Video Game / Mini DAYZ

There are no rules, except one: to survive

Mini DAYZ: Zombie Survival is a reformulated offline, 16-bit top-down version of its bigger post-apocalyptic zombie-survival simulation brother DayZ, developed by the same company Bohemia Interactive.

Much like DayZ, the player has to survive in a fictional world after an outbreak of an unknown infection. Of course, there are a few differences that separate it from its brother game:

• The map is randomly generated for every new game. And with it, the world has many different secret locations not seen on the in-game map.
• NPC Survivors are in lieu of an MMO-based server. They still function the same way as their DayZ counterparts, be it in the form of a neutral party, an ally, or pesky bandits.
• You can do tasks with survivor parties (normally in the form of a Fetch Quest for specific supplies) in exchange for other supplies or co-ordinations to special places.
• Broken Bridges. The world is divided into four different islands and the first three have boats to access a new island (but requires certain items to fix them). Every new island has better gear and harder enemies and conditions, but once you go there, you can't return to the other islands.
• Mini DAYZ has unlockable characters and weapons.

Now has a sequel, Mini DAYZ 2.

Needs more wiki love.

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Mini DayZ provides examples of:

• After the End: A Zombie Apocalypse example. Exactly how long it’s been since the apocalyptic events began is never explained, leaving it up to player interpretation.
• All Deaths Final: Once you die in a normal survival mode, you lose that world alongside any progress made. Subverted in Casual mode where you respawn in the coast of your current island but without any of your previous life’s gear.
• A.K.A.-47: Surprisingly averted, unlike DayZ.
• Apocalyptic Logistics: Perishable items like gasoline are still usable, despite the amount of carnage and devastation found throughout the island(s). Depending on your take on the story, the island(s) may have only recently suffered devastation and thus subverting this, but there’s little plot to speak of in this game.
• Armor Is Useless: Zig-zagged, especially in comparison to the original DayZ. Many body armor vests come with additional inventory slots and do help protect you to a small degree against melee attacks, plus it helps that weight isn’t a factor in this game and thus you have zero reason to not wear a vest if you find one. However, against bullets you’ll still get shredded fast, meaning it’s the utility the vests provide that makes them useful instead of their original purpose: protection against firearms.
• Awesome, but Impractical
  • Unlike the original DayZ, the Amphibia (Ruger Standard) and the Sporter 22 aren’t particularly great firearms. While useful on the first island, their damage is weak due to using unimpressive .22lr ammunition, and firing them will make enough sound to attract attention from zombies as well as bandits within an entire town and then some. While the guns are better than nothing, especially for scaring off bandits who aren’t armed with firearms of their own, you should replace these firearms ASAP if you want to survive the later islands.
  • The sword is the most powerful melee weapon in the game, but melee combat should always be reserved as a last resort if you cannot outrun your enemies. Furthermore, you can only find it in a secret location unmarked on your map in the wild - an abandoned castle - and many of the more mundane choices for melee weapons double as a Utility Weapon, making them far more useful for survival. Unless you can set up a base with a deployable tent and stash tools like a shovel and hatchet within the tent there, the sword ends up being a fun Lethal Joke Weapon that doesn’t match the usefulness of more practical tools while moving around.
  • Melee combat in general is this. As fun as it sounds to hack zombies to death with a fire axe or beat them to death with a shovel, your clothing/equipment will take damage and the highest possible block rate for preventing damage with a melee weapon is a mere 35%. Even if you can replenish health over time, replacing damaged clothes to keep yourself from freezing and becoming sick relies heavily on finding decent loot, and the last thing you want is to be stuck in houses for a long period of time just to warm yourself up since you still have to worry about hunger and dehydration.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Several mundane items that don't seem to be useful at first (a hacksaw, newspaper, among others) are beneficial to your survival. There’s even a crafting guide in-game that teaches you how to use many of these items, and some items have multiple uses as well (e.g. rope).
  • The “Sprinter” perk, which gives you a mere 10% boost in running speed, allows you to outrun regular zombies as well as hostile bandits. It also allows you to match the running speed of many elite zombies (granted you aren’t carrying a heavy weapon), meaning only the tank; crawlers; and the red hazmat zombie can outrun you at that point. Also, being able to run faster means reaching your destination faster, making it easier to find food/water/loot at a quicker rate before your character succumbs to poor health.
  • Knives may deal the lowest amount of damage in game and have terrible blocking chances, but their true usefulness is the utility they provide for hunting. You can craft arrows for an improvised bow as well as crossbow by carving wooden sticks, plus a knife is necessary for flaying an animal carcass. Once you established a base with a deployable tent, can chop trees down for wood with an axe, and have an improvised bow or crossbow, you can hunt animals for above average hunger recovery as well as craft a large ammo cache so long as the knife remains intact.
  • The Mosin Nagant rifle. Besides using a common ammo type (7.62x54) and being found as early as the first island, its long range and high damage makes it easy to take down targets from a safe distance. It has its flaws, namely a slow reloading speed; mediocre aiming speed; and is tied for the slowest run penalty amongst firearms, but attaching a bandolier solves the reload speed problem and a PU Scope gives the rifle a lighting quick focus between shots. You can even use a hacksaw to turn it into a sidearm, allowing you to use the high damage while equipping an even more high-powered firearm as your primary, albeit it suffers degradation in performance as a result.
  • The IZH-43 double barrel shotgun is a fine choice starting off, but from the second island on you’ll face larger zombie mobs as well as bandits who are far more likely to have firearms at their disposal. This makes it seem like a terrible choice to continue holding due to slow and frequent reloading, but using a hacksaw shortens the barrel and allows you to hold the shotgun as a sidearm. With its rapid fire speed; high damage; and usage of a common ammo type found everywhere (12 cal. shot shells), it can mop up any target that your new primary firearm(s) failed to kill, making it a powerful burst damage firearm against dangerous individual enemies. Only the tank zombie can survive an initial two-round burst at close range, but even then this firearm is a good choice against it.
  • Many melee weapons besides the aforementioned knives are mundane tools that can be used for various survival purposes, such as planting vegetables to grow more (pickaxe, shovel and pitchfork) and cutting down trees for wood (hatchet and fire axe). It helps to stash one of each type of weapon inside a deployable tent after you set one up, making survival much easier with access to renewable food sources every half day as well as obtaining wood products to mend fences and start bonfires.
• Broken Bridge: In order to enter a new island, you need to find a broken down boat on the east coast of the map as well as re-service it using different items (log piles for the first, duct tape for the second, gasoline for the third).
• Catch Your Death of Cold: If your body temperature gauge drops to zero, your character becomes sick and can no longer regenerate health, even if they have sufficient food/water to prevent starvation and dehydration. And unlike getting sick by being poisoned by hazmat zombies, tetracycline will not be effective if you cannot warm yourself up since you’ll just become sick shortly after; you have to find a way to warm yourself up or suffer the consequences. And if it starts to rain; snow; or nighttime begins, the temperature drops even further, making it imperative for you to find good quality clothing/equipment that is warm since your beginning gear won’t cut it at later islands.
  • Zombie attacks have a good chance of damaging your clothes, making it important to find guns/bows and fight from a distance so you can keep your clothes in good condition.
  • Getting hit by gunfire will also damage your clothing. Wearing body armor will shield most of the damage from your clothing, but its rare to find one (though the character Aika starts off with a press vest).
  • Drinking whiskey and using heat packs will raise your body temperature by a small amount.
  • Staying inside buildings/structures with roofs will raise your body temperature unless your clothing is too damaged. The “Sweet Home” perk gives a 50% boost to raising your body temperature when unlocked, though Lee starts off with this perk as well if you select him.
• Difficult, but Awesome
  • Military-grade weapons. While powerful, ammunition can be hard to find (while taking up inventory space) until you reach the later islands where good quality loot becomes easier to find. Finding a radio with a working battery makes it easier to find abandoned humvees/helicopters/drone planes where these items can be safely found, otherwise looting military bases is your best bet (albeit the zombies there are hard to kill).
  • The Engraved Colt (similar to this 1911 model). It uses the same type of ammunition (.45 ACP) as a regular Colt while having a larger magazine equipped along with faster aiming, but can only be found in a stash near a certain dead tree as part of a randomly generated location.
  • Hunting animals for food requires a lot of moving parts to work: a knife, axe, matches, and a long ranged weapon. Shooting animals from a distance is difficult (unless it’s an improvised bow or crossbow, both of which fire arrows silently), you cannot flay animal carcasses without a knife, not having an axe makes you dependent on random loot to set up a bonfire kit, and without matches you cannot cook the meat to prevent your character from getting sick and becoming unable to heal health. However, once you have everything in place, killing deer and/or rabbits rewards you with meat that fills a great deal of your hunger bar as well as a small portion of your thirst. It’s easier to pull this off if you gather the materials and stash them inside a deployable tent.
• Early Game Hell: Depending on your difficulty; mode; and selected character, it can become this.
• Elite Zombie:
  • Runners: Without the “Sprinter” perk unlocked you can only match the speed of the slowest zombie in the game (the regular Undead Mooks), but crawlers; red hazmats; and tanks will always outrun you regardless.
  • Possums: Black hooded zombies that act as if they’re dead on the ground, but will stand up and chase you down if you get too close. They make a signature sound similar to grass-rustling if you’re near one.
  • Brute: The tanks, giant humanoid zombies that move around like a gorilla. They’re the fastest enemy in the game, hit hard, are tough to kill, and will continue to bash on any structure you hide in, which means it knows you’re hiding and will wait for you to run outside.
  • Hazmat Zombies: Combined with Boomer Zombies, they come in green and red variants - both of which spill a massive amount of poisonous liquids when killed. However, the red variant is much faster; leaks poison in their trail; and makes a larger explosion when killed. If you come into contact with the poison, your character becomes sick and cannot regenerate health until cured (either using tetracycline or having your hunger/thirst/body temperature gauges nearly filled).
  • Hunters: The crawler zombies, both of which cannot be outrun even with the “Sprinter” perk active.
  • Screamers: Slow, barely moving zombies wearing a white lab coat who yell out loud if they see a human (either you or an NPC) and attracts the attention of all zombies within a wide area. They also automatically wake up any Possum zombies within the area.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Wouldn’t be a DayZ game without them.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Shares the same meta variant as DayZ, this time adding “mini” to the name to get “mini daisy” when pronounced properly.
• Frying Pan of Doom: The player can wield one, provided they find a secret cooking site as part of a randomly generated location. It has decent damage (33); maxed crit chance (40%); maxed block chance (35%) and the second fastest attack speed in the game (0.9 seconds), making it a surprisingly viable melee weapon. It’s only downside is that it’s only used for melee combat in-game, something you want to avoid if you can help it.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Your default melee weapon, though some playable characters do start off armed. In order to unlock Dave, you have to kill ten zombies using your fists as well.
• Hammerspace: Averted, like DayZ. Backpacks can carry more stuff than some of your clothes, but proper inventory management is still crucial to surviving.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Averted. Consuming food/drink doesn’t heal your health instantly, plus it takes time to do either action and leaves you vulnerable for a few seconds to enemy attacks. Furthermore, consuming raw meat can make your character sick, which will prevent your health from regenerating (unless you have tetracycline or nearly full hunger/thirst bars and aren’t freezing). Finally, health recovery is slow (unless you consume vitamins or gold berries) and you will not heal if your hunger; thirst; and/or body temperature gauge(s) drop below 50%.
• Improvised Weapon: Many of the melee weapons you encounter fall under this; in some cases they’re even better than “normal” weapons like a sword.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The fire axe. It’s a somewhat rare find, only located in fire stations as well as carried by other survivors, but it deals great damage (60); has improved damage blocking chances due to being a two-handed melee weapon (25%); and can be used to cut down trees for wood items, making it an all-around useful tool.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The sword. It can only be found in a crumbling castle as part of a randomly generated location out in the wild, plus it’s not marked on the map, which means it’s found either by chance or if you make an effort to explore the entire island. It deals the highest melee damage in the game (75); has the second highest crit chance (35%); and has a respectable block chance (25%), but its only uses is melee combat. If a player doesn’t have a deployable tent in order to store items/equipment/weapons, some will ditch the sword in order to carry a weapon that can be doubled as a utility tool (fire axe, hatchet, pickaxe and pitchfork), not to mention melee combat carries the risk of damaging any gear/clothing the character is wearing at the time.
• Lighter and Softer: Downplayed, but the basic 16-bit graphics lessening the sickening appearance of blood/gore and more forgiving gameplay mechanics compared to the original DayZ will make the experience far less daunting.
  • Since it’s an offline only game you don’t have to worry about other players trying to murder you for S&Gs, albeit the NPC bandits will do their best to make your life hell. Also, if you find a friendly survivor, they’ll always be on your side thus you don’t have to worry about potential betrayal on their end.
  • The realism in this game is toned down. For instance, you can consume as much food and water at any given time that you want without any penalties, not to mention any canned food you find can be consumed automatically instead of needing a sharpened tool and produce never spoils.
  • You don’t have to worry about finding magazines for guns, only the ammunition. Furthermore, guns do not jam in this game.
  • Items and equipment are more plentiful in towns, albeit you’ll still have to do a lot of looting to survive even the first hour of the game.
  • You can select different difficulties in order to make your first experiences playing the game easier, albeit even the regular difficulty can be tricky.
  • Some characters you select start off with perks/equipment that makes your first minutes playing the game easier to survive.
  • Cars can sometimes be driven immediately, not requiring any special parts in order to work, and the only two items that can be used on cars (car tool kits and gasoline) do not take up a great deal of space in your inventory. They’re also effective at mowing down zombies as well as unlucky bandits you come across, plus can take quite a beating before they break down. Unless the car you drive gets shot at repeatedly by bandits, the only item you normally have to worry about finding is gasoline. Finally, you cannot get hurt inside a car (since the car instead takes the damage) and it helps protect you from the elements outside.
• No Bikes in the Apocalypse: Played straight unlike its bigger brother.
• Non-Player Character: You’ll find several running around, most of them neutral parties who provide you with optional tasks in exchange for a valuable reward of sorts (loot or interesting locations) as well as opportunistic bandits. On rare occasions you can find friendlies who will travel with you and shoot at all hostile enemies. Also, if you have the Scout perk, you can pick up their locations on your HUD, making it easier to prepare for them (except the friendly helpers who will remain unmarked, that being your only clue that it’s worth approaching them).
• No Plot? No Problem!: Also played straight like DayZ.
• Nobody Poops: But they do eat, drink, and try to stay warm.
• One Bullet Clips: Averted.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Generally Flesh-Eating Zombie.
• Powerful Pick: A pickaxe can be wielded as a melee weapon, and similar to the shovel and pitchfork you can use it to plant seeds/vegetables. Of the three this one deals the most damage, but it’s a bit slower to swing as a trade off.
• Power-Up Food:
  • Energy drinks fill your thirst bar up a small amount as well as makes your character run faster for a handful of seconds.
  • Vitamins do not restore health, but when healthy your character regenerates health faster for a moderate period of time.
  • Gold Berries fill your hunger and thirst bars up a small amount as well as regenerate health faster for a short period of time (considering your character is healthy as well).
• Procedural Generation: You’ll notice many of the locations share similar features, making it easier to grab loot if you know where they’ll spawn, but the actual spots of the locations vary with each island.
• Randomly Generated Levels: No two islands are ever the same.
• Randomly Generated Loot: While the locations of where the loot spawns in a given location doesn’t change, which loot appears there will vary. Some of the higher quality/exotic loot can only be found in increasingly dangerous spots (e.g. hidden underground bunkers), but you’ll often need to visit them if you want to survive the more dangerous islands.
• Secret Level: There are many buildings/locations not marked on your map that has increased chances for better loot as well as exclusive gear (e.g. a sword and knight helmet located in a broken down castle). On occasion, completing a neutral party’s request may have them mark one of these locations on your map.
  • If you obtained a radio (or chose Aika as your starting character) you can sometimes find broken down humvees, downed helicopters and destroyed drone planes on the map after using it for a few minutes. These sites sometimes have high grade loot, making them valuable locations to check.
• Shovel Strike: A two-handed shovel is wieldable as a melee weapon, but despite its weak damage it’s considered one of the better weapons because of its maxed block damage stat at 35%. There’s also its original purpose: shoveling dirt, in this case so you can plant seeds and vegetables to grow even more.
• Simple, yet Awesome: The Backpacks, much like DayZ.
• Short-Range Shotgun: All shotguns have a wide and unpredictable spread, making them unreliable from a distance.
• Survival Sandbox: The whole point of the game.
• Unlockable Content: You can unlock characters who start off with different gear/items/perks and powerful firearms that can only be found on rare occasions in select locations (e.g. gun shops).
• Utility Weapon: Many melee weapons can be used for other purposes such as digging holes to plant seeds or cutting down trees for fire wood. Since melee fighting is dangerous and not recommended, many players will carry these kinds of weapons around instead purely for the utility they provide.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Yup, though how long it’s been since the zombie apocalypse actually began is never explained in-game.
• Zombie Gait: Averted. The regular Undead Mooks run just like they did in real life, and the elite versions have their own styles.