Survivor’s Notes

Survivor’s Notes is a zombie survival game presented in full motion video (FMV). Players take on the roles of both a male and a female protagonist at the same time, following separate story branches that shift according to the decisions made and the outcome of quick-time events. Different choices push the narrative down divergent paths, and the game concludes with one of several distinct endings depending on how the player has acted. The camera uses a third-person perspective that remains fixed to the protagonists’ point of view throughout.

The story is set in 2026, when a global zombie outbreak brings human civilisation close to collapse within days and the cause of the disaster remains unknown. Ji Xingchuan is a cartoonist who has spent a year dreaming about the same post-apocalyptic world, adapting those dreams into a serialised manga called Notes of the Survivor. He stops publishing it when the events he has dreamt begin to overlap with reality. Bai Yuan is a special forces soldier and advanced cyborg from the year 2033 who travels back to 2026 to locate the source of the disaster before it takes hold, knowing that success will mean she and her future are erased. The two meet and work together in the collapsing city, losing companions and confronting the consequences of their choices as they approach the concealed truth.

Supporting characters include Colonel Altai, an army officer who helps the pair deal with emergencies, along with senior military officers Shen Duo and Pei Zheng, the latter of whom appears to act as an antagonist. The developer frames the game as a story about ordinary people rather than heroes, with themes of memory, trust, sacrifice and human dignity, and notes that those who save the world in the narrative are not remembered for doing so.