Lost Zombies describes itself as “a social network whose goal is to document the zombie apocalypse and create the world’s first community generated zombie documentary”. There are some pretty good shorts on the site, along with images, diaries and other very atmospheric submissions.
Some interesting comments on Reddit when someone suggested a mod for Left4Dead which would introduce slow zombies and less ammo. I’ve been playing a lot of L4D recently and this Redditor sums up the problem with the idea:
There are several problems with this. First, L4D’s maps are very linear. What happens if I run out of ammo? if pistols still have infinite ammo, then what’s the point, there’s an all pistol achievement already, and if you give me slow zombies, I can pick off those slow sacks of flesh all the way back to the saferoom. Slow zombies are only a threat if there are many of them. Probably more than L4D’s maps can handle (maybe). You’re talking about a different game, one where the fun comes from navigating an open ended city, and scouting ahead and from the rooftops to find the path that has the least zombies. Then you make a run for it, carving a hole through the horde before too many of them notice, and get to safety, or out of the city. You would need to change so many core mechanics that it wouldn’t be the same game at all.
Slow zombies are only scary because there are two thousand of them between you and your idiot girlfriend’s house across town(who you considered abandoning to her fate 3 times in the past hour), and you only have your grandpa’s shotgun that has been mothballed in the attic for 17 years, a handfull of shells, and the golf club you had to kill your childhood friend with. Zombie movies invoke the long term terror of having to deal with the fact that the only food you have ever made yourself was from a box, and figuring out how you are going to survive. It’s the horror of coming to grips with the fact that for the past 24 years of your life, you have never EVER been even remotely in a situation where you have had to kill a 10 year old boy and his mother with a baseball bat because they would have torn out your heart if you didn’t. Now you are in that situation for the better part of the day. They terrify you because there is a paper thin margin of error between you being human, and becoming one of them. A drop of their blood spraying you in your mouth is all it takes for you to turn into one of those abhorrent beasts. Not just you, but everyone you are surviving with. Every single one of your companions, who you RELY on for protection and survival, could turn into one of THEM at any moment, and you have to kill them before they become dangerous. THAT is what is scary about slow zombies.
Tips from io9. Having played a lot of Left4Dead recently, tips 1, 2 and 3 seem especially relevant.
