Code provided with many thanks to Super.com
Get Crafting
Zelter is a crafting survival game set in a retro-looking Zombie apocalypse. It has come to early access and is looking to capture the hearts of gamers.
When I booted up the game the main menu starts with a lovely score that is chilled and sombre. After appreciating the main menu longer than I expected I started the game. You get to create a survivor from a small assortment of hairstyles and colours. You’re then dropped into the Zombie apocalypse. I instantly warmed to the retro graphics.

Survive the Horde
From there you enter Zelter with a gun and a few basic supplies. I started the game rather foolishly playing it like a run and gun shooter, zapping any zombies I saw. But before I knew it I was out of ammo, my character was feeling sleepy and there was an enormous zombie horde chasing me to no end. I loved how the music grew in tension as this overwhelming horde of the undead came down on me. Eventually, I got cornered and my game came to a rather abrupt end. Oopsie.

At this stage of the Early Access, you are not given any objectives or direction. You’re just expected to kind of get on with surviving. In a way, I kind of liked this as it added to the overall tension of uncertainty in this unforgiving world. No doubt tutorials and objectives will come with future patches but I hope that there’s an option to just play the game from scratch like this version.
Gather Resources
When I decided to play Zelter sensibly I soon realized taking things slower provided more certainty towards survival. I found an empty house where I was able to sleep on the sofa. I soon discovered sleeping also saves the game. From there I spent lots of time hunting for resources and crafting all sorts of handy things like a crossbow with some arrows, a bed to sleep in and a chest to store all my random resources in. You need to make sure you are well fed, hydrated and rested thanks to some helpful meters in the menu. There’s also a day and night cycle. Fortifying your chosen base is important such as setting up barrier defences. After a short nap, it wasn’t uncommon for a random zombie to discover my hideout.

Going out to forage for more supplies is risky business. Zombies don’t go down easy usually taking at least three shots with a weapon to take down. They also never stop chasing you. Even if you run away they will follow you through houses even if you shut the door behind you. As I discovered when first playing the game running into unknown territory often means more and more zombies will chase you creating a horrid Zombie snowball effect. There’s also a variety of zombie types to discover the most amusing by far is the one with a box on its head.

Zelter shows lots of potential but in its current state, there are rather a lot of hiccups. For me the game crashed a lot which was especially a pain after I had spent lengthy times gathering and crafting new resources. The game really wants you to play with mouse and keyboard. You can play with a controller but it didn’t really feel suited to this method, at least not yet.
Zelter is now available in early access on PC. I wish the developers all the best in developments and let’s hope in the future we get to see the game make its way to the sunny shores of the Nintendo Switch. I would love to take this apocalyptic adventure on the go.