1. THE SURVIVAL CYCLE
🏠 YOUR STREET: The title's glowing PLAY ON YOUR STREET plays the street you live on: it finds it by your location (your browser asks first) or the address you type, shows it on a map and asks you to confirm it, then offers the building at your address as the HQ. Survival's ten nights, ranked on your street's own board. Survival, the Daily and the other modes play the standard maps, the same for everyone.
☀️ DAY PHASE: Scavenge unlooted buildings for scrap and medkits, rescue trapped survivors, fortify street chokepoints with barricades and razor wire, and position your squad. If ready early, click 🌙 START NIGHT to summon the horde instantly and collect +15 Scrap bonus!
🌙 NIGHT RAID: When night falls, massive exterior hordes march in from outside the sector boundaries down city streets straight toward your HQ. Hold the perimeter across ten escalating nights (a campaign mission names its own).
🌅 DAWN RESUPPLY: Sunrise pays base scrap plus more for every living survivor (and any supply depots), and, when none is up, puts up a distress beacon: survivors holed up in a building near the HQ. Garrison soldiers there and hold it for 30 s to bring them out (+3 Survivors, +75 Scrap, +1 Medkit); if the building falls first, they're lost.
📋 SIEGE'S DAY (Siege and Endless): Each day brings three contracts, paid the moment each is done and closed at nightfall: search a named building, put down so many of the dead, and clear a festering building or bring a beacon's survivors home. There, a held beacon's survivors walk to the HQ themselves, slow and unarmed, and the dead hear them: each one home is +1 Survivor. ENDLESS is Siege with no last night: hold as many as you can.
🧠 A HORDE THAT LEARNS (Siege and Endless): From night 4 the dead remember your lines: at dawn they mark the side your guns cover least, and that night's first wave comes at it. The side is named at dawn, drawn as a red arc past the HQ's walls, and marked in the dusk forecast: shore it up, and something else is thinnest. Each dawn the contracts' panel reports the night (where the HQ was hit, the best gun, who fell) with a tip, and Ask the advisor gives one piece of counsel a day. Soldiers have standing orders: hurt with the dead near, they fall back into the nearest building with room; a medic walks to the worst hurt; a sniper climbs the tallest building near at dusk. Your orders come first; turn them off for a soldier in its selection panel.
🏢 ROOFTOP GARRISONS: Right-click a building to garrison it. Your soldiers stand on its roof (K9s stay inside), walk the edge to get zombies in range, and take only 25% damage up there; medics tend the wounded on the roof. A roof holds as many as fit round its edge (its card shows how many), and the rest wait inside until a spot frees. Snipers up top see and shoot over lower buildings. Send rooftop soldiers to the building next door and they jump across the gap; order them out and they rappel down the wall. Watch the walls at night: Stalkers climb to the soldiers on a roof, so shoot them or knock them off before they reach the top. Riflemen, Shotgunners, Sappers, and JTACs up there also lob a grenade into any crowd of six or more at the foot of their walls, once every 18 s (up to 140 damage within 7 m).
2. SQUAD ARSENAL
★ COMMANDO (yours, from the start): The one soldier a run starts with, inside the HQ: ten riflemen tough, three and a half riflemen's fire, and an aura (+20% damage and faster reloads for every soldier within 25 m). Never recruited, never promoted, and if it falls the run is lost — keep it covered. Buy your first squad with the starting Scrap.
RIFLEMAN (270 Scrap): Balanced 35m assault rifle. Steady sustained DPS, low recoil, solid frontline workhorse.
SHOTGUNNER (450 Scrap): Heavy close-quarters buckshot. Blasts back advancing walkers in a 40° cone and knocks down non-bosses. Deadliest within 6 m; at its 25 m reach the pellets have spread thin.
SNIPER (720 Scrap): Long-range 65m high-velocity rifle. Each round hits its target plus one zombie behind it (at 75% damage). Up on a roof, it sees and shoots over every lower building.
COMBAT MEDIC (510 Scrap): Treats one wounded soldier at a time within 15 m, gun holstered and not firing while it works, and automatically revives downed squadmates. Fights with a pistol (in a Hold or a campaign mission, the old 25 m aura and an SMG).
ENGINEER (570 Scrap; 100 while none is alive): Every defence, upgrade, facility, storey and repair you order is a job: paid as you order it, and built by an engineer who walks there and works it (nothing is built without one; a barricade is 10 Scrap and slow). With nothing to build it welds what is hurt, +14 HP/s, walking the walls; with the dead within 25 m of a building it goes up and welds from the roof at a quarter. Two on a job work faster, ranks quicken the hands, traps go down in half the time; the dead's wreckage is rebuilt at dawn for a quarter; the HQ under 35% calls every engineer. The Salvage card cancels a plan, takes a defence down for half back, or clears rubble. (In a Hold written before it, the Heavy Sapper welds everything within 18 m instead.)
Out of the roster for now, and coming back one at a time: their cards and keys are off. In Siege and Endless the Research lab trains them back: their cards return (their keys stay off).
K9 WAR DOG (300 Scrap): Fast; pounces on a zombie within 22 m and pins it, and its bark lures nearby zombies to chase it.
CRYO-TROOPER (510 Scrap): Sprays a 16 m cone that slows zombies and flash-freezes all but the bosses; also dissolves acid pools within 12 m.
JTAC (450 Scrap): Lasers a target for +45% damage from everyone, and takes 25% off every call-in while alive.
[R] MEDKIT HEAL (1 Medkit): Field triage: instantly restores +50 HP to every wounded soldier on the field.
🎯 CRITICAL HITS & ON A ROLL: Any round that hits may be critical: double damage, and the body flies (8% rifle, 6% shotgun, 12% blade; a sniper's 15% is a headshot for 2.5×). A zombie that lives through one staggers. Veterans add 3%, Elites 6%, and a soldier below 30% health 10% more. Three kills with no more than 3 s between them put a soldier on a roll, ringed in orange: 30% faster fire for 4 s.
3. SPECIAL INFECTED THREAT DOSSIER
🏃 RUNNER (Debuts Level 2): High-velocity sprinting mutants. Charges ahead of the swarm to flank isolated squads or exploit perimeter breaches. Neutralize quickly with shotgunners and automated sentries.
☣️ BOOMER (Debuts Level 5): Volatile bile-bloated mutants with pulsating caustic sacs. Its death burst hurls and hurts the zombies around it, and leaves an 8 m acid pool for 4 s that burns your soldiers and buildings. Pick them off before they reach your lines.
🧪 ACID SPITTER (Debuts Level 4): Mutated bio-artillery with glowing lime-green acid bladders. Lobs caustic globes at soldiers it can see in the open, or else at the HQ or the building it is besieging (the pool there burns the soldiers it lands on). Direct snipers to prioritize.
💦 SPEWERS (Debut Level 3): Light, bile-yellow zombies that come in packs of four or more. Each stops 15 m short of the nearest soldier it can see within 20 m, even one up on a roof, and spits at it every 3–4 s: 14 damage to anyone within 1.6 m of where it lands (the parapet takes three quarters of it on a roof), and 4 to the roof it hits. A soldier on the move can step out of it. Weak alone and barely scratch a wall, but a pack wears a squad down: clear them first.
😱 SCREAMER (Debuts Level 3): Ultrasonic shriekers. Emits a high-frequency banshee howl that disorients soldiers within 30m and grants speed frenzy to all zombies within 90m.
🦎 STALKER (Debuts Level 4): Agile leaping predators that pounce on soldiers in the open within 18m (35 damage and a 1 s stun). With nobody in the open, they climb to soldiers on a roof: 2.5 s up the wall in plain sight (a knockdown or a freeze pulls them off), then a pounce and claws with no cover up there, until they are shot or blasted off. Barricades and razor wire still stop them.
🧟 THE CITY ITSELF: Stragglers linger all over the city from the first day: they drift, stand about and wander, chase the soldiers they see and come to the sound of guns, so scouting has its risks. The horde has a will of its own: a zombie that keeps taking rounds from one place turns on it, and now and then one goes after a defender it can see instead of the HQ. Soldiers in a building coming down round them sometimes get out on their own, for the nearest building with room.
🛡️ BREACHER (Debuts Level 5): Heavy armored chitinous battering ram engineered to bulldoze fortified bunkers, barricades, and gates.
👹 BEHEMOTH & CORRUPTOR TITANS (Debut Levels 6 & 7): Massive bio-titans possessing 6,000 and 4,500 hitpoints, earth-shattering ground slams, and toxic bile blights. Direct all squads, heavy gun-trucks, and automated turrets for concentrated focus fire.
4. DEFENSES & ARMORY
BARRICADE (100 Scrap): Street-spanning barrier (3,000 HP). Forces hordes to smash through while your soldiers shoot safely over.
RAZOR WIRE (80 Scrap): Shreds zombies pressed against it for 20 DPS (1,500 HP). Blocks the street until torn down.
[V] SENTRY TURRET (600 Scrap): 45m automated .30 cal point defense turret. Rapid fire on nearest hostiles.
[F] FLAME TURRET (320 Scrap): 18m napalm thrower cone. Ignites entire columns of shamblers with continuous fire DPS.
FUEL BARREL (160 Scrap): A trap you place on open ground (Shift+click for more; none stand on the map at the start). Shoot it, ram it, or click it: 450 damage within 9 m and a 9 s fire, and every barrel within 9 m goes up with it.
[U] FORTIFY BUNKER (320 Scrap): Reinforce any building or your HQ with sandbags and embrasures, granting +HP and garrison firing range bonus. On a watchtower, [U] entrenches it instead (below). It is the first tier of a building's DEFENCE path (320, 480, 720: +1,200 HP each, then electrified razor wire round its foot, then murder holes with burning oil); its card's FIREPOWER button puts guns on its roof that fire on their own, harder with each soldier inside (420, 720, 1,200: an MG nest, a mortar pit, a rocket battery). A tier on one path makes the other's a quarter dearer, and breachers and behemoths come for a building whose guns hit them.
WATCHTOWER (480 Scrap): A small square tower, 10 m tall, for 4 soldiers: put it up on a clear square of open ground from the Defenses tray. Its garrison fights from its height and it sees over the rooftops. ENTRENCH it from its card (260 Scrap): sandbags on top (+2,000 HP) and razor wire round its foot, which cuts the zombies at its walls.
HQ EXPORT RALLY POINT: Designate where newly trained recruits automatically march upon deployment. Select HQ or any building and Ctrl + Left Click (or Right-Click with HQ selected) anywhere on the map.
[G] ARMORED GUN-TRUCK (720 Scrap + 2 Crew): Heavy tactical vehicle with roof-mounted .50 cal gun and reinforced ramming prow. Right-click to steer and plow through swarms!
[P] SUPPLY DROP (360 Scrap): High-altitude crate drop delivering vital scrap, medkits, and survivor reinforcements directly to your coordinates.
LURE FLARE (160 Scrap): From the Support tray, fired where you click. For 8 s every zombie within 60 m that can see it leaves its road for it (the bosses don't), then it bursts: up to 200 damage within 9 m. One every 20 s. Use it to pull a crowd off a wall or into a trap.
CHEVRONS (260 Scrap): Concrete teeth the horde climbs over instead of smashing (3,500 HP): they don't seal a street, they slow everything crossing it and wear it down.
CLAYMORE (170 Scrap): A directional mine (150 HP) that fires once into the cone you aim it along. Cheap, single-use, and best on a street you already know the horde walks.
TESLA PYLON (360 Scrap): Every 1.6 s it zaps up to 4 zombies within 30 m and knocks them down (950 HP).
[B] HOWITZER (670 Scrap): An emplaced gun (1,400 HP) that shells the horde at long range on its own reload, and cannot hit what is close to it.
[X] C4 SATCHEL (200 Scrap): Planted where you click and blown by its own 4 s fuse, 22 m across — one wrecks a hive.
[C] RECON DRONE (240 Scrap) / [Y] HUNTER DRONE (260 Scrap): The Recon lights the ground it orbits so you can see what is coming; the Hunter hunts on its own. Both return to the pad to recharge.
KAMIKAZE DRONE (200 Scrap): Flown into a target and lost on impact.
[I] COMBAT MECH (1200 Scrap + 1 Crew): The heaviest thing you can field: micro-missiles, a hydraulic stomp, and enough armour to stand in the street.
CALL-INS — [K] ARTILLERY (360 Scrap), [N] NAPALM (440 Scrap), [O] AC-130 GUNSHIP (640 Scrap): Aimed where you click, from the Support tray. A living JTAC in the squad takes 25% off all three. Today's Daily may ground them.
5. TACTICAL CONTROLS
LEFT CLICK: Select unit, vehicle, or building (a click on a manned roof opens its card; click again on a soldier up there to pick it). Double-click a soldier to select all of its class. Drag to box-select, on the streets and the roofs.
🌆 DUSK — TONIGHT'S ROUTES: In the last 20 s of daylight, chevrons mark the streets each of tonight's waves will take to your HQ, and the log says how many are coming, from where, and which mutants are with them. Wall those streets, mine them, or meet them there.
RIGHT CLICK: Move selected soldiers or steer vehicles to target location. Click a building to garrison it; click the ground to bring soldiers out (those on a roof rappel down the wall below them). Soldiers on a roof sent to the building next door (at most 3 m across and 6 m up or down) jump across the rooftops. Drag with the mouse wheel (the middle button) to pan the camera.
[CTRL + LEFT CLICK] (or Right-Click the ground with only the HQ selected): Set HQ Export Rally Point. Recruits automatically march to designated position upon spawn.
[`] BACKQUOTE: Select all active field soldiers.
[Z]: Stop / Halt all selected units immediately.
[SPACE]: Pause / Unpause simulation.
[T]: Toggle Cartographic Map / Tactical Radar / FLIR Thermal / Grid Overlay vision modes.
[HOME]: Center camera instantly on your Command HQ.
[ESC]: Cancel pending call-in / placement order or close the card; press again to deselect your soldiers. On a touch screen, double-tap to move or garrison; a single tap opens a building's card, or on open ground deselects.
[ENTER]: Establish the HQ in the building you have picked, while choosing one.
[CTRL + 1–9] / [1–9]: Store the current selection as a control group, and recall it.
[SHIFT + RIGHT CLICK]: Queue a waypoint instead of replacing the order — soldiers walk the route in turn.
[SHIFT + LEFT CLICK]: While placing, keep placing: the mode stays armed for the next one.
[ [ ] and [ ] ]: Step the simulation speed down and up (1×, 2×, 4×).
[M]: Mute and unmute the game. It starts muted.
EXTRACTION: [F] when the scavenger fires (return fire, hold fire, at will) · [C] sneak or walk · [X] attack the zombie under the cursor, or right-click it · [V] whistle · [TAB] the inventory (Esc closes it). Elsewhere F, C, X and V keep their orders.
ARROW KEYS: Pan the camera. MOUSE WHEEL: Zoom toward the cursor.
