Night of the Dead

it's a good game, but I hope they bring in a mode where resources respawn. I would much rather play this as an endless sandbox game than be forced to play through to the end of the story or run out of resources.

I have played this game quite a bit, almost 100 hours already, so I feel like I can give an unbiased review. This game is great, but needs some quality of life improvements.
The good:
Base building is fairly easy (when you can get the blueprint to fit EXACTLY in the right spot)
Upgrade materials do not seem to be difficult to find once you know how to get them (except copper ore)
Traps are a lot of fun to build together (when you can get them to fit correctly)
Exploration is fun, and a little dangerous, until you have a good crossbow and baseball bat
The world itself is nicely laid out, a bit small, but that could change?
Nice variety of zombies, animals, and structures in the game. I don't feel like "oh, I have seen this room before" every time I go into a building. There are some repeated models, but that is to be expected.
The not so good:
Zombie pathing - if they do not have a crystal-clear shot directly to you, they will destroy anything you have built. This can make planning an elaborate set of traps frustrating because they will just tear through the walls rather than follow the path you laid out.
Lack of resources - once you get later into the game (post day 20), oil becomes increasingly hard to find (if you are using multiple flame throwers). Copper ore can be hard to find if you do not go out quite far from your base and hunt for it. It does add to the excitement, but getting jumped by a wolf, a bear, and 8 zombies out in the middle of the forest with no way to know where you died is not fun.
No death marker - when you die, you drop all your inventory, except for your equipped weapon. If you were out exploring and did not look at the map before you died, you lost your inventory, Start over.
No way to increase trap damage. Every night the horde gets bigger AND stronger, so you need more traps. Since you have no way of improving your traps, you just have to create more and link them together and hope the horde runs through them rather than tear them apart. I have started building on the roof of buildings and it seems to work fine. The zombies cannot destroy the walls or floors, so you have a better chance of forcing their pathing through your traps. It is not fool-proof, but it does tend to work for me. I have seen other people build mammoth bases in the middle of the forest, so it is not impossible, just can be problematic for people starting out.
Traps run out of ammunition - this would not be too big of a problem if some of them were not set so low. Compressor and guillotine have very few charges while others have 100. That means you have to physically run to that trap and add ammunition to it. In the middle of a day 20+ horde, depending on your layout, that may not be possible. So you tend to start using only the high ammunition traps and ignore the others because they are resource intensive. This can limit your base style or location.
Wishlist:
Other people/Interactions- you are alone in the world. I would like some type of interaction with others, whether it is random radio contacts, left behind messages, something to make you feel like part of the world and have purpose.
Inventory stacks of more than 99 for all materials in storage - for the love of God, please make this happen for all items. Let us use research documents and unlock it, but I have an entire chest full of "pieces of iron ore" and "piece of cloth" and "cloth". I still need more than one chest just for all the items and craftables in the game (currently at 10 chests and they are almost all full).
Better snap placement for the blueprints. I have to fiddle with the up and down, left, right, back up, get the camera just right, in order for the piece to place. Also, the foundation pieces will sometimes "auto-fit" a half-space off and leave a gap. When you try to place a trap door or other item that is exactly one floor tile in width, it will not attach. I would be much easier to build if we had at least two tiles of snap placement from one foundation/floor rather than having to build a brand new foundation/floor for every tile. Currently, I think only the bridge will snap on without an anchor piece. Maybe allow short fences on bridges?
Weather - would love rain/snow, and more ambient noise. It does make it easier to hear ducks, but it is very quiet overall.
Character creation/selection for single player game - currently only the woman is available in single-player mode, but you can go to multiplayer and host your own single player game to play as one of the male characters. You cannot find any new clothes in the multi-player game, or at least I haven't and I have ransacked the hospital, subway, and every house between the north and south.
Final Impression:
It is important to remember that the goal of this game is to escape the island. I am not sure how many people are actually playing to escape, because: you can do that on day 4 or 5 if you really hustled and be done with the game in a few hours. I had all the research and items done on my second play through by day 10 and that was with building an elaborate, completely useless, wooden scaffolding system around a building. . Almost everyone I know is playing the game like an endurance mode to see how many days they can survive which creates many of the "issues" within the game.
Overall, this game is awesome and well worth the $25.00 you can pay now to play it. It is fun, and you can build whatever and wherever you want. I just built a bridge into the top of the water cooler towers for a nuclear reactor. I have a nice trap door at the top of the scaffolding I have not tried out yet, but soon.
I will probably log another 100 hours on this game, easily, and happily.

Support these guys and give them feedback. They are doing a great job!

(Review written w/ 15 hours, Early Access Hotfix 7)
I want to start off by saying what this game isn't. Despite what it might appear to be, it's not an open world zombie survival game. Are there zombies? Yup. Are you supposed to survive? You betcha. Is it open world? Technically. But what this game really is is a treasure hunt hidden in a tower defense game. There is almost no survival elements (apart from a fatigue system that is very easy to manage with basic scavenging), and the point of the game is to find a series of items in order so that you can escape, thus winning the game. If you enjoy trying to optimize your time management or finding the perfect combination in a tower defense, then this game is for you.
I picked this game up because I stumbled across Kage848's videos on youtube the day before it released, and it grabbed my attention as a base building zombie game. I was surprised I hadn't heard anything about it before then, and when I tried to look up information I couldn't find squat. However, for some reason this piqued my curiosity even more and I decided to buy the game and give it a shot. I'm glad I did.
However, this game is still rather shallow in it's current state, but what is there is addictive in a way that's hard to describe. The building process is complicated and running between different crafting tables gets annoying, but at the same time you start to remember what each piece needs and stocking up on the required materials. You start to beat the system just like you beat the zombies, and its rewarding to see a base grow after struggling with the initial setup. I couldn't make it beyond night 2 on my first play-through, but once I understood the concept I started over and escaped the island on day 6.
If you do decide to give it a try, here's some hints to get you through the first few hours (since there's still virtually no information out there):
- Don't try to build a large sprawling base by yourself, you'll spend too much time and it's not needed. a 3x3 is plenty.
- a good gauntlet layout is key for large hordes in later nights, but when the zombies come in one at a time you should fight them with your weapon of choice outside your base. save your resources for later nights when the numbers become overwhelming!
- a good tip for your trap gauntlet (that worked for me anyway), is to build your traps on top of foundations in lanes, then place walls on the sides to box them in and limit wasted shots from your turrets. and don't use doors, ever. zombies get cranky when you start using doors.
- if you misplace something in your build, you can break it down for 100% of its cost with the hammer.
- your first priority for research should be your carry capacity, and your first upgrades should be for your resource bag. you're going to fill up very fast and waste a lot of your first two days running back and forth to drop off loot.
- stop and mine EVERY iron node you come across, regardless of what you're doing. you need a lot of copper in the end-game and its incredibly rare. You're best bet is to try to collect it as you go, starting as early as possible.
- pick a goal for yourself: if you want to escape the island, you should prioritize at least 1/3 of your day to reaching the items you need to leave. if you just want to see how long you can make a base survive the horde nights, you should spend that time looting as much as possible to keep your stockpiles full.

Initially a 3rd person, tower defense game with zombie waves, yet has options to disable waves spawning so you can play it like a sandbox survival game. You play as young woman who woke up in one of shelter bunkers into the overrun world full of zombies. Story so far is minimal, in form of couple journal entries and ability to call in a rescue to escape (game over).
Visually it looks alright, has a big map, tons of resources (plenty but no respawn) that you can gather, harvest, mine. Some wildlife: deer, boars, wolves, rabbits, foxes, birds. 24 hour day and night cycle, some simple survival elements (eating), crafting and building system, cooking, basic skill tree. There's also decent variety of melee and ranged weapons, tools, clothing that you can find or make yourself.
Gameplay wise it's a tower defense game at heart, with traps and waves of zombies that come every night, unless you turn that off. Then it can be relaxing, zombie survival with exploration, building and resource hoarding. Controls and animations are clunky and need more work to get them fluid. There's no character customization apart from clothes.
Not much to say otherwise, it's decent, reminded me games like 7 Days to Die and Mist Survival, with similar look and assets. I'm sure this can be a solid game with more options, polish and content. Took me around 40 hours to explore the map and loot all there is laying around. I didn't bother with tower defense elements (waves and traps) since it's not my thing and only built / upgraded base and explored instead.
Game could use some optimization as well, it often chugs, drops frames on recommended specs even with ssd. But overall is playable if you disable some settings. Didn't experience any crashes or bugs.
Have fun.

First of all, let me start off by admitting that I am absolutely a soft touch when it comes to indie games. I'll forgive them for things I'd never accept from a AAA design studio, and with good reason. It takes so much guts to be an indie designer, to go out there with nothing but passion and a dream and make something that other people are happy to spend hours of their life playing.
Night of the Dead is very much a work in progress, and it doesn't pretend to be otherwise. But, every masterpiece has to start off with a rough draft to begin with before you can polish it up. And that's what we're lucky enough to have the opportunity to play here: A diamond in the rough.
I have been looking for a game like this for a long time, and I'm thrilled to know that someone is building one. Oh, it'll probably be years before it's completed, but that's okay. It's fun now, and it's going to be amazing when they're done with it.
The part I find most interesting is that while it's designed as a multi-player tower defense game, they've also included a single-player version that somehow manages to be one of the most entertaining crafting-based survival games I've ever had the privilege of playing. If the multi-player is half as fun as the single-player, then they've got a really solid core for a good game.
I'm not even going to go into the bad parts. There are parts that need work, but they already know that. So, let me just focus on the positive parts.
The crafting system is amazing, it's so complicated that when I first looked at it I was so confused and overwhelmed I didn't know where to start. But, the game walks you through it, and in no time at all you're building huge mazes of zombie-crushing traps and giggling like a lunatic as you watch an entire horde reduced to foul-smelling spagetti paste. And let me say... I hate traps in most games. I'm very much a hands-on zombie slayer. I never use bombs, traps, grenades, anything like that. I like to snipe things from afar, or zerg rush 'em. But, this game makes traps fun.
The map is HUGE. When I went into this, I was expecting the map to be tiny based off a couple of other reviews, but I have to assume those were based on an earlier version. I've barely found one of the edges so far, and there's a whole FREAKING CITY down there that I haven't even touched yet.
There are options for different play styles. I hear the multi-player is great, but there's also a solid amount of content for loners like me who prefer single-player. Want something action-packed? Pick a higher difficulty level and leave the zombie waves switched on - the game will get gradually harder and harder until you get overwhelmed. Prefer a more peaceful stroll to explore the map? No problem! In the last patch, they added the ability to turn off the zombie waves so you can explore and build without being randomly annoyed by grumpy zombies.
Now, a couple of small warnings if you are the squeamish sort, like me. There is a fairly realistic hunting system, in which you have to shoot or trap birds and wild animals to improve your weapons and supplies, and also for food. It's integral to the gameplay, so there's no avoiding it. There are noises that are pretty upsetting, and you have to craft using the skins, bone, and guts of the animals. I mean, it's all pretty cartoonish so it's not super disturbing, but it did freak me out a bit to start with. Also, some of the female zombies SCREAM SUPER LOUD when they die, which gave me an unpleasant fright on a few occasions. So, consider yourself warned!
Overall, though? Stellar game, and it's only going to get better. Well worth the price. Don't believe me? I've got a pre-ordered copy of Cyberpunk 2077 coming any day now, and there's a good chance I might leave it a while longer to play this. And I'm super excited about Cyberpunk 2077, so that's high praise!
Oh, and on the off chance the devs read this... guys, you are doing an amazing job. You should be proud of yourselves. Well done!

As a player of many survival sims, I'm always looking for the next one to sink my teeth into. Came across this gem while browsing the other day and took the plunge. Glad I did, because right out of the gate I'm liking what I see. I'm no game dev but for a 2 man team this is impressive. I'm gonna thumb it up.
For those curious about the overall state/opinion of the game and what it offers...
Graphics - better than a lot of similar titles currently on offer, such as State of Decay series, Survive the Nights, 7DTD to name a few. I'd say it's a solid 7.5 to 8/10 depending on what settings you configure it up with.
Performance - extrapolate from here, but I used an I9 10900k paired with a RTX 2060 and got 1440p 60fps stable (with some minor dips when loading assets), this was with <Medium> settings but with <Very High> texture setting. Ram usage was around 10Gb, Vram usage around 5Gb and CPU usage was typically single digits to teens depending on what I was doing. It's worth noting on the medium preset the game looks great. Ultra looks a lot better but the performance decrease wasnt worth it. No crashes among my current play time. If they can shore up some of the optimization it would make my 8/10 score a 9 to 10 score, all in time I suppose right? Some asset popping in is currently noticable when traveling in the world, probably my biggest nitpick here tbh as I am using a Seagate Firecuda Nvme drive. Overall, a solid 8/10 for performance in its current state given the title is in early access. Quick edit: online, unfortunately performance is considerably worse but playable. It's all over the place fps wise when playing online, why is this?
Edit#2 - adjusting to low, except textures/AA at max matches performance in single player, as of 8.31.20...
Sound - I'm somewhere in between 6.5 to a 7 here. Gun sounds could use some work, the zombie sounds are nice and there is enough ambience to get immersed overall.
Content - for day one, there's a lot to play with. There's pve, pvp, single and multiplayer. Go it alone, or get help from others, fairly big world to explore and lots of things to research and craft.
Value - I'm fine with the price, if things progress with the integrity it has launched with up through official launch I think we could have a solid game here for many to enjoy.
Final overall feeling on the score...
8/10, would recommend.

Although i didn't play single player i feel this game has a lot of potential. For a two man team, they seem to be listening to the community and working on the issues presented to them.
Likes
- The zombies are like every zombie game. but there is a range of different zombies, and the difficulties they present. The game is rather challenging on the higher difficulties.
Boss Zombie (Tall whitey, Orange Crawley, The Butcher), Mid zombies (Big Bob, White Cracked Head, Military Joe) These are all names that we randomly came up with. (They may have names already)
- The wave event, Every Night there is a Wave of Zombies. Which adds a Tower Defense aspect to the game. which is fun.
- the upgrading is very easy to get used to. trying to figure out what needs to be done first.
- The objective, finding the missing items using journals. gives you that exploration feel.
Dislikes (All small things)
- Map Marking, you can only use one marker for the map. (Kindof sticks when you want to mark multiple things)
- Map Coordinates, Trying to pinpoint the exact location when you have to scroll out to see if you are in the right tile is kind of a bummer.
- Game end. (If you escape the Island, Besides the credits it should give you an option to continue that server). While i understand you can save it. and just reload. maybe completing it and staying should earn a special item or something of that nature.
- Nerd Points (Achievements) Where are the Achievement points? Lol
Extras - My other concerns seem to be stuff they are working on. Dedicated Servers, the Team building, private messaging. I see many challenges with all of this but with the way they are handling it. i feel they will do a great job.
P.S - Legend Difficulty is NO JOKE. You want to talk about 10-15 Zombies per building, and 15-50 Shots with arrows to take one down.