The latest update for Project Zomboid details current development progress on things like improved animations and shaders.

Spiffo’s Roundup #1

8 Feb @ 8:04am - nasKo

Hey all, here’s a round-up of recent Zomboid dev. To start with a quick video compilation of stuff the team has been wiring up into our friends at TEA’s animation systems.

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Please note that there are still numerous bugs and issues as long as all our combined arms, and it’s hard to get a sustained video without issues and glitches popping up, so this vid is fairly carefully curated – but it does give you an idea of the where we are. (Likewise, if you see something that looks wrong or glitchy, or think ‘hmm, there should be more variation anims in that…’, then we’re probably already on it).

Essentially, TIS coders are currently implementing the game code-side, tying in the new animation system to all the game systems. RJ, for example, has been handling the combat system, tying up all the weapon swing, zombie reactions and various other related anims, and the system is getting close to the quality of the earlier videos of animations you’ve seen, though now tied 100% into the PZ combat, character and simulation systems.

Connall and Turbo, meanwhile, have been concentrating on non-combat related animations, such as reading, chopping wood, painting, eating, crafting, and the countless other in-game actions characters can do in-game that were previously performed like a stock-still robot with a progress bar.

EP has been doing his usual precision striking all across the code base, wiring up the character creation system, connecting model clothing to inventory items in the world, and fixing issues and integrating the codebase across the board.

In the mean-time TEA are optimizing and improving the AnimZed toolset with our requests the more we use it, and alongside general animation requests and polish Martin is experimenting with the gore potential of the system with visible guts hanging out of the front of zombies and such.

Here’s another vid from Zac from a two weeks ago: a walk through downtown West Point to test some of the latest optimization work, and the improved shaders that remove a lot of the bleached-out-ness from proceedings. At the moment Zac is also, still, looking into some further threading optimization as, bizarrely, better machines were having some stutters

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Project Zomboid is getting some new interesting game mechanics:

After the ‘2x tile’ Secret Mission reveal and last week’s focus on Martin’s amaze-o animations, this ‘getting on with it’ Mondoid might not hit the same ‘like’ frenzy – but hopefully we’ve still got you a few fun nuggets.

In our IWBUMS branch we continue to update and improve the current testing build, while we wait to see what other goodies might drop in. As of last Tuesday we’re currently on Build 34.13, while amongst other fixes and tweaks the next build will increase your day length from 45 minutes to an hour in an experiment to see how it impacts on player productivity and, perhaps, to cater for the amount of different systems that are now in the game compared to how the game was originally. Let us know what you think when .14 hits.

In terms of other stuff…

METALWORKING

Metalworking will come for build 34, in 2 separated skills, smelting and metalworking. Smelting will be used to melt metal into ingot in a stone furnace, stone furnace require to be build from stones (recipe needed!) and will run on coal or charcoal.

From there, just light up your stone furnace and put metal items such as spoon, fork, empty tin can/pop can, etc.. Wait and you have a metal ingot! Which leads to our next skill, metalworking.

First thing you’ll need to craft is an anvil (again, recipe locked, so either you find the correct magazine or you start as a metal worker or the blacksmith trait!) From there, you can start crafting useful metal items like nails, spoon and fork again.. To do this, you need a hammer, but high-end smithing will need ball peen hammer and tongs, which can be crafted as well.

Later on, the smith will be able to craft hammer, metal barricades (way more strong than the planks one, but also require a blowtorch to be put on windows/doors) and even metal furniture like locker, crate, shelves… but no sword smithing for now as it’ll require new animations and it’ll be way more difficult to do anyway!

Metalworking is currently in internal testing and it goes well, it should be in IWBUMS branch rather soon!

ANIMATION COMPATIBILITY / PERFORMANCE

Since we released the video on the animations last week, we’ve had a lot of excited people, but also a fair few low spec PC owners worried about the impact it will have on their system.

We’ve done a lot of work in optimization on the 3D models and animation system over the past year for the animation overhaul, the requirement for shaders has been completely axed, as has the requirement for FBOs to draw the 3D characters on. This means the minimum requirement to run the 3D models has dropped dramatically. There have also been significant optimizations made during development, so while the addition of the advanced animation system will have an impact on performance, we hope it will be a negligible one or even improve matters for some, and will allow most if not all people who currently cannot run the models to play with them in the animation build.

It’s honestly still too early to know for sure with performance, but as we’ve always said we’ll always take all steps we can to avoid cutting people out at the bottom end with incompatibilities. At the same time we have a responsibility to make the game as good as we can so if performance slips a few FPS and we can’t avoid it then that’s the way it has to be. Sadly those at the bottom are those hit hardest by any performance losses. All this said, we’ve had the game working at a solid 30fps on a 1.8Ghz Duo Intel HD laptop, Six Months Later, with all zombies and player using the new animations. Results have varied on other systems though, and the whole system isn’t in yet (let alone future additions to the game) but just so you know we’re on the case and take it seriously.

OTHER STUFF

Co-op fixes continue apace! (With one being quashed during the writing of this very Mondoid!) It’s still unclear how much more testing and fixes will be needed to make sure it works for all the testers router configurations, but we hope to have a wider test as soon as that time comes. We know co-op is tremendously exciting to a lot of people out there so we’re very excited to get it out there!

Also the release of Turbo’s WordZed 2.0 community translation and Radio/TV broadcast is starting to loom large. Turbo has a habit of going a bit quiet and then having a ‘tada!’ moment when his work is complete, and this week’s was probably his best ‘tada!’ yet. It’s a lovely little tool, and we hope to have a version in testing and with some of our community translators for feedback as soon as is possible.

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The devs of Project Zomboid host a session every now and then in which followers of the game can ask questions. At this and this location you can find which questions were answered in the most recent session.

“Whaaaaaat kind of cool admin tools (if any) are in the works for mp servers? (i.e. teleport players, quick server setting adjustments, pve zoning, etc.)”

This is one of the cooler side effects to the upcoming Creative Mode. We see no reason why admins shouldn’t be able to access those tools, particularly the mini-map. One idea for combating cheating we thought of was a replay buffer file of sorts, a log that can be replayed on the minimap and show player movements across the map during the game. There are likely a ton of other admin tools that’d be handy too, definitely server setting changes and the like. In particular I’d personally like to see more support for creative stuff like Machinima to be easier as well as game admin tools.

“Will claim safehouses get any more attention (fine tuning), or is that in the finished pile?”

To be honest that was a spur of the moment ‘cool idea’ that had a few problems in practice. It’s the sort of thing that probably needs more time thinking about, and to be honest is a little immersion breaking and gamey in its initial form. We’re still undecided on the way to go with this feature.

There have been various development updates for Project Zomboid over the last few weeks.

The most recent ones being about the Desura issues, which would have been their outlet and an interview.

Are you planning to make the map look a bit more post-apocalyptic with things like destroyed cars, quarantine tape, army roadblocks, ambulances, police cars, blood on the streets, broken windows? [KebabToutChaud]

Mash: Some of these things already exist (some places are/will be pretty blood-spattered up), and we will be adding some more – destroyed cars is a common request!  Much of the destruction is something we want to happen organically though: as a result of player [and NPC] actions. When the game starts, it’s fairly close to the very beginning of the quarantine, after all!

Will: When the radio and TV broadcasts are in the game and the general back story of the game is a little clearer we’ll definitely be decorating certain areas to reflect it, although we’ll generally be concentrating on some of the more focal points of the story rather than redecorating places that you’re already familiar with.

In the weekly update for Project Zomboid, we are provided information on build 32, which amongst others is about this:

As the Builds tot up towards 1.0 we’re going to be introducing more and more cool new bits and bobs to the PZ Challenge menu. These will provide new activities for long-term players and take place in interesting areas of the map that are a little off the beaten track. By the time of 1.0 they’ll also have a progression and unlock system attached to them for any fresh faced Project Zombateers who buy the game in the world beyond Early Access.

We currently have two new Challenges up and in the game, which will shortly be going into internal testing for ‘fun factor’ feedback. They’re both pretty nifty, and come from the keyboard of Romain ‘RJ’ Dron.

Winter is Coming

As Game of Thrones obsessives will know all too well, endless winters are rarely pleasant. This Challenge spawns the player in one of several isolated locations on the PZ map, armed only with the knowledge that in seven days’ time a winter will set in like no other before it. The undead hordes will be slowed slightly by the cold, but your challenge will be to survive as long as you possibly can as the temperature suddenly starts to fall.

One thing you can always count on is the multiple updates posted by developer The Indie Stone for Project Zomboid. This time its about traps, fuel. audio, and crafting.

CRAFTED DEVICES AND TRAPS

Traps have receive some more RJ love since last week, in fact they’re pretty much done. I’ve had a few more ideas I want to add in, but all the items and systems are now working, present and correct. We’ve mentioned it in a few Mondoids now, but haven’t really put anything in an easy-to-read fact list – so here are the basics of my stuff in Build 32.

GENERATORS

I’m currently working on generators, after doing a lot of research on them. You’ll find them in sheds, garages and storage units in Build 32. They’re not all that rare BUT they do require certain skills to operate them. As such, an electrician will know how to use a generator, but an average joe will have to get some reading done!

WILL AND TURBO STUFF

Will continues to write radio and television transmissions, and is looking with mounting horror at how much there’s left to do compared with what Romain is industriously ticking off his Build 32 list. Turbo meanwhile, with 95% of his broadcast system in place, is still fiddling with the innards of his ApCom mod with an eye to bringing it over in a future build.

The Indie Stone developers posted a new update on the website for Project Zomboid that has information about  build 31 is out of testing, and available for download.

It’s always a bit of a weird one when we release a new build publicly of a Monday. It’s a Dulldoid for our wonderful IWBUMS-ers who’ve been there, done that, reported the bug and ripped their t-shirt into bandages.

But then again, it’s a resounding Fundoid for those who don’t partake in our public beta – and those who boot up Steam to see an exciting progress bar next to the words Project Zomboid. Just imagine that joy for a second…

Which is all as much to say, that on this day Build 31 came out to play.

You’ll be able to find the full changelist here!

News on Build 32 will be fermenting throughout the week, and will no doubt be mulled over next Monday. Meanwhile we’ve had really good progress on NPCs this week (but will hold back details so we don’t re-engage the hype machine when there could still be bumps in the road), meanwhile Turbo has been given a first test radio station script for integration while Will is filling out all his existing spreadsheets to fill the now wider daily schedules. The foundations of the Louisville map, meanwhile, continue to spill out of RingoD and Binky’s paws in preparation for Mash’s building deployment.

The Indie Stone developers posted a new update on the website for Project Zomboid that has information about the  games new build, and other topics this week.

Build 31 is now available for public testing, and should you wish to partake you’ll to investigate this thread that details the necessary steps. The current changelist can be found here but highlights include: the revamped professions and traits, the new key/padlock system, tainted water, the new Challenges system, some much-desired MP Admin features and all manner of general balance and fixes.

If you’d like a video run-down then Mister Tooks has you covered with his video playthrough and deep-dive video into the profession revamp.

Clearly, as ever, we’d like you to report all previously unreported bugs on our tracker but in this instance it would also be of huge value if you could report back on how the balance feels in terms of the professions and traits you choose. We think it’s in good shape, but there will still be kinks to iron out that’ll no doubt be revealed on MP servers.

There will also be additions to 31 in the coming week, with RJ currently making noises about providing presets for character creation.

Ben Cordell published a new Early Access preview of Project Zomboid on StickTwiddlers.

As it currently stands, Project Zomboid is a lot of fun, but don’t expect an action-packed adventure as the majority of your time will be spent wandering the wasteland combating whatever current ailments your character possesses. There’s a lot of walking around and praying you find the supplies you’re looking for without stumbling into a massive horde of zombies that will end your long journey of survival. It’s a game of will and persistence to stay alive (and in the case of the multiplayer, to find your friends). It’s about true survival and it’s incredibly addictive.

One thing you can always count on is the weird names The Indie Stone developers use to post updates, Well anyway here is the first new update of the New Year.

It’s the first day back in the office for the PZ team, with plenty of cool stuff on the horizon… but that doesn’t mean that Build 30 isn’t receiving some New Year love.

Today we released 30.13 in the IWBUMS branch [instructions on how to join here] to hopefully address some multiplayer issues that were reported over the Xmas break. It’s in IWBUMS rather than the main branch as we want to be sure it’s all fixed before widening the net, so if you’re a seasoned MP player or server host who’s run into stuttering recently then please give it a whirl and let us know how you get on.

Other fixes and tweaks include: scavenging balance, fixed spawn points, improved mushroom recipe usage (!), seasonal fishing, translations and improved controller support – in amongst some other good stuff.

Elsewhere tools are being picked up on map, stealth, radio transmissions, NPCs and more. Fr’instance as well as working on the new stealth system, Lemmy’s been working on the NPC behaviour system, converting the behaviour tree system to read text script files for the NPC behaviours instead of using code spat out by the editor.

This means a) future behaviours will be a lot quicker to add and more crucially b) the entire of the NPC’s behaviours will be 100% moddable when they are finally released. Everything from how they move, how they make decisions, will all be accessible to modders. We know it sounds cool but remember: NO ETA NOT DONE YET ETC.

The map team, meanwhile, are back at work on the more urban ‘suburbs’ area – while Will is about to have a first exploratory fiddle with WordZed, the awesome-sauce radio transmission tool created by TurboTuTone and discussed prior to Xmas.

Finally, we would really like to direct everyone’s attention to Xeonyx’s absolutely amazing New Denver map. Eleven months in the making, and made in tribute to friends who are sadly no longer with us, it’s an amazing piece of work that deserves the praise and love of the entire PZ community. Ever attentive and fantabulous, meanwhile, is Blindcoder who has already made it a part of his PZ Map Project.

The Indie Stone developers posted a new update on the website for Project Zomboid that wished all supporters a Happy New Year, and shared a video of Build 30.

Hello everyone! This is a monumentally quick Mondoid cheaply reusing the same banner image as last week (though It’s Spiffo so who’s complaining?) due to the fact that it’s the Christmas holidays. Sorry about that everyone. Can we make it up to you by officially releasing Build 30? Despite it being the holidays the awesome RJ and EasyPickins have still found time to pump out the fixes needed to get build 30 in release shape. It’s become pretty solid in the past few hotfixes so we think it’s ready. Let us know if anything goes amiss!

Here is a Christmas rerun of Romain talking about a few of the main features of build 30!

Change-list can be found here! There are other fixes and additions not present but we’ll try and collate all the hotfix changelists into a huge uber changelist in the coming days. We’ll look to get Desura updated ASAP as soon as we’re sure nothing’s broken.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and see you all in the New Year!

The Indie Stone posted a new update on Steam about the next build of Project Zomboid, and shares a few more details on a few of the new additions.

Hello, and welcome to your Build 30 announcement post! If we were a AAA game and important we’d have a cinematic trailer, a carefully choreographed gameplay trailer, a press release and busloads of journalists being ferried around the world, and wined and dined in the finest of fancy restaurants! As it is, we have a list of stuff. And maybe some headlines marked up in bold or maybe underlined. We’ll see how we go!

Developer Indie Stone posted a new update on the games Steam page with a roundup of various news-bits for this this week, So read on if you're interested.

Hello Survivor! A Mondoid of dev-nuggets this week, but hopefully you’ll find them to be nuggets of gold rather than… other substances that are occasionally found in nugget-form.

There’s quite an important note for Linux PZ server hosts at the foot of this Mondoid too, by the way, so please scroll down immediately if you’ve just realised that we’re talking directly to you!

Developer Indie Stone has a new post on the games website with information that Build 29  is now available for Project Zomboid. I'll share some re of the details below.

Build 29! Woo!

The latest version of PZ is now official! If you’ve been keeping clear of our test branch than now is the time to dive back into the Knox Event – new sounds, scavenging, melee revamp, bug fixes, translations. All that jazz, which can be looked at in greater depth right here. Once we’re sure there are no unexpected bumps in the build roll-out we’ll get in touch with Desura and get PZ updated over there as well.

Multiplayer Improvement

Since the inception of Zomboid online play, we’ve all seen increased lag as the number of players on a server begins to tot up. With the released version of Build 29, however, we think that Kirrus, RJ, BryBry and EasyP have made some significant improvements. It should be noted here, that we all deeply love BryBry. And so should you.

Servers were pausing for the briefest of moments when new players joined/left, which clearly became something of an exponential issue the busier the map became. We think we’ve nixed this, and internally have had a 29.3 server with 10 players and absolutely no lag. We need to get you guys and girls trying it out in the wild to make sure, but we’re certainly hoping that your online experience will be somewhat improved.

Future Builds

The basic plan is that Build 30 will feature the Medical revamp, while Build 31 will herald the start of ‘Operation: Fix Late Game By Killing You Before You Get There’. As a taster, here’s the WIP health screen with multiple wounds inflicted.

The Indie Stone announces that Project Zomboid can now be purchased for 40% Off, and posted a new update about why the percentage off is not higher.

Hey all, since we've had various people inquiring about whether we'd do a bigger sale down the line, just thought I'd write a little here about our steadfast decision not to go beyond 40%, the reasoning behind it specifically.

When we first launched the game, selling via our paypal account and manually sending out keys, and for a good year or two afterwards, the price was £5/$8. Even though apparently people thought the game well worth the price for what we offered at the time, it didn't have 1/10th of the features the game has now. It was really really buggy and early.

We also weren't on Steam, and a lot of people purchased before we were even on Desura. People have expressed concerns about Early Access games now, but just imagine dumping money straight into our paypal account. That's some massive trust and faith placed in us that we really really needed at the time. We were broke, literally unable to pay the rent the following month. These people made our dreams come true and set us on our way to where we are now.

Those people put faith in us and bought in early. They could have waited until the game was more developed, but if everyone did that we wouldn't be here today.

As such it was a decision we made very early on that we would not under any circumstances let anyone else who purchased the game during development, or for a good period after it was completed, get the game for equal or cheaper than those original supporters paid for it. Truth is we could probably make a lot of money by doing some crazy sale, or going on a bundle, but its important to us that we reward those who helped us on this path and make their purchase a good saving for years to come. It's a matter of ethics to us.

As such 40% takes us to just above the price they paid for it. We won't go below that.

Once NPCs and Vehicles go in, possibly when we go to 1.0 but its possible it'll happen before, we will increase in price one final time to our release price. That will be the final 1.0 price of the game. At this point we will perhaps consider going beyond 40% in sales, but again, we will only go as far as to keep the original alpha price the cheapest the game has ever been, so it'll be a bigger % of a higher price that will likely amount to the same price it is now during the 40% sale anyway.

Then when enough time has passed, PZ is in its twilight years, we will probably do bigger sales, or consider bundles. This is a long way off though.

The Noobist had a chance to interview Developer Andy Hodgetts from The Indie Stone, and talk about his work on the latest builds of Project Zomboid.

Developer Indie Stone has a new post on the games website with information that Build 28.3 Released is now available for Project Zomboid.

With the release of Build 28.3 comes the inevitable: the dramatic climb towards Build 29! Lovely Romain ‘RJ’ Dron has just posted up primary details of what’s currently in the can on the forum, but because we love to add to his workload we pressed him for a few added Mondoid explanations.

Item #1: The New Scavenge Skill

“My first idea was to help people playing in multiplayer to survive when all houses had been looted, but it turned out to be something great for people playing solo who want to head out into the forest. Scavenging basically lets you plunder the woods for mighty loot like branches, stones, berries, mushrooms and delicious insects. Then, from these, you’ll be able to craft new stuff that’ll go all the way from stone axes – to really strong log walls.”

“Scavenging won’t be unlimited, and it definitely won’t be overpowered. It’s basically there to help you in your first days, or maybe months. Once you’ve looted a forest zone, you’ll have to move on to another to do further scavenging – and wait for the previous one to replenish. Seeing as it’s a new skill, too, better scavengers will be able to get better loot and in greater quantities. Are you ready to eat a handful of bugs? I’m not…”

Item #2: Melee Skills Revamp

“I’ve also been working on a little melee skills revamp, which will provide new skills to help you face the horde (and/or dragons). Blunt and blade will each have three subsidiary skills – Accuracy, Guard and Maintenance. Accuracy will influence hit chance and damage, Guard will help you avoid scratches while you’re wielding the weapon and Maintenance will reduce the rate at which your weapon loses condition. And nope, Spiffo plushies aren’t weapons.”

Item #3: Other stuff

Thanks Romain! Now another interesting item of note, for this easily scared survivor at least, is that your character’s panic levels will decrease faster if you have survived for a while. This means that, as a lot of players have indicated to us in the past, your character will get used to the threat of zombies and behave as such – but will still get those moments of jump scare dread.

Oh and, last but not least, we’ve got the first batch of NJ’s new sounds going into the build. At the time of writing there are 74 new sound effects in-game. There are ambient sounds – distant screams, dogs barking and owls hooting at night. There are cool new crafting noises of logs being sawn, duct tape being stretched and food being chopped. There are new foot-step sounds. There are… well we’ll keep the rest as surprises for you to listen out for.

As work progresses RJ [God, how many people do stuff on this game that are called ‘Something-J?] will be building another extraordinarily French video to show off and explain the new Build, and then the usual parade of internal testing, IWBUMS testing and full release can take place.

The Indie Stone hosted a new AMA on the games website, and shared the answers. So to start begin with the fist part, and end with the second part.

Good evening from a rain-soaked England, and welcome to the fourth ‘Ask Project Zomboid Developers The Indie Stone Anything! And what does that boil down to if you only use the first letter of every word?

Deloveler Indie Stone has posted another development update for Project Zomboid with information on a new build, and include a new video with the developers.

Mais oui! Bienvenue à lundoid, this week featuring a whole new never-before-seen concept in internet thingummywhatsits. Not content with mere words lovingly typed by hand and transmitted via cable, satellite, and the deepest corners of our hearts to your PC, laptop, phone, or whatever the hell you choose to read this guff on we have instead upgraded – yes, upgraded to 21st century audio. And not just any audio, no the sweetest sexiest audio imaginable. Hearts will flutter. Knees will tremble. Romain has the mic!

Viewer discretion advised: The following video contains sexy French accent

In other news, Lemmy is still hard at work on the NPCs and, specifically, NPC inter-relations. Basically, what this means is that NPCs will have the ability to form friendships and rivalries based upon their traits and in-game events. In other words, get a bunch of NPCs in a group and their relationships will be dynamic. As they learn more about one another, they may start to distrust one-another, or conversely, a bond between them may form. If you brutally murder an NPC, therefore, there may be consequences – their friends will not be super-keen on you from that point on, but their enemies may look kindly upon you. And so forth.

The remainder of this blog post is the full transcript of the above video, just in case English is not your first language and you’d like something to copy and paste into Google translate.

Deloveler Indie Stone has posted another development update for Project Zomboid with infomation on what has been updated in the game this month.

Weapon Changes

The ranged weapon have receive a bunch of fixes/changes, I tried to stick to the reality, even if I’ve never fired a gun.. Meh.

First thing, bullets don’t really pierce zombies now, it mean if you shoot a zombie, and there’s a zombie behind him, he won’t die, but he could take slight damage from rest of bullets (even being knocked back/down and turn as a crawler, yay for crawlers!).

So by knowing this, you already know the shotgun has been really nerfed!

The range of weapon has been slightly nerfed, as well as their angle too (mostly for the pistol), that means you will need to be at the right place to aim for a shot. No more 45° kill with a pistol.

Guns have now a critical chance (modified by aiming skill, but more on that below), understand it as a “head shot”.

For example a pistol can have a great chance of critical, while the shotgun will just blow up zombie chest (in a bloody glory moment !).

Weapon also have a recoil delay, meaning you can’t fire like an assault rifle with the shotgun.

It will mean no more taking a 300 strong zombies horde with 3 shotgun shells.

So by now, I’m sure you understood that the shotgun is a good weapon to start, and the pistol will be more deadly at end level, because it has a larger capacity, less recoil, makes less noise and way better range/critical chance than the shotgun.

The glorious aiming skill

While making my changes to weapons, I saw that the aiming skill barely modify the hit chance, damage and stuff, well, that’s the past.

Aiming skill will now influence a LOT of things! Here’s a list :

• Hit chance! Like really? It require skill to aim correctly? Jeeze Devs nowaday…
• Critical chance! Yup, it’s not a FPS : “aim for head = head shot”, we’re in isometric world, so I can add a skill modifier to this (remind you of Fallout?)
• Range ! Range is now also influenced by aiming skill, at least for the pistol.
• Angle! Well ok, that may sound weird, but because we’re in an isometric world, aiming can be hard, so now, with a better aiming skill, you won’t have to be at the perfect angle for a straight shot (again, specially for the pistol).
• Rate of fire! Well, I’m still trying to know how the great shooter can shoot faster than others (maybe it’s a combination of aiming + strength ?)

It’ll mean that you can avoid being violently murdered by a guy with a pistol if he can’t really aim with it, you could try to run toward him with an axe and take him down before he gets you, and with a bit of luck you may get an axe to his head!

Deloveler Indie Stone announced on Steam a few weeks back that Build 27 of Project Zomboid has been released. Here are the details.

Build 27 Released!

Highlights include:

* New map area (north-east of West Point) including a Mall and other surprises!
* Trapping - capture rabbits and other wildlife (even rats!)
* Server browser. Now you can find servers with ease (it may take a day or two for more servers to start using the public server list though) (server operators read here: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/8768-how-to-public-server/)

Full changelist here:

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/8467-released-iwbums-build-27/

Any problems let us know.

Deloveler Indie Stone has posted another development update for Project Zomboid with an interview with the group behind the games sound.

Hey Mondoid people. Hope this finds you well, and not locked in a Mall side-room with about a hundred deceased shoppers making their presence known on the other side of a wooden door. Zombie spawn’s pretty nasty round there, huh?

A smidge of Build news first, as Hotfix 2 to Build 27 has recently been uploaded onto the IWBUMS beta branch on Steam.  Once we’re happy it’s fully functional it’ll get a wider release, so if you get a surprise update you’ll know where it came from.

Another task this week has been providing our sound expert NJ with a new wishlist for fresh PZ noises. As he scurried away with a list that included new death noises, river burbles, hammering, sawing, and the noises of trapped and dying animals (!) we grabbed him and made him answer a few questions. And made him release a video. It’s quite… elucidating… we’re sure you’ll agree.

Deloveler Indie Stone has posted a new development update for Project Zomboid with information about a new game patch, and talks about multiplayer.

Project Zomboid has a new development update on the games website where the deloveler Indie Stone gives a few teasers for the game.

Enter Title Here

Good Heavens, it only feels like a microsecond since I wrote last week’s Mondoid and, if I’m honest, that one was a bit of a struggle. Yep that’s right, it’s Binky again. I’m sorry.

It’s been a bit of a “stuff’s been happening but it’s all a bit behind the scenes”-y this week, which unfortunately means it’s a little bit tricky to go into much depth and I’m pretty much screwed in terms of finding an appropriate image to use for the blog header. Hence this one.

crafty edit: Er, totally forgot about this until Will mentioned it to me but *cough* for some actual useful information, you might want to have a squizz at the thread about the upcoming build, 27 here.

Tease #1

Romain is hard at work developing an in-game multiplayer server interface, so that you’ll be able to find public servers easily and also get a little bit of info about them before you attempt to connect, such as whether it’s an open server, how many players are connected – that sort of thing. We’ll go into more depth next Mondoid by which point it might be ready to release, although this will need to get tested thoroughly before we release it so delays are possible.

Tease #2

Work continues on the ol’ map expansion. The zombie density map has been produced for a fairly sizeable new region which includes the part with the mall in it. Quite how much of this new region will be in the next map update remains to be seen and there’s still no fixed date on exactly when it will be released. But it’s getting closer, step by step.

Tease #3

There’s been a fair bit of discussion on The Indie Stone and Steam forums about possibilities in character customisation now that we’ve got real-time 3D models in-game. We hope to get the 3D models into the character creation screens reasonably soon, so that it’s not necessary to squint and use a magnifying glass in order to decide what your character looks like. Also, the topic of much discussion was the possibility of visible backpacks.

This is something we’d definitely like to add and although it seems entirely cosmetic, there are gameplay reasons why it would be nice, certainly in multiplayer where you might want to “liberate” the backpack from another player – a backpackless character almost certainly carries little of value and might therefore be somewhat more safe wandering about (apart from all the zombies, obv).

This, and more clothing variation is something which I’m going to spend the next few weeks working on since for too long have you had just the choice of vest or sweater, trousers or skirt (if you’re female). We’ve got lovely big clothing stores in the new mall and it’d be a bit rubbish if all they stocked were the same sweaters. We’re also keen to enable female clothing on males and vice versa since, well, why not? More clothing types also means that we can start implementing more clothing effects (currently limited to “sweater makes you hot, vest cools you down”). Practical clothing choices in terms of minimising scratches is an important yet currently horribly under-developed aspect of the game,

Project Zomboid has a new development update with information on the various updates, and says thanks for everyone who purchased the game on the Humble Spring Sale.

Thanks to everyone who bought Zomboid during the Humble Store Spring Sale, we were invited to participate in the “review sale”. If I’m honest, I’m not 100% sure what a “review sale” is, but that’s what they called it in the email and I don’t suppose it really matters. What *is* important is you can snap PZ up for less *and* support charity for another day or two. Hooray!

You can find the Humble Store here!

The final thing I’d like to say is a gentle reminder that our swanky e-mail announcement thingummywhatsit is up and running so you can get a notification of when we do stable builds, unstable builds, Mondoids, etc tenderly deposited into your favourite e-mail delivery system.

The Indie Stone has a new development update with news Build 26 of Project Zomboid is now available on Steam. Here are some of the details from the games webpage.

It’s, errr, out. EEEK! We mean proper build 26 actually out on Steam right now. It’s been a while since we’ve done that, so we’re preparing for fireworks one way or another. As such this will be a short and functional Mondoid, we’re afraid!

If you want to find out what is in Build 26, please look at the changelist here.

Indie Stone has a new development post with information about a new multiplayer update for their Zombie Survival RPG Project Zomboid.

Multiplayer!

In case you didn’t spot it, over the weekend, we’ve finally put out the first ever online version of Project Zomboid out to the public! We snuck it out to get the worst of the issues resolved before the Mondoid, and early indications are really promising! There’s people running Roleplay servers, PVP servers, public and private. Mostly everything is functional, from farming to carpentry (though there are likely bugs still) and people are having a great time!

In the short term until we add trapping, hunting and some other late game features (that are on their way!) it can become a little difficult when joining a server that’s already had 100 people in the past 2 days stripping Muldraugh clean, so server ops may be tempted to reset the world fairly regularly until then. There’s plenty of balancing and bugfixing still to do but what’s there feels pretty complete!

The multiplayer version is currently in its own Steam branch, so if you want a try then you’ll need to follow the instructions here!

Remember you will need to have access to a server, which you can either set up yourself, or look around in the Servers forum for public ones you can join, or private ones you can apply for a user/pass for.

Indie Stone has a new development post with a few videos about the online part of the game. Also take alook at the main photo. Is that you Joxer?

SO WHAT IS IT?

Online multiplayer with persistent player run servers! Yes!

We have no figures on maximum player count as of yet, but we’ll be expanding our tests in the run up to release and suspect it’ll be connection and server spec limited only. Bugs aside, it managed 10-12 or so on a domestic cable connection pretty effortlessly though, and could probably have gone higher and whatever the limit can definitely be optimized further.

Anyone with a copy of PZ will be able to launch their own dedicated console only PZ server just by passing the appropriate parameters to the executable (or running a batch file, or whatever) with whitelists and blacklists, choice of co-op or PvP (purposefully defaulted to co-op to ram the point home) and all that goodness. Servers will be fully moddable using the same stuffs you mod PZ with now. Modders will be able to create their own networky messages to sync the server and client, and we’ll add checksums to check both server and client are running the same mods. In future we could look to auto-download stuff in cases the clients don’t have what is required.

Due to the moddable nature of the game and the easily decompilable nature of Java, it’s likely that we’re not particularly hack resilient, so until we can work on some solid countermeasures, people should stick to whitelisted servers with user/pass access, to allow servers to be policed effectively and ‘wrong’uns’ removed. You can read more on all this on this thread, where Lemmy was very proud and also frustrated to hold his tongue on the status of the multiplayer in his responses.

We also plan for split-screen to work seamlessly with the multiplayer once it’s reintegrated, so two, three, even four players on a single machine (perhaps in a living room on SteamOS!) all to inhabit the same online world together.

Eurogamer takes a look at the Early Access version of Project Zomboid.

"This is how you died."

This cheery caption appears not on the Game Over screen of Project Zomboid but right at the start, before you've even started playing. Straight away, it's setting your expectations to a more realistic level. In short: this is not a game you're going to win.

As the lone survivor of a zombie outbreak in the state of Kentucky, now locked down and quarantined, your goal is survival. Actual, proper survival, not the bastardised version we've been taught to expect from other games. It's not a test of strength or even cunning, but a test of your sheer bloody-mindedness. How can long can you persist in a truly hopeless situation, before you make a catastrophic mistake and end up torn to shreds?

Pixel Perfect Gaming has posted a new preview for Project Zomboid.

There is an endless laundry list of high points that Project Zomboid brings to the table, but it’s impossible to mention them all in a single review.  Still in the early alpha stages of development, developer Indie Stone Studios is working diligently to implement content that will improve the gameplay. But if Project Zomboid is already this good during the development phase, you can only imagine what the finished product will be like once it finally launches.

In case anyone is interested in Project Zomboid the game is now available on Steam Early Access for $14.99. Here is a video and the game details.

Project Zomboid is Now Available on Steam Early Access

Project Zomboid is an open-ended zombie-infested sandbox. It asks one simple question – how will you die?

In the towns of Muldraugh and West Point, survivors must loot houses, build defences and do their utmost to delay their inevitable death day by day. No help is coming – your continued survival relies on your own cunning, luck and ability to evade a relentless horde.

We’re a game that’s in heavy active development, so when we were considering our appearance on Steam Early Access we thought it vital that we provide potential buyers with as much information as possible about the current state of our game.

Sometimes with alpha funded games people don’t know what they’re jumping into until they’ve bought the game, and annoying compatibility issues can spring from the woodwork after download.

To do our best to avoid this we’re launching with a playable demo you can try out first – in which a pre-made character’s fate is already sealed by a zombie bite. It’s our way of making sure that you’ll be satisfied with your purchase, and so you can be sure that a game in alpha (that’s due some extra optimization work in future) runs at an acceptable lick on your machine if it’s of a lower spec.

To double down on this over the coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday (8-10 November) we will be co-ordinating livestreams with many of our existing players and streamers. Our hope is that we’ll have as close to uninterrupted coverage of the game as possible, with hosts and (time permitting) developers available to answer your questions.

If there’s no available livestream, or if you’d prefer it, then you can also check out some of our regular YouTubers’ guides and opinions on the game. (We specifically asked this lot to cover both the pros and cons of our game and its development, but it goes without saying that they already enjoy playing it!)

Finally, we’re on Twitter (@theindiestone) and our website and forums can be found at www.projectzomboid.com. Here you’ll find the development updates that we blog every Monday in our ‘Mondoid’ updates.

If, after all this, you’re up for jumping into Project Zomboid, then thanks for the support – and good luck in your gruelling battle against an inevitable death!”

Project Zomboid has a new development update talking about memory optimization for the games engine.

This week has been a very interesting and exciting one. It started with a sudden issue with the game presenting itself last Wednesday, which turned out to be down to memory creeping back up to dangerous levels on Intel cards. We finally decided enough was enough and made some bold changes to finally look to address the FPS and memory issues in Project Zomboid. We’ve had one particular plan in mind for a long time, but it always seemed a drastic move.

But with the run up to Steam, we figured if we left it any longer it would only hold us back in the future, with Westpoint being added soon, we’d just keep hitting this problem, and this is our best shot at finally fixing all the performance issues.

The Indie Stone have a new development post with news that Steam keys are now available to all game buyers.

So we’ve finally gone and done it. The first big step toward Early Access is getting our game running within Steam, and to begin the process of giving out keys to our existing customers. The time has come! To make it clear, we are NOT currently available on Steam Early Access, however Desura customers of Project Zomboid are able to redeem Steam Keys.

Project Zomboid has another development update for the zombie ARPG.

Hello Mondoid survivors! It’s a fairly short crackle of gunfire from the Indie Stone safehouse this week, but nevertheless one that contains enough joy-nuggets to stave off despair. It’s all systems go round here, and you should be able to taste the fruits of a fresh Desura build imminently.

First up comes the news that our part-time coder, the gallic superstar Romain Dron (aka RobertJohnson to any internet people out there) is now joining the team on a permanent basis. Huzzah! He’s quit his job in the real world, and is now 100% committing himself to our build up to the Steam release – and beyond.

This means he can really get motoring on balancing, fixing and adding new survival features – shoring the PZ foundations, ready for the introduction of the NPCs and metagame that Lemmy is neck-deep inside.

Forum-goers will also be aware that we’re currently running a spate of internal and community test releases of the next Desura build (currently build 13). This is the primary reason for the thread-bare Mondoid this week, as the dev team are hard at work getting the build ship shape and don’t feel quite so guilty leaving the Mondoid short and sweet.

Things are progressing well, and each version is more stable than the last. We were hoping for a Mondoid Desura release but sadly it looks like there’s still a bit more work to do. In the meantime, feel free to drop in and give the builds a try (but back up your saves!)

Project Zomboid has another development update on it's webpage. They even posted two new videos to watch.

Hello everyone!

First off, we apologize for the delay in getting this build out. The reasoning behind this is while we’ve cleaned up the majority of issues found in closed testing, we really want to get the invisible wall / crafted door related collision bugs sorted out. It’s proving elusive so far, but is affecting many people’s enjoyment of the game, as well as making bad impressions on new players. As soon as this is sorted we’ll do a final quick closed test and release. Hopefully it shouldn’t take too much longer to weed out.

Before then, we’ll show you a few new things you have to look forward to in the nearish future!

ProjectZomboid has a new update for anyone that's interersted were the Project Leader Romain gives a status update.

Greetings fair Mondoider. Last week you learned the wonders SHAZAM! but there was a voice that was curiously absent. A French voice. The voice of our very own Romain ‘RobertJohnson’ Dron. So this week we thought we’d have a chat with him, as we’re nice like that.

Hello Romain! So, word on the street is that you’re the man to talk to about the next update. OMG WHERE IS IT ETC?

Yup, looks like it’s up to me this time… although Chris is the one who creates the release builds. Yup, I still don’t have absolute power. As to when it’ll release, well I should hope it’ll be soon™. What’s more it should be releasing alongside my new version of Last Stand! Hoorah!

On top of the Last Stand stuff (that you’ve mentioned now, completely ruining the tension) what tweaks and fixes will the next build herald? What will be of relief to seasoned PZ players?

Well, the big stuff is on the upcoming post – but on top of what’s listed there I’ve now added fixes for inventory browsing. I’ve re-added the shift key to let you select multiple items for instance, and now clicking in your inventory will stop you from shooting in-game and stirring up the aggression of the local zeds.

A big task I’ve had, meanwhile, was the complete rewrite of the save/load system for camping and farming. It needed a ground-up approach to finally be rid of the teleporting crops bugs and I HOPE it’s now fixed – the map streaming made it a real toughie to gets to grips with. It was really hard to reproduce, understand and grapple with. As of right now I’m more balancing and polishing, and it feels really good. Can’t wait till it’s out!

Project Zomboid has another developer update on the games webpage.

Good morning Zomboidateers. Today is an exciting day for the Indie Stone gang as Will, Mash, Chris and Andy have congregated deep in the industrial heart of North East England for the Super Huggy Awesome Zomboid Annual Meeting! (SHAZAM!). This is the point at which we actually get to see the pained expressions of our co-workers while we speak, rather than guess at them over Skype.

We’re chinwagging about both business-y and gameplay-y stuff, so we thought it might be a good opportunity for us each to individually have a Mondoid chat about what we’re up to in the background – as well as beavering away on the next actual update.

Project Zomboid has another development update on it's website.

Hello again,

Right, let us get this bit right out of the way first: this isn’t a, “yaaay! There’s an updated version released!” blog post. Sorry. Truly. But we’re all rather knackered after Rezzed and then burning the midnight oil to get a stable Desura release in the week following. So rather than risk bollocksing everything up horribly while our brains are a bit fried, we’ve taken a step back to relax, recuperate, and regenerate those pesky brain cells with a view to coming back harder, faster, stronger in a day or two.

That said, if you did miss it – yaaay! The Desura build came out! And it had that new Last Stand mode in it! Which you could play split-screen multiplayer if you have a couple of PC compatible joypads lying around! Here’s proof!

Project Zomboid has a new development update.

Hello Zomboiders,

Since Rezzed, we’ve been tirelessly trying to get the latest build up to Desura release quality. Regulars to our forum will be aware we’ve started doing a short run of test builds (with the file strategically uploaded to the servers for short periods to minimize on the crazy bandwidth bills we had the last time, and mirrors created soon after)

It’s so close it aches, and after a long long day of trying to finally nail the reoccurring and endlessly frustrating ‘teleporting crops’ bug and finally think we might have got it. Then just as we start finally writing the Mondoid, we find out that the recently repaired carpentry stairs may still have a few issues. Such is game dev, I guess. Then it turned out the farming was still an issue. Some days it all slots into place, and others bugs repeatedly beat you across the head a bit and don’t go down without a fight.

Anyway, since these are both vital things people have been waiting for since the last stable version, we’d rather wait until we got it in there. And as it’s 8:30pm it looks like we’re running out of time for today. That doesn’t mean we’ll stop work, and are looking to fix these two issues as we speak. And as soon as we nail these two issues, we’ll post the next version on the forums. We’ll likely be working for a good few hours yet, but didn’t want to delay the Mondoid any more and keep people in the dark. That’s not to say it’ll be tonight, it all depends on if we nail these pesky things.

Project Zomboid is a zombie survival RPG. Right now it is an alpha, but like Minecraft and Driftmoon, you can buy the game now and play it. I did so quite a while ago and have spent many hours in this game bashing zombies and trying to survive. It's a tough brutal world that is highly addictive as well. Here is the game info:

Project Zomboid is a Zombie Survival RPG. Here are some of its planned features:

 

• Retro-isometric style with plenty of zombie insides thrown in for good measure.

• A massive city and the surrounding areas to traverse, explore and loot.

• Open-ended sandbox world – survival is your only goal, and we’re sorry to tell you… you WILL die eventually.

• Get infected. How will you spend your final days? Will you have a heroic moment of self-sacrifice, or end up chewing your best friend’s throat out?

• Meet other survivors who you can join forces with, trade with, undertake missions for, or fight with for resources.

• Loot, salvage, and build what you need to survive the apocalypse, from food and medical supplies, to weapons, even just booze to help get you through the nights.

• Advanced item crafting allows you to use looted items to build weapons, traps, defenses, and many other things to help you survive.

• Character progression. Learn skills and perks to help your character face the challenges of survival.

• Starvation, illness, loneliness, depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, insanity, trust issues. There’s more to zombie survival than shooting zombie heads off.

• Join your friends and survive the apocalypse together in co-op multiplayer.

• The world changes the longer you survive; power plants fail, plunging the city into darkness and making batteries and tinned food prized commodities. The army rolls into the streets to perform ‘clean up operations’ and other gamechanging events occur the longer you survive.

• Play in your browser, or stand-alone, on PC, Mac and Linux.

Here are a few updates about the game:

Simulated Fear and Loathing in Knox County - This goes into the NPC system and dialogue variations of the NPCs that you will encounter. As of now this is not implemented, but you can meet other survivors in the game. They just won't say anything.

Caution: Zombies at Work - A dev update on what's going on with the game. It goes into path-finding, LOS, artwork and a few other details about the game's progress.

A Rough Guide to PZ Mods - Episode 1: Stories - There are already many mods for this game. This blog entry highlights a few of them from the forums. Here is an example of one of them:

We’ll start by spotlighting a pair of mods by prolific forum-goer Ontogenesis. In Case Of Fire and Revenge Of Baldspot are both brilliant stories with exciting narrative and clever modding to back it up. While In Case Of Fire stands independent of the tutorial story, Revenge Of Baldspot focuses on Bob’s anguish over Kate’s death and the doomed wankiness of the raider who killed her. This is probably the best mod available for people who feel a small burning in their belly when around our team, and in particular a certain Mr. Batsphinx.

 

Alternatively, In Case Of Fire is an ingenious, quirky mod about unique NPC Crazy Chris and his antics. It just about does what it says on the tin, with some tasty surprises. This is a must-have extension for fans of fire and/or Project Zomboid. You can find both of Ontogenesis’ story mods on our forums, here and here.

Of Sawn-Offs and Sprite Animation - They talk about the artwork in the game and a tease about the new weapons and recipes that will go live in the next update. I should mention that there is a lot of crafting to this game. For example: if you have a can opener, a can of tomato soup and a pot then you can make a pot of soup. That's just one of the basic examples of recipes and doesn't sound like much, but food in this world is essential in order to survive. As of now there are not that many recipes, but there are many planned for future releases.

Here is a helpful hint to anyone who picks up the game, you will want to barricade your doors and windows using a hammer, nails and planks when you go to sleep. Trust me on this one, you don't want to wake up surrounded by zombies.

A Rough Guide to PZ Mods - Episode 2: Maps - Here are some more mods. This time dealing with maps the community has made for the game. This is one example:

a complete conversion of the default map comes in the form of Triptych’s Cloquet. Set in an apocalypse where survivors have been forced to retreat back to caves on the other side of the river, the map features a fully kitted-out, homely cave labyrinth, bridges to cross the river and the town where the zombie horde roams tirelessly. The map brings a welcome freshness to PZ for those who have played the vanilla map to death. Pun intended. You can take your chances in the caves by downloading Cloquet here.

You can download the free demo, which is version 0.1.4c or buy the full game is $7.99. It is available from Desura or Google Checkout.