Bullwinkle

You have clearly defined the box. Dare to venture outside!

I suspect their desire to make money is a big part of what motivates their drive to include things in the game. I doubt their desire either to include or not to include real world products is the driving concept here, but rather the desire to make money. And for a company without a marketing dept, I'm just tossing some ideas out there.

You could be right. Or you could be wrong. Is it not worth spending ten minutes to shoot off a letter and find out?

I once saw a movie where the prettiest girl at the dance desperately needed to be hidden, like in a barn. She desperately pleaded with the boy "Please! Take me to your home now!!!!" He was overjoyed she wanted to go to his house, but his reply was truly wise: "Say please," he replied, and she did. Maybe the trick here is not to get their permission to use their product name. Maybe the trick is to ask them to pay you to include their product name. Be on the cutting edge of product placement for profit. Probably wouldn't get much, but who knows until you try? With free money plus not having to worry about the name being the upside, what's the downside? "For the small fee of $500, we would be happy to include your product. Other types of sponsorship are also negotiable if desired." What have you got to lose? Just address it to their Marketing Department or Public Relations.

West Point for fishing. Oh, and the river acts like a wall to protect your land. Plus the mall is closer there.

Getting up at 7 and being tired at 6:30 never once occurred to me at age 20 in real life. But it did in game, and it was NOT a day of solid zombie killing. It was a day where I killed 3 zombies.

I like the hallucinations and such if you don't get enough sleep, but I think my character is already getting the tired moodle too often as it is. I just started a new game. On day 1 I spawned in an area with few zombies. I looted 8 houses, killed 3 zombies and was "tired" after 11 hours. I thought my toon was in her 20s. Get up at 7 am and tired at 6:30 p.m.? Doesn't seem realistic to me, especially on a day of light activity. I did have to fight one zombie while encumbered, that put me out of breath and I stayed that way for about an hour cuz I was a little slow unloading my burden so I could catch my breath. Maybe that's what did me in, not sure. But the next day, after 7 hours of sleep, I did some more normal levels of zombie killing and I was tired after only 7 hours of work. I think you get tired too easily in the base game, and it shouldn't take literally forever to catch your breath if you get out of breath while burdened. I've posted before about how digging with a trowel makes you need 14 hours of sleep after being awake for 5 hours. 20 year old construction workers and rangers don't get sleepy from a few hours of hard labor. Physically tired, maybe, but not sleepy. While I like the idea of adding in some of the features suggested here, I think the baseline needs a bit of tweaking as well.

"Refridgeration" --> "Refrigeration"

Is it just me? Every time I hear the phrase "zombie evolution" I always think of Natural Selection which leads me to Sexual Reproduction which leads me to the thought of zombies having sex which leads me to the old joke of the hooker who got cancer and had to get a colostomy, but the good news was that she could at least charge more for around the world. Tell me I'm not alone.

Golfing and boating are part of the doctor stereotype.

I've said it before. A doc should start in a 2 story brick house with lots of medical supplies, some medical books and a 90% chance of either [a golf club or a fishing pole]

What if one container were added in the hardware store that had a specific loot table, just for the sledge with chance set at 100? Or 3 containers added just for the sledge: one in the hardware store, one in the storage facility and one in somebody's garage, with chance set at 75% each? This wouldn't give a guarantee, but if added to the existing mix, would sure make it pretty likely.

The reason I suggest a random chance is because anything farther than 49 tiles (I think that is the right number) away from you does not exist. Bunnies are not going to be hopping around the map 100 or 200 tiles away and randomly make their way onto your farm. They will need to be random spawns on player farms. I am NOT an expert on how this game works, but that is my understanding of how things work here. Very different from some other games, like Skyrim, where the whole world exists even when you are far away.

Overall, I like the idea. In real life, binocs are fragile. Maybe they could have a durability that drops if you fight while they are equipped.

I don't think the sledge is OP at all. It seems very well balanced to me. It does have a powerful strike, but it is virtually useless if you are fighting more than one zombie. It is mandatory for certain jobs. It should be available with reasonable effort. 7 games on Rare Loot doesn't sound reasonable to me.

And you should get a message stating WHAT killed you. I mean, at its core, this is supposed to be HOW I DIED, not "Wait... how did I just die?"

Electrolysis of water doesn't generate CO2, since there is no carbon in H20. One of the big reasons the Hindenburg burned was because it had a highly ridiculously flammable nitrocellulose skin. So yeah, I'm on board.

I doubt that freeze-dried ice cream is a common commodity in the kitchens of Kentucky.

Calling a flashlight a lamp sounds British to me for some reason. In Kentucky (I've lived there) it would probably be called "flashlight on a stick"

I have to admit, that was the inspiration for the title of this thread

If you are depending on farming to survive, bunnies could be your undoing. Once every 2 weeks, on average, a bunny appears on your farm. He stands still a lot, but if you approach, he is too fast to kill; he disappears into a hole for an hour. Your only options: shoot him or hope your traps get him (low chance of success, cuz why should he eat stale veggies from the suspicious box when there are fresh-growing veggies in your garden). Every day that the bunny remains on your farm, 1 tile of vegetables will disappear. Trapping bunnies around your farm could reduce the frequency that these rodents appear. The challenge of farming is increased and more immersive at the same time that the player is encouraged to make a loud noise at his home. BANG! Got ya! ... I wonder who that could be knocking on my front gate? This is how I died: Bunnies

Bumping into a wandering bear every few months could be interesting. Wolves? Dogs? Bring 'em on! Fighting ONLY zombies does get old after a while.

I think it is best to avoid delving too deeply into zombie physiology. Some things are best when they remain a mystery.

One of the big reasons to have forum threads like this is just to dump ideas like this out on the porch and see if the cat licks it up. Maybe the devs read it and get inspired. Maybe their "no cure" stance gets re-evaluated and changed to: "what we mean is no cure in the survival mode, but as a sandox option? Sure" Or maybe not. Maybe someone else gets inspired by this thread and makes a mod. Or not. Maybe someone reads this and responds by taking things in an unforeseen, new, and amazingly productive direction. I certainly don't think devs should spend their limited time building a game that doesn't conform with their vision, unless, you know they have an interest in money or something and the idea is a commonly-presented suggestion.