History VideoGame / ProjectZomboid

* ChubbyChef: An overweight/obese Survivor with the Chef or Burger Flipper occupation is this.

** The [[DropTheHammer sledgehammer]], at least as far as being a weapon. It deals massive damage but its weight makes it impractical to carry around. Its main use is to break down walls and doors, and it is the only way to access some locations and hidden loot.

* DropTheHammer: You can fight with several flavours of hammers, from basic clawhammers to heavy duty sledgehammers. All are essential for [[MundaneUtility more hammery tasks]], but they can also make productive holes in zombie skulls.

* ImprovisedWeapon: This can be considered a core of the game, since very few of the combat-ready items were meant to be weapons, firearms excepted. [[BatterUp Baseball bats]], a [[DropTheHammer hammer]], and [[TwoByFore boards of wood]] can be used as weapons. Get some nails, and you can have yourself a spiked bat (more damage, but it'll break faster). Get an empty bottle, a rag, a torn sheet, or a sock, along with some gasoline, and you have a MolotovCocktail.

[[caption-width-right:350:Oh, it's such a perfect day...]]

''Project Zomboid'' is an isometric real-time zombie survival WesternRPG being developed for [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]] by The Indie Stone, a British and Canadian team of four developers. It takes inspiration from games like ''VideoGame/SurvivalCrisisZ'' and ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}''. The team was at first known for [[http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/project-zomboid-burglary-statement/ having]] [[http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/warning-how-google-checkout-screwed-project-zomboid/ extremely]] [[http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/warning-how-destiny-and-webhosting-screwed-project-zomboid/ bad]] [[http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/05/things-can-only-get-better-surely/ luck]] as it rushed to meet the schedule to release a [[http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/06/free-public-demo-released/ demo]] in 2011. On 8th November, 2013, the game secured an Early Access launch on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and it remains actively worked on in Early Access to this day. In December 2021 it received a major update reimplementing online multiplayer, which gave it a ''significant'' resurgence in popularity.

** The Fire Officer profession gives you a boost to your fitness and carrying capacity with no traits points malus, allowing you to make a well-rounded character who can easily change gears in survival strategy.

** The game will automatically perform certain small manual actions on your behalf, such as inserting a car key into the ignition when you try to start the engine, or automatically chambering the first round of a newly inserted magazine. This saves you from forgetting an important step in a crucial situation, though less crucial actions are still left to the player (removing the key or emptying the chamber, for instance).

** Uninstalling car parts bypasses the usual 50-unit encumbrance limit for the player's inventory, which massively cuts down on the amount of inventory juggling that would otherwise need to be done when working on cars.

* ATeamFiring: Starting without a single rank in Aiming skills means your character only has the default hit chance of the weapon, which tend to be ''at best'' 50%, and that is further slashed by distance from the target. Result? You can blast an entire drum from a revolver into a zed 10 tiles away from you, miss all six shots and get your face eaten out. Oh, and the only way to improve this skill is through practice, which involves spending irreplaceable ammo and making a lot of ruckus, while it only provides experience upon a successful hit.

** ''Home Invaders 2'' is a parody of ''Film/HomeAlone2''.
** ''Pleistocene Park'' is a parody of ''Film/JurassicPark'' but with mammoths instead of dinosaurs.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lou_0.jpg]]

** Indie Stone has previously had to fix or add zombie behaviors that resulted in players making areas inaccessible with otherwise overly-simplistic means. As mentioned with AbsurdlyIneffectiveBarricade, cars can be used as a method of barricading areas, but this previously resulted in areas becoming inaccessible to zombies as they previously didn't have the ability to crawl under them. This had even happened with TVs and microwaves, as a programming oversight resulted in them being unable to break or walk over them.

* NoisyGuns: Although many people still acknowledge how powerful they can be, guns are widely-regarded are being more dangerous to the player than the zombies; as even zombies currently inside of buildings can get attracted to gunshots.

* AKA47: Firearm names in general, and pistols in particular, are clearly stand-ins for real-life models. Some are close enough to their real name you might not even notice it's this trope in action.

** Somewhat, at least. The map doesn't reflect the location or cities of real-life Knox County, Kentucky (itself made up of much smaller towns than in the fictional version). The map does, however, give realistic distances for existing (or based off existing areas) in a different region of Kentucky.

** Somewhat, at least. The map doesn't reflect the location or cities in real-life Knox County, Kentucky (itself made up of much smaller towns than in the fictional version). Suggestions have been made that the developers simply were unaware that Knox County was a real location.

* DaylightHorror: You can get horribly eaten alive and zombified in the daytime just as you can at night!

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The apocalypse doesn't truly start until one week into the game. At the start, the outbreak is confined to Knox County and everyone outside is still safe. Essential services like water, electricity, and T.V stations continue to function. Eventually, however, the virus will break containment and spread across the world, causing all semblance of modern society to disappear altogether. That being said, right from the start there are already hordes of zombies roaming around, given that you are at the ground zero of the outbreak.

* OneWomanWail: The soundtrack as a whole is rife with these, just a few examples being the title theme and the death theme

* OneWomanWail: The music that plays when you die features one of these if you listen for a short while, and the title theme has one too.

* OneWomanWail: The music that plays when you die features one of these if you listen for a short while.

** A wooden frame for walls isn't stopping the zombies in any meaningful way... but it still works like a fence, tripping them over, while not slowing the player in any real way during crossing and not risking injuries like in case of fence-jumping. This allows you to use them as an additional defense measure, since it's far easier and safer to kill zombies that are on the ground than those still walking toward you. A wooden frame is also ''far'' more durable than a fence, so there is far less risk of it breaking down when a horde pours over it

* RunDontWalk: Inverted. The character used to be only able to walk, until the developers realized the game wouldn’t be so dark running around like Benny Hill.

** Walk right next to an innocuous looking tree? The branches can scratch you up and cause bleeding.

** For a further aversion, one can also enable the starter kit setting, in which case you'll start with a baseball bat and hammer (both being decent weapons, with the latter necessary for carpentry), chips and a water bottle, and a school bag to store your stuff.