First game in years I can not play

[Maze ♡]

I have 80 titles in my library and played them all at least 100 hours. I play games since I am 5 years old. From surivival to rpg to simulators, even shooter. Yet, I can not figure out how to not die instantly when leaving my starter house in this game because I am not able to kill even one single zombie with this clunky keybord movement mechanics or whatever player torture mechanism this is meant to be.

By all means, we are living in the year of 2023. Gaming should be fun and intuitive not make you suffer depression because you can not manage to navigate a single attack without breaking your fingers first. Press right mouse and left mouse and swift and at the same time press this key and that key. God forbid that our game provides autofacing for people. No matter if older gamer or simply gamer with mobility issues or bad hand - brain coordination, This game is absolutly not user friendly. How the f... can a developer think this is ok?

I bought Project Zomboid 2 days ago and it certainly is a cool game when it comes down to the survival aspect, but its literally unplayable for me and certainly for others. I have played over the 2 hours mark so I can not give it back to steam. For me this is a big waiste of money and a big disappointment.

I do not care what people might think about that post that do not have any disabilities or a bad hand-brain coordination since, sorry to say this, you simply have no problem with the game and therefor do not understand the problem.

[Bash Arkin]

If you can't press 3 buttons at the same time, maybe you should refund.

[Spada]

Omg cry more cry me a damn river
Just get gud…
How do you think we play?
I survived with my character for almost 1 year now and i play with NPC’s which means raider and there are a lot of raiders who can shoot you dead in one second…

[TankGoodness]

Things to know:
Crowbars and machete are great weapons.
Keep a can opener on you all the time
Get some back pack, school bag, duffel bag, hiking bag to carry important items in
Do not take unnecessary risks or fight more than one zombie at a time
get a good working vehicle.
Spend the first 9 days watching TV the Life and Living channel it will increase your skills fast
You will need a wrist watch you can find on dead zombies to keep track of time as those TV shows come on at 6 am 12 noon 6 pm and midnight After 9 days the shows stop playing so take advantage of it.
Find a good place to stay and one that could easily secure, like fences and 2nd floor buildings
Keep an eye out for generators and a book on how to use generators
increase your carpentry skills thru TV shows, VHS tapes, books and practice as the more you use your skills the more you increase them. Build stuff with planks nails and get a saw and axe to chop trees and saw logs into planks which will increase your carpentry skills as well.
You will need the generator to hook up to a house to have power and gas to power the generator and another generator to power a gas station to get gas when power shuts off
You can boil rain water so it is drinkable. Use pots, empty bottles and bowls to capture rain water and you can build containers to capture rain water and or find water dispensers to bring back to your base, they are refillable
good luck

[TankGoodness]

You can also try different key mapping
I hate using WASD myself and remapped the movement keys to the arrow keys then remapped others like reloading and opening doors to neighbouring keys
You will get the hang of it eventually

[ClonesClownsandBones]

Literal skill issue

[Dylan the Conquerer]

Messaggio originale di TankGoodness:

Things to know:
Crowbars and machete are great weapons.
Keep a can opener on you all the time
Get some back pack, school bag, duffel bag, hiking bag to carry important items in
Do not take unnecessary risks or fight more than one zombie at a time
get a good working vehicle.
Spend the first 9 days watching TV the Life and Living channel it will increase your skills fast
You will need a wrist watch you can find on dead zombies to keep track of time as those TV shows come on at 6 am 12 noon 6 pm and midnight After 9 days the shows stop playing so take advantage of it.
Find a good place to stay and one that could easily secure, like fences and 2nd floor buildings
Keep an eye out for generators and a book on how to use generators
increase your carpentry skills thru TV shows, VHS tapes, books and practice as the more you use your skills the more you increase them. Build stuff with planks nails and get a saw and axe to chop trees and saw logs into planks which will increase your carpentry skills as well.
You will need the generator to hook up to a house to have power and gas to power the generator and another generator to power a gas station to get gas when power shuts off
You can boil rain water so it is drinkable. Use pots, empty bottles and bowls to capture rain water and you can build containers to capture rain water and or find water dispensers to bring back to your base, they are refillable
good luck

Just playing after years off gaming, a lot of this still is true from then. Didn't know about the TV shows and cars. Gas/Generators working sound awesome, looks like i'll need to try that out!

[Kaldrak]

If keyboard/mouse doesn't work for you, you could try using a controller. Might be easier. This game uses a few different key combinations, it's true, but doesn't hold a patch on games like WOW.

[Dragon]

I'll echo many other peoples stuff here

Use sandbox (it doesnt mean you can do whatever you like, it just means you can customize the game)
Turn the Zombies down to Shamblers that are weak
Turn down the pop multiplier to half
Turn down or off the migration groups

Youll find it becomes a much more chill game

[Puppers]

Messaggio originale di EnigmaGrey:

You don’t have to hold rmb, ctrl works as well. It’s just convenient.

lmaooo duuude i have like 2600 hours and didnt know this haha.

[eternal slumber party]

Hold right click to strafe / aim, move your mouse to face the zombie, press left click to attack. If you can't master that complicated series of inputs then maybe try board games.

[Jethro]

Messaggio originale di Dydimos:

You should thank God you didn't play battletoads on the NES in the 90's. xD

Bro…..the hover bike map…..?!? Just thinking about that puts me in a rage.

[coolman552]

Games have stopped being mindless dopamine dispensers a decade ago buddy. Videogames are an art form now, they do not have an inherent duty to feed your brain with feel-good chemicals, plenty of extremely good games are basically what the average joe would call "torture sims". Pathologic 1/2, Project Zomboid, Far Cry 2, CDDA and other examples proves that you do not need a game to be "fun" for the mainstream audience. The right people you cater to will find and enjoy the value of soul-crushing gameplay and a bleak/oppressive message be it aesthetically and/or metaphorically.


Try approaching the game from a humble mindset, accept that you are a mere ant going through the apocalypse and eventually the post apocalypse all alone against the world. And by world I mean THE WORLD, be it zombies, nature or the remnants of a bygone age of human dominance (alarms, fellow humans firing weapons off camera, confined buildings etc.) you must bite back and bite back hard, but never overestimate your position in the food chain.

[eternal slumber party]

Messaggio originale di Jethro:

Messaggio originale di Dydimos:

You should thank God you didn't play battletoads on the NES in the 90's. xD

Bro…..the hover bike map…..?!? Just thinking about that puts me in a rage.

I loved Battletoads and I was a rage-filled child, but yeah, that game never made me break anything.

[SuperBeasto]

agreed this game is boring af idk how ppl enjoy this, my friend keeps asking me to play this with him, i rather play fortnite

[fractalgem]

So let me get this straight op:

1. You decided to pick up a game meant to be hard
2. The game tells you "this is the story of how you died
3. You got salty you died
4. People presented myraids of solutions to the problem, such as slowing the zombies down
5. you still whine about how "yeah that's exactly what I expected from your posts".

While the zomboid controls ARE rather non intuitive, OP, if you refuse to be helped, then we can't help you.