Zombye is played with a keyboard and mouse. The game window takes keyboard focus while it runs.
Moving
Section titled “Moving”| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| W A S D | Walk |
| Shift (held) | Run. Fast and loud, and it uses up endurance. |
| C | Sneak on or off. Slow, quiet, and much harder to see. |
| Mouse | Face where the pointer is. Zombies only see you in a cone; so do you. |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom in and out |
Walk into an open or broken window to climb through it. Climbing is slow, and a broken one may cut you.
Fighting
Section titled “Fighting”| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Left mouse | Swing what you hold, or punch with bare hands |
| Space | Shove the zombies in front of you. With a downed zombie at your feet, stomp it instead. |
Swings cost endurance. Below half endurance they get slower and weaker, and when it runs out you’re winded and can’t run until you get some back.
Doors, windows and things
Section titled “Doors, windows and things”| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| F | Open or shut the door or window you face |
| G | Smash the window you face (loud; bare hands may get cut) |
| E | Pick up the item you face. With nothing on the floor in reach, search the cupboard, fridge or wardrobe you face. |
| Tab or I | The inventory panel: your hands, bags, what you wear, the open container and the floor. Click to move things, Alt-click (Option-click on a Mac) to move one, Ctrl-click to pick several, Shift-click to pick a range or “pick all” for a whole column, then send them all with the move-to row over the columns; / searches by name and the category chips (several at once) narrow the lists; right-click to equip, wear, eat or use. The Make list at the bottom is crafting. |
| H | The health panel: your wounds, and the treatments you can do with what you carry |
| K | The skills panel |
| B | Lie down to sleep (B again, or a movement key, to get up) |
| Enter | The chat line: type, Tab picks whisper, talk or shout, Enter says it, Esc drops it. Survivors near you hear it (talk carries 12 m, a shout 40 m, a whisper 3 m; much less through a wall, and muffled). So do zombies. |
| V | Wave |
| U | Hands up (U again lowers them) |
| P | Point the way you face |
The game
Section titled “The game”| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| F5 | Quicksave |
| F9 | Quickload |
| M | Mute |
| R (dead) | Start a new run in the same town |
| Q or Esc (dead) | Quit |
Closing the window autosaves. --load autosave starts from it next time.
Developer keys
Section titled “Developer keys”These are for testing and screenshots, not for playing fair.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| F1 | God mode: you take no damage |
| F2 | Ignored: zombies can’t see or hear you |
| F3 | The light preview: a slider for the hour the light is drawn at |
| T | Skip an hour |
| Z | Spawn more zombies |
| , and . | Turn the camera a quarter turn (with --rotate) |