Remove brutes/hulk from prison scenario

I’ve been trying to do the prison escape scenario but it seems like everytime I see a brute I may as well just reset the world. With how close quarters the prisons are if it lands a hit on you you’ll end up flying into a wall and get stunned, then just get mobbed by the rest of the zombies. And you can’t juke them either like the rest of the zombies and close doors on them, since they’ll just smash any door down.
Unless you decide to play as a cop its nearly impossible to play, and playing as classes that start out with guns just seem like cheating.
Dealing with the sharks, turrets, zombie cops and hordes of undead with barely any weapons I can deal with, but unless hulks/brutes get a nerf to their movement speed they essentially just spell instant death.

It’s a desperate situation, but there is definitely a way out.

Think vertically.

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Its been a while since I did that scenario but my solution devolved into:

  1. giving myself some swimming to start
  2. beelining to the water
  3. swimming to shore
    4)playing like a normal naked forest start

while the odds of success are low, I found trying again and again would eventually lead to success through dumb luck.

This does involve cheesing quirks of the 3D code. Not saying as judgment, just that it might not be a solution for someone who considers it out of bounds for their own level of verisimilitude.

How so?
(My lengthening trick didn’t work)

that’s literally the first thing I try, to climb onto the roof, but 1/2.5 of the time a zombie has already body blocked the door out of the spawn zone, and the windows are all made of reinforced steel.
Then on the chance I di manage to get lucky and squeeze out of the door in time before getting swarmed in a house, the zombie brute or a swarm comes by and smashing the down anything I used to climb up (as well as most of the surroundings walls/floor).
I can’t jump across 2 tiles so picking another house doesn’t work, and unless I managed to grab something to throw at a window, neither in jumping into the guard tower

Hmm… The scenario has changed since I played it. Previously, I always spawned in a small block of rooms on the outskirts with no Z’s in it. In a recent build from git, there seem to be two spawn points and both are pretty well swarmed with Z’s. It’s a crap-shoot if I can survive the initial bit. Seven games, I died in the starting room or its immediately adjacent area. In the eighth, I got further. I found a small camp of prisoners who keep the Z’s at bay. It’s enough to say that I can craft some basic stuff now, though I’m still looking for my Get Out of Jail Free card.

My 12.5% survival rate might seem high for the state of the world, but mind you that’s just for surviving like three or four minutes. The scenario gives you a boost to points, so it should be a difficult start. The trouble I had was only twice et tu brute - most often it was just a swarm of Z’s. We’re having different troubles. Maybe our methods together would make it do-able. I don’t build for combat, instead going the coward’s route by running, closing doors behind me, and climbing up stuff when possible.

Well, in the eighth game I mentioned above, I finally escaped. It’s possible. The hardest part is the five minutes. I do feel like the RNG tends to generate impossible (not difficult) scenarios; most of the time, I don’t see anything that could be done with the first five minutes, aside from simply re-rolling after dying.

My strategy was:

  1. Evade initial swarm. This step ends when stamina runs out the first time. If you find a room to safely recover stamina, good. Else, die and re-roll. Tactic: Kite Z’s into rooms, then shut the door. Tactic: climb to roof when possible.
  2. Escape from being surrounded. Keep using the same tactic until you find the prisoner’s refuge.
  3. Find food source. The next steps will take a while, so find food. In my case, I had the cannibal trait, so I could eat the prisoners who had died to the Z’s. Without that, I would have starved.
  4. Escape prison interior. Brick, concrete, and steel are in your way. They can’t be burnt down. I used a homewrecker, the main difficulty was thread which I got from mops and tediously-disassembled rags. Tactic: Either a homewrecker to bust down barred doors, or a stepladder to climb over.
  5. Prepare for final escape. Shark Z’s infest the waters. Swimming can be an option, or not. My map only had a single dock exposed to the water, with three shark Z’s. The prison perimeter had some plants for extra food. Wooden door frames and desks were a good source of planks and nails. Rope fences at the dock were also variously useful. Tactic: Kite shark Z’s away from a departure point, or build a raft.
  6. Escape from island. Tactic: swim for it, or use the raft.
  7. Survive your new “freedom”

can’t find enough time for the breathing room to craft a raft with the hulks lumbering around. trying to break eye contact doesn’t work since they’ll just smash any barriers that prevent them from seeing you, like the boulders or walls. if they hear you even sneeze they’ll chase you to hell and back

i mean, it IS meant to be a challenge. and there ARE plenty of people who have posted play by plays of them clearing it.

… just gotta get lucky, or find a way to kill them.


I just got out of prison only to be pecked to death by a gaggle of geese while swimming away. Honk that.

There were several brutes and a hulk, but the rooftop approach worked this time.