One thing I noticed is that firing at a zombie and missing didn't wake it up. Perhaps most guns have the downside of alerting any zombie the projectile gets near to, but a couple of slower weapons, like a dart gun, would NOT wake up zombies if you missed.

How about a scythe-hook on a chain? You throw it and hook onto someone's head, and then you tear it off!

How about a gun sling. You sling a gun far away from yourself with the trigger held down and it flops around like a unmanned water hose, spraying randomly around it. It makes a ton of noise, but it's stealthy as well in that the noise isn't coming from you, and thus the zombies don't find you when they come to investigate.

Or how about a human mask? You sneak up to a zombie and put it on it, and the other zombies attack it.

Or how about a quince? You throw it at them and it's so astringent that it dries the zombie up into zombie-jerky, and they just stand there dead, but appearing to be alive.

Could try a simple spear as well. Relatively easy to make (sharpened long stick) with a good knife, multiples can be carried, great from high ground and the melee aspects are cool because the enemy gets stuck on the end and is still a threat but a strong character could use a zombie on the end of a spear as a blunt weapon. There are countless types of spears as well that can be explored as well as countless types of poll arm weapons in general. A stick could be picked up with a knife in hand and holding down the button could sharpen the tip of the stick putting the knife away. Ta da free stealth weapon.

I've always liked the idea of fighting zombies in a museum. Something about becoming a permanent fixture that tickles me. Though I guess nothing is permanent when zombies are the topic. Seriously though, wouldn't stumbling into a dojo during a zombie apocalypse be super cathartic especially after having to kill your entire zombie turned family? So many blades and funny punching bag moments just waiting to happen.

Don't know if you're game has skill progression but a new character could be less stealthy when using the spear at range (or any melee weapon really with all the grunting and struggling) but the more they use it the quieter and deadlier they are at it.

Shish kazombies anyone? heh multiple zombies stuck to the same stick, that's funny.

1. Distraction devices - Animal meat, human meat (harvested from human corpses, motential for a morality system in its use), a tape player that plays sounds of humans (the person had an empty tape, recorded 'silence' for the first few minutes/seconds whatever, then sounds of people doing stuff. Using it involves setting down the player, pressing 'play' then walking away so the tape hits the distracting noises while you're away. No fancy timers needed). These are just easy to use items you drop that make zombies want to go to that area while you go elsewhere.

2. Distracting corpses - Same as the devices except you can use dead bodies of humans or maybe zombies. Making a scarcrow works as well but might not be as convincing. So order of convincing is scarecrow, zombie corpse, human corpse. Each corpse also uses a tape player or something else. Difference is that you can't really carry a corpse around so you have to find one to use or set up a scaecrow. Maybe have human corpses set up in the game and using a tape player on them boosts the effectivness of the distraction alot (basically telling the player "here's a good place to use a distraction". Human corpses can also be used to harvest meat for distracting.

3. Slings - Simple weapons you can craft from scraps and use plentiful ammo. Could also be that by default the sling gives unlimited ammo in the form of rocks but they come in different sizes. Small rocks go farther but deal less damage than larger ones etc. So when you use it you load it, see you have a small/large rock and can then either hurl it as is or press 'reload' and get another random rock as ammo. Upgrading the ammo pouch gives you multiple pouches so you can select small, medium, and large rocks at will and maybe other limited ammo like marbles or metal bearings or whatever. The 'upgrade' basically consists of your character learning to organize his ammo.

You could also sling things like vials of acid, vials of blood or meat (hit a zombie and the other zombies suddenly smell human on him and attack him for a few seconds), or maybe light bulbs. Toss a light bulb and it deals no damage but makes a distracting noise.

Lasso - Toss out a lasso and try to tighen it around a zombies neck. If you tighen around the neck they can't yell out to alert other zombies, you can then back up and try to snap its neck to kill it. Even if you can't snap its neck then its inability to scream makes it easier to kill it without alerting others.


4. Protective gear. When the outbreak started, the emergency services started handing out gas masks and heavy clothing that can protect against bites (or be better than civilian clothes). Wear these and you can cover yourself in zombie gunk to smell like one of them and the mask hides your human face to make your attempts at 'blending in' better. Problem is that other survivors might not be able to tell you are human... unless you strap an "I am human, just pretending to be a zombie" sign on yourself. Fortunately, zombies can't read... or can they???

You may run into other zombies wearing gas masks who got infected but they also get reduced hearing and sight and can't bite you. They can however yell to alert others if they spot you and the staps on their gas mask makes it harder for you to strangle them with the lasso. Also, if they are wearing body armor or other protective gear then they will be in healthier shape then other zombies. Just so you know, people wearing decent body armor or heavy clothing are less likely to get taken out by zombies (which is one reason why these guys would be less common than the ones made by people wearing T-shirts and jeans) and when they are turned then its more due to a bite on the wrist or some other body part then getting their face eaten. So your common zombie is wearing a T-shirt and is covered in bites he sustained before he turned enough that the others stopped biting him whereas the ones in riot gear are healthier and stronger due to the fact that they didn't get bitten as much before turnign... and they are probably former police or something and thus are stronger from all the training they did while alive.

So your "elite zombies" could be tough armored guys in riot gear or thick trench coats, but are likely to have masks on that prevent them from biting anyone. They can however rush up and grab you to try and wrestle you to the ground while the lesser zombies try to bite at you. Could make from an interesting dynamic where the lesser zombies are basially 'cannon fodder' while the elite ones are meant to rush you and knock you down so the lesser ones can bite you. Course, the elite guys have helmets and masks on so their vision and hearing sucks, so you just have to make sure not to alert the lesser zombies (who would in turn alert the big guy). Gameplay could thus favor distracting and picking off the lesser zombies without alerting the big guy, then take out the big guy himself. Again, zombies with masks can't infect you but instead wrestle you, so a fight against a big guy is actually less lethal than the lesser ones. Just chop him with an axe and if he does grab you, worst he can do is mash his facemask against your neck while you struggle to free yourself.


Hmm, I find the idea of non-biting zombies to be rather an interesting concept. Like those headcrabs that can sting you and take you down to one health but can't kill you. Kind of like black headcraps from half-life 2. Scary but can't actually kill you.