Wired's Game|Life has the interesting backstory on Dean Hall's real-life experience that inspired his development of DayZ, the Arma II zombie modification that's now in the works as a standalone game. The idea for the survival game came to Hall as he underwent his own ordeal as a cadet in the New Zealand army tasked with surviving in the jungles of Brunei for 20 days on two-days worth of food. Here's a bit:

That night, as water pooled around his bed and ramen roiled his stomach, he imagined himself inside his favorite videogame, a military simulation for PCs called Arma 2. He had been playing it since its release in 2009 and often spent three to four hours a day on the game. Now, lying on the jungle floor, his feverish imagination turned Arma 2 into something different. He visualized a new kind of game, one in which there were no missions, no objectives, and no ability to simply be respawn when killed. You had one life, and if you lost it, you lost everything.

Physically, Hall was a mess when he emerged from the jungle — he underwent emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage. But intellectually, he was energized by his visions and inspired to build a new Arma 2 modification.