Video Game / Zombie Exodus

Welcome to the Cathedral.

Zombie Exodus is an independently produced Interactive Fiction game written by Jim Dattilo. It is hosted by Choice of Games' user-submitted label Hosted Games.

The game begins as the player character wakes up in their apartment at the beginning of the Zeta virus epidemic. From there, you must make your way across town to reach your sister, Emma, then find refuge with a group of survivors living in a cathedral on the outskirts of the city. Tensions rise as you must find a way to deal with the ever-present zombie threat, as well as the moral ambiguities you and your fellow survivors face in the following months after the initial outbreak.

The main site for the game is here. A sequel/spinoff called Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven has also been released.

A Character Sheet is under construction here.

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This series contains the following tropes:

• Abandoned Play Ground: One of the areas where you find Cassie is in an abandoned playground.
• Action Survivor: Almost all of the Cathedral's occupants are this from having been thrown into the Zombie Apocalypse from relatively normal lives.

• Batter Up!: A spiked bat is one of the weapons you can take on missions.

• Blame Game: The survivors engage in this while discussing who could have helped Carl escape the Cathedral. Or who killed him, as the case may be.
• Bloodstained Glass Windows: The battle against the Zombie Exodus happens in the Cathedral.
• Boom, Headshot!: One of the few ways to put a zombie down for good.
• Cock Fight: Carl and Candace are in a relationship, but Carl suspects (correctly) that Jason is seeing her behind his back. The two men eventually come to blows over it.
• Crapsack World: Of course any world with a zombie apocalypse in it is usually one.
• Crazy-Prepared: Encouraged, as you usually don't know what could come in handy in the course of the mission you're on.
• Disposing of a Body: If the Protagonist kills Carl, he/she and Emma can get rid of the body before anyone else finds out what happened.
• Driven to Suicide: Par for the course in the Zombie Apocalypse.
• Dysfunction Junction: The survivors generally work well together at first, but increasing tensions, suspicions, and stress eventually takes its toll.
• Everyone Is Armed: The survivors you encounter are this.
• Gay Option: A Choice of Games staple.
• Guns in Church: Justified. Tom and Carl bought the Cathedral prior to the Zombie Apocalypse and turned it into a safehouse.
• Haunted House: Tom and Carl originally bought the Cathedral so that they could turn it into a "haunted" tourist attraction. Weirdly enough, it becomes an actual haunted house with the addition of Cassie.
• Humans Are Bastards: You can encounter a group of bandits who are this.
• Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: You can happen upon zombies dressed in beachwear and cheerleading outfits.
• In Medias Res: Technically, the entire game is a flashback the Protagonist is experiencing while bleeding on the ground in a shack.
  • Though it's an odd case, as the shack scene is entirely skippable. Word of God says the intro scene is simply there to hook the reader.
• Interactive Fiction: This game is one of these.
• The Load: Any of the Non-Action Guys like Uncle Lou, Candace, Jason, and Eugene.
  • Though Candace eventually subverts this and becomes a top-notch Action Girl.
• Love Triangle: Between Carl, Candace, and Jason. It's also possible for the PC to lead both Heather and Mindy on for a time.
• The Many Deaths of You: See Non-Standard Game Over.
• Meaningful Funeral: Can be held in Part V.
• Mercy Kill: The Protagonist or Mindy can shoot Dave instead of letting him suffer a drawn out, painful death.
• Nightmare Sequence: A few of these separate some of the game's chapters.
• Non-Standard Game Over: It's possible for the Player Character to die many, many times.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Averted entirely.
• Only One Name: Nearly all of the named characters in the game. The Player Character, Emma, and Crone are the only characters with a given last name.
• Optional Stealth: Encouraged in the Military Depot and Fuel Ship missions, particularly for PCs with low strength and dexterity, but not enforced.
• Pants-Positive Safety: Multiple characters, but Devlin is the prime offender.
• Plague Zombie: All victims were infected with Virus Zeta and turned.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Ways to kill the zombies.
• Romance Sidequest: There are four people that you have the option of pursuing.
• Second-Person Narration: This is the style of telling the story.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Interestingly enough, the player character begins to see Cassie and even interacts with her around Chapter IV. This overlaps with Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane at some points.
  • It's possible for Dave and Candace to see her as well.
• Timed Mission: The fuel run.
• Time Skip: This happens several times in parts of the game.
• Title Drop: Zombie Exodus is an In-Universe theory stating that as non-infected food sources within heavily populated areas deplete, zombie hordes will migrate to other areas in search of food. It's a source of concern for the Cathedral survivors, so it's mentioned more than once.
• Virus-Victim Symptoms: When an infectee turns, their skin turns yellow and develops small green blotches all over their body.
• Wham Line:
  Player Character: "I thought this van was in working condition."
  Uncle Lou: "It was... Tom fixed it up before we left."
• Wham Episode: The third chapter of Part V.
• World of Badass: Several characters are this.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One Even if the PC opposes Uncle Lou's plan to leave the Cathedral, even though they're the official leader of the group at this point, even if they helped Carl escape and learned that Tom was out to get them, even if they know from River and Starr that bandits are holed up in the truck depot, even if they have a terrible relationship with Tom or Uncle Lou, even if they came to blows with Tom (and almost killed him) earlier, even if they rudely decline Tom's repeated requests, they'll end up going on Uncle Lou's mission to steal a big rig. The PC can't even tell Tom to do it himself.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The premise of the game.

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