Player

![Player](/w/images/d/d5/Player_Character.png)

_Customized player character._

General

Sex

Male or female (player's choice)

Occupation

Player's choice, see occupation

Traits

Player's choice, see traits

Location

Muldraugh
Riverside
Rosewood
West Point

    ![PlushSpiffo.png](/w/images/7/7e/PlushSpiffo.png)_This article is about the playable character and is not applicable to the story. For the currently removed main protagonist, seeBob Smith. For general survivors, see survivor._

The **player** , also referred to as the **survivor** , is a character that
can be controlled in Project Zomboid, and refers to both singleplayer and
multiplayer.

## Character creation

To play Project Zomboid, a character needs to be created. The character
creation screen will allow the player to give the character a name, choose an
occupation, as well as select certain traits (both positive and negative) for
the character.

Regardless of the mode chosen, whether it be a Custom Sandbox or Challenge, a
character must first be created or a preset can be loaded if it was previously
saved.

### Traits

![](/w/images/thumb/4/49/Traits_and_Occupations.jpeg/300px-
Traits_and_Occupations.jpeg)

Traits Screen. Explanation of numbers to the left.

    _Main article:Traits_

When creating a character, the player will first be greeted by this screen:

  1. Different occupations, all of which having different benefits.
  2. These are the positive traits, which require a certain number of points to take.
  3. These are the negative traits, which gives the player more points.
  4. These are the traits the player currently have selected.
  5. These are the skills, with each dash representing one level of that skill.

### Character builder

![](/w/images/thumb/6/61/Character_builder_physical.jpg/300px-
Character_builder_physical.jpg)

Character creation explanation of numbers to the left.

After clicking the next button on the character builder, the player will be
sent to this screen:

  1. Character’s appearance.
  2. First and last name.
  3. Sex (male or female).
  4. Random (randomizes all options).
  5. Clothing (choose initial outfit from a variety of colors and garment options – other clothing can be acquired during gameplay).
  6. Skin color and body hair options.
  7. Hair style and color (plus facial hair style, if character is male).

Clicking "Next" will begin the game.

## Movement

    _Main article:Controls_

The players movement is controlled with `W``A``S``D` keys. The default
movement speed is walking, which makes relatively little noise. Pressing `C`
will toggle sneak mode, which further reduces noise and chance of being
spotted. By holding the `LSHIFT` key, the player will jog while crouched or
upright, making more noise than walking. The player can also sprint by holding
`LALT`, creating a lot of noise and increasing the chance of being spotted,
while also rapidly exhausting the player.

The player can interact with the environment by pressing `E` to open doors and
windows, or holding `E` to climb over obstacles such as windows and fences
(includes tall fences). Climbing through windows without a floor on the other
side will result in the player falling, and causing damage dependent on the
distance fallen. This can potentially break a leg or foot bone, becoming
injured and in pain, severely reducing movement speed, taking a long time to
heal. This can be mitigated by attaching a sheet rope to climb in and out of
buildings through windows.

Using Sneak Mode will gain experience (XP) for the nimble and sneaking skills.
The sneaking skill determines how well the character avoids detection. The
player character also gains XP in nimble by climbing fences and moving through
windows undetected. Light-footed is leveled by moving at any speed while being
undetected, and reduces the amount of noise made by the player when moving.

## Combat

The player can attack while unarmed or with an equipped weapon. To attack
accurately, the player can aim by holding `CTRL` or `RMB`, entering "combat
mode", which changes the cursor to the "iso-cursor". Clicking `LMB` will cause
the player to attack. If unarmed, the player will perform a shove, knocking
zombies back, which can also be performed with `SPACE` while a weapon is
equipped. A shove does no damage but can knock zombies over, allowing the
player to stomp the zombie's head. There are 9 types of weapons, each has its
own pros and cons, these types include: short blade, long blade, short blunt,
long blunt, spear, heavy, firearm, throwable or trap.

### Ground-targets

The iso-cursor may help determine character facing when targeting enemies. The
player will always prioritise targeting a standing enemy, over a knocked down
or crawling one, therefore making crawlers very dangerous.

A ground-target can be a zombie that has been knocked down or a crawler. For a
bonus to damage, position your character to be standing near the zombie's
head, as opposed to the hitbox on their legs or torso, before attacking.
Damage done by stomping on a zombie is determined by the shoes worn, with bare
feet doing minimal damage (and dealing negligible damage to the character
itself). However, barefoot stomping is still viable, considering the damage
multiplier to the head.

Note that it has been believed that the iso-cursor may be used for targeting
grounded enemy hitboxes. As of current build 41 this has proven to be FALSE.
This may change in the future, as the devs have stated the iso-cursor used for
aiming is intended in their vision. See notes at the bottom of the page for
information.

## Player stats

    _Main article:Moodles_

There are various player stats that need to be managed in order to survive.
These stats are not represented as a meter, as they usually are in other
games, but instead as a moodlet, which displays the player's current status.
Player stats include:

  * **Hunger:** Affects the player's strength and healing rate. Will begin to lose health if left hungry. Restored by consuming food and some drinks.
  * **Thirst:** Reduces player's carrying capacity when thirsty, and eventually death. Restored by consuming drinks or some foods.
  * **Fatigue:** Reduces stamina regeneration when tired. Restored by sleeping or consuming vitamins.
  * **Endurance:** Reduces strength and movement speed. Slowly restored by reducing the amount of physical activity performed, or quickly by sitting on ground or resting on furniture.
  * **Drunkenness:** Increases rate of tiredness and decreases weapon accuracy. Will often move separately to controls. Drunkenness lowers over time and is reduced quickly with rest and sleep.
  * **Pain:** Reduces speed and weapon accuracy. Restored by healing wounds or consuming painkillers, the player is unable to sleep when over minor pain.
  * **Panic:** Decreased spatial awareness and accuracy. Restored by changing environmental factors, such as hearing or seeing zombies, sleeping, consuming beta blockers or alcohol. Chance of being panicked reduces daily, until becoming desensitized after surviving for 150 days.
  * **Stress:** Reduces damage and accuracy, and increases rate of unhappiness. Restored by smoking, reading particular literature, or fixing the cause, whether it be sickness, zombies or bloody while hemophobic.
  * **Boredom:** Increases rate of unhappiness. Restored by reading particular literature, consuming particular foods/drinks, killing zombies, being active outdoors, watching television or listening to music.
  * **Temperature:** Core body temperature needs to be maintained at around 37 °C. Being too hot increases rate of thirst and reduces spatial awareness. Being too cold reduces speed, spatial awareness and eventually health, and increases the chance of catching a cold. Temperature can be managed with clothing, wetness or environmental temperature (weather, heat source or Vehicle AC/heater).
  * **Sickness:** Caused by food sickness or zombie infection. Reduces strength, increases core body temperature, and begins to lose health. Restored by staying well-fed, sleeping or consuming lemon grass. Zombification cannot be cured, the effects can only be slowed until death.
  * **Wetness:** Decreases core body temperature and insulation effect from clothing. Restored by drying self with a dish towel or bath towel.
  * **Unhappiness:** Increases time to complete most actions. Restored by reading particular literature, consuming particular foods/drinks or antidepressants.

## Character panel

### Info

This is the panel where character model is shown and can be rotated. Also an
occupation icon and various stats are shown there.

#### Weight

    _Main article:Nutrition_

Weight is a player statistic presented on the Info panel, which can be toggled
with `J` by default. During character creation, the player can choose between
one of four traits which will determine their starting weight; if none are
chosen, they will begin with the default weight of 80. Over time the player's
weight may begin to vary from its starting value, in which depends on the
nutritional value of the food they have been consuming. As the player's weight
fluctuates, their traits will also change depending on their current weight.
The game recognises that there are actually five different traits relating to
weight, rather than just the four which can be picked up during character
creation, whereas the default/normal weight is considered the absence of a
trait.

The different effects caused on the player, along with their weight ranges can
be seen in the table below.

Name  | Weight range
---|---
![Obese](/w/images/f/ff/Trait_obese.png) Obese | 100 or more
![Overweight](/w/images/2/2c/Trait_overweight.png) Overweight | 85 - 100
Normal | 75 - 85
![Underweight](/w/images/3/36/Trait_underweight.png) Underweight | 65 - 75
![Very Underweight](/w/images/8/8b/Trait_very_underweight.png) Very Underweight | 50 - 65
![Emaciated](/w/images/f/fa/Trait_emaciated.png) Emaciated | 50 or less
![Degeneration](/w/images/thumb/3/39/Moodle_Icon_Injured.png/26px-
Moodle_Icon_Injured.png) Degeneration
(Damage) | 35

_Note that the emaciated trait and degeneration currently only exists in the
game mechanics and therefore have no visual representation in-game._

#### Traits

This window shows the current traits a character has.

#### Hair/Beard

    _Main article:Appearance_

![](/w/images/thumb/f/f9/PZ_Player_Info.png/200px-PZ_Player_Info.png)

The in-game info tab with appearance editing options.

Allows the player to change the look, for some hair styles Scissors, Razor or
Hair Gel are required. Beard options are only available for male characters.

#### Training Materials

Opens window that shows all read skill books, recipe magazines, watched home
VHSes, CDs listened to, and regular VHSes.

#### Favourite Weapon/Zombies Killed/Survived For

  * _Favourite Weapon_ shows player's favorite weapon, that includes Bare Hands, but doesn't show vehicles nor fire.
  * _Zombies Killed_ – doesn't count kills done by a vehicle, fire or zombie falling. Damage done doesn't count, only the final hit.
  * _Survived For_ – only shown when Digital Watch or Alarm Clock are in the inventory.

### Skills

    _Main article:Skills_

![](/w/images/thumb/4/45/PZ_Skills.png/200px-PZ_Skills.png)

A shot of the skills panel.

As the player improve their skills in the game (carpentry, sprinting, etc),
their skills will level up.

Gold squares are already obtained skills. Skill names that have arrows beside
the name indicate that there is a multiplier applied for the XP the player
earns in that skill. The player earns this multiplier by reading skill books.

#### Fitness

    _Main article:Skills_

Fitness increases a multitude of player abilities. It reduces endurance loss,
increases endurance recovery, increases movement and attack speeds, reduces
damage from long falls, increases chance to push a zombie off when attacked
and reduces stagger and trip chance when a zombie lunges after falling over a
window or fence.

Fitness can be leveled by sprinting, doing exercises and using melee attacks
while the player is not overexerted.

### Strength

    _Main article:Skills_

Strength determines the player's carry weight, as well as certain other
factors, such as opening locked windows and melee or shove knockback. It
increases melee weapon’s damage by 5%, and a flat 0.2 damage from stomping
downed zombies. It also increases shove/push knockdown chance.

This can be leveled up mainly by doing strength exercises, carrying more than
50% of the carry capacity, and running. Strength experience is also granted
when hitting zombies or trees with melee attacks.

### Health

    _Main article:Health_

A characters' health is displayed in the health window, which can be toggled
by clicking the heart icon on the top-left of the screen or pressing `H`. Once
the player's health drops below 80%, an injured moodle will be displayed on
the top-right of the screen.

The player can recover from minor injuries without requiring any further
attention. These injuries may be shown on the health window as "pain". The
speed of recovery can be affected by the player's stats, as displayed by a
moodle. Being well-fed will speed up recovery whereas being hungry or catching
a cold can make it slower. Other moodles, such as being sick or hungry, can
reverse the process - further damaging the character.

Any wound that breaks the skin will cause bleeding, which will need to be
bandaged with either a bandage, adhesive bandage, ripped sheet, denim strips
or leather strips. Applying a clean bandage and keeping clothing clean reduce
the chance of infection. Disinfecting a wound and then applying a sterilized
bandage or sterilized rag further reduces the chance of infection, and can
even cure the infection.

However, the bandage will become dirty over time, which will not only negate
the previous bonuses against infection but will even increase the chance of
infection if left unchanged. This requires removing the bandage and replacing
it with a clean one. The type and severity of the wound will determine the
rate of a bandage getting dirty.

#### Exercise

    _Main article:Exercise_

This button allows player to perform various exercises to increase their
strength or fitness. Some might require barbell or dumbbell.

### Protection

![](/w/images/thumb/e/ef/Protection_Panel.png/200px-Protection_Panel.png)

The in-game protection panel of a player wearing firefighter clothes.

Wearing clothes provides protection to the player against scratches, bites,
and bullets. Different clothing provide different amounts of protection from
each source. The protection tab panel shows the player the protection
percentage of each body part. The Firefighter Jacket and Firefighter Pants
provide the highest amount of scratch and bite protection for the areas they
cover. The Tailoring skill can be used to increase the protection and
insulation of some clothing.

At 100% protection, the clothing will always protect the player from the first
attack in that region, making a hole in the attacked clothing.

### Temperature

![](/w/images/thumb/e/e5/Temperature_Panel.png/200px-Temperature_Panel.png)

The in-game temperature tab.

The temperature panel shows the player the current temperature for different
regions of the body between blue for cold and red for hot. It also shows the
ranges of the players core temperature, and the players body heat generation.
The player can increase their body temperature by wearing appropriate clothes
with high insulation, or reduce the temperature by wearing less clothing. The
player can see their insulation levels by clicking the insulation tab in the
temperature menu.

The temperature menu also has an advanced option which allows the user to
check their blood vessels, shivering/perspiration, body wetness, clothing
wetness, and wind resistance. The wetness of a players body and/or clothes can
effect their temperature, especially in the cold. The player can use this
panel to regulate their characters body heat to prevent issues caused by
extreme temperatures.

## Sleep

    _Main article:Sleep_

Sleep management is a vital part of the gameplay mechanics. The player will
get tired every day, and the level of tiredness affects the player's spatial
awareness, greatly increasing the chance of being caught out by zombies. The
player must choose where and when to go to sleep. Sleeping will gradually
remove the tired moodle, and can take between 6-8 hours of regular sleep,
provided the player is not woken by a nightmare or nearby sounds. Sleeping can
be done anywhere, such as the ground, a bed, chair or vehicle, each of which
with a bed quality. A low bed quality can reduce the rate of tiredness and
result in gaining damage.

In multiplayer, sleep can be enabled or disabled by the server owner. If
sleeping has been disabled, the player does not need to sleep, and when a bed
or other piece of furniture is clicked, the message "Not tired enough to
sleep." will appear even if the player has taken sleeping tablets.

## Inventory management

    _Main article:Inventory_

![](/w/images/thumb/d/db/Inventory.png/400px-Inventory.png)

Example inventory of Malony Jenkins.

Managing the inventory is an essential factor in survival. Through it, the
player can acquire various resources and tools that can be used or stored for
future use. The inventory area also functions as a crafting panel using the
context or crafting menus. The context menu is accessed by right-clicking on
the object desired to modify, while the crafting menu is accessed using the
`B` key. Here, the player can view all the recipes available to their
character, according to their skill level and known recipes.

In the clothes panel, it is possible to see the items the player is currently
wearing, this is used to keep the player's body temperature at the proper
level. Short clothes allow the character to cool off, and warm clothes keep
the character warm and protected from the cold.

The Heavy Load appears when the total inventory weight value exceeds the
player's weight limit - the value of which is defined by the player's strength
level - drastically reducing his speed. This can be avoided with the use of
baggage. Baggage (such as a plastic bag or a backpack) is an object that can
be carried in the hands or back and allows the storage of items from the
player's inventory, reducing their weight. In addition to baggage, objects can
also be stored in containers such as cabinets, drawers, shelves, etc. Vehicles
can also be used to store objects and transport them to another place without
overburdening the player.

## See also

  * Survivor
  * Animal
  * NPC
  * Metagame
  * Weapons
  * Traits
  * Skills
  * Occupation
  * Health

## External links

  * Character planner
  * This Is Not A Headshot In Project Zomboid by Retanaru. Explanation and demonstration on ground-targeting zombies.
  * Explaining The Janky Aiming In Project Zomboid by Retanaru. Expanded explanation on targeting in melee combat.

  *[UI]: User-Interface
  *[AI]: artificial intelligence
  *[RMB]: Right Mouse Button
  *[RPM]: Revolutions per minute
  *[MPH]: Miles per hour
  *[FPS]: frames per second
  *[Grow time]: Average grow time (days)
  *[Condition lower
chance]: 1 in (x + maintenance × 2)

  *[Base durability]: Condition × break chance
  *[?]: Chance of poisonous
  *[(2)]: Non-perishable until opened
  *[(4)]: Non-perishable until opened
  *[(3)]: Non-perishable until opened
  *[(5)]: Non-perishable until opened
  *[(7)]: Non-perishable until opened
  *[RMC]: Right Mouse Clicking
  *[LMC]: Left Mouse Clicking

Player