Zombies

The walking dead. Corpses reanimated by some unknown force. They have one objective and one objective only: to kill you. Letting them kill you means game over. This is bad. Therefore, kill them before they can kill you.

General Strategy
To kill zombies, you must attack them with one of the three main tools that serve a dual-role as melee weapons: your Axe, your Hammer, or your Trowel. Alternatively, you can kill them with ammo shot from Vale's slingshot or Eva's bow.

For the reasons discussed on its page, it is highly recommended that you make the Hammer your primary melee weapon and become adept at wielding it to kill each type of zombie. TL;DR version: with exception, noted below, the Hammer will knock zombies back with each hit, which will keep them from hitting you back.

In addition to the individualized strategies mentioned below, the following are applicable to all zombies in Alone: Zombiewoods:
 * Zombies' aggro range is limited. A zombie off-screen will not notice you. A zombie whose aggro has been provoked will lose aggro on you if you walk off-screen.
 * Zombies sometimes turn their backs to you. When a zombie's back is turned, you can walk right up to it and it will not notice you. If you attack, it will notice you, but sneaking up on an unaware zombie is a safe strategy for all zombies except Tree Zombies.
 * If you lure zombies back to your campsite, you can use your gate as a decoy, allowing you to hit the zombies without them hitting you. The zombies will all go after the gate, instead.
 * Ranged weapons are effective against all zombie types. Just keep pelting the zombie with ammo until it's (re)dead.

Zombies in Alone: Zombiewoods come in several flavors. These include, in increasing order of difficulty:

Redshirt Zombies
As the name implies, these are the cannon fodder of the zombie world, the weakest of the undead horde. They are not especially fast or strong, though an occasional Redshirt Zombie can put on a noticable short-term boost of speed.

Strategy
After facing a few Redshirt Zombies, you will hopefully have mastered the fundamental strategy of Alone: Zombiewoods: let the zombies come to you until you can hit them with your hammer, which will knock them back, making their attack miss. Repeat until the zed is dead.

Jumping Zombies
These zombies are dressed in safari outfits and attack you by jumping high into the air (they always leap to the top of the game screen, no matter where you encounter them) and attempting to land on top of you. They take fewer hits to kill than a Redshirt Zombie, but their leaping attack makes them harder to hit.

Strategy
Because of Jumping Zombies' unconventional attack pattern, you will have to avoid their initial attack. Once the zombie's leap is complete, it will be stunned for a short time, until its hat lands back on its head. While it is standing there, run up and hit it with the hammer.

Ranged Attack Zombies
These zombies wear a blue jumpsuit and carry a silver cylinder of some sort. They kind of resemble garbage men, which makes sense, because their attack consists solely of throwing a variety of trash-type items at you. Most of these items will damage you, but occasionally the zombie will throw one of three items that you can catch in order to make progress toward an Achievement.

Strategy
Either run up to the zombie as fast as you can and hit it with your hammer, or dodge its throws and then run up and hit it with your hammer.

Big Zombies
Also known as Fat Zombies, Heavy Zombies, Strong Zombies, and Basketball Zombies, these are distinguished not only by their fashion choices (unitard and gym shorts) but by the fact that they are much broader than other zombies and lug around a ball of some sort (commonly referred to as a Basketball, but most likely a medicine ball). Big Zombies are the first real threat to your survival, and amply demonstrate why the hammer strategy is necessary to make it through the game. These zombies' punches pack quite a wallop and they can take a greater degree of punishment than any other zombie you'll have faced up to the point at which they appear in the game.

Strategy
Approach with caution until it starts moving toward you, then let it close the gap with you. When it is in range, it will lift its arm up to punch, at which point you should swing your hammer. Repeat until it's dead. You'll know that it's dying when it throws its ball at you. When this happens, walk TOWARD the dying zombie, and the attack should miss.

Sign Zombies
These zombies appear shortly after Big Zombies. They look just like Redshirt Zombies, except each can be found carrying a road sign on a pole. Sign Zombies wield their signs like clubs and the signs also serve as a kind of shield. There are two very important thing to be aware of when facing these zombies, which hit even harder than Big Zombies:

If you go toe-to-toe with a sign zombie in the woods, it will always get one free hit in on you, and the hammer will not knock the zombie back while it holds its sign.

Because of this, once Sign Zombies start to appear, you will want to carry around some extra food or healing items during long runs in the woods.

Strategy
Before entering melee with these monsters, make sure that your health is high enough to absorb that first hit. After you've taken that hit, so long as you are fast enough, you will break the zombie's sign, at which point it becomes like any other Redshirt Zombie.

Tree Zombies
The most dangerous type of zombie in the game. This zombie wears a hollowed-out tree trunk over its body. Initially, you will only see its eyes peeking out through a hole in the front of the trunk. When provoked, its arms pop out of holes on the sides of the trunk, and its legs pop out of the bottom.

Sometimes this zombie can be very hard to see, as it will blend in with the background. This is especially true at night.

Strategy
These zombies give players more trouble than any other type. This is because of the zombie's initial attack sequence. When you get close to the zombie, or attack it with a melee weapon while its back is turned, it will leap into the air, kicking its legs out to either side, and then immediately close the distance to pummel you to death. A hit from this zombie will take off anywhere from one-quarter to one-half of your health. Fortunately, that first hit, and all subsequent hits, can be avoided entirely. To avoid the first hit, don't approach the zombie when its back is turned, approach it from the front, instead. When you are within a few steps of it, move forward very slowly and, when its jumping attack is triggered, immediately walk back the way you came. The attack should miss, and you should put a healthy amount of distance between you and the zombie. Turn around and attack it with the hammer when it gets close. From this point on, it will be like any other zombie, except requiring more hits to kill (again).