Gate of the Dead · player guide

Chapters and goals

Chapters are the camp's story and your to-do list. Each one has a handful of goals; finish them, hold the chapter's crisis night, and the chapter chest opens the next one. Part One has twenty chapters.

Goals

Open the chapter card in the top corner of the camp to see the list. Goals ask for things across the whole game: a building at a certain level, a number of shelters, a gate night held, a Road stage cleared, troops trained, survivors housed, missions done, leaders recruited, a meal eaten. Each has a progress bar, a Go button that takes you to the right screen, and a Claim button once it's done.

Every goal pays when you claim it: Scrap Metal (more each chapter), timber, steel from chapter 2, and a speed-up token (5 minutes up to chapter 7, 15 minutes up to chapter 14, then 30 minutes). Up to chapter 7, each goal also gives the Mayor 10 energy back. You don't have to do goals in order, and claiming early doesn't cost you anything, so claim as you go.

Crisis nights

When every goal is claimed and you've held the night before it, the chapter's crisis arrives. The camp goes red, a siren sounds and a notice says what has gone wrong. A crisis is a gate night about an eighth harder than the ordinary night it's based on, and costs 15 energy instead of 10. If you lose, you only spend a quarter of the energy; build up and try again.

The crisis notice for chapter 1, The gate gives way — Every chapter ends with a crisis night.

The chapter chest

Hold the crisis and the chapter chest opens. It's the biggest single reward in the game: a pile of Scrap Metal, timber and steel, several survivors, a speed-up token (15 minutes early on, an hour later), Field Manuals for your leaders, and from chapter 7 two Leader Keys (plus a Gold Key from chapter 8). Then the next chapter starts, and finishing chapters 1 to 5 also opens new parts of town.

The twenty chapters of Part One

The first chapters are about building what the camp needs, the middle ones about upgrading it and training troops for the Road, and the last ones about turning the camp into a town. Here are their names and crisis titles, and the night on the gate ladder each crisis is based on.

#	Chapter	Crisis	Night
1	Four Walls and a Fire	The gate gives way	4
2	Wood and Scrap	Thieves in the night	7
3	Patch Them Up	Fever	10
4	Something to Eat	The crops go up	13
5	Eyes on the Road	They come at dawn	16
6	A Roof for Everyone	Storm	19
7	Tools of the Trade	Fire in the depot	22
8	Feed the Camp	Rats	26
9	Steel on the Gate	Brutes at the gate	31
10	The Clinic	Outbreak	36
11	Wheels	The bikers follow us home	41
12	Boots on the Road	Ambush	46
13	Leaders	A hero goes missing	51
14	Supply Lines	The convoy is lost	56
15	The Market	The horde finds us	61
16	Lessons	They are inside	67
17	Brick by Brick	Earthquake	73
18	Concrete	The bandit king	79
19	Clean Water	Flood	85
20	Light on the Water	The Hive	91

As a rough guide, someone playing a few times a day reaches chapter 7 in three or four days, gets about a chapter a day through the middle, and slows down from chapter 15 as the timers get longer. Chapter 20 is the end of Part One.

Tips

Read the whole goal list when a chapter starts. Long builds (a high Headquarters, say) should go on first so they run while you do the quick goals.
Goals that ask for a gate night or a Road stage are often the last ones done. Push the nights and the Road a little every visit.
Don't sit on a finished goal. The speed-up token it pays is more useful now than later.

Next guide: Defending the gate →All guides