Undead Farmstead 2

Cozy casual farming... and zombies!

I made this game for my wife Louise. She loves casual farming games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. She also loves stories about zombies and is addicted to The Walking Dead. All the zombie games she’s tried are too action-based and intense so I decided to see if I could cross-breed casual farming with zombies. The result is Undead Farmstead.

This is the sequel to the original Undead Farmstead. That was a very simple game, this version is a big step closer to what I originally envisioned.

It has taken significantly longer to develop than the original and there’s still much to be added. I’ll keep chipping away at it for Louise but if you enjoy it then please let me know as this is probably the best way to spur me on.

You can download and play the beta version for free.  Although less polished, you’ll get a good sense of the gameplay. It contains about 80% of the content of the full version.

Gameplay

The basics of a farming sim are in the game now. There’s no tutorial so read on if you don’t want to be too lost.

Find some seeds, plant them, water them each day, and then watch them grow. Seasons come and go, and this affects how quickly each of your crops will grow.

Harvest the crops for food. If you have enough food then craft more seeds in the greenhouse or trade them for other types of seeds to broaden your range.

Pick fruit from trees once it’s ripe. You’ll know it’s ripe when you see three fruits on the tree. Look after those trees though, there’s no way to replace them.

Gather other resources like wood. I say "like wood" but right now it’s just wood. Hope you like wood! Craft fences and gates at the crafting table in your house.

That’s right, you’ve found a house to live in! Keep your things in the chest. Perhaps the last owner left something useful there? Are there any other chests?

Your house is a good place to hide from those zombies. Zombies are attracted to sound. The more noisy things you do, the more zombies will come your way. You can attack zombies but you can often sneak around them instead if you’re quiet. Keep an eye on the sound meter on the right above your energy and health meters.

If things get a bit too intense with the zombies then head back to your house and try to get some sleep. Sleeping lets you regain some of your energy and the zombies will usually have wandered away by morning.

Trading is very basic as it stands. Head to the right, off the main map, to find the market. Take a look at the notice board pinned to the outside of the market. Available trades change slowly day by day, so it’s worth revisiting if there’s nothing you can trade immediately.

Beyond building up your crops and zombie defenses there are no other ways to progress right now. The zombie apocalypse is a very lonely place as it stands. I would like to add animals, to make more use of the barn and coop. It would be good to let you expand the available farmland too and plant more fruit trees. I’d also like to add some NPCs next, perhaps as the a way into these other activities. I can’t really commit to when I might get around to these but I mention them in part to make it clear what’s not in the game currently.

Controls

W / A / S / D / Left-click — Move
Space / Right-click — Use, take, eat, open, close…
Left-click (toolbar) — Select inventory, use on second click
Tab & Shift+Tab / Mouse wheel — Cycle selected inventory
R — Rotate item when placing, e.g. gates
Esc / Click clock — Open menu

Install

I strongly recommend the Itch App as a convenient way to download and update the game. However, you can also download and run the game directly as follows.

On Windows, find the undead-farmstead-2-windows.zip file in your Downloads folder, right-click, select Extract All, then double-click on the undead_farmstead_2.exe file. If you see a security warning, click Run. You can also deselect the Always ask before opening this file option here if you want to skip the security warning in future.

On Mac, find the undead-farmstead-2-mac.zip file in your Downloads folder, right-click (Control-click) and select Open. You should see the file undead_farmstead_2 now in your Downloads folder. Right-click this and select Open. In the security confirmation dialog click Open. After this first time confirmation you can just double-click undead_farmstead_2 to start the game.

Feedback

I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment here or head over to our Discord server.

Credits

Design & coding - ANDREW SMITH
Graphics - SHUBIBUBI
Fonts - SLAVFOX, ZEH FERNANDO
Sound effects - 15HPECHAM, ALI_6868, BIGAL13, KENNEY, PIXABAY, SHEYVAN, WDFOURTEE & ZAPSPLAT.COM
Testing - GRAEMEMK, MILLSTONEBARN, THE SHRIKE & LOUISE SMITH