Zombie Motel 96

ZOMBIE MOTEL is a zombie tycoon with a defense line attached. You run a dead roadside motel as a survivor shelter, and you hold its only gate. Days go to the ledger. Nights go to whatever comes down the highway.

A small motel, one step off the road. No guests for three days. The radio says whatever is walking down that highway isn't looking for a room. At the front gate, a family is asking for one anyway. Just for tonight.

You don't win this game, you keep it going. The score asks how many people you kept alive, and for how many weeks.

FILL THE EMPTY ROOMS

Two floors, 16 rooms, none of them assigned. Take in refugees and a room becomes housing. Take in a craftsman and it becomes a workshop. A trader turns it into a shop. Who you admit decides what the building is.

• 13 survivor types across 10 traits. Applications list only the good parts. Loud neighbors, big eaters, and infiltrators never show up on paper.

• Placement matters. Above, below, and next door all feed into noise, threat, and morale.

KEEP THE LEDGER

Supplies, materials, food. Food gets eaten every week, per household, for real.

• Shortages escalate from hunger to starvation to death, and starving residents walk off the defense line.

• Tighten rations to stretch the stores. You'll pay for it in applicant quality and resident unrest.

KEEP THE NOISE DOWN

Noise fills the lure gauge, and pressure builds at your gate whether or not you're ready for it. Daylight doesn't help.

• Defense comes from people: residents on the line, watchtowers, armed traits, and shotguns with shells actually loaded. "We have guns but no ammo" is a state you can end up in.

• Water and power run on collapse clocks. The radio warns you two weeks out.

JUDGE YOUR PEOPLE

People are the resource you'll have the most trouble managing.

• Every household smuggles something in. Seize it and your warehouse grows, but word gets around. Gifts buy the goodwill back.

• Infection screening carries a 20% misdiagnosis rate, so quarantine is a gamble you take to buy information.

• Births, disputes, walkouts, raider tolls. A richer motel is a more attractive target.

If you liked assigning rooms in Fallout Shelter, running the numbers in a tycoon game, or waiting for dark in Project Zomboid, there's a room for you here.

Get through tonight.