zombie-escape 1.2.0

Top-down zombie survival game built with pygame.

Zombie Escape

The city is overrun with zombies! You fled the horde, taking refuge in an abandoned factory.

Inside, it's a maze. They won't get in easily. But you have no weapons. Night has fallen. The power's out, plunging the factory into darkness.

Your only tool: a single flashlight. A car... somewhere inside... it's your only hope.

Pierce the darkness and find the car! Then, escape this nightmare city!

Overview

This game is a simple 2D top-down action game where the player aims to escape by finding and driving a car out of a large building infested with zombies. The player must evade zombies, break through walls to find a path, and then escape the building in a car.

Controls

• Player/Car Movement: W / ↑ (Up), A / ← (Left), S / ↓ (Down), D / → (Right)
• Enter Car: Overlap the player with the car.
• Quit Game: ESC key
• Restart: R key (on Game Over/Clear screen)
• Window Scale (title/settings only): [ to shrink, ] to enlarge

Settings (Title Screen)

Open Settings from the title to toggle gameplay assists:

• Footprints: Leave breadcrumb trails so you can backtrack in the dark.
• Fast zombies: Allow faster zombie variants; each zombie rolls a random speed between the normal and fast ranges.
• Car hint: After a delay, show a small triangle pointing toward the fuel (Stage 2 before pickup) or the car.
• Flashlight pickups: Enable flashlight spawns that expand your visible radius when collected.
• Steel beams: Adds tougher single-cell obstacles (5% density) that block movement; hidden when stacked with an inner wall until that wall is destroyed.

Game Rules

Stages

At the title screen you can pick a stage:

• Stage 1: Find the Car — locate the car and drive out (you already start with fuel).
• Stage 2: Fuel Run — you start with no fuel; find a fuel can first, pick it up, then find the car and escape.
• Stage 3: Rescue Buddy — same fuel hunt as Stage 2 (you begin empty) plus grab your buddy, pick them up with the car, then escape together.
• Stage 4: Evacuate Survivors — start fueled, find the car, gather nearby civilians, and escape before zombies reach them. Stage 4 sprinkles extra parked cars across the map; slamming into one while already driving fully repairs your current ride and adds five more safe seats.

An objective reminder is shown at the top-left during play.

Characters/Items

• Player: A blue circle. Controlled with the WASD or arrow keys. When carrying fuel a tiny yellow square appears near the sprite so you can immediately see whether you're ready to drive.
• Zombie: A red circle. Will chase the player (or car) once detected.
  • When out of sight, the zombie's movement mode will randomly switch every certain time (moving horizontally/vertically only, side-to-side movement, random movement, etc.).
• Car: A yellow rectangle. The player can enter by making contact with it.
  • The car has durability. Durability decreases when colliding with internal walls or hitting zombies.
  • If durability reaches 0, the car is destroyed and you are dumped on foot; you must track down another parked car hidden in the level.
  • When you're already driving, ramming a parked car instantly restores your current car's health. On Stage 4 this also increases the safe passenger limit by five.
  • After roughly 5 minutes of play, a small triangle near the player points toward the objective: fuel first (Stage 2 before pickup), car after fuel is collected (Stage 2/3), or car directly (Stage 1/4).
• Walls: Outer walls are gray; inner walls are beige.
  • Outer Walls: Walls surrounding the stage that are nearly indestructible. Each side has at least three openings (exits).
  • Inner Walls: Beige walls randomly placed inside the building. Inner wall segments each have durability. The player can break these walls by repeatedly colliding with a segment to reduce its durability; when it reaches 0, the segment is destroyed and disappears. The car cannot break walls.
• Flashlight: Picking one up boosts your visible radius by 35%.
• Steel Beam (optional): A square post with crossed diagonals; same collision as inner walls but with triple durability. Spawns independently of inner walls (may overlap them). If an inner wall covers a beam, the beam appears once the wall is destroyed.
• Fuel Can (Stages 2 & 3): A yellow jerrycan that only spawns on the fuel-run stages. Pick it up before driving the car; once collected the on-player indicator appears until you refuel the car.
• Buddy (Stage 3): A green circle survivor who spawns somewhere in the building and waits.
  • Zombies only choose to pursue the buddy if they are on-screen; otherwise they ignore them.
  • If a zombie tags the buddy off-screen, the buddy quietly respawns somewhere else instead of ending the run.
  • Touch the buddy on foot to make them follow you (at 70% of player speed). Touch them while driving to pick them up.
• Survivors (Stage 4): Light blue civilians scattered indoors.
  • They stand still until you get close, then shuffle toward you at about one-third of player speed.
  • Zombies can convert them if both are on-screen; the survivor shouts a line and turns instantly.
  • They only board the car; your safe capacity starts at five but grows by five each time you sideswipe a parked car while already driving. Speed loss is based on how full the car is relative to that capacity, so extra slots mean quicker getaways.

Win/Lose Conditions

• Win Condition: Escape the stage (level) boundaries while inside the car.
  • Stage 2 also requires that you have collected the fuel can before driving out.
  • Stage 3 requires both fuel and having picked up your buddy with the car before driving out.
• Lose Condition:
  • The player is touched by a zombie while not inside a car.
  • In Stage 3, if your buddy is caught (when visible), it's game over.
  • (Note: In the current implementation, the game does not end immediately when the car is destroyed. The player can search for another car and continue trying to escape.)

How to Run

Requirements: Python 3.10 or higher

Install using pipx:

pipx install zombie-escape

Alternatively, you can install using pip in a virtual environment:

pip install zombie-escape

Launch using the following command line:

zombie-escape

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.txt file for details.

The bundled Silkscreen-Regular.ttf font follows the license terms of its original distribution. Please refer to the upstream website for details: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Silkscreen

The bundled misaki_gothic.ttf font (Misaki font by Num Kadoma) follows the license terms provided by Little Limit. Please refer to the official site for details: https://littlelimit.net/misaki.htm

Acknowledgements

Significant assistance for many technical implementation and documentation aspects of this game's development was received from Google's large language model, Gemini (accessed during development), and from OpenAI's GPT-5. This included generating Python/Pygame code, suggesting rule adjustments, providing debugging support, and creating this README. Their rapid coding capabilities and contributions to problem-solving are greatly appreciated.

Thanks to Jason Kottke, the author of the Silkscreen-Regular.ttf font used in the game. Thanks to Num Kadoma, the author of the Misaki font (misaki_gothic.ttf) distributed via Little Limit.