So when we first started making Project Zomboid, we didn’t think for a moment we were being ‘original’. Zombies, right? GROAN, NOT ZOMBIES AGAIN.
Since releasing, however, we’ve received a lot of praise for ‘doing zombies right’ or being ‘true survival’ and this has been wonderful if surprising. However one thing we didn’t do, when we started making this game, is any research whatsoever, and it turned out when we were looking for a name for our game we found a whole bunch of other zombie survival games that already existed, or were currently in development. So yeah, we were far from the first to try something like this 
So we just thought we’d link a few of them here:
Rogue Survivor
Fans of roguelikes should definitely check this one out. Like a lot of roguelikes this game has a lot of depth to it already. Updates have been slow of late, however development is still active as far as we’re aware and it already has a whole bunch of cool features. If he keeps this up Rogue Survivor should eclipse PZ in features and size due to the roguelike graphics and no real-time performance restrictions. It’s also free!
Dead State
In development, and written by Brian Mitsoda of Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines fame (one of Binky’s favourite ever games), with sexy turn-based combat (one of Lemmy’s favourite ever game mechanics) it’s basically a 3D isometric, more RPG orientated zombie survival game. They have had the game in development for some time, and since they’re not going for the alpha release style have been pipped to the post by us starting development and releasing our unfinished alpha during development of their game. We’d feel bad, but both games clearly have their own unique selling points and we suspect Dead State will be big upon release, and we personally can’t wait to play it! It’s not currently available for pre-purchase, but as soon as it is we’ll be putting our money down on this one.
Survival Crisis Z
By Ska Studios – A very different game in style and focus, more actiony, less Brooks/Romero inspired, but one that shares a lot in common with our Zomboid. The #1 cited ‘hey this Zomboid thing looks like…’ game when we first released info and screenshots of ours. It’s great fun and got a rather funky style to it, and is free. we’ve also just discovered it’s by the guy who made I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1 which is awesome!
There is also a new zombie survival game announced subsequent to Project Zomboid, called The Dead Linger who have just announced their alpha and made it available for pre-purchase at $20. The game seems like a 3D version of Project Zomboid in concept, with a few notable distinctions such as an infinite (presumably random) world, more ‘out of the box’ multiplayer instead of it being an end-game, zombie animals and no friendly NPCs.
Seems very exciting, and we hope to see what they have soon (FPS zombie survival would be really cool!), however at this time there doesn’t seem to be any game screenshots, and our own decision to avoid (our comfort zone) of 3D was because we deemed such a concept very very ambitious and time consuming to do in 3D, so we’ll wait and see what they come up with but we’ll definitely be keeping our eye on it and wish them the best of luck with it!
I can’t believe Sanswept are selling a pre-order for a game with nothing to show for it except some concept art.
I can draw a picture of a zombie; give me £20 for it.
Exactly what i thought wtf?
Chill guys, everyone starts off with a seed of an idea, Project Zomboid started off this way if I recall when I first started tracking them.
but dude, its £20 for pictures…
No, it’s not. It’s $20 given in good faith to help the company and support them as they develop their game. I’ll admit, they’ve opened the doors a little early, and they won’t get my money til they’ve got something to show, but it is definitely NOT $20 for pictures.
Also, at the conversion rate as of this second, it’s £12.9903871. Now, call me crazy, but £12 is a good deal for, eventually, a first person zombie game where the emphasis is on survival.
Sandswept dev here.
The only thing we’ve said is that we are planning to sell it for $20 when the alpha is made available. The Project Zomboid post is misleading, as we never said it was available for pre-order. We will have tons more video and screenshots long before we ever allow anyone to purchase it.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Survivor Zero is the game made from Reddit… not Dead Linger.
There is also a game called Class3 from Undead Labs in association with Microsoft for XBLA.
Whoops! Thanks, we’ve removed that. Will add Survivor Zero to the list too.
even so, it does sound awesome. alot like that class3 game that’s coming out at some point in the next year (maybe) although undeadlabs have released some video footage of that.
I would definitely be interested in getting the dead linger and would love to hear a bit more about it.
It does seem like they’ve gone a little far a little early though, their forum has a second for fan made videos and support when they haven’t released a screenshot yet…
would love to support further though as soon as a little more info is released. following on twitter now so will watch the space
One I like particularly : “Survivor : the living dead”
It’s free, relatively short, but this one too did it right, just like project zomboid
It would be realistic in the early days of the game to have people selling things for RL money (NPCs anyway). People sometimes don’t realize that the world is never going to recover until it’s too late. Hell, I’d be writing personal checks and giving my credit card number to anyone stupid enough to take them.
Then as the days/weeks progress NPCs get smarter and only accept trade for goods. Another way to make the moderate-to-late game more challenging and progressively OMG I’m So Fuqqed.
PLEASE ! Dont make stores where people sell things for money ( No owner of a gun-store would sell his guns for money !)
Selling guns for food or other supplies, now that’s something. Like the Hypochondriac mod someone made where a guy asks you to go get 10 tissues and he’ll give you a bunch of supplies.
sure , that would be ok , but i would hat if there would be people who sell weapons for Money . Nobody would do that , but its in Resident Evil , Dead Rinsing and Last Stand 3 . All good Zombie games , but no “realistic”
trade some things is ok . But there should be normal gun-stores which you can loot and people who trade do it only for things they really need , not money . Dead Rising , Resident Evil , Last Stand 3 , all good zombie games , but who would sell Chainsaws for 1 Million dollars ? A survival-game no-go in my point of view !
Dead Linger seems interesting, but I’m gonna wait until they have more to show before I give my money to anybody.
And don’t think for one second that there aren’t people out there trying to capitalize on others giving money away for “Alpha’ version games. At least Minecraft & PZ HAD content to offer for their alphas. Even if it was essentially nothing.
I got another game for you guys CLASS 3 OUTBREAK its a zombie strategy game where it uses GOOGLE MAPS so you can survive in your own back yard it is currently under development by a group of 2 PEOPLE its a pretty awesome game you guys should test it out.
HELL YEAH Binary Space FTW!!!!!!!!!
For you guys with Android phones, you should check out “Survival Trail”. Its basically a lite version of Project Zomboid, actually inspired by it. It has barricading, NPC’s, hunger, and overall is just a good game to pick up and play if you need to kill some time.
http://androidforums.com/application-announcements/417424-survival-trail-isometric-zombie-survival-horror-game.html
I’m the creator of that game, I actually made a post about it in the IndieStone forums in the indie development section http://theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4405 .
Although it’s not in the same league as Project Zomboid. Project Zomboid is a considerably more ambitious game than mine is.
You guys should also pay notice to Class3 by Undead Labs. It’s shaping up to be something quite great!
Ok. This is why i think Porject Zomboid is one of the bests if not THE best zombie game out there (zombie game+survival, because L4D2 is a good game but it isn’t about survival, it’s about blasting zombies.) I saw all those zombie games. I Didn’t like any of them unless for the “The dead linger” … still. No video, nothing. The rest sucked. That’s why i think you have the power to be a very popular indie game. Like minecraft or terraria, or primal carnage
. Just keep doing those updates and we will be happy 
. Also, you should make an update in where we can have more professions to choose from, and more items/weapons, and more stuff for crafting. And please, be able to open a barricaded door. But.. that’s just my toughts.
Hmm, I’ll confess that I am in fact waiting for dead state, but more so becasue it sounds like Fallout 2 with zombies
Absolutely loved Survival Crisis Z, even if the food/sleep requirements were so halfbaked and easy to manage its questionable as to how they even got there. Still, lots of fun for an ACTION zombiegame.
Rogue Survivor is yet another game I enjoyed quite a lot, despite not being huge on roguelikes. Very easy to tweak game settings and replace textures too.
I like this article; I’ll keep an eye on Dead Linger to see if it goes anywhere.
(Also, i was just lending my Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines to someone yesterday- coincidence? :p)
For those who can handle Ascii Graphics: Cataclysm is a pretty in-depth roguelike take on the concept, more complete and detailed that Rogue Survivor and also free.
http://whalesdev.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
just picked up Dead Pixel a side scrolling double dragon esk game with light RPG elements on Xbox live arcade. Have only played 30 min but will return to it especially as it has co-op. Definitely worth the 80msp i payed
Hello PZ team i just wanted to say im sorry for what i said during the “Dark Ages” I am currently trying to make a MC mod and ive only been working on it for FIVE MINUTES and my brains already cowering in fear and to think that you guys had to do this for over a month while people were bashing on you and calling you lazy? I sincerely apologize guys i think you guys deserve more then this.
Aw thanks
Fort Zombie is probably one of the best survival zombie games there is!
http://www.fortzombie.com/
Find a building, go on raids for supplies or survivors, and prepare for the final wave. Nothing like a group of 5 kids armed with guns against hordes of zombies.
That game is shit. The movement and combat is so clunky it is ridiculous. The barricading of a building and preparing your defenses is even worse.
There’s also a browser based game in 3D – Dead Frontier. It’s also in development and created by a small team (mostly 1 person).
May be worth checking for zombie fans
I actually reccomend checking this out, i played it for about 5 months and its really good for what it is. it also has a multiplayer aspect.
If you like to try to survive as long as you can with 39 other real players in a city , surrounded by zombies , try Die2Nite (eng) , Hordes.fr (french) or Die Verdamten ( german )
yeah, Class 3 looks great. Its gonna be released on Xbox live arcade with 2 player coop with the crysis engine and i think first-person, and looks like it will shape out to be a survival game such as this with scavenging and all. They said after making class 3, they will build on it and make a full game called Class 4 which will be a full release and an MMORPG…
Are you always going to have the download for the full game on the site? Because that makes it easier to get the full version of the game for free.
Not going to pay for a demo lol.
I’ve been looking for a WORKING fix for SCZ on Win7 for forever. Everyone’s passing around the same fix, and although it’s quite obvious that it only works for about 50% of the people who try it, nobody’s suggested anything different, leaving a lot of would-be survivors without a perfectly good zombie game. And it sure as hell doesn’t work for my Win7 64-bit.
Can anyone find a fix other than the dx7vb/dx8vb DLLs? I seem to recall that the problem with Vista and 7 is that their DirectX doesn’t support a certain vital function used by SCZ, or something along those lines…
I have been searching for a fix to. ;( When I find a fix for something then I get another error… Fixed the dx8vb thing now I get “Run-time error ’429′: ActiveX component can’t create object”
Two*
Since your avatar Rocks, i have something that may help you, right click SCZ.exe make a shortcut,
right click on the shortcut, and in the target box after the \Scz.exe” put one space apart from the ” then type -dxlevel70 (if that doesn’t work try dxlevel 7) it should look something like this
“D(or whatever)/blah/blah/blah/Scz.exe” -dxlevel70(or 7)
If it doesn’t work, I’m sorry.
For those who are interesting in Role Playing Pen and Paper style.
Outbreak:Undead has coined itself as a zombie simulation.
And for the most part it actually lives up to that claim.
Only problem is that they just kind of give you the rules and framing for zombies, but there’s no pre made campaigns or anything. You’ll have to do the grunt work.
Def. worth a check though.
In fact maybe Indie Stone could work with these guys if they want to put even more realism into Project Zomboid.
http://outbreakundead.com/
Nice yogscast reference.
so i looked at each of thoes games and i still like PZ the best, altho i think the dead linger will be good.
Cheers for the heads up! Some of these look really promising.
Not exactly indie developers but don’t forget about the guys over at undead labs either http://undeadlabs.com/ they’ve got big things planned for the zombie survival genre.
Minecraft is really a unique game. I have already been playing it for quite a while now and I’m not sure if I have fun with it. The gameplay takes a different approach, would you guys have any recommendations to spice it up? What about recommending some other servers to relax and play multiplayer? I appreciate your your help!
You should try different mods, there are loads of the out there to try..
Entertaining article, especially liked the words regarding gaming on the internet.
Entertaining info, entirely loved the words about addicting online games.
It would be irresponsible to fail to mention the amazing roguelike Cataclysm. For those who cannot bear ASCII there is a great tileset version by the gifted modder DEON.
Windows version: https://github.com/aposos/Cataclysm
This is interesting, thanks for sharing. Im gonna follow…
Stay with project zomboid. Whats rong with that? Its a project, u have a survive…and got zombies…you got what u need.I wish i could help more, but all i can do is stick my head on 3d
That dosen’t make any sense, my friend… It makes no sense…
Baby diaper bags now become popular in the market. Mothers who have cloth diapering their children must need this item absolutely. There are many functions and advantages using baby diaper bags, I have written on other article. petunia pickle bottom
has anyone tried using a virtual windows xp pc to run scz?
i love this type of games (where you have to mainly survive and not just to kill the zombies) but the problem is that i have already played (and liked) all of the games in the list. arent there any other games that are like this?