I could have it be a mall or a prison or a school but that's all been done before.

I'd like to do something unique.

Any ideas?

Bengo Wrote: I could have it be a mall or a prison or a school but that's all been done before.

I'd like to do something unique.

Any ideas?

If it plays in asia or europe you could go for a castle or castle ruins, we have thousands of those in germany and they would be great against many types of zombies. If you have something like world war z zombies or hyper mutating ones that might not work but a mall, prison, or school wont either. 

The advantage of a castle is that they were designed with the goal of keeping much smarter people out than zombies and Prisions and schools more to keep people inside lol

Macou_Crow Wrote:

Bengo Wrote: I could have it be a mall or a prison or a school but that's all been done before.

I'd like to do something unique.

Any ideas?

If it plays in asia or europe you could go for a castle or castle ruins, we have thousands of those in germany and they would be great against many types of zombies. If you have something like world war z zombies or hyper mutating ones that might not work but a mall, prison, or school wont either. 

The advantage of a castle is that they were designed with the goal of keeping much smarter people out than zombies and Prisions and schools more to keep people inside lol

I'm torn between London and an American city. I like Germany and would consider having it set there but I don't speak German and don't have a familiar grasp on the culture. 

An archipelago could be fun. I've occasionally seen island bases, but it's always either an isolated base with no nearby inhabited/inhabitable islands, or most of the plot takes place on the mainland. An archipelago would mean there's room for multiple bases without them encroaching on each other, and if anything, you'd WANT the other islands to be inhabited so you know someone is cleaning them out. 

Bengo Wrote:

Macou_Crow Wrote:

Bengo Wrote: I could have it be a mall or a prison or a school but that's all been done before.

I'd like to do something unique.

Any ideas?

If it plays in asia or europe you could go for a castle or castle ruins, we have thousands of those in germany and they would be great against many types of zombies. If you have something like world war z zombies or hyper mutating ones that might not work but a mall, prison, or school wont either. 

The advantage of a castle is that they were designed with the goal of keeping much smarter people out than zombies and Prisions and schools more to keep people inside lol

I'm torn between London and an American city. I like Germany and would consider having it set there but I don't speak German and don't have a familiar grasp on the culture.

 Great Britan should work the same they have a lot of castles as well if I am not mistaken. I don't know where you are actually from but you also need to be a little careful when putting a zombie apocalypse in europe because at least in Germany the buildings are so much more sturdy and the doors not as garbage as in the rural areas of america that you need to give some kind of reason as to how the zombies even break into buildings and infect the majority of the population. 


Of course this is only if you bother with explaining your virus.

Quote:I'm torn between London and an American city. I like Germany and would consider having it set there but I don't speak German and don't have a familiar grasp on the culture. 

If you are thinking about London, use HMS Belfast. For New York, there is USS Intrepid. Also, if the setting is close to Norfolk, your MC's could ehmmm... privatize one of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.


Please also note, that in Europe there are very few firearms circulating with the general populace, and most haven't even seen one up close, not even mentioning firing one.

Mr Wrote:

Quote:I'm torn between London and an American city. I like Germany and would consider having it set there but I don't speak German and don't have a familiar grasp on the culture. 

If you are thinking about London, use HMS Belfast. For New York, there is USS Intrepid. Also, if the setting is close to Norfolk, your MC's could ehmmm... privatize one of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.


Please also note, that in Europe there are very few firearms circulating with the general populace, and most haven't even seen one up close, not even mentioning firing one.

Having a large ship could make for a really interesting plot of moving between countries finding out how they handled the apocalypse and would add another thing to drive the story forward if needed by having parts being damaged and in need of spare parts that the survivors dont have. Of course you would need people that could actually use one of those and enought people to man them.

A museum, preferably with large amounts of unreliable antique weapons.

Night at the Museum with zombies anyone?

A supermarket. Surviving humans go there for supplies. Zombies go there for the free samples...

Near where I live, there is a Meijer supermarket across the road from a Lowe's home improvement center.  I have, on multiple occasions, been in conversations with people about the zombie apocalypse scenario, and my answer is always the same: Secure the Meijer for supplies, Lowe's for tools, weapons, and transport, and string all the truck trailers across the road to make an effective tunnel from one building to the other.

T Wrote: A museum, preferably with large amounts of unreliable antique weapons.

Night at the Museum with zombies anyone?

Very cool idea, like a british museum with weapons that they stole from all over the world. Flintlock rifles could be pretty cool as well with bayonetts.

Macou_Crow Wrote:

Mr Wrote:

Quote:I'm torn between London and an American city. I like Germany and would consider having it set there but I don't speak German and don't have a familiar grasp on the culture. 

If you are thinking about London, use HMS Belfast. For New York, there is USS Intrepid. Also, if the setting is close to Norfolk, your MC's could ehmmm... privatize one of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.


Please also note, that in Europe there are very few firearms circulating with the general populace, and most haven't even seen one up close, not even mentioning firing one.

Having a large ship could make for a really interesting plot of moving between countries finding out how they handled the apocalypse and would add another thing to drive the story forward if needed by having parts being damaged and in need of spare parts that the survivors dont have. Of course you would need people that could actually use one of those and enought people to man them.

It would be interesting but it might be difficult to supply them. A modern ship would need gasoline or diesel. A sailing ship might be better, but modern ones are usually small, and larger, older-style rigs require things like specialized sails which would NOT be easy to replace in the apocalypse. Perhaps a galley would be ideal for a large ship? Yes, they'd take a lot of manpower and thus a lot of calories, but they also don't require any unusual or dwindling supplies. Even if it needed repairs or replaced parts. 

An alternative is a fleet of smaller boats, like canoes. 

Ship/island ideas are interesting; you could go for a water-world zombie apocalypse scenario, since the climate change issues seem popular these days. Water levels raised flooding coasts, and from the melting ice came whatever makes the zombies - be it a pathogen or even old zombies themselves. Or maybe to make it more sudden a meteor shower obliterated one of the ice caps, and those brought zombie-creating spores from space - might have even been fragments of icy comet that bring even more water... So many possibilities.
Exploring flooded cities that remain relatively safe from the walking dead could be interesting; with the mainland being very dangerous but having necessary supplies or mcguffin so the protagonist still need to go there.
Maybe Raft style floating cities became a thing, with pirates making things worse for everyone -who doesn't like pirates?
I wonder if there is a story like this already

Quote:It would be interesting but it might be difficult to supply them. A modern ship would need gasoline or diesel. A sailing ship might be better, but modern ones are usually small, and larger, older-style rigs require things like specialized sails which would NOT be easy to replace in the apocalypse. Perhaps a galley would be ideal for a large ship? Yes, they'd take a lot of manpower and thus a lot of calories, but they also don't require any unusual or dwindling supplies. Even if it needed repairs or replaced parts. 

An alternative is a fleet of smaller boats, like canoes. 

Getting supplies, no matter what those are, will be hard in an apocalypse. 

Getting enough oil (or supplies) would be a good plot device.
(BTW: ships are actually more fuel efficient than road vehicles)

Maybe a museum or a conservatory (plant equivalent of an aviary or aquarium).

Mr Wrote:

Quote:I'm torn between London and an American city. I like Germany and would consider having it set there but I don't speak German and don't have a familiar grasp on the culture. 

If you are thinking about London, use HMS Belfast. For New York, there is USS Intrepid. Also, if the setting is close to Norfolk, your MC's could ehmmm... privatize one of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.


Please also note, that in Europe there are very few firearms circulating with the general populace, and most haven't even seen one up close, not even mentioning firing one.

I think its interesting to explore how places with less access to firearms would deal with a zombie apocalypse. The household objects and tools they'd use to defend themselves. 

Rolling pins

Knives

Wrenches and screwdrivers

Stuff like that. 

Muppy Wrote: Near where I live, there is a Meijer supermarket across the road from a Lowe's home improvement center.  I have, on multiple occasions, been in conversations with people about the zombie apocalypse scenario, and my answer is always the same: Secure the Meijer for supplies, Lowe's for tools, weapons, and transport, and string all the truck trailers across the road to make an effective tunnel from one building to the other.

You shouldnt share your disaster plan and bugout location with people who could take your idea and outgun you out of it. 

A library. Have the zombie curse spread from reading a book that found its way into the local library. It takes a day or two to set in, and can be spread by bites after, but the initial curse comes from a book. The real scary zombies are the ones that are intelligent, and that happens when they are within sight of the book that can take them over like puppet avatars. The book is seeking a "necromancer" who will carry the book without reading it because the dead can't touch the book and anyone who reads it becomes a zombie. 

Library zombies. Have Fun. 

Wag9 Wrote: Ship/island ideas are interesting; you could go for a water-world zombie apocalypse scenario, since the climate change issues seem popular these days. Water levels raised flooding coasts, and from the melting ice came whatever makes the zombies - be it a pathogen or even old zombies themselves. Or maybe to make it more sudden a meteor shower obliterated one of the ice caps, and those brought zombie-creating spores from space - might have even been fragments of icy comet that bring even more water... So many possibilities.
Exploring flooded cities that remain relatively safe from the walking dead could be interesting; with the mainland being very dangerous but having necessary supplies or mcguffin so the protagonist still need to go there.
Maybe Raft style floating cities became a thing, with pirates making things worse for everyone -who doesn't like pirates?
I wonder if there is a story like this already

I've always wanted to read a post-apocalypse inner-city Stockholm, or some geographically similar city. It's a population center, yes, but it's also built on a bunch of separate islands, and there's a lot of fun things that could be done with defendable (or vulnerable) bridges, moats, the castle and other old defendable medieval buildings, the limited space, the inevitable flooding, aquaculture-based base building, the fog, and travel routes by limited waterways. 


Water in general is underappreciated. 

As someone who watches All The Zombie Movies, it's been done before. Whatever weird thing you think you have, it's been done. Don't try to aim for exclusivity because someone beat you to it during the 2010s.

Things that have been done less though:

• Airships.
• Boats/flotillas.
• Subway systems/sewers.
• Outer space.
• The top of skyscrapers / parking garages (my personal fav).
• The Arctic/Antarctic
• Underwater bases.
• Africa (yes, for whatever reason, most ZA fiction avoids Africa... No idea why).
• Mountainous places like Nepal, probably because hordes are less believable there.
• Castles.

Pick anywhere else, there are several dozen books, movies, or possibly shows.