Project Zomboid will kill your first character, probably within three days, and that is fine. The point of the first few is to learn what kills you.
You are not a soldier
The single hardest habit to break is treating this as a game where you fight.
Two zombies is a fight you win. Five is a fight you lose. Combat costs endurance you cannot regenerate quickly, and an exhausted character misses, gets grabbed, and dies.
Push zombies over and stomp them on the ground. It is slower, it is safer, and it costs almost nothing.
The first day
Loot the house you spawn in. Bag, weapon, food, water.
Find a map of the area if there is one, and note where the nearest warehouse and grocery store are. Do not go to them yet.
Close the curtains. Zombies see through windows.
Water and power go off
Around the second week the power and water shut down permanently.
Before then: fill every container you own, collect rain barrels, and consider moving somewhere with a well or a river nearby. Food in the freezer is on a timer once the power dies, so eat perishables first.
This is a hard deadline the game does not announce. Prepare for it in week one.
Noise is the enemy, not zombies
Gunshots, car alarms, breaking glass and running generators all draw zombies from a long distance.
The quiet approach is nearly always better. Break into a house through a back window rather than smashing a front door, and keep the car off when you are near a horde.
Shouting deliberately is a tool, not a mistake, when you want to pull a group away from where you are going.
Read the skill books first
Every skill has books that multiply your experience gain for several levels.
Grinding carpentry without the book wastes most of the effort. Find the book, then start. This one habit is worth several in-game weeks.
Build somewhere high
Zombies cannot climb. A second floor with the staircase destroyed and a sheet rope for access is a base nothing can reach.
That is the whole trick and it works for the entire game.
Sandbox settings are allowed
If the default settings are not fun, change them. Turning off zombie respawn, in particular, means an area you clear stays clear, which turns the game from endless attrition into something you can make progress against.
Nobody is checking.
Moodles, and reading them early
The icons in the corner tell you what is wrong before it becomes fatal.
Panic makes you miss. Exertion slows your swings. Heavy load drains endurance and slows you down. Unhappiness and boredom slow healing.
Most deaths are two of these stacking while you are fighting something. Learn to back off when the second one appears rather than after the third.
Injuries take real time
A deep wound needs disinfecting, stitching and bandaging, and it will reinfect if you ignore it. A fracture takes weeks and a splint.
Scratches and lacerations from zombies carry an infection chance. Bites are almost always fatal and the game will not tell you kindly.
Carry bandages, alcohol wipes and painkillers from the first day. The medical supplies in bathroom cabinets are the most consistently useful loot in the game and almost nobody checks them.
The Project Zomboid builds guide covers traits and occupations for your next character.
