8 Reasons SoD Needs an Instruction Manual

There are so many little tricks to playing State of Decay, but a lot of them are technical in nature! A simple instruction manual released by Undead Labs would go a long way in this regard. Here are some things I've learned through my countless hours of Breakdown...

1. Directional Throwing

Did you know that you can run in one direction and throw any item in another? This is awesome for tossing firebombs at the pesky horde gaining on you, or perhaps tossing a firecracker out to your right while you run down the road. Just turn the camera with one joystick and adjust your directional movement with the other so as to run at a different angle than the camera's central focus. It sounds complicated, but you'll pick it up pretty quickly. Learning to rotate the joysticks so you can look behind you without breaking stride is an art form ;)

2. Door Slam

Everyone knows that walking up to a door and pushing the Y button will either result in the door opening or you having to bash it up to three times. Did you know that you can just sprint into the door and loudly slam it open? Did you also know that this will knock over zombies or even kill them? It's great for sieges to repeatedly open and slam the door into their faces. Sometimes I'll slam it, execute the nearest zombie, then barrel roll back so I can close the door real quick.

3. Passenger Side Evasion

You know how when you lose your car door zombies will try to pull you out? If you bash X repeatedly you will sometimes be able to dislodge the zombie from your arm without falling out. But get this... the same thing works when you passenger side door is gone and the zombies are reaching for you on that side! Obviously if a passenger is there you won't be able to smash X to get away, but it's something I discovered in desperation when a feral jumped through my missing passenger door. Boy was I pleasantly surprised!

4. You can put one more bullet than maximum capacity for most weapons simply by manually reloading while not interacting with the storage container. It's "one in the chamber" basically.

5. While flipping someone with body slam you can press X to smash the zombie into the ground. If you wait too long then the zombie will just fly over your shoulder unharmed.

6. Press A while aiming to change between full and semi automatic, depending on if the gun has this option.

7. (This is a Bug) Holding the aim button while zombies are killed (by grenades, outpost traps, firebombs, etc) will result in XP for shooting. You can swing your melee weapon as well apparently for XP if you time it properly. I haven't done it myself though to confirm.

8. I think everyone went through the whole 'you must select characters for the RV before clicking the green RV icon a second time or else you end up going to the next level with 1 person' annoying situation. Nothing seems to happen when you click to use the RV, so a lot of people hit it again thinking something didn't work right. Well that sends you off to the next level!

I like that so much of this game requires effort to discover, but some of these mechanics should be explained in documentation. For crying out loud, almost all of them involve the controller! You should at least be told some of these with the random tips!