SO WHY THE HELL ARE THESE THINGS STILL AROUND AFTER A YEAR. World War Z also hinted at that. The Canadian girl busting up the frozen corpses before they thawed out. The sub captain when he went to the bottom of the ocean, the scientists in space…
It adds the good ‘ole mystery to it.
Also, in L4D Francis calls them vampires. Think of that.
Why no one mentions Dead Island? Other than being an excellent game, it gives a good example of the different types of ‘zombies’. You have big, slow zombies who can’t walk fast, you have regular zombies who still can’t run and you have the infected ones who can chase you down, etc… Dead island is also more of a sandbox/survival game (such as Project Zomboid) than Left 4 Dead
Dead Island Is Shit, Not Just My Opinion
*Dead Island Is Really Great, Not Just My Opinion
Problem with the idea of fast zombies has many issues, mainly because they are DEAD. They are reanimated corpses and under no circumstances should be able to run after someone like they were a track star. Quoted from the UK newspaper “The Guardian” back in 2008, in a opinion piece written by Simon Pegg (writer and star of “Shaun of the Dead”), “A biological agent, I’ll buy. Some soft of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It’s hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.” There is a reason in most films, when they run they are considered “infected” not zombies. Even George A. Romero himself argues that zombies can’t run.
taking into acount that zombie only just have the motor skill to walk and keep their balance, how is it going to run? Also it’s body has basicly shut down and is always in a sate of decomposation do you think even if its mind was capable of running dose that mean its body would? I mean even though they dont feel pain dont you think that running would screw up their muscles so bad they wouldnt be able to use them?
just trying to put my point across so dont get annoyed at me and sorry for spelling mistakes
Zombies should not be fast for roughly the same reason Vampires should not sparkle.
Vampires represent an anemic, yet deadly section of the population: the bourgeoisie. They are largely incompetent, but posses unparallelled ability to kill their enemy with seduction.
Zombies represent the idiotic masses. Individually they are no threat at all. Collectively they are unstoppable.
Anything that betrays those key points, fails the entire metaphor.
aaalo kako da skinem ovooooooooooooo
I think running zombies are completely bullshit. If a person is dead (e.g. a zombie), their body no longer respirates and therefore, where does the energy to run come from? They slump around and grab/bite people. That’s it.
Honestly, this discussion is just one more of all those senseless, idiotic, stupid things the world doesn’t need.
It’s the same stupid kind of discussion like “What’s better, X-Box or Playstation, Dead Island or Left4ead, Metal or Rap or Pop, Madonna or Lady Gaga, 50 Cent or Snoop Dog, Action or Comedy, Red or Blue, Cow or Chicken, Cat or Dog, Jewish are bad or good”, the kind that starts war and other terrible things.
there are those who love slow walking Zombies, there are those who love fast, running Zombies and there are also those people who like both, as I do.
Both have their good, scary elements, for example I like the fast ones more because they are much more dangerous, if one sees you you are already screwed, and yes, for me they are scarier. Someone else might find slow Zombies more scary, because of the thought that you can’t evade them forever.
And people, really, what’s your Problem anyway? If you don’t like fast Zombies, ignore them, it’s not like you have to watch them. There will always Movies and games and all with only slow Zombies, just watch them! Me hopes there also will be many more with fast Zombeis, deal with that and grow up, your’e supposed to be tolerant adults, not racist little children
Many thanks for developing the effort to discuss this, I feel strongly about this and like studying a great deal more on this subject. If feasible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating projectzomboid.com having a great deal much more info? It is very beneficial for me.
If zombies are black magic then isn’t this game an infection game or is this some kind of black magic virus? (i’m no zombie expert this is just going on other peoples replies)
It’s nice, love you so much.
It’s good, thank you so much.
i guess i really don’t care which type of zombie it is, but personally i never understood the practicallity of slow zombies. it seems like that type of outbreak would never get any further than the local area of the initial outbreak, and that’s pretty generous. My bet is the infection stops spreading when the first two cops arrive on-scene.
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I wish you guys would make a 3D FPS/3rd PS game just like this, slow zombies, barricades, starving etc. I’m waiting for the update that contains online multiplayer, it will be awesome, just as it is now! Good job!
Totally worth 5,99€! (I’m just waiting for the online “patch”
I really liked this post and totally agree with it being more fun to be surrounded due to accidentally tripping the burglar alarm. That drew a great image in my head.
I’m also impressed at the traction this post continues to get after so long! Well done! Sign of a great blog and I hope I can reach that point (hopefully sometime soon). Thanks for the great post!