How to Play Zombie Tweet

Zombie Tweet is a ten-day survival run. Each day you read one scene, pick one of two or three options, and then sit through the night. If you are still standing after night ten, you win, and how you got there decides which ending you see.

Your supplies

You start every run with 8 health out of 10, 5 food, 2 planks, no barricade and nobody else in your fort. The panel next to the scene shows all of it, plus any gear you pick up.

How a day works

The morning scene is the whole day. Some choices are free, some cost food or planks, and some are marked "risky." A risky choice has a good result and a bad result, and the game rolls for it. The odds are usually between one in three and four in five, depending on how reckless the idea is. Two items shift the odds in your favor: the tandem bike and the town map. Together they add about 20 percentage points to every risky roll.

Results show up in the same post-sized box, along with the exact change to your stats, like "+3 food" or "-2 health." Then the night begins.

How nights work

Every night has two steps. First you eat. If there is not enough food, you skip dinner and lose 2 health instead. If you have the rooftop garden, it adds one food every second night.

Then the horde may come. The chance starts around one in three on the first night and climbs every day, so the second half of the run is noticeably rougher. On night ten the horde always comes, and it hits a little harder than usual.

When an attack happens, its strength grows with the day number, and everything in your defense subtracts from it: barricade points, crew, a dog, and goalie gear (or a knight's shield, which counts the same). If your defense is higher than the attack, you take no damage at all. Either way, the attack knocks one point off your barricade, so keep patching it. A quiet night with no attack gives you back 1 health.

Gear worth finding

• Biscuit the dog growls at zombies and blocks a point of damage every attack. He also unlocks a couple of scenes of his own.
• Goalie gear, or the knight's shield, blocks one point of damage.
• The tandem bike and the town map improve the odds on risky choices.
• The rooftop garden grows food every second night.
• The radio brings the casserole grandma, who pays well for small favors.
• The flare gun and the swan boat each open a special escape on day ten.

Day ten and the endings

Day ten is always the same scene: the whole town is heading your way and the rescue flights are due. If you have the flare gun, you can fire it from the roof. It works three times out of four, and when it fails you fall back on your barricade. If you repaired the swan boat, you can pedal away across the lake. Or you can hold the fort and face the last attack.

There are ten endings. Two are losses: being overrun, and running out of food until you can't stand up. Two are early wins that only show up from day six onward, hidden in special scenes. The other six depend on how you finish: a helicopter, the island, leading a convoy if your crew has three or more people, leaving with the dog, scraping through with 3 health or less, or walking out alone.

Scoring and sharing

Your score adds 100 points per day survived, 20 per health point, 5 per food and plank left, 40 per crew member, 50 for the dog and 300 for any winning ending. Your best run is saved in your own browser, so you can see it next time you open the game.

When a run ends, the game writes a result post for you. It is always 280 characters or less, counted the way X counts them: links count as 23 characters no matter how long they are. You can copy it, edit it, or press the button to open a prefilled post on X. Zombie Tweet is not affiliated with X Corp., and nothing is posted unless you post it yourself.

Questions