How do you make zombies interesting again?
Wait ten years or so.
>>47055400
They don't NEED to be interesting, they're meant to be disposable trash-tier enemies without alot personality or character development.
>>47055400
Just have them be passing epidemics like the yearly flu or something. They are fucking trash easily contained.
Zombies have been done to death.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZombieApocalypse
The last interesting I've seen was The Last of Us with fungal zombies or some such thing.
Give them a boss a big one a sort of big bad guy if you will.
>>47055400
same way everyone else did make them not zombies
Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
Make them nearly unkillable
>>47055400
Resident evil style monsters and mutant animals on top of zombies.
>>47055400
Do you mean as enemies or as the players?
>>47055427
This.
>>47055400
have you ever watched the movie Quarantine? There is some real untapped movie potential in storytelling around the very initial start of the zombie apocalypse that is usually overlooked or done away with in the first 10 minutes.
The reasonably sound explanation quarantine presents for its "zombies" is bio-genetically modified rabies. Rabies being incurable, and makes the victim froth at the mouth, have a severe fever, confusion, loss of personality/amnesia and spiked extreme aggressive behavior.
What i was really interested in is the way the government steped in almost imediately to stop a potential outbreak of this bio-wepon essentially sacrificing the lives of the quarantined captives to save the country. Apply this to a town sized quarantine instead of one building and you have a great potential to a movie.
tl;dr best part about zombies for me is the pure panic in the first 5 min
>>47055400
by making the Survivors that aren't the players more interesting?
I mean, zombies aren't the things players should be worry about, it's the people who have survived along with them.
that strategy seems to work for me.
>>47055400
voodoo zombies, I guess?
>>47055981
This
Zombies should be regarded as more of a force of nature, like a flood, instead of a direct threat.
>>47055427
Skeletons?
>>47056006
this. magic zombies. that actually raise from graveyards.
let them be a threat for a small area.
The whole "global scale epidemic" doesnt work in reality. Our scientists dont act like the retards in these movies.
The whole promise of zombie-outbreak flicks is idiots not knowing about zombies. People not aiming for heads and government dismissing the threat.
a real outbreak of shit like this would probably end up like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot_cr1odDkU
or like in the resident evil game were they nuked the shit out of the city and rounded up all the survivors.
>>47055400
By making them the least threatening but most common of the presented threats as being the catalyst for the apocalypse. the rest of the threats being shit like robots, mutants, demons, and eldritch horrors. Also Left 4 Dead style special zombies are always nice.
>>47055973
I'd say that you really should be watching REC instead of Quarantine.
>>47056226
Why so?
>>47055400
Have them as people suffering from some form mass hysteria murdering people independently for the same nonsense cause. I imagine they'd act intelligently, like a serial killer might.
Maybe have people join in on the cause by hearing so subtle keyphrase spoken by one of the afflicted.
>>47056226
REC stands for...?
>>47056367
I'm other anon, but this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REC_%28film%29
Quarantine is american remake.
In my setting zombies are a bit more complicated than just infected flesh eaters.
There is actually 3 diseases that cause zombies to occur.
1. Causes aberrant behaviour, insomnia, mania, paranoia, aggression and subconjunctival hemorrhaging (bleeding from the eyes).
2. Causes a physiological change that makes them hunger for raw flesh of any kind, and makes them taste disgusting to other infected. Those infected with this particular disease have a tendency to shake a lot and suffer from very unsteady hands as well as a chesty cough.
3. Causes loss of rationality, cognitive capability, extreme aggression and the typical zombie desire to kill people and eat them.
Some people might get two or only one of the diseases, so some people might get infected and be just as likely to try and eat other zombies as other people and be eaten themselves in all likelihood. Others might just be crazy insane people who are afraid to seek out help. Some people might just hunger for raw meat.
However the diseases work well in conjunction often leading to zombies that find the taste and smell of each other disgusting and don't want to be crowded so they tend to fan out and attack people only when they get hungry.
The reduced rationality and aggression leads to erratic behavior and attacks.
So it's less zombies and more bloodthirsty insane people. Also infection occurs as per usual for infections diseases, contaminated food, body fluids, contact and through the air.
The dead stay dead as well.
In setting it's easy to cure medically speaking but the infected tend to be almost impossible to reason with in most cases so without force it's difficult and depending on how hungry they are they might do anything they can to get a bite of someone.
>>47056589
loss of rationality and cognitive capability*
In a few of my zombie dreams, there are people who became zombies that aren't the typical brain-eaters when not disturbed. Many films, shows, movies, etc show zombies being idling retards until they're alerted to the presence of fresh, uninfected meat. OR, they are SUPER AWARE of their food that they will track someone a whole mile without pause.
In one dream of mine, I was escaping from an overrun National Guard checkpoint. Once we escaped the commotion, we noticed that several zombies were replaying habits. Some zombies that were found in track suits were still jogging down blocks. We realized these things were daily occurrences so much that it was habitual. Thus, zombies continued habitual activities. If we were able to pass the zombies unnoticed, then they continued their habitual actions. Especially those actions that were loud.
In some of my other dreams, there are zombie virus "carriers." In other words, people who retain some of their humanity while also succumbing to being zombies. They share dialogue and can defend themselves. More often than not, they decide to side with zombies because the uninfected people are always mauled and eaten by the zombies or infected. They live rather lonely lives among total retarded zombies, and are often killed because they're rotting.
What makes zombies interesting is how there is literally no escape, but their presence is exciting. Piling bodies so they can build a ladder mound is pretty neat and proves that even the highest walls are ineffective.
>>47056329
>Maybe have people join in on the cause by hearing so subtle keyphrase spoken by one of the afflicted.MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
>>47055973
>Quarantine
Fuck, this shit is scary. Like, I wasn't scared by horrors for a long time, but this shit just fills me with panic.
Have it be possible to convert zombies back to people, but make it extremely easy to become a zombie even without dying.
It would make basically every character immortal, and it would be a bigger deal if a person's brain is completely destroyed. It'd sort of be like Torchwood Miracle Day, where everyone lives forever, but it starts turning hellish.
Also have the Government still be intact, but it's purging and massacring every "living" thing it can find. They turn into essentially a mafia, and in the background you can often see missiles landing on cities.
The Zombies should also be caused by Magic and Scientists working together. Zombies are already unrealistic, imagine if they had an old schizo like Vikings has with their Shaman. The Zombies are created by cultists, but they can't distribute it like a disease. So they work with Scientists and curse a strand of flu, so that it infects people. The Scientists (maybe CIA?) and cultists should sometimes be at eachother's throat. Also there should be some immortal demon behind the cultists. Maybe he's Moloch or something, and he reveals a plot he's been planning since Sumeria and Egypt.
The ending should be a Coup by the Government, and someone friendly to survivors takes charge. A cultist whistle-blower reveals the entire conspiracy to the Government. The survivors join the Government and as independent agency, and recover a nuclear bomb. Some Cultists should defect and work with the Survivor's and their Magicians to create a portal to Moloch, and they have to fight through his fortress fighting people, rivals, and zombies, to wheel a Nuclear bomb to his throne room.
They need more nuance and schemes. This Bear Grills shit is getting old.
>>47056750
The zombie cure is a good idea but I'd change it to an inhibitor/suppressant. Something which deactivates the virus for a while, puts it into remission.
Basically, I'd copy zombies from Gakkou Gurashi. They do a very fine mix of reacting to only certain senses, slowly becoming a zombie and feeling it take over their brain, the suppressant is great and its...Really, just such a great way of doing zombies.
Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep and Philosophical Zombie horror movie are also great
>>47055400
I use zombies mostly as the fuel of nightmares of the soldiers that are sent into the no-go lands to purge them, and any survivor they have the slightest doubt about. You see, they don't bunch up very much, so the soldiers get complacent, they normalize to popping a Z off every couple weeks.
But the thing is, the older a zombie is the more of their human faculties have come back under their control. A Z that's a year old can drive a car, shoot a gun, and most importantly, order around the younger Z's into coordinated swarms. When shit goes south, it goes from one to eleven with no in between.
And that's not even touching the demons that made the plague and can call in every zombie for dozens of kilometers in every direction. Can even bypass immunities to the airborne strain and forcibly infect you, and enslave you.
But on top of that, they're still mostly just a framing structure for why mega-corp PMCs function the way they do, because it's still more interesting to have humans fighting humans primarily, until shit hits the fan.
>>47055400
Make them a little more than just human shaped animals.
Make them semi intelligent so they form tribal societies and use tactics and primal tools.
Dark Souls already did it.
>>47055400
By finally STOP doing them? There is nothing worse than oversaturation.
>>47055400
The zombies don't need to be interesting. They're just a plot device to drag society back to small tribes. It's how the people interact with each other and their surroundings when nobody is around to enforce laws that holds the genre together.
>>47055400
Make them supernatural again. Make them unstoppable.
Zombies are the incarnation of Death.
You cannot hide from death. So you cannot hide from Zombies. They come after you wherever they are.
You can avoid/ eliminate any danger. So you can avoid a Zombie.
You cannot avoid/eliminate every danger. So if you hide behind a wall more zombies will come and tear down that wall. If you kill a zombie more will come.
You can run, you can fight, it doesn't matter you will loose.
>>47055973
>>47056589
>>47056641
>>47056892
These are some good ideas.
>>47057224
>People actually believe into this
Mate, I will give you a clue.
Zombies and entire zombie apocalypse genre is pure, unfiltered, unapologetic ESCAPISM. It's about running wild and killing people without any repercussions whatsoever that holds the genre together. Last time it was making any real political or sociological claim, it was original Dawn of the Living Dead, one of the most heavy-handed preaching in entertaining films to date.
Aside of course later Romero's films, but hey, don't be hard on a guy who literally did nothing more than few comercials and zombie flicks representing his own believes, paranoias and political alignment.
>>47057502
The Walking Dead, The Last of Us and Dying Light are all examples of this more philosophical zombie work, where the zombies are the foil to the humans and help pose the questions "Should we try to survive or try to live?"
>>47056892
I left out something important. In Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep, the book poses an idea for how running zombies and shambling zombies can both exist due to the same virus; time of infection. Running zombies tend to change a lot quicker than normal zombies, sometimes still being alive by the time the infection fully matures. This means their brains haven't had time to rot but they're still suffering from no pain, not dying from bleeding out and so forth. Slow zombies come from people's brains slowly dying and being converted, either after death or heavily damaged due to the fever caused by the body fighting the disease.
I'd suggest two kinds of zombie virus in this case; one which can vary from person to person on whether they're a fast zombie or a slow zombie (uncertainty breeds fear and tension) and maybe a second kind of virus which doesn't turn people into zombies but causes their lungs to start shedding flesh and coming up in little melted chunks.
Then you have two infections to worry about, both transferred in different ways and both affecting different people.
Having more than one kind of disease will spice up the setting and while you could go viral + fungal zombies, viral zombies and another type of infection could be equally interesting.
>>47056641
That second one is really interesting, and reminds me of how I did zombies in a game I ran. They were basically a phenomenon which occurred when people died suddenly in mass quantities - they couldn't pass on, and so kept existing as decaying ghosts. They'd keep acting out their last day over and over again forever, unless something prevented them from doing so. Then they'd go utterly berserk until they were able to resume their gruesome performance.
>>47057650
Wow, grand total of THREE works, all of them cringe-worthy as fuck. This totally makes entire genre, especially since they all sprouted out in past few years.
Want to see where this whole thing really lies? Check Shaun of the Dead. That's literally what drives the genre for past half of century.
Escapism.
>>47057820
But Shaun of the Dead is a deconstruction of the Zombie survivor concept. The hero's group is nearly entirely dead or infected by the end of the movie and only saved by the Army/Deus Ex Machina, Shaun isn't a brave leader, a savvy schemer or even particularly attractive he's just a schmuck who's unassertive and has no idea what he's doing.
The Winchester proves absolutely terrible, the group nearly falls apart every five minutes and he's totally unable to stop Nick from nearly killing them all over and over again. Plus, the assessment by their room mate at the start, about how they're both complete fuck ups is totally true.
Shaun of The Dead is really fun to watch but it's not escapist at all. It's depressingly realistic in how horribly fucked most people would be in a zombie movie with no disaster-survival training, no strict hierarchy of who's in charge and half the people treating it as a fucking cake walk like Nick does.
Also, I don't see what's cringe worthy about The Walking Dead or The Last of Us. Last of Us isn't amazing but its certainly not a bad game and the story telling is pretty good for modern gaming; plus, the world creation is nice. Walking Dead meanwhile, no matter how you want to critque the story elements, is extremely good at presenting themes and debates on leadership, what it means to be alive and what it means to be human through out its run.
>>47057820
>>47057917
Also, keep in mind Shaun of the Dead takes place over a single day. Shaun kills basically everyone in the plot due to his inability to control the situation and goes out to die as one last hurrah with his girlfriend before the army comes.
>>47057917
>>47057933
>Missing the point this much
Jesus...
1) People watch zombie flicks, because they are dumb action/horror flicks
2) People find entertainmnent in watching dumb people dying in dumb ways, that's how slashers exist
3) If you want to make a point, you most definitely shouldn't be using zombies as an allegory or tool for anything, because those are related with dumb action/horror flicks.
And Walking Dead is Cringe: The Series, since it's basically bunch of Ideas talking about Different Ideas. There are no characters, no plot, no development, just bunch of bullshit, accompanied with dropping undead and arguing about how much American the new world order should be.
It's cringe with C.
People who want to have anything to do with zombies aside escapism got SERIOUS mental problems and/or are escaping reality in which they must adhere to societal rules... oh, wait, that's escapism too.
>>47057917
>Shaun of The Dead is really fun to watch but it's not escapist at all
>Shaun of The Dead
>not escapist at all
>>47055400
You basically can't mate. It's like necromancers with skeletons. You can see them coming from a mile away. Execution is what matters, not originality.
>>47055400
you don't
you let this shitty trend die
OOOOOOOH THE IRONY
>>47057917
>Walking Dead meanwhile, no matter how you want to critque the story elements, is extremely good at presenting themes and debates on leadership, what it means to be alive and what it means to be human through out its run.
Yes, because people like to watch political discussion that go in circle, repeating like a mantra "Being psycho is good, as long as you are doing it for family and as long as you only kill other psychos with the very same excuse".
And this shit is repeating itself over and over for what now? 5 seasons?
Bored me to fucking tears by 4th.
There is a HUGE difference between making points and repeating the same shit over and over and over and OVER again.
>>47057917
>I'm 15 and zombies are the bestest thing ewah
Play as the zombies.
>>47055400
Been rewatching both versions of Dawn of the Dead literally two days ago as an exercise for writing reviews on remakes.
And you know what?
Zombies don't work as a threat if they are just shambling corpses. They reduce the tension to minimum, the setting cease to make any sense (how the fuck things could even start to crumble, really?!) and the entire thing starts circling around scriptwriter's ideas about humanity, society and politics.
In short - you are watching some dumb, heavy-handed political commentary that Romero cemented into "society is evil, government is inefficient and military is evil+". It might work as a film, since you are done within 2 hours, but any other form is just mind-numbing.
So either you make it really about survival, thus one-off game sessions/mini-campaigns with predefinied goal, or you are not making it at all as a tabletop. Kind of L4D, where the entire "story" is literally about reaching evacuation zone.
The moment you gain fortified base, supplies are secured and perimeter is tight, boredom kicks in. And players most definitely WON'T try to talk about what the scriptwriter assumed might be interesting, they will ask for next mission or realise there is nothing else to do
TL;DR - if you MUST do zombie game, give it pre-defined goal. Reaching it means the game is done and over.
Make them rabies-type zombies that remember parts of their former personalities and lives. They might recognise someone specific or carry around a token from their former life.
>>47055400
Make them intelligent and capable of absorbing the memories of the people whose brains they eat.
>>47055400
Have the Zombie Alliance vs the Skeleton Federation as they fight over who gets to have the humans to become either Zombies or Skeletons only for both groups to be played against each-other by the Ghost Union since everyone knows the most powerful ghosts are the ones who hold grudges and by having the skeletons and zombies forcing humans into a corner, the Ghosts that come out of them will be much more powerful and they can steamroll the Zombies and Skeletons unless the two groups can combine their forces to go against the Ghosts.
>>47058053
Watch the movie again. It's on the surface escapist but if everyone ends up dying pretty nastily and the end is a complete failure on the heroes parts, I wouldn't consider it escapist.
>>47058013
1. You could dismiss anything that way; Star Trek is just a dumb space opera show. Lord of the Rings is just a dumb fantasy book. Berserk is just a dumb dark anime. There's always a common denominator who just wants tits, action and craziness but that doesn't mean media has to stop having multiple layers to it.
2. Same as above.
3. Why? You could say the exact same about psychos but they're used to excellent effect in Silence of the Lambs, Misery and American Psycho. You could say the exact same about "America goes into a place to free it, shit goes bad" but you wouldn't have movies like Apocalypse Now or The Hurt Locker. You could dismiss Alien for being stupid because it talks about aliens and totally ignore the existential feeling the movie is looking to elicit.
Also, of course they're ideas talking about ideas. That's how Shakespeare did his work, that's how the movie Casablanca operates and that's how you discuss complicated notions; characters representing ideas conflict with each other in different ways, letting the writer explore and discuss high minded notions in a way that's interesting.
>>47058071
You're right about them repeating the same shit over and over again, I can't deny that but that doesn't change the fact that its able to use ideas-as-characters quite well. It's about as good as you can expect from American Mainstream TV these days.
>>47058109
Just because you hold things to a higher standard or look deeper doesn't mean you like it. Zombies are a dead horse right now but that doesn't mean they still aren't commonly used to discuss certain ideas or be a stand in for some kind of disaster. Ignoring that is retarded.
>>47055400
Rip off the zombies from pic related, it's how I'm running my current zombie apocalypse game.
>>47058393
>You are ALL wrong
/b/, please, go.
>>47058362
Like this?
>>47056267
Quarantine is the the vastly inferior American remake of an actually frightening Spanish movie.
Remove the infection they are always able to spread
You now control the numbers
They are now an effective bioweapon for any place in the world
>>47058709
Well, atmosphere of fucking panic was good. I'm gonna watch REC next then, but I am really afraid.
Quarantine's sequel is kinda shit, though, they tried to make it murican too hard.I still like how gun owner knows trigger discipline despite being aggressive retard, while everyone else hold gun like idiots
>>47058827
The REC sequels are fucking awful. The only redeeming moment is a scene where an outboard motor is used as a weapon.
>>47058558
>v tier argument
ok
>>47058827
Pretty much >>47058882. Then the third one if pretty fun if you´re drunk, and there´s a fourth one which is just painful to watch.
But the first one was good. And it´s even better if you know that the reporters (well, the actors) DIDN´T know the story. They knew it was a horror movie of some sort, but that´s about it. They had to improvise their way through it, and at some moments you can hear genuine fear, specially in the voice of the girl.
If you can understand Spanish or have no trouble with subtitles, consider watching it subtitled.
>Ctrl + F
>"Crossed"
>0 matches
>"Nechronica"
>0 matches
>"Fran"
>0 matches
/tg/, pls
Before Romero, zombies were just an obscure Haitian superstition. They have no relevance to most of folklore/mythology/traditional scifi although most settings cram in the zombies with all sorts of disparate nonsense anyway. The only interesting thing about them, the fact that they can turn living things into zombies through a bite, was taken from vampires. So why do we need zombies?
I'd like to see a move are from the "flu" thing. I get that it's more relevant and believable when it's a guy with rabies that you can just shoot, but that undermines zombies from being any sort of credible threat.
I prefer the idea of zombies being a supernatural flood on the living as a kind of metaphor for the inevitability of death. I wouldn't be opposed to a world ending plague, but only as a precursor to the main event.
On a side note, Parasite Eve had some amazing material to draw from for ideas, especially if the ROM threat has an intelligence behind it. The body horror was great.
>they retain intelligence
>they retain speech
>they can use tools
>>47059601
Crossed is shit, I'd argue that Nechronica isn't really a zombie game, not like what OP is asking about and if by Fran you mean Franken Fran, amusement park mascot zombies are the best zombies.
>>47060082
So ghouls?
>>47060082
Urban Dead is roughly like that. Zombies can't use tools, but they're intelligent (as intelligent as the players playing them anyway) and have their own "cultures", complete with multiple languages and religions/philosophies.
>>47059979
Parasite Eve is the shit.
