zombie-escape 2.4.0

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

Keyboard/Gamepad

• Player/Car Movement: W / ↑ (Up), A / ← (Left), S / ↓ (Down), D / → (Right)
• Enter Car: Overlap the player with the car.
• Pause: P/Start or ESC/Select
• Quit Game: ESC/Select (from pause)
• Restart: R key (on Game Over/Clear screen)
• Window/Fullscreen: [ to shrink by one step (400x300), ] to enlarge by one step, F to toggle fullscreen
  • After any of these operations, gameplay is forced into pause so input/focus state stays explicit.
  • On the title screen, gamepad shortcut: hold Select and press South to toggle fullscreen.
• Time Acceleration: Hold either Shift key or R1 to run the entire world 4x faster; release to return to normal speed.

Mouse

• Gameplay While holding left mouse button, the player moves toward the cursor.
  • While holding left mouse button over the player character, the whole game runs at 4x speed.
  • Moving the cursor into a corner hotspot triangle pauses the game.
  • Resizing the OS window by mouse drag also forces gameplay pause.
• Title/Settings/etc. Select items by releasing left mouse button.

Title Screen

Stages

At the title screen you can pick a stage:

• Stage 1: Find the Car — find the car and escape.
• 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 — similarly, find fuel, locate your buddy, pick them up with the car, and escape together.
• Stage 4: Evacuate Survivors — find the car, gather survivors, and escape before zombies reach them. The stage has multiple parked cars; ramming one while driving adds +5 capacity.
• Stage 5: Survive Until Dawn — cars are unusable. Survive until sunrise, then leave on foot through an existing exterior opening.

Stage pages unlock progressively:

• Stages 1-5 are always available.
• Stages 6-15 unlock after clearing all Stages 1-5.
• Stages 16-25 unlock after clearing at least 5 stages on the Stages 6-15 page.
• For later pages, the same rule repeats: clear at least 5 stages on the current page to unlock the next page.

If fewer than 5 stages are cleared on a page (except page 1), the next page remains locked. On the title screen, use left/right to switch unlocked pages.

Stage names are red until cleared and turn white after at least one clear. Cleared stage names also show icons for characters/items that appear in that stage.

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

Win/Lose Conditions

• Win Condition: Escape the stage (level) boundaries while inside the car.
  • Stage 1 and Stage 4 follow the base rule: drive out of the building by car.
  • Stage 2 also requires that you have collected the fuel can before driving out.
  • Stage 3 requires meeting up with your buddy and escaping the building by car.
  • Stage 5 has no working cars; survive until dawn, then walk out through an exterior opening on foot.
• 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.)

Shared Seeds

The title screen also lets you enter a numeric seed. Type digits (or pass --seed <number> on the CLI) to lock the procedural layout, wall placement, and pickups; share that seed with a friend and you will both play the exact same stage even on different machines. The current seed is shown at the bottom right of the title screen and in-game HUD. Backspace reverts to an automatically generated value so you can quickly roll a fresh challenge.

Settings 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.
• Steel beams: Adds tougher single-cell obstacles (about 5% density) that block movement.

Game Rules

Characters/Items

Characters

Name	Image	Notes
Player		Blue circle with small hands; controlled with WASD/arrow keys. When carrying fuel, a tiny yellow square appears near the sprite.
Zombie (Normal)		Chases the player once detected; out of sight it periodically switches movement modes.
Car		Driveable escape vehicle; touch to enter. Durability drops from wall hits and running over zombies; if it reaches 0, the car breaks. Capacity starts at five. Ramming a parked car while driving restores health and adds +5 capacity. After ~5 minutes, a small triangle points to the current objective.
Buddy (Stage 3)		Teal-blue survivor you can rescue; zombies only target them on-screen and off-screen catches just respawn them. Touch on foot to follow (70% speed), touch while driving to pick up. Helps chip away at walls you bash.
Survivors (Stage 4)		Civilians to evacuate by car; they idle until approached, then follow at ~1/3 speed. On-screen zombie contact converts them. If you exceed the car's capacity, the car is damaged and everyone disembarks.

Items

Name	Image	Notes
Flashlight		Each pickup expands your visible radius by about 20%, up to 3 levels.
Fuel Can (Stages 2 & 3)		Appears only in stages that begin without fuel; pick it up to unlock driving.
Steel Beam (optional)		Striped obstacle with the same collision as inner walls, but 1.5x durability. Can also appear after an inner wall is destroyed.

Environment

Name	Image	Notes
Outer Wall		Gray perimeter walls that are nearly indestructible; each side has a single opening (exit).
Inner Wall		Beige interior walls with durability. The player can break them by repeated collisions; zombies wear them down slowly; the car cannot break them.

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

Optional flags:

• --show-fps: show FPS overlay.
• --debug: enable debug aids (also implies --show-fps).

License

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

This project depends on pygame-ce (repository: https://github.com/pygame-community/pygame-ce), which is licensed under GNU LGPL version 2.1.

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.