Sleeping & Rest System Suggestion

[rigid laurel]

Players should be able to sleep in both safe and unsafe areas, but the system should depend on the danger level of the zone.
When a player chooses to rest, a sleep icon and loading bar appear. The player can select how long they want to sleep (for example: 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, or until morning). Time moves forward gradually while the sleep bar fills.

Safe Zone:
In very safe areas, the sleep/loading bar fills faster. Players can skip time more efficiently, but it should not be instant. Time should still pass naturally to keep immersion.

Unsafe Zone:
In dangerous areas, the sleep bar fills slower. The player sits or lies down while waiting. The process is risky because something might interrupt the rest.

Alert System:
While resting, the game monitors nearby threats. If danger appears, a special alert sound or warning icon activates (zombie noises, movement, danger signal). If this happens, the sleep/loading stops and the player wakes up immediately.

Light sleep → faster to wake up if danger comes, but restores less energy.

Deep sleep → restores more energy, but harder to wake up if zombies come.

Condition System (Automatic Sleep Refusal):
Not all players should be able to sleep easily. The character may automatically refuse to sleep if certain survival conditions are too bad, such as:

• Severe hunger

• Lack of oxygen

• Poison or infection

• Extreme stress or shock

• Serious injuries

• Fear or panic after dangerous encounters
In these cases, the game shows a message explaining why the character cannot sleep. The player must solve the problem first before resting.

For multiplayer, the system might work differently. Instead of skipping world time, sleeping could function more like a rest system where the player recovers energy while time continues normally. Time skipping could still exist in single-player or if most players choose to sleep at the same time.

This system would make sleeping more realistic and strategic, forcing players to manage safety, health, and mental condition before resting during a zombie apocalypse. That makes the character feel human, not like a robot that sleeps anytime.

Love everyone and

Sleeping & Rest System Suggestion

[upbeat prawn]

While at it (or before it) the resting system should be fixed. Did you know you only need 1 hour sleep to get rid of 100% drowsy? 😂

That said: Good idea except for poison/infection and serious injuries.

Infection could be a cold. Most of the time it is, by the way (at least for me, who try to avoid conflict whenever possible).
What do you do when you catch one? You sleep it off.
It should actually HELP with getting rid of the infection.

Serious injuries require rest.
While I can (in principle) agree with "not sleeping with a broken leg" I would hardly disagree with "not sleeping with a TREATED broken leg". But that opens a can of worms that, IMO, is not worth opening.

When playing Insanity, you'll see there ARE times such as being hurt and not having supplies to mend it.
Now imagine you broke a leg day2 on Insanity... sleep prevention would be a death sentence, while having it heal (with a debuff) makes it possible for the player to power through and survive.
How were broken bones treated 2000 years ago? Resting. Sleeping. Mending naturally.

[rigid laurel]

Good point , I actually agree that infection and injuries should probably not block sleep. In real life people usually try to sleep it off too.

Maybe a better idea is that those conditions reduce sleep quality or slow recovery, instead of preventing sleep completely.

And yeah… 1 hour removing 100% drowsy is basically superhuman power 😂 even insafety. However a zombie apocalypse that’s impressive

[sharp lion]

I can tell you from experience of three fractures and one surgically cut bone (all separate events) that you wil not sleep well if at all without heavy painkillers 😃 i've also had a small stab wound in muscle and oh boy it hurt too.
So it could work quite well if the tiredness would reduce much slower when injured.

[rigid laurel]

thanks for sharing your experience , that makes a lot of sense. I was thinking that sleep should be harder or slower when the character is seriously injured, so your real-life experience actually matches the mechanic I had in mind. Pain really adds risk to resting, and making tiredness reduce more slowly when injured could make it feel much more realistic in-game

[sharp lion]

The hunger mechanic is also very interesting irl, at least for me. It slowly increases up to a point where if still not eating, it starts to decrease and completely goes to zero. Some time after that (might be hours) comes a second wave which has more intense peak but it also goes away. Now if i go to sleep after this, if i manage to sleep a full night i will be so tired in the morning that i can sleep more almost how much i like 😃 sounds weird but it feels actually very refreshing to accumulate something like 14+ hours of sleep like this 😅
Turned into game mechanic maybe the existing indicator could be named calorie counter as it behaves exactly like one already, and add more debuffs to it depending on how far it is from 0 (scale -100 to 100)