PZ Custom Intros

Every time the game starts, you sit through the same logos, and every time you load in, the same three lines of text. This swaps both for short intros about the Knox Event: fourteen at startup, each timed to the main menu music, and the same fourteen retold on the loading screen, set to the loading screen's own song and told for your own game and your own survivor.

The intros

• Military briefing - an olive army terminal types out the containment order of July 6, 1993, over the real Knox County map: the hazmat crash north of March Ridge, the first cases round Muldraugh, and a 72-hour projection that turns out to be right.
• The Division: SHD activation - an agent's watch wakes on the matchmaking screen while an SHD secure terminal queries Knox County in 1993.
• VHS emergency tape - a worn tape in a VCR: snow, colour bars, then a taped emergency broadcast for Knox County that rolls and tears.
• Survivor's diary - a Muldraugh resident's diary by candlelight, from the Fourth of July fireworks to the night something reaches the door.
• Radio scanner - a receiver sweeping the game's own stations, LBMW, KnoxTalk and NNR, until the emergency broadcast system takes every band.
• Newspaper front pages - twelve of the game's own front pages, from the July 4 Knox Knews to "Louisville Overrun", drawn exactly as the game draws them.
• Police dispatch - the sheriff's dispatch on the night of July 8, with the phones dead and the calls coming in faster than units can take them.
• Spiffo's commercial - a cheerful Spiffo's spot that a special report cuts off, and that tries to come back.
• Calendar time-lapse - Knox County at night from July 9, the town lights going out as the days count up.
• 1993 PC terminal - a county office PC prints the situation report for day one, then the missing persons list.
• World going dark - the USA at night from space, the lights going out from Kentucky across the country, then the whole Earth's.
• Contingency broadcast - a government reel on worn film, kept in a vault for the day the Knox County cordon fails, and aired.
• Evening news - WBLN News, the game's own channel, on the night the cordon breaks, the board of rescue stations closing one by one.
• Wartime record - an old couple's gramophone plays their song by lamplight until the power fails and the needle tears across.

Every one of them ends on the game's own "This is how you died."

The loading screen

When you start or continue a game, the loading screen plays its own version of the intro you pick. Each one runs as long as the loading screen's song, about 34 seconds, with its big moment on the song's crash, and works your game into the story without filling the screen:

• The town you spawn in, or for a saved game, the town your survivor is in now.
• How long it has been since the outbreak: the first days of July 1993, weeks on, or months on with the "Months since the Apocalypse" sandbox setting.
• Your survivor, by name and occupation in every intro, each in its own way: the army's file, the SHD agent profile, a missing person on the news, a caller on the radio, a Spiffo's job application, the diary's signature, the PC's records. A new game knows their name, occupation and traits; a saved game also how long they have survived, how many they have killed, their best skills and their favourite weapon.

A first-week game hears the radio still on and the sheriff's units still answering; months on, the stations are dead, the dispatch console runs on backup power and the office PC thinks it is 1980. When the song ends, the last frame holds until the game has loaded, then tells you to click to start, just as the vanilla screen does.

Built from the game

• The map comes from the game's own world map data, and the timeline follows the game's own newspapers and radio: the dates, the towns, Sheriff Carroll, General McGrew, the Knox Boundary Camp south of Louisville.
• The newspapers are rendered from the game's own page layouts and fonts.
• Each intro follows the menu music as it actually plays, so the drop lands where it should even if the music starts late.
• Every sound is made from scratch, the wartime record's song included: an original tune, not an old recording. The intros follow your music volume, or your sound effects volume if the music is off, and the menu music dips under each one so you can hear it, then comes back up full for the drop.

Options

Pick an intro, or Random (the default), in the game's options, on the Mods tab under PZ Custom Intros. "Vanilla logos" puts the old screens back. The loading screen has its own pick under "Loading screen intro", where "Vanilla loading screen" puts the old one back. The two Preview buttons play either one right away, without restarting.

Random picks from every intro at first. To leave some out, untick them under "Random picks from" in the same place; that goes for both screens.

Skip a startup intro with Escape, Enter, Space or a click. A loading intro cannot be skipped, as the vanilla screen cannot: a new game can start once it ends, a saved game as soon as it has loaded.

Requirements

• Build 42, version 42.21 or newer.
• ZombieBuddy, set up the way its page explains. The logo screens run before any Lua mod loads, so replacing them takes a Java mod.
• On the first launch ZombieBuddy asks you to allow this mod's Java file. Allow it and restart the game.