Firstly, I’m really sorry Mathas – faithfully plugging away at your Mondoid commentary despite me giving you practically nothing to work with these past few weeks. If I could press the ‘Like’ button multiple times on your videos, I would. Yep. If this opening sentence didn’t give it away, it’s Binky again *cue audience groans*

This is a bit of a problematic Mondoid to write because Build 27 is in closed testing and until we’ve had a bit more feedback it’s tricky to stamp a date on when we’ll be ready to release it. I can point you to the thread with what’s coming up in it (here), but you probably read that last week.

I can tell you about the re-introduction of dragging corpses but you already know about that because we did a video about it aaaaages ago despite us not being able to roll it out into an official build because of [insert technical reason]. But it’s in Build 27, so that’s nice isn’t it?

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Puppy1.jpg
Source: http://www.dazzledotdalmatians.com/puppies

You’ve seen the stuff about the zoning (for wildlife distribution) because I foolishly mentioned that two weeks ago thinking that two weeks from then (which is now), I’d be doing a Mondoid about the release of Build 27 and so it wouldn’t matter.

I could show you some pictures from the new parts of the map, but that’d spoil things a bit given how close we are to giving it to you.

You know what the worst thing is? Kirrus tells me that 714 of you actually clicked that little button to subscribe to this guff (you too can subscribe here!). So to all of you, please don’t unsubscribe on the basis of this Mondoid. I suppose at least I’m helping lower expectations so that when Will writes another of his brillopops Mondoids where he has actual content (woo!) to talk about, it’ll seem mind-blowingly stupendous by comparison.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Puppy2.jpg
Source: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/dogs/images/35485597/title/puppy-wallpaper/puppies

But the good thing is, Build 27 is terribly close (I’m repeating myself already – curse you Romain and your, “test going well…” contribution to this week’s Mondoid. Seriously, that’s pretty much all I could get out of him. It’s almost like he’s really busy or something) which should (all being well) lead to a tremendously exciting Mondoid next week (or possibly the week after that. Probably not but, well, hey you gotta keep some mystery about this stuff otherwise there’d be no fun*)

* “fun” is a subjective term and The Indie Stone cannot be held responsible if the build ends up being a day or two later than intended and you do not find the wait particularly exciting.

Firstly, I’m really sorry Mathas – faithfully plugging away at your Mondoid commentary despite me giving you practically nothing to work with these past few weeks. If I could press the ‘Like’ button multiple times on your videos, I would. Yep. If this opening sentence didn’t give it away, it’s Binky again *cue audience groans*

This is a bit of a problematic Mondoid to write because Build 27 is in closed testing and until we’ve had a bit more feedback it’s tricky to stamp a date on when we’ll be ready to release it. I can point you to the thread with what’s coming up in it (here), but you probably read that last week.

I can tell you about the re-introduction of dragging corpses but you already know about that because we did a video about it aaaaages ago despite us not being able to roll it out into an official build because of [insert technical reason]. But it’s in Build 27, so that’s nice isn’t it?

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Puppy1.jpg
Source: http://www.dazzledotdalmatians.com/puppies

You’ve seen the stuff about the zoning (for wildlife distribution) because I foolishly mentioned that two weeks ago thinking that two weeks from then (which is now), I’d be doing a Mondoid about the release of Build 27 and so it wouldn’t matter.

I could show you some pictures from the new parts of the map, but that’d spoil things a bit given how close we are to giving it to you.

You know what the worst thing is? Kirrus tells me that 714 of you actually clicked that little button to subscribe to this guff (you too can subscribe here!). So to all of you, please don’t unsubscribe on the basis of this Mondoid. I suppose at least I’m helping lower expectations so that when Will writes another of his brillopops Mondoids where he has actual content (woo!) to talk about, it’ll seem mind-blowingly stupendous by comparison.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Puppy2.jpg
Source: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/dogs/images/35485597/title/puppy-wallpaper/puppies

But the good thing is, Build 27 is terribly close (I’m repeating myself already – curse you Romain and your, “test going well…” contribution to this week’s Mondoid. Seriously, that’s pretty much all I could get out of him. It’s almost like he’s really busy or something) which should (all being well) lead to a tremendously exciting Mondoid next week (or possibly the week after that. Probably not but, well, hey you gotta keep some mystery about this stuff otherwise there’d be no fun*)

* “fun” is a subjective term and The Indie Stone cannot be held responsible if the build ends up being a day or two later than intended and you do not find the wait particularly exciting.

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.


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.


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.


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.


I’ll end this Mondoid with a plug for SockThuggery’s “Mighty Tactical Shooter“. We played it at this year’s Rezzed and thought it was flupping brilliant although it did lead to one of the more awkward experiences of the year when we decided to head over to the Game Jam section in order to attract the attention of ‘The Mighty Git‘ (that’s the Twitter name of the designer / programmer – I’m not being outrageously insulting) and failing miserably.
 
We ended up standing on the perimeter like lemons while every now and then the other half of SockThuggery, @Pipsissiwa, glanced up presumably getting increasingly freaked out that some weirdos were staring at them constantly. Eventually we let out an embarrased cough, waited until they weren’t looking, and ran off.
 
So anyway, their game is terrific and there’ll be a Kickstarter for it soon – but in the meantime, why not pop over to their Greenlight page, check out the vids, and consider clicking on that big friendly “yes” button?

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.


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.


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.


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.


I’ll end this Mondoid with a plug for SockThuggery’s “Mighty Tactical Shooter“. We played it at this year’s Rezzed and thought it was flupping brilliant although it did lead to one of the more awkward experiences of the year when we decided to head over to the Game Jam section in order to attract the attention of ‘The Mighty Git‘ (that’s the Twitter name of the designer / programmer – I’m not being outrageously insulting) and failing miserably.
 
We ended up standing on the perimeter like lemons while every now and then the other half of SockThuggery, @Pipsissiwa, glanced up presumably getting increasingly freaked out that some weirdos were staring at them constantly. Eventually we let out an embarrased cough, waited until they weren’t looking, and ran off.
 
So anyway, their game is terrific and there’ll be a Kickstarter for it soon – but in the meantime, why not pop over to their Greenlight page, check out the vids, and consider clicking on that big friendly “yes” button?

OH NO it’s a Mondoid written by your least-favourite Mondoid writterer, Binky. Sorry but, you know, we have to share this stuff out occassionally to give the only person actually qualified to write words which don’t compile (that’s Will, in case it wasn’t obvious – Lemmy’s words mostly compile just fine) a break from time to time.
 
So. Hmm… right, yes. First thing – we mentioned we were getting an office, but this Mondoid I can present photographic evidence. Quite how much this affects our status as indie developers is a little unclear at this stage. There are glass walls, so I imagine working in our underpants is a little inadvisable – at least in the short-term.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Office.jpg
 
Forgive the mess but we’ve only just got the desks built – also, this image is a rare opportunity to see what Paul looks like when he’s not wearing a hat. He looks mostly the same except without a hat, surprisingly. The room definitely needs more Spiffo, but we’ll get to that in time. Still, it’s pretty awesome and we’re chuffed to bits.

Romain has also been beavering away expanding the trapping stuff BUT before we get to that, there’s something MUCH more important to discuss. Yes, if you thought we’d already devoted way too much time to the “Pancakes vs Waffles” argument, the “should you put egg in your beef burger patty mix?” discussion (the answer is yes) is giving it a run for its money.

Romain, however, has two important characteristics which impact heavily on this debate. Firstly, he’s French (I’ll leave it entirely up to you to decide if and how that’s actually important). Secondly, he’s in control of implementing the recipes into Zomboid which means he can sneakily decide to omit eggs and not tell us about it.

So given that he has, frankly, horrifically abused his recipe-implementing priviledges AND only today openly mocked us via Twitter by asserting that Spiffo burgers themselves do not contain egg, I thought I’d abuse my blog-writing priviledges to retaliate. So HA! HA, Romain, HA! I have included evidence below:

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Twitter.jpg
 
 
Where was I? Oh yes, trapping.
So, when Romain isn’t ruining perfectly good recipes he’s implementing trapping. We covered this fairly in-depth a couple of Mondoids ago but we’d like to show you a screen showing you the way that the “zoning” works. Zones are used to identify what sort of thing should be where – it’s a similar system to the way that distributing loot works in that you need control over kitcheny stuff mostly appearing in kitchens and not bathroom cabinets.

So on this picture of Muldraugh you can see the wildlife zones as they exist so far. In the more built up areas (more red) there’d be less wildlife. The sorts of zones we have in the game include town, road, forest, vegetation, deep forest, trailer park, etc. If you intend to make a map mod, you’ll need to place these zones in the World Editor.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Zones.jpg
 

Once upon a time, we had items physically displaying on shelves and while that was quite nice in theory what it actually resulted in was a bit of a mess. The inventory items weren’t really designed to appear on shelves so you ended up with weirdly positioned items which weren’t scaled particularly accurately relative to each other (the icons are designed to be readable in your inventory screen so all occupy similar space regardless of physical size). It was also messy and fiddly to click. So we ditched that with the result that the world felt a little empty. You’d click on an empty shelf to find it chock full of books, boxes of nails, etc. Clearly we needed some way to tell empty shelves from full shelves at a distance.

What we’ve decided upon is multiple versions of the container assets – empty, half-full, full – so that you can tell the difference between well-stocked and unstocked containers from a distance, even if the items displayed aren’t exact. While it would be nice to see everything 1:1, as I’ve said this results in a bit of a mess in practice whereas this way, Mash gets to draw nice neat alternate assets and everything looks a little swankier as a result. You can see an image of this from within the game below:

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Clutter.jpg

I should note that in that image, we’ve deliberately set the buildings to have a large amount of loot. Buildings will not tend to be as well stocked as that in the actual game.

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.

OH NO it’s a Mondoid written by your least-favourite Mondoid writterer, Binky. Sorry but, you know, we have to share this stuff out occassionally to give the only person actually qualified to write words which don’t compile (that’s Will, in case it wasn’t obvious – Lemmy’s words mostly compile just fine) a break from time to time.
 
So. Hmm… right, yes. First thing – we mentioned we were getting an office, but this Mondoid I can present photographic evidence. Quite how much this affects our status as indie developers is a little unclear at this stage. There are glass walls, so I imagine working in our underpants is a little inadvisable – at least in the short-term.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Office.jpg
 
Forgive the mess but we’ve only just got the desks built – also, this image is a rare opportunity to see what Paul looks like when he’s not wearing a hat. He looks mostly the same except without a hat, surprisingly. The room definitely needs more Spiffo, but we’ll get to that in time. Still, it’s pretty awesome and we’re chuffed to bits.

Romain has also been beavering away expanding the trapping stuff BUT before we get to that, there’s something MUCH more important to discuss. Yes, if you thought we’d already devoted way too much time to the “Pancakes vs Waffles” argument, the “should you put egg in your beef burger patty mix?” discussion (the answer is yes) is giving it a run for its money.

Romain, however, has two important characteristics which impact heavily on this debate. Firstly, he’s French (I’ll leave it entirely up to you to decide if and how that’s actually important). Secondly, he’s in control of implementing the recipes into Zomboid which means he can sneakily decide to omit eggs and not tell us about it.

So given that he has, frankly, horrifically abused his recipe-implementing priviledges AND only today openly mocked us via Twitter by asserting that Spiffo burgers themselves do not contain egg, I thought I’d abuse my blog-writing priviledges to retaliate. So HA! HA, Romain, HA! I have included evidence below:

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Twitter.jpg
 
 
Where was I? Oh yes, trapping.
So, when Romain isn’t ruining perfectly good recipes he’s implementing trapping. We covered this fairly in-depth a couple of Mondoids ago but we’d like to show you a screen showing you the way that the “zoning” works. Zones are used to identify what sort of thing should be where – it’s a similar system to the way that distributing loot works in that you need control over kitcheny stuff mostly appearing in kitchens and not bathroom cabinets.

So on this picture of Muldraugh you can see the wildlife zones as they exist so far. In the more built up areas (more red) there’d be less wildlife. The sorts of zones we have in the game include town, road, forest, vegetation, deep forest, trailer park, etc. If you intend to make a map mod, you’ll need to place these zones in the World Editor.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Zones.jpg
 

Once upon a time, we had items physically displaying on shelves and while that was quite nice in theory what it actually resulted in was a bit of a mess. The inventory items weren’t really designed to appear on shelves so you ended up with weirdly positioned items which weren’t scaled particularly accurately relative to each other (the icons are designed to be readable in your inventory screen so all occupy similar space regardless of physical size). It was also messy and fiddly to click. So we ditched that with the result that the world felt a little empty. You’d click on an empty shelf to find it chock full of books, boxes of nails, etc. Clearly we needed some way to tell empty shelves from full shelves at a distance.

What we’ve decided upon is multiple versions of the container assets – empty, half-full, full – so that you can tell the difference between well-stocked and unstocked containers from a distance, even if the items displayed aren’t exact. While it would be nice to see everything 1:1, as I’ve said this results in a bit of a mess in practice whereas this way, Mash gets to draw nice neat alternate assets and everything looks a little swankier as a result. You can see an image of this from within the game below:

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Clutter.jpg

I should note that in that image, we’ve deliberately set the buildings to have a large amount of loot. Buildings will not tend to be as well stocked as that in the actual game.

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.

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.

IMPORTANT: Due to the massive changes required for multiplayer, save compatibility is not possible. IF YOU WANT TO CARRY ON YOUR BUILD 23 SAVES, PLEASE USE THE 'build23' beta option in the beta tab of Project Zomboid on Steam.

We’ll be looking to get Desura updated tonight, providing nothing completely explodes in fireballs. Hurrah!!!

Fancy a barbecue but the power no worky? EasyP has you covered!
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/851081627.png

The new map area is now being tested! Isn’t that exciting? Well, it’s not quite there yet. We’ve still got to lay down the item distributions and fix a few more bugs before its ready for everyone so people aren’t falling through escalators at the mall and finding bags of gravel in all the stores. We’ll let you know when we fix this stuff up and people can no doubt get to play the new map cells pretty soonish!

We’ve finally decided to gone go and do it! After over 3 years of bedroom coding, arting and writing, the PZ Newcastle team are looking to set down roots in an office building some place! This is very exciting, as it means much more regular collaboration between the Newcastle team, and less lonely development, which can only be good for the game! Especially NPCs, since Lemmy and RingoD will be in the same room like every day talking NPC scripting and whatnot. Hurrah!
We’ll post more on this when we know more, as at the moment we’re still in the hunting phase. One thing’s for sure, and that is as far as coffee machines go, no expense will be spared!

with several options to receive either release notification e-mails, unstable test release notifications, and even receive Mondoids right to your e-mail every week!

Follow this link to sign up!:
http://projectzomboid.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

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.

IMPORTANT: Due to the massive changes required for multiplayer, save compatibility is not possible. IF YOU WANT TO CARRY ON YOUR BUILD 23 SAVES, PLEASE USE THE 'build23' beta option in the beta tab of Project Zomboid on Steam.

We’ll be looking to get Desura updated tonight, providing nothing completely explodes in fireballs. Hurrah!!!

Fancy a barbecue but the power no worky? EasyP has you covered!
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/851081627.png

The new map area is now being tested! Isn’t that exciting? Well, it’s not quite there yet. We’ve still got to lay down the item distributions and fix a few more bugs before its ready for everyone so people aren’t falling through escalators at the mall and finding bags of gravel in all the stores. We’ll let you know when we fix this stuff up and people can no doubt get to play the new map cells pretty soonish!

We’ve finally decided to gone go and do it! After over 3 years of bedroom coding, arting and writing, the PZ Newcastle team are looking to set down roots in an office building some place! This is very exciting, as it means much more regular collaboration between the Newcastle team, and less lonely development, which can only be good for the game! Especially NPCs, since Lemmy and RingoD will be in the same room like every day talking NPC scripting and whatnot. Hurrah!
We’ll post more on this when we know more, as at the moment we’re still in the hunting phase. One thing’s for sure, and that is as far as coffee machines go, no expense will be spared!

with several options to receive either release notification e-mails, unstable test release notifications, and even receive Mondoids right to your e-mail every week!

Follow this link to sign up!:
http://projectzomboid.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

It's finally happened. PZ officially now has multiplayer support, 3D character models and a whole host of other new features, a ton of fixes.

It's very exciting but also daunting as its been a while since our last official update, so do let us know if you have any issues and we'll look to get them fixed up ASAP.

If you want to find out what is in Build 26, please look at the changelist here: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/7409-released-build-26/ but bear in mind there are a ton of things not mentioned.

We'll make a more comprehensive changelist soon.

It's finally happened. PZ officially now has multiplayer support, 3D character models and a whole host of other new features, a ton of fixes.

It's very exciting but also daunting as its been a while since our last official update, so do let us know if you have any issues and we'll look to get them fixed up ASAP.

If you want to find out what is in Build 26, please look at the changelist here: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/7409-released-build-26/ but bear in mind there are a ton of things not mentioned.

We'll make a more comprehensive changelist soon.

IMPORTANT: Due to the huge changes to support multiplayer, your previous saves will no longer work, however build 23 is available on Steam Beta tab for Project Zomboid.