History VideoGame / ProjectZomboid

* NormalFishInATinyPond: The survivor(s) are effectively normal people -- or a best a ShellShockedVeteran -- who are forced to fight for their lives. While normally this would be a death sentence to any average Joe, the enemies they face against are shambling corpses that are as dumb as bricks and can't even open a door, which gives them one major advantage over the large hordes of zombies wanting to tear them apart.

** Phone numbers featuring this trope can be found in the [[store.steampowered.com/news/app/108600/view/4191235860368925208 upcoming reading materials.]]

* BackFromTheBrink: On a meta level. The game was the butt of jokes about unfinished projects and with steadily shrinking playerbase and fandom over the years. Then build 41 came out, first as beta and then as a mainline. Result? The number of active players ''tripled'', with both old users returning and new ones joining the fray, making the game more played than it ever was before. It is ''still'' unfinished, though, but at least can be enjoyed even in such a state thanks to the massive overhaul.

* BeefGate: The zombie populations in West Point and Louisville are ''much'' higher than the average meaning that it is better for weak/inexperienced survivors to avoid going there until they develop their combat skills.

** Log walls, also known as stockade. They start at 400 HP and gain +50 per your Carpentry level (so max out at 900). They require no skills to make them, barely any materials to build other than fallen trees and some rope (for which sheets will do). Neither wooden walls[[note]]Maxed out at 300 HP and requiring level 7 Carpentry skill[[/note]] nor metal fences[[note]]500 HP, similar skill requirements, but also exotic materials and not blocking the view, so zombies will easily spot you and try to bash through the fence, damaging it each time[[/note]] provide anything even remotely close to that level of protection and are very skill-sensitive to make them even worth building in the first place.
** Among firearms, a humble M9 Pistol is by far the best all-around weapons, despite being MasterOfNone. It's the average of all its stats that makes it so great: 15-round mag (and having a mag in the first place), commonplace ammo, common weapon by itself, and being 2nd most silent gun in the game. Loading and unloading its magazines, due to how common they and their ammo are, is also one of the easiest ways of rising Reloading. There are better, more flashy guns out there, but nothing comes close to the boring reliability of this weapon.

* CivilizationDestroyer: The [[spoiler: Knox Infection]] once [[spoiler: it spreads beyond Knox County]]. In a matter of just a few days [[spoiler: civilization across the entire world effectively ceases to exist]].

* DrivenToSuicide: Implied in one house event. It is possible to stumble upon a couple of non-zombified corpses with a loaded pistol laying on the floor nearby.

* EmergencyBroadcast: There are hourly automated emergency broadcasts you can tune into via radios if you find the frequency (be it by luck or finding a radio already tuned to it). Mostly they serve to give you the forecast for today and tomorrow's weather, along with a warning for rougher weather like heavy thunderstorms within the next week or so. [[spoiler:But it can also tip you off to the Helicopter arriving that day, and forecasts power and water going out. Finding the emergency broadcast frequency early can save your life.]] Oh, and it serves to occasionally broadcast cryptic messages about suspicious activity or communication failures in the 'exclusion zone', but these seem to have no impact on the game right now.

* EverythingFades: Averted to a great extent. Bodies will remain on the map until they gradually decay, leaving skeletons behind which will never disappear unless taken, and rain will eventually wash away any outdoor bloodstains. This provides a visual record of the player's exploits that is either gratifying or galling, depending on how you feel about undead carcasses and gore in your path. (Also don't forget, each corpse is a moveable mini-container, if you're really that desperate to organize junk.) Loose items left on the ground for more than a couple of ingame days will also be deleted if no players are around.
** Is played straight as of build 41. Corpses are deleted after 274 hours to reduce the clutter and improve performance. However that's just the default, it's possible to make this longer (or shorter) in the sandbox settings.

* FitnessNut: A possible starting combination, with perks focusing on increasing strength and cardio (and bordering on DumbMuscle due to heavy specialisation required). Despite apparent weaknesses, it is ''extremely'' efficient build for easy survival, outrunning the horde or even facing it head-on with a baseball bat, starting with very high values in very hard and slow to rise stats and thus making long-term survival ''easier'', rather than harder.

** The first, occurring approximately a week after the game begins, sees a helicopter fly by close over the area. Helicopters are noisy, zombies are attracted by sound, and they will follow the helicopter en masse. If you're lucky, you'll have made a fortified base for yourself, but you can still expect to fight for your life. If you're unfortunate enough to get caught outside when the helicopter flies by, it will follow you, bringing a zombie horde with it. In this case, you're better off making your peace...

* GasolineLastsForever: Played straight. No matter how many months or even years pass since the start of the apocalypse the gas in cars and gas stations will remain perfectly usable.
** However, the developers have stated that in future updates gas will eventually go bad.

* GodzillaThreshold: Grabbing a shotgun usually only happens when you are completely desperate, since the sound of the single shot will attract everything in the radius of ''200'' tiles to your location. But if a horde is already at you, there is nothing to lose. After all, shotguns can hit multiple zombies with a single shot, making them exceedingly ammo-efficient.

* TheImmune: Downplayed. One radio channel states that the zombie virus is mainly spread through the air and only a small amount of people (including the player character) are immune to the airborne strain. However, no one is immune to infections via bites or scratches.

* MustHaveNicotine: One of the starting negative trait is being a smoker. You (slowly) ''constantly'' gain Stress moodlet, which only goes down when you smoke. And unlike other bad starting habits you can pick for extra points, you can't quit smoking without mods, while there is a finite amount of smokes in the game without item respawning (which doesn't occur in singleplayer).

* NoFEMAResponse: The US government's response to Knox Infection was to put Knox County under strict quarantine as well as cut the phone lines so that no infomation could reach the outisde world.

* PowerEqualsRarity: The katana is one of the best if not ''the'' best melee weapon in the entire game as it is capable of taking out any zombie in one or two hits. However, katanas are exceedingly rare and break rather quickly.

* RevolversAreJustBetter: And unlike typical example of {{Hand Cannon}}s, it goes for a .38 snub-nose revolver, the "weakest" of guns. Ammo is plentiful and lightweight, while it still has a decent stopping power[[note]]Revolvers can also end up being ''faster'' to reload than any automatic weapons once you run out of loaded magazines - but should you carry a sufficient number of pre-loaded magazines, they will obviously lose the competition to automatics[[/note]]. But the real kicker is that it has a noise volume of only 25 and noise radius of merely 30 tiles - that's roughly the default area displayed on your screen. For comparison, a typical pistol is around 50 and 70, while things like shotguns and rifles are in 100-200 and 100-250 ranges, drawing to you things from half the block.

* SeenItAll: War Veteran background provides with all the combat training an unique trait: Desensitized. It makes your character completely unaffected by living in the horror of ZombieApocalypse, prevents panicking and doesn't cause any sort of distress from the bloodshed. As far as your character is concerned, the regular war experience was ''[[MundaneHorror worse]]''.

* UnaffectedBySpice: Zig-zagged. Not only does going overboard with spices has no negative effect when making dishes it usually increases the happiness gain from a dish. However, drinking an entire bottle of hot sauce or eating raw black pepper will make the Survivor unhappy.

* WithThisHerring: Averted. Even though you started with no items as you spawn, you spawn in a random home location with local items just so happened to be available for you to survive. [[RandomNumberGod Pray to the gods that you'll get a some manner of bag or pack to carry all the stuff you need]].

* FishingforSole: Socks and shoes are the two items the player can catch while fishing.