A Beginner's Guide: Tips and Tricks You Need to Know

Your First Steps in Crafting
The moment that you start the game you will find yourself by your shelter. Though you have just started the game, we recommend that you quickly set about restoring your vital indicators - sleep, hunger, thirst - otherwise you will not stay alive for long! To do this you simply need to sleep on the bed (located in your shelter), drink water from a water source (you have a surprisingly clean sink), and eat the apples that can be found by the trees. After taking care of your character, your next step is to collect the resources needed to craft the essential items, a crossbow to kill zombies, and a drawer to store your items.

Start by pressing 'C' on your keyboard to bring up the crafting menu, here you will see what resources you need to craft these two items. As you're just starting up, we can give you a helping hand, you need to collect stone and wood (branches) that can be found lying around near your shelter.

While collecting the resources, be sure to watch your vital indicators, if you get too tired, go to sleep, if you get too hungry, eat some apples, and of course, if you get too thirsty, go and get a drink!

You will notice that there are actual trees and larger stone/bounders and you can use a tool to break them to get more resources. The downside to this is that though you get an initial (large) lump of resources, you will not be able to get anything more from that area. Due to that, we recommend that you stick to collecting the branches and stones that spawn on the ground by these bigger deposits, and only smash the rocks/chop the trees as a last resort.

Zombie Hints
After you've settled in your shelter and got to know the immediate surroundings it will be time to head to the town and 'meet' the zombies. As this is a dangerous area, we recommend that you save the game before setting out, check all your vital indicators to make sure you're in top condition, and equip yourself with a gun and a crossbow as we can guarantee that at some point you will be running for your life from a horde of zombies. Finally, do not leave your shelter at night, the streets become infested with bloodthirsty zombies that will quickly overpower you. If you feel like taking on the challenge, we do recommend that you build up to it first!

Now with your character fully prepared and the sun shining, it's time to leave your shelter. As part of the in-game learning experience, you will meet a zombie (think of this as a mini-tutorial). Using the pistol, you'll need to hit it about 4 times before it will permanently stay down, and with the crossbow, about 3 times. Our tips for this (and all zombie encounters) are to pick your fights carefully, don't waste your shots, try to find a safe zone to reload, and abuse that roll action to escape from zombies, should you find yourself in a sticky situation!

Destroy and Loot (almost) Everything
This is a post-apocalyptic world so your first thoughts are on survival. Tools, equipment, and resources, all play a big role in surviving so it's finders keepers in almost all of the buildings in the game. Collecting items is a simple process, if you break an object, the resources that were used to craft it will drop out of it. So, when you are in the remains of the town, be sure to have a few empty slots in your backpack as you will want to gather the resources. If your backpack fills up, a quick trip to your shelter is needed as you won't be able to collect resources without having a way to store them - and resources will disappear soon after falling on the ground. The basic rule here is, don't destroy more than you can carry!

One final tip for you is - ALWAYS CLOSE THE DOORS AND WINDOWS.

This applies to every building in the game as the last thing that you want to face is a horde of zombies that come charging through doors/windows that you've left open.

With that said, doors can break, so you do not want to attract unnecessary attention if you are in a building. If you do need to escape, your best chances of survival are to quickly find an open door or window, combat roll out of the house, then run to your shelter without looking back!