So I just kinda hurt tonight so I'm gonna talk about one of my favorite bits of game design in recent memory.

The Helicopter Event.

This is from Project Zomboid and if you play the game, you will hate the Helicopter Event. It's a test for all the little rules the game has been trying to teach you done in a way most people don't realize, and is also the closest thing a survival game can have to a boss fight.

Project Zomboid teaches you very early on that sound is probably one of your biggest enemies. You will have early deaths when you learn the game to two things; mispressing Q while trying to strafe which will make your character shout and get everything nearby's attention, and when you inevitably whip out a gun and draw everything in 2 block's attention.

Quiet is good. Clever players will begin to do things like find guns and then run a decent ways from where they're staying and shoot shit there, because then they train up gun skills and draw zombies away from where they're staying.

The other thing about noise is that there are (currently) no NPCs, but the sound design is there for them. So at the moment, a lot of times now you'll hear dogs barking in the distance, or far off (or not too far off) gunshots and screams.

And again if you don't think about it it is tempting to see what's going on only to realize you will never find the source of that gunfire.

Sound is dangerous, sound is malicious, zombies move in big old groups based on sound.

And then. Somewhere after day 5 but no later than day 10, you get The Helicopter Event.

The only warning you will get is if you have been lucky enough to find the emergency automated radio signal your radio will tell you a cryptic "Air traffic detected."

Otherwise, you will be doing your normal thing, and you will suddenly hear a helicopter.

"Yeah whatever it's just ambient noise." You're guaranteed dead, practically.

oh, that sounds bad

Because the way the Helicopter Event works is that if you walk outide during it and aren't covered by heavy trees or a roof or something, now that sound is following you. It's a lowflying helicopter pilot, and that is a shitton of noise.

chopper dave

And once they see you, they're following you unless they lose you. They'll stay hovering over the building you run back into. If you rush off into the treeline, they'll stick around some, and slowly spiral out trying to find you.

And they will draw zombies for miles.

can't believe zombies can fly helicopters now

The chopper event is fun because it's a test of your ability to not panic, because setting in day 6-10 randomly means that you're almost certainly out trying to find supplies for when the power and water go out, or the materials to fortify wherever you decided to base yourself.

So you are either 1) out in the middle of the road and now have to run for somewhere you can hide and hope not too many zombies find you 2) in the middle of looting a place you now need to find the most secure or securable corner of or 3) at your base and now hoping supplies and fortifications hold out.

I think it's honestly a good, if incredibly nervewracking way, to end what is essentially the extended tutorial period of the game.