Questions, answered straight.
What Zip Lands is, what it costs, what happens to your village while you are away, and what happens to your account if you decide to leave.
Before you start
The practical things, first.
Is Zip Lands free?
Yes. Making an account and playing costs nothing, and there is nothing on sale at the moment. Optional in-app purchases are planned, and nothing you need in order to build a village, hold the wall or reach prestige will sit behind one.
Do I need to download anything?
No. Zip Lands runs in the browser you are reading this in. There is no launcher, no app store step and no install. Your world lives on the server rather than on one machine, so signing in somewhere else picks up exactly where you left off.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The game is built to work on a small screen and runs in a mobile browser. Adding it to your Home Screen also turns on push notifications, which is how you hear that a wave is coming or a build has finished. On an iPhone the Home Screen step is the only way notifications are allowed to reach you at all.
Can I play on my own?
Yes, completely. A world with one member is the whole game rather than a reduced version of it. Every shared mechanic is defined over the members a world actually has, so the daily streak, the bonus for being live during a wave and arming a prestige all work with one person in the village. Nothing sits waiting for somebody else to show up.
Can I play with friends?
Yes. Every world has a join code. Anyone you hand it to joins the same save: one warehouse, one build queue, one Academy, one Temple, and their own Zips inside it. A world takes a limited number of members while waves and the economy are being tuned, and that ceiling is set to rise.
What you actually do
The words on the screen, and the rules behind them.
What is a Zip?
A creature you own. Every Zip has a species, one or two of fifteen types, a nature, a mood and a level. A Zip is only ever doing one thing at a time: resting, standing watch, training at the Barracks, out with a march, recovering from a knockout, or waiting in the Zipbox. Zips belong to a player even though the village they defend is shared.
Where do my Zips live?
Active Zips live in the Den, and its level caps how many you can keep in play. Everything else waits in the Zipbox, which is free, unlimited and does nothing. Bringing a Zip out of the Zipbox puts it through a short settling period first, so nobody can watch a wave approach and swap their best in at the last second.
What is the Zipdeck?
The compendium. It records every species you have seen and every one you have caught in a world, and it remembers a shiny catch even after that particular Zip is gone. Filling it is a long quiet game running underneath the village.
What happens while I am offline?
The world carries on. Waves land on their timer whether or not anyone is watching, wood, stone and silver accrue against elapsed time up to what the Warehouse holds, marches arrive and builds finish. When you open it again you read what happened, battle log included, rather than sitting through it.
Can I make a wave smaller by putting my Zips away?
No, and this is the rule worth learning before any other. A wave is sized against the strongest Zips each player owns, wherever those Zips happen to be, and it is fought only by the ones standing watch. Emptying the wall never makes a wave smaller. It only leaves nobody to answer it.
Can I lose a Zip?
Yes, and you can get it back. A march can be ambushed on the road, and a lost fight sends the Zips that went down to a poacher camp that holds them. A wave the village loses can cost a player a Zip the same way. A holding camp never expires, and any member of the world can march out and clear it, which frees everyone held there back to their owner's Zipbox. You are quoted the real chance of an ambush before the squad leaves.
What is prestige?
Starting a finished village again in exchange for a permanent bonus. It needs a fully built Town Hall and the Rite of Ascension researched, and every member of the world has to agree to it. The village resets, keeps a bonus to production and to Zip stats that stacks with every prestige after it, and the Sanctuary decides which Zips come through with you. Shinies survive regardless.
The questions worth asking early
Answered now rather than after you have put a month into a village.
Is it pay to win?
There is nobody to win against. Zip Lands has no player versus player combat, no leaderboard and no ranking, so no purchase can put you above another person. The only opposition is poachers, and a wave is sized against the strongest Zips each player owns, which means a stronger roster meets a bigger wave rather than an easier one. Purchases are optional, and nothing in the game is locked behind one.
Is there PvP?
No. You cannot attack another player, raid their village or take their Zips, and there is no leaderboard or ranking anywhere in the game. A world is one shared save that only its members can even see. Everything on the other side of a fight is poachers, and the only things members send each other are gifts, shared Zips and help.
Will I lose my village if I stop playing for a while?
No. Waves keep landing for as long as anyone is plausibly coming back, because a village that carried on without you is the point of the game. Once no member has opened a world for a fortnight it goes dormant and stops running. It is not deleted and nothing in it is lost. When somebody returns it wakes with its clocks rebased rather than replayed, so the next wave arrives on a normal schedule instead of a fortnight of missed ones landing at once.
Do you show ads or track me?
No ads, anywhere. Analytics run only if you accept them, and until you answer, nothing analytical is sent. Refusing is one click sitting next to the accept button rather than a step further away, and you can change your mind from the footer at any time. Nothing on this site loads from an outside host, apart from the captcha on the sign-up form.
How do I delete my account and my data?
From your account page, in one action. It asks for your password and for you to type the word delete, because it cannot be undone. Your account, your Zips and your place in every world go with it. A world you share carries on for the members who stay, and a world where you were the only player is deleted along with you.
Where to read the detail
The privacy policy sets out what is held, why, and for how long. If a deletion will not go through, or you want a copy of your data first, the contact page is the place to ask.
The fastest answer is still to play it.
Creating a world takes a minute, and the first wave holds off long enough for you to get something standing.
Free to play. No download, it runs in your browser.