About
Survive fifteen minutes. Extract alive. Collect $1,000,000.
The laboratory is recruiting. Survive fifteen minutes in a zombie-infested outpost, extract alive, and collect $1,000,000. No experience required. Payment requires a living recipient.
Die 4 a Paycheck is a darkly comic, single-player top-down survival shooter inspired by Crimsonland and Alien Shooter. You play a civilian volunteer testing experimental weapons and injections for a very polite team of scientists. Most volunteers don't make it. The research continues anyway.
This is my first-ever game jam entry. Thanks for playing!
IN THE TRIAL
- 🔦 Fight in the dark. Your flashlight is your main light. Colored warning lights show where zombies are about to break in, so listen for what's outside the beam.
- 🔫 Three weapons. An infinite-ammo pistol, a pump-action shotgun and an M4A1 rifle. Shells and magazines drop from the dead. Point-blank buckshot pops heads.
- 🧬 28 upgrade cards. Collect battle data to level up and build your run: incendiary rounds, bullets that punch through crowds, spreading fires, stimulants with unpleasant side effects. Max out the right pair of cards and a rare Synthesis card appears.
- 💉 Field injections. Zombies drop experimental vials: rapid healing, a hit-blocking coagulant, a berserker dose with bottomless ammo, or a shock agent that chains through kills.
- 🧟 Learn what's hunting you. Shamblers swarm, Runners scream and then charge, Brutes slam the ground and Spitters shoot toxic globs from range. Tougher Specimens appear as the trial escalates. Kill one for a bonus upgrade.
- 🧨 Emergency Flare. Right-click to stun everything nearby and interrupt a charge. Kills recharge it.
- 🚁 Survive, then escape. Hold out for fifteen minutes, then stand in the extraction zone to retire alive.
BETWEEN TRIALS
- 🧪 Lab Research. Spend Scrap on 17 permanent unlocks that add new cards to future trials.
- 📋 Meet your next volunteer. Every recruit has a name, a former job and one of eight traits that helps, or complicates, their chances.
- ⚠️ Trial Conditions. Repeat attempts can add a complication: toxic leaks, a failed flashlight, a Runner outbreak or synchronized mutations.
- ⚰️ Death is permanent. Your volunteer's story ends, their body joins the laboratory's disposal heap, and the next applicant arrives. Your research and Scrap remain.
CONTROLS
WASD move · Shift sprint · Mouse aim · Left click fire · Right click flare · R reload · 1/2/3 switch weapons · F flashlight · E interact · Esc pause
COMING AFTER THE JAM
Development will continue after the jam. There's plenty more I want to add:
🗺️ New map: master new terrain.
🎲 More variety: new traits and arena conditions to shake up your strategy.
👥 4-player co-op: team up with friends on a brand-new map.
Credits:
David KBD — mission music from Eternity and Eternity Vol. 2, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Makoto Hiramatsu — “Alone” and “Transfer” from LOST, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Michel Baradari — player pain vocals, adapted through trimming and normalization, licensed under CC BY 3.0.
Binbun3D — RetroUrban Free floor textures, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
artisticdude — Zombies Sound Pack.
Kenney — impact sounds and UI audio.
SnakeF8 — pistol firing audio from Snake’s SECOND Authentic Gun Sounds Pack.
Place Holder Assets — zombie death audio from 50 Free Game Sounds.
Fredrik Svanholm — Weiholmir font.
YourPetFish — Low Poly Flare model.
Facepunch and s&box community creators — models, materials, effects, and additional audio, including alloyworkshop, baik, debelizmik, vidya, and cannedburgers.
