A run is one shopping trip and then a hundred days at home. You get 10 hours before the disaster to buy and fortify, and after that the game is resource management on a fixed calendar: the hordes arrive on set days, the game measures your ending on day 71, the choice closes on day 74, and the verdict lands on day 87.
The prep window
10 hours on a visible clock, starting at 9:00. Shop, buy a vehicle, order furniture, carry it home. Your budget is your character’s purse times the Starting Funds setting: Wage Slave $1000, Warehouse Manager $1200, Student $1500, and the setting multiplies that by 1.5 at its loosest and 0.4 at its tightest. The shops close when the clock runs out and never reopen.
The first days
Trading opens on day 5 and stray zombies start reaching the house on day 7, up to 3 a day. The first horde is the Zombie Siege on day 7, 1 wave. Nothing here is on a scale with what comes later, so this is the stretch to spend on systems rather than on defence.
Running the house
The hordes escalate from 1 wave to 5, and the gaps between them are what you rebuild in. The stockpile is not meant to last: cooking, growing and trapping replace it, and which food system first picks the order.
Reaching an ending
Day 71 measures, day 74 closes the choice, day 87 judges. The Epilogue Horde on days 95 to 98 comes after all three, so it changes no ending. Every ending and how the game picks yours has the targets.
Open the crises list Every scheduled crisis with its days, its waves and what it sends. This opens on the Enhanced Zombie Horde, days 75 to 85, the largest one a run has to hold against.
The two halves
Before the disaster you have 10 hours on a visible clock. Nothing threatens you and nothing decays. This is the only time the shops are open, so anything you can only buy has to be bought now. The ten hour prep window covers the trip order.
After the disaster the clock changes scale from hours to days. Food, power, morale and the front door all decay, and you fix them from what you stockpiled plus what you grow, catch, craft or scavenge.
One word to keep straight: the game also has a crisis it calls the Outbreak, a sickness that lands in the second half of the run. It is not this one. The outbreak and the rats that make it worse is that one.
The horde calendar
Hordes are the only thing on the calendar that scales. The days are fixed for every character and every run; the waves are what changes.
| Days | Horde | Waves |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | Zombie Siege | 1 |
| 14 to 15 | Zombie Horde - Phase 1 | 1 |
| 15 to 16 | Zombie Horde - Phase 2 | 1 |
| 34 to 36 | Zombie Horde | 2 |
| 49 to 52 | Zombie Horde | 3 |
| 61 to 66 | Major Zombie Horde | 4 |
| 75 to 85 | Enhanced Zombie Horde | 5 |
| 95 to 98 | Zombie Horde | 1 |
The last scheduled one, days 75 to 85, is 5 waves and it is over before the ending is judged. The Epilogue Horde on days 95 to 98 is back down to 1 wave and arrives after every ending is settled.
The rest of the schedule
| Day | What the game marks |
|---|---|
| 5 | Drone trading with other survivors opens. |
| 7 | Stray zombies can start reaching the house, up to 3 a day. |
| 7 | One week survived, recorded as Week 1. |
| 30 | One month survived, recorded as One Month. |
| 35 | The neighbour storyline moves into its second phase. |
| 50 | Recorded as Fifty Days. |
| 70 | Survive to Day 70, and responses from all parties arrive one after another |
| 71 | The numbers behind every ending are measured. |
| 74 | Last day to commit to an ending. |
| 87 | Survive the final horde on Day 87 |
| 100 | A hundred days survived, recorded as One Hundred Days. |
Day 5 is when trading opens, and it is worth knowing what it does not do. Traders stock 75 different items between them. The shops carry 246, and 179 of those never appear in a trader’s stock at all, furniture included. So trading covers a missed tin of food, not a missed generator. The stranger economy has what each contact stocks and what they want for it.
Day 71 is the one to plan against. It is where the game reads your stockpile, your barriers, your power and your survivors and decides which endings are open to you. Day 74 only asks which of them you want.
Day 87 is the verdict, and the achievement calls it the final horde. The horde it settles has already been fought, on days 75 to 85. Defences you have been putting off are needed by then, not on day 100.
What a day pays
Surviving is itself an income. A day settles a flat 5 Survival Points for being alive, plus one more for every 5 Morale you are holding above 50, plus a point for each wish you finished and interest on what you have banked. Those points buy the permanent talents between runs.
| Line | What it pays |
|---|---|
| Survival | You gain base +5 Survival Points per day. Breaking your longest survival record for the first time will provide additional bonuses. |
| Morale | Gain 1 Survival Points for every 5 Morale beyond 50. |
Do not read that as your score. The score is the Survival Rating on the statistics screen, a separate scale of 5 bands topping out at Super Survivor from 400 to 500, weighted mostly by Days Survived. Points are what you spend; the rating is what you are graded. Where planning points come from has both.
The 9 endings
An ending is a path you commit to, not a score you reach. There are 9 of them, 8 you commit to and one you get by committing to nothing, and no single character can reach more than 6, so seeing them all takes all 3 characters.
| Ending | Recorded as | Available to |
|---|---|---|
| Companionship | Companionship | Student |
| Doomsday Greenhouse | Greenhouse | Student |
| Girl Next Door | Side By Side | Wage Slave |
| Iron Barrel Hub | Supply Station | Warehouse Manager |
| Rescue | Evacuate | Every character |
| Safe House | Fortress | Wage Slave, Student |
| Stranger | Net | Wage Slave |
| Truth | The Truth | Every character |
| Giving Up | Stay in Place | Every character |
Committing is a single irreversible act, and what opens each path is a set of numbers measured on day 71. Some of those numbers are a window rather than a deadline: the shelter line wants its power held from day 60 to day 69, which is that one ending’s requirement and not a milestone every run meets. Every ending and how the game picks yours has the whole system; the three endings you build for has the targets.
What the difficulty settings change
You pick a difficulty before the run. A new game starts on Standard Survival, which is the baseline every figure on this site assumes unless a page says otherwise.
| Setting | Standard level | Hardest level |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Funds | Starting funds unchanged. | Starting funds -60%. |
| Prep Time | Pre-disaster preparation time unchanged. | Pre-disaster preparation time -3 hours. |
| Survival Consumption | Consumption remains unchanged | Greatly increased consumption, Life no longer regenerates |
| Zombie Horde Intensity | Zombie horde intensity unchanged. | Zombie damage, HP, and numbers +50%. |
| Extreme Weather | Extreme weather unchanged. | Constant extreme weather. |
| Exploration Resources | Exploration rewards unchanged. | 50% chance for each supply item to not appear. |
Only the first of those touches a figure you already have. Starting Funds multiplies your character’s own purse, so the same setting is worth a different amount of money to each of them: Wage Slave starts on $1000, Warehouse Manager starts on $1200, Student starts on $1500. The rest are rates, and they apply to everyone the same way.
| Preset | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Fully Stocked | You've got plenty of supplies to see this out. Perfect for those who want to peacefully decorate their home and experience every story. |
| Standard Survival (default) | The authentic Survival Log experience. Stock up well, and you'll live well. |
| Potential Peril | The walls are thinner, the nights are colder, and the sounds outside are getting closer. |
| Supply Shortage | A hard fight from day one. For those who never give up. |
| Under Siege | Hoard to your heart's content, but be prepared to defend your stockpile with everything you've got. |
Open the characters list What each character starts with: the purse, the skill levels, the drain rates and the endings their story contains. This opens on Student, the largest starting purse at $1500.
What to do
- Read what Starting Funds does to your character’s purse before you pick the character. It is the only setting that starts from a number that already differs between them.
- Spend the prep window as a route, not a list. It is the only shopping you get, and the ten hour prep window has the travel times.
- Learn what drains while you are not looking. The five survival stats gives the rates and the penalty thresholds.
- Decide which ending you are building for against day 71, not day 87. The check is what is early, not the deadline.
- Have the door you intend to finish on standing by day 75. That is when the largest horde starts, and it is the last one that can end the run.
Quick reference
- Prep window: 10 hours from 9:00, and then the calendar starts.
- Trading opens: day 5, covering 75 items of the 246 the shops stock.
- Largest horde: days 75 to 85, 5 waves.
- Ending measured: day 71. Committed: day 74. Judged: day 87.
- After the ending: the Epilogue Horde, days 95 to 98, and the day 100 milestone.
- A day pays: 5 Survival Points flat, plus one per 5 Morale above 50.