VHS & CD Happiness (Project Zomboid mod)

Watching a VHS tape on a TV, or listening to a music CD, lowers your character's unhappiness, the same way reading a book or comic does. Each tape and CD only does it once, so finding new ones is worth the trip. Skill tapes are left alone: they still only give skill XP.

How it works

While you watch a tape or listen to a CD, every line of it that plays lowers your unhappiness a little. A whole tape or CD gives the same amount as the game's own reading material:

Vanilla item / tape / CD	Unhappiness removed
Comic Book	20
Book	40
Music CD	20, like a comic
Home VHS (home videos)	20, like a comic
Retail VHS (movies, TV)	40, like a book

• The bonus is spread over the lines, so it doesn't matter how long the tape or CD is or what day length you play on. Stop halfway and you get half; come back later and finish it for the rest.
• Each tape and CD works once per character, forever. Replaying one you've already finished gives nothing; you need one you haven't heard or seen yet.
• Skill tapes give no happiness. Any tape that teaches a skill or recipe (carpentry, cooking, mechanics and so on) only gives the game's normal skill XP. In Build 41's tape list that's 42 of the 263 tapes: 28 retail and 14 home videos.
• CDs: a CD player anywhere in your inventory (even in a bag) counts whenever you're awake. A CD playing on something in the world uses the same rule as TVs.
• TVs: you count as watching if you're within 8 tiles of the TV, on the same floor, with no wall in the way, and awake.
• A green "Unhappiness ↓" note pops up with every line that cheers you up, alongside the game's own "Boredom" note.
• Boredom and skill XP from tapes and CDs are left to the vanilla game.

Tapes and CDs from other mods

There's no fixed list of tapes or CDs: the mod reads each one from the game as it plays, so ones added by other mods work the same way.

• CDs and tapes are told apart by the game's own media type, so modded ones count even with their own category names. A modded tape is worth 20 like a home video if its category name contains "home", otherwise 40 like a movie.
• Modded skill tapes are spotted the same way as the game's: any line code that isn't a mood code (including codes for skills other mods add) means it teaches something, so it gives no happiness.
• TVs, radios and CD players added by other mods work too.
• Not covered: mods that play real audio files through their own players instead of the game's tape and CD lines.
• If a mod's movie or music gives no happiness, it probably uses a mood code this mod doesn't know. Add that code to MoodCodes.

Install (local mod)

1. Copy the VHSHappiness folder into your Zomboid mods folder:
   • Windows: C:\Users\<you>\Zomboid\mods\
   • Linux / macOS: ~/Zomboid/mods/ (Create the mods folder if it doesn't exist.)
2. Start the game, open Mods from the main menu and enable VHS & CD Happiness.
3. For an existing save, enable it in that save's mod list too.

The folder works on both Build 41 and Build 42:

VHSHappiness/
├── mod.info                          Build 41
├── media/lua/client/VHSHappiness.lua Build 41
├── 42/mod.info                       Build 42
├── 42/media/lua/client/VHSHappiness.lua
└── common/                           required by Build 42 (empty)

The two VHSHappiness.lua files are identical. If you edit one, copy it over the other.

Tuning

Open VHSHappiness.lua (the one for your build) and change the values in VHSHappiness.Config at the top:

Setting	Default	Meaning
RetailVHSTotal	40	Unhappiness removed by a whole movie / TV tape
HomeVHSTotal	20	Unhappiness removed by a whole home video tape
CDTotal	20	Unhappiness removed by a whole music CD
MaxDistance	8	Tiles from a TV or radio that still count
RequireLineOfSight	true	Walls between you and a TV or radio block the bonus
ShowHaloText	true	Show the "Unhappiness ↓" note with each line
MoodCodes	16 codes	Line codes that only change mood; anything else is a skill

Notes

• A mod that already gives happiness for tapes or CDs will stack with this one.
• Built for single-player. In multiplayer the client changes the stat itself, so a server that owns player stats may override it.
• Supports both stat systems: BodyDamage unhappiness (Build 41 to 42.12) and Stats/CharacterStat.UNHAPPINESS (Build 42.13+).
• Every game function the mod calls was checked against the game's API for Build 41.78 and Build 42.12 through 42.21.

Tests

The logic is tested against a mocked game API in a Lua 5.1 runtime:

pip install lupa
python3 tests/run_tests.py