[B42] Read and Recall
Vanilla skill books in Project Zomboid give you XP just for finishing them. This mod adds an end-of-book check: after every skill-book chapter, you take a short quiz or play a hands-on minigame to KEEP the full XP multiplier. Skip or fail and you only get half the bonus. Ace it and the multiplier is yours.
The result: skill books feel like LEARNING, not page-flipping. And every chapter ends in something memorable – drive a nail, read a horse’s mood, dope the wind, choose the right quench for a sword, place primal cuts on a beef carcass.
Read and Recall (Real-Life) – real-world educational content. Each chapter teaches honest technique: hammer grips, food preservation chemistry, the working-temperature window for steel. Pass the quiz to prove you read it.
Read and Recall: Knox Edition – the same skill books reimagined as in-universe Knox County textbooks, with Project Zomboid game mechanics woven into the narrative. Carpenter trait benefits, generator runtimes, the day the grid drops, magazine spawn locations – referenced in-story.
The two editions are incompatible. Enable only ONE at a time.
- Finish reading a vanilla skill book as normal.
- A Summary screen pops up with a recap of the chapter and two buttons: Take the Test or Skip (Half XP).
- Pass the test (a quiz or a hands-on minigame, depending on the volume): you keep the full vanilla XP multiplier for that level range.
- Skip or fail: you get the half multiplier ("floor") so reading is never a total waste.
- Progress is saved per character per book, so you can come back and re-test later.
- 24 skills supported – every craft, survival, and combat skill that has vanilla books.
- 120 volumes of content: 72 written quizzes (11 hand-written questions each) and 48 hands-on minigames.
- Sandbox-tunable: pick the test format, XP curve, and floor reward to match how you want the mod to feel (see below).
- No XP cheese by default: the maximum multiplier is the vanilla one. Opt-in Bonus mode is available in sandbox if you want above-vanilla XP for acing.
- Per-character progress stored in ModData. Multiple characters on the same save each track their own claims.
- Themed UI: each skill has its own colour palette and emblem on the summary/test banner.
Four toggles on the New Game settings page (both editions):
- Test format – keep the mix of minigames and quizzes (default), or convert every minigame slot into a written multiple-choice quiz. Every minigame volume has an alt MC quiz authored – 96 across both editions.
- XP mode – Default (linear graded curve from floor to vanilla), Lenient (90%+ instantly gives full vanilla XP), or Bonus (90%+ gives ABOVE vanilla XP for the perfectionists).
- XP bonus multiplier – how much above vanilla the Bonus mode awards. 1.0 to 2.0, default 1.20 (20% above vanilla).
- Floor percent – XP fraction kept when skipping or failing. 0.0 to 1.0, default 0.5 (half XP). Set to 0.0 if you want no reward for failing.
Every volume listed below either ends in a written Quiz (5 questions drawn from an 11-question pool) or in the named minigame. With sandbox Test format = All Quizzes, every minigame slot becomes a written quiz too.
- Compatible with any mod that does not replace that class wholesale.
- Singleplayer tested. Multiplayer should work but is currently unverified.
- No save corruption risk.
- Quizzes draw fresh questions each attempt, but pools are 11 deep per volume – re-reading the same book several times will revisit some questions.
- PZ’s font does not render some Unicode dashes cleanly; all summaries use plain ASCII hyphens by design.
- Wind direction in Dope the Wind follows hunter convention – "left-to-right wind" means wind moving from your left to your right.
Have fun. Read carefully. Pass the test.
Also check out my other mods in my collection!
Your support is much appreciated!
[ko-fi.com]
Workshop ID: 3728582856
Mod ID: ReadAndRecall
Mod ID: ReadAndRecallKnoxEdition
