Skills for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse
By: Frank Giglia, Head of Creative Development
Trap Door Escape Room’s newest experience, “Cure Z” in the Poconos of Bartonsville, PA puts players in the shoes of government agents trying to contain and cure a zombie outbreak. It made us think a lot about the skills for surviving a zombie apocalypse. Cure Z’s size and immersiveness makes them feel like they are right in the thick of the outbreak, where the line between life and death can be razor thin.
But do you have the skills for surviving the zombie apocalypse? Today let’s take a look at a few Skills for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse. These skills would be essential in the event of a real emergency.
1. Skills for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse: Disguise
Expert Example: Alan "Dutch" Schaefer “Predator”
Sometimes zombies can be fooled by a survivor merely acting like a zombie, but other times it takes disguising yourself as one of them through the expert use of camouflage, or the need to cover yourself with zombie parts and other people’s blood. It’s not the prettiest way to get through the day, but at least you’d make it through the day.
The Predators themselves are masters of disguise and stealth, but they use technology to achieve it. Take a look at the picture above: that’s how you fool all that high technology. Zombies don’t have heat-seeking tech, so it should be even easier to fool them.
Other Examples: Mystique, The Whisperers of “The Walking Dead”
2. Marksmanship
Expert Example: Deadshot "Suicide Squad"
Everybody knows zombies can only be stopped for good with a headshot, and to do that with any regularity you either need a really big gun, or the ability to hit what you’re aiming for, preferably both. Consequently, marksmanship is number two on our list of skills for surviving a zombie apocalypse
This assassin with a heart of gold can not only ricochet a bullet into your skull, but also make time to help his daughter with her math homework.
3. Endurance Running
Expert Example: Forrest Gump
They say to survive a zombie chase, you don’t have to run the fastest, just faster than the next slowest person. That sounds a little mean, but one thing’s for sure, you’ll be doing a lot of running, so best get that cardio in!
Gump ran across the country just to do it. It goes to show you that you don’t need any formal training or special equipment to be an expert at running, right? Because we all know this movie was very historically accurate.
4. Foraging
Expert Example: Aragorn "Lord of The Rings"
To survive an apocalypse, you’re going to need to know things like which berries are edible and which leaves are best to use for toilet paper (i.e. not poison ivy in either case). To know what these look like and where they can be found, you’ll have to make sure your foraging skills are up to date or it will be a short, smelly existence. In short, foraging is definitely one of the skills for surviving a zombie apocalypse.
Aragorn could probably qualify for everything on this list. He knows medicinal herbs and where to find apples, but does he know about second breakfast?
5. Climbing
Expert Example: Aron Ralston “127 Hours”
Everyone knows zombies can’t climb trees or hike up mountains, their dead limbs don’t have the muscle mass, so becoming an expert in climbing would be a good way to get yourself to safety quickly. However, you wouldn’t be able to just live at the top of a mountain, as most of the food and materials for living would be down below. So, knowing how to climb down would be just as important as knowing how to climb up. You could try building a treehouse, but that requires another whole set of skills.
James Franco’s character from “127 Hours” (and a real-life person) was such a good climber that he got too overconfident and wound up stuck between a rock and a hard place stranded and alone. Zombies would’ve gotten him 1.27 hours in. The lesson: Never go alone without telling anyone where you’re going.
6. First Aid
With all the running and climbing you’re going to be doing, you’re going to need to be able to sanitize and dress minor cuts and scrapes on a regularly frequent basis. You need to make sure those wounds are tended to before the zombies sniff out your sweet, sweet blood. Under this would also fall knowing CPR and other skills which would be been very helpful to other survivors.
Every nurse and doctor could (or at least should) qualify for this, as well as EMS workers and other various professions. It’s a sometimes thankless, high stress job but a great skill to have, just don’t compensate for the stress by self-medicating like Nurse Jackie did.
7. Hunting and Trapping
Vegans might be in trouble in the case of an apocalypse. Even if you’re an expert at foraging, there probably wouldn’t be enough berries or canned goods to go around, so at some point you’re going to have to hunt and trap some non-undead meat to fill your belly. Just please don’t resort to cannibalism, that’s not cool. Being able to set up some kind of trap or snare would go a long way to maintaining a food supply and keeping your energy up for those moments when you might have to get moving quickly.
He’s not great at trapping wabbits, but he always manages to hunt one down. He’s just very unlucky that that one happens to be the wise-cracking, prank-playing kind.
8. Camping
Camping can encompass many useful skills. Building and maintaining a fire, constructing a shelter, even learning to sleep outside on the ground, these are all things that could help you survive if there aren’t any intact buildings. “Cure Z” takes place in a city, but cities will certainly be overrun the most because they’re the most populated, so learning how to survive in relative comfort in the wild would be a must. Having experience with camping is essential to accomplishing this.
Ernest was a man of many talents, one of them camping. I’m kidding, he was a character who starred in a series of mediocre-to-terrible slapstick comedies. One of them was about camping though.
9. Sewing
Your clothes are going to wear out eventually, and unless you plan on going Adam and Eve style and just wear a leaf or two (or one really big one, am I right fellas?) over your junk, you’re going to want to cover up and give the zombies less meat to try to feast on.
So, knowing how to sew animal skins into new clothes or how to repair your old ones is essential to keeping covered up. The elements would be a big enemy here too. No matter where you lived, you would need to keep safe from the sun or the cold. They can do you in just as fast as running into a pack of flesh-hungry zombies.
Sewing also comes in handy when there’s a deep gash that needs tending. If you don’t know how to stitch up a wound, it could get infected and with no hospital or antibiotics in sight, it’s bye bye (until you come back to life as a zombie). You could also cauterize the wound, but that would probably mean you need to know how to make fire (see above).
That’s not a knock on her or sewing, I’m just stating a fact. So why is “real life” in quotation marks? Because the legends of Betsy Ross, that she sewed the first American Flag for George Washington, may not be entirely accurate. In reality, she was probably one of a few women who sewed the first flags. The more you know….
10. Stealth
A disguise is great if zombies see you, but it’s even better if they never see you at all. Being able to blend into the shadows and disappear from view is a great skill to have in a zombie apocalypse, not just to avoid the zombies, but any other humans that might want to steal your stuff.
Batman is another character that can probably qualify for a number of, if not all, of the things on this list (except we all know Alfred does his sewing). One thing he is tops at is stealth. Seriously, the dude can sneak up on Superman, can anyone else say that?
11. Gardening
Hopefully, at some point you’ll be free from constant rampaging hordes and be able to settle down somewhere. When this happens, you’re going to have to know how to grow your own vegetables and herbs to maintain a steady, healthy diet.
The Baggins’ gardener comes from a long line of green thumbs from the Shire. That sentence was too nerdy, even for me.
12. Swimming
Another thing we know about zombies is that they can’t swim. They don’t have the coordination. Some versions can walk along the ocean floor, but that just seems ridiculous, so if you find yourself getting chased by flesh-hungry mobs, go jump in the lake!
Seriously though, jumping into a lake or other body of water, maybe swimming to a zombie-less island or boat could be a good way to keep the undead from getting to you. The problem here is that would only be a temporary fix, at some point you’ll need more supplies or have to return to shore to keep from dying of exhaustion….unless you’re the guy below, pretty sure he can swim to China and back.
The most decorated Olympian of all time could swim circles around any living person, much less a meandering zombie.
Other Examples: Aquaman
13. Map Reading
There’s no GPS in an apocalypse, and in the last 20 years or so pretty much all of us have forgotten how to read a map or plan directions. I don’t mean just “this is here, this is there,” but how far is here to there? How many miles do I have to walk a day to get there? What direction do I have to travel in? Is it through zombie- infested territory? Where can I find shelter along the way? These are all important things you would need to know for survival.
One of many great explorers that could be on this list. Great as in “why don’t we try going west” not great as in “let’s exploit the native peoples when we get there.” There’s nothing great about that.
14. Archery
One thing’s for sure, you’ll need a weapon. Your weapon of choice matters, as bullets will be in limited supply, if you can even get them at all, so specializing in the old-timey art of archery might be a better way to go in the long term. It means having a nearly unlimited supply of projectiles to launch, as long as you can find a bow and learn how to make arrows.
The OG legendary archer and anti-hero. Without him we wouldn’t have the seven or eight or more film versions of varying quality about him. He’s really good at hitting targets with arrows and already lives in the woods, a zombie apocalypse would be a piece of cake for him.
15. Politics
The more essential you can make yourself to survivor groups, the more they’d fight to protect you, and making yourself seem more important than you really are is the key aspect to being a politician. Making friends and alliances, bartering and negotiating and decision-making are all important aspects that a thriving survivor community needs.
He’s a vampire hunter in one book, which would be pretty good for surviving a zombie apocalypse, but in the movie “Lincoln” (pictured is the real thing, not movie version) he was an expert politician that made sure to get the Emancipation Proclamation passed, knowing the Civil War was about to end.
In real life at the very least he kept the Union together as its leader and commander well enough that the country didn’t collapse as a result of the war, which is a pretty big accomplishment.
Mentioned Experiences
Interrogate the Prisoner to find the location of the Zombie bomb before it is too late!
$39.99 Per Player
There are 60 minutes to escape this escape room at $39.99 per person plus tax. All bookings for Prisoner Z are private. Additionally, these are the largest escape rooms in the country spanning upwards of over 1,000 square feet of playing space each!
The City is locked down and it is up to you to find a cure for the Zombie virus.
$50 Per Player
This Zombie Escape Room spans over 10 rooms and 2 Hours at $50 per person plus tax. These are the largest Escapes in the country spanning upwards of over 3,000 square feet of playing space. All bookings are private.
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Trap Door Escape Company
Trap Door Escape Room has 4 locations: 3180 Route 611 in Bartonsville, PA in the Poconos; 60 White St. in Red Bank, NJ; 34A Speedwell Ave. in Morristown, NJ: and 77 Wind Creek Blvd in Bethlehem, PA. The Red Bank location was the first of the 4 locations, opening in the fall of 2015. Morristown followed in the summer of 2017, and Bartonsville opened during the holiday season of 2018. Wind Creek is currently undergoing construction and will be opening in September 2022.
History
The idea came to Tone Purzycki back in 2011 after he wrote a screenplay that developed into a live-streaming game. The game revolved around an actor trapped in a situation and the audience had to solve puzzles to figure out where he was trapped. The “Find Me Event” had more than 1,000 people playing over the course of several hours. After the success of several other streaming events, the idea of an escape room was born.
Location
Each location has different rooms from which to choose. Our Morristown location is home to Day of the Dead, Witch Hunt, and The Greatest Freakshow. In Bartonsville, you’ll find Cure Z, F5 Tornado Escape, Fear the Bogeyman, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, We’re All Mad Here, and Prisoner Z. In Red Bank we currently have Everest – our first 2 story escape room. Ripper of London is also available at this location. Our pirate themed games will soon be open at Wind Creek.
Trap Door Escape Room also offers team building, streaming events, and birthday parties. For more information on any of our games, prices, and locations, explore our website or call 570-234-3366