Last July, I wrote about an indie zombie survival game called 7 Days to Die. Now here we are a year later and there’s been nary a post about it since. That’s my fault, as I had plans to preview it on our YouTube channel, but I never got around to it. In an effort to escape the boredom that usually comes during the void of new game releases that is August, I finally gave in and bought 7 Days to Die. A week later, and I’ve spent nearly 30 hours in it.

The time I’ve spent in this game comes alarmingly close to becoming a full-time job, and it’s all because of how ridiculously addictive it is.

The concept is simple. Just combine the harsh survival conditions of Rust and DayZ — also, unfortunately, bringing with it the asshole players that tend to populate those kinds of games — with the zombie hordes, resource gathering and deep crafting system of Minecraft. Zombies are an ever-present threat, but it’s your fellow players, the folks who make it their singular goal to ruin every other player’s good time, who you usually have to worry about. That changes when the sun sets, because that’s when the hordes randomly appear and the undead, who during the day are limited to shambling, are gifted with the ability to run.

The crafting is very similar to Minecraft, only you don’t have to learn recipes because they can all be found in-game. That’s great for people like me who have terrible memories or just don’t want to spend an inordinate amount of time learning how everything is made.

So if you happen to be in the market for something fun and new to play, I highly recommend you check out 7 Days to Die. It’s in Steam Early Access right now, so it’s unfinished, but they’re doing a fine job providing regular updates that consist of bug fixes and new content and features. If you have $24.99 and don’t mind adding a crazy addictive game to your games library, you can grab 7 Days to Die on Steam.