Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, zomboys and zombettes… Build 34 is now open for general consumption on Steam! (note: this version will be uploaded to GOG once we’re sure there are no unexpected bugs–probably in the next few days).

Highlights include the 2x ‘Secret Mission’ that has seen every single tile in the game redone by hand at twice the resolution, and the ‘Easy PZ Co-op’ feature that via networking magic will let you conjure your friends into your game with a fraction of the faff you previously experienced. For a neat FAQ on the latter, visit this here thread.

The new food system is also in there (freezers, new foodstuffs, recipes etc) but the actual Nutrition component of it has to be activated in sandbox settings. Although player feedback has shown us we’re on the right track with our food tracking system, it isn’t quite there yet in terms of polish. As such you can expect a Metalwork/Nutrition ‘RJ Special’ IWBUMS public test in coming weeks – which will then either be released as their own build or (if timings fit) as a part of our the animation/backpacks/clothing/combat update, that will itself be the stepping stone to our next big features.

If you’ve been away for a bit, here’s what ‘2x’ looks like compared to the previous version:





For full details on what’s in Build 34 you can read-up on what’s under the hood, including the improved new lighting system and co-op sleeping, in the release notes.

As always the sheer number of extra systems that live in the world beyond our IWBUMS testers might throw up issues, in which case our bug tracker lives here.

This week’s featured image by Garvel Locan on Steam. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitterright here! Okay thanks bye! Oh, but finally. What on EARTH is going on here?
 

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, zomboys and zombettes… Build 34 is now open for general consumption on Steam! (note: this version will be uploaded to GOG once we’re sure there are no unexpected bugs–probably in the next few days).

Highlights include the 2x ‘Secret Mission’ that has seen every single tile in the game redone by hand at twice the resolution, and the ‘Easy PZ Co-op’ feature that via networking magic will let you conjure your friends into your game with a fraction of the faff you previously experienced. For a neat FAQ on the latter, visit this here thread.

The new food system is also in there (freezers, new foodstuffs, recipes etc) but the actual Nutrition component of it has to be activated in sandbox settings. Although player feedback has shown us we’re on the right track with our food tracking system, it isn’t quite there yet in terms of polish. As such you can expect a Metalwork/Nutrition ‘RJ Special’ IWBUMS public test in coming weeks – which will then either be released as their own build or (if timings fit) as a part of our the animation/backpacks/clothing/combat update, that will itself be the stepping stone to our next big features.

If you’ve been away for a bit, here’s what ‘2x’ looks like compared to the previous version:





For full details on what’s in Build 34 you can read-up on what’s under the hood, including the improved new lighting system and co-op sleeping, in the release notes.

As always the sheer number of extra systems that live in the world beyond our IWBUMS testers might throw up issues, in which case our bug tracker lives here.

This week’s featured image by Garvel Locan on Steam. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitterright here! Okay thanks bye! Oh, but finally. What on EARTH is going on here?
 

Hey survivors, here’s the latest from Zomboidton.


The marvellous EasyPickins continues to build some nice tweaks and fixes in to the public test of Build 34, which seems to be coming to a natural climax now – although we still need to work out which side of the release fence polished nutrition and metalwork will be landing. An item of note in .19 is EP’s new precipitation system, which looks nicer and opens the door to falling snow and whatnot. If you want to join in with testing you can find details here.



So with the animation update now surging through the pipeline we’ve got anims that allow the player to take bags off their back, and rifle through the contents on the floor.

As well as looking pretty as they jiggle about – they’ll also make a significant gameplay difference. If you’re carrying a bag on your back you will, in most cases, be unable to go rooting around in it unless you first take it off and put it on the floor in front of you. This means there will be no more intensive backpack resorting done while wandering around, as well as making looting much more interesting, with the potential of a panicked looter leaving their bag behind if they are not observant.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ-3773oSm4

(Note: in the anim cycle the strap currently disappears when the bag is taken off and reappears when it’s put back on. There aren’t any easy ways to avoid this, but with clothing worn and in-game it will be far, far less noticeable.)

Holding a bag in your hand will add the extra advantage of being able to interact with it without stopping, which will make bag management much more strategic. Finally we may be able to look into a few more traits to further increase player’s capability to interact quickly with backpacks, as well as provide different speeds based on the type and convenience of the bag used.

If you weren’t around for the previous bag vid then let’s have another repeat, as it does look lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS6o2o44JHM



To complement all this, character-wise, Binky is currently experimenting with unifying the textures between the male and female animation meshes. Currently our new player and zed anims are all chaps, y’see. The result of this (if successful) will be a more in-depth way of assembling the base models. We’ll lose the need to double-up textures – have more variety in skin tones, will let players wear whatever they like and will also tie into having blood and bandage overlays on the characters themselves.

With the base mesh and clothing overlays all using consistent texture layouts we’d be free to overlay this stuff wherever appropriate. Better clean that bite mark, dress the wound, and grab a clean long-sleeved shirt if you want to pretend you’re unscathed and not in imminent danger of eating your compadres!



Do check out lovely Blindcoder, of map fame, and his new building mod. Thanks all!


This week’s featured image by Shadows on Steam.The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the] PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Okay thanks bye! Oh, and community GoT spoiler chat goes…here!

Hey survivors, here’s the latest from Zomboidton.


The marvellous EasyPickins continues to build some nice tweaks and fixes in to the public test of Build 34, which seems to be coming to a natural climax now – although we still need to work out which side of the release fence polished nutrition and metalwork will be landing. An item of note in .19 is EP’s new precipitation system, which looks nicer and opens the door to falling snow and whatnot. If you want to join in with testing you can find details here.



So with the animation update now surging through the pipeline we’ve got anims that allow the player to take bags off their back, and rifle through the contents on the floor.

As well as looking pretty as they jiggle about – they’ll also make a significant gameplay difference. If you’re carrying a bag on your back you will, in most cases, be unable to go rooting around in it unless you first take it off and put it on the floor in front of you. This means there will be no more intensive backpack resorting done while wandering around, as well as making looting much more interesting, with the potential of a panicked looter leaving their bag behind if they are not observant.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ-3773oSm4

(Note: in the anim cycle the strap currently disappears when the bag is taken off and reappears when it’s put back on. There aren’t any easy ways to avoid this, but with clothing worn and in-game it will be far, far less noticeable.)

Holding a bag in your hand will add the extra advantage of being able to interact with it without stopping, which will make bag management much more strategic. Finally we may be able to look into a few more traits to further increase player’s capability to interact quickly with backpacks, as well as provide different speeds based on the type and convenience of the bag used.

If you weren’t around for the previous bag vid then let’s have another repeat, as it does look lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS6o2o44JHM



To complement all this, character-wise, Binky is currently experimenting with unifying the textures between the male and female animation meshes. Currently our new player and zed anims are all chaps, y’see. The result of this (if successful) will be a more in-depth way of assembling the base models. We’ll lose the need to double-up textures – have more variety in skin tones, will let players wear whatever they like and will also tie into having blood and bandage overlays on the characters themselves.

With the base mesh and clothing overlays all using consistent texture layouts we’d be free to overlay this stuff wherever appropriate. Better clean that bite mark, dress the wound, and grab a clean long-sleeved shirt if you want to pretend you’re unscathed and not in imminent danger of eating your compadres!



Do check out lovely Blindcoder, of map fame, and his new building mod. Thanks all!


This week’s featured image by Shadows on Steam.The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the] PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Okay thanks bye! Oh, and community GoT spoiler chat goes…here!

Greetings survivors. It’s been an exciting week watching testers ease into General Arcade’s fantastic ‘Easy PZ’ co-op set-up, and we’re now pleased to announced that the OnlineTest build into the main IWBUMS Public Test Build. There are still kinks to be ironed out, but overall we’re really pleased that such a complex bit of work appears to be operating well on the many and varied internet connections of our users.

If you want to engage with IWBUMS public testing procedures then visit this post. The full IWBUMS release notes and feedback thread, meanwhile, can be found here.

Even better, the GA guys are game for doing some more work on our MP contingent while we crack on with the main game features. A preliminary poke around VOIP integration is next on the list, but we won’t talk of it again until it’s close – as this will again be long and difficult job for our Russian code buddies.

Elsewhere TurboTuTone has released his direct-to-game radio and TV localization software, and the full modding tool known as WordZed will be released in coming days. We’d like to ask all our community translators to have a look, have a play around and come back to us with comments and questions.

Once Turbo has finished with WordZed he’ll then be returning to main-game activities, making our somewhat digital radio system feel more ‘analogue’ so secret transmissions (whether scripted or player-made) can be discovered more easily, improving the impact particular shows or transmissions have on character boredom, letting the player learn recipes from recorded VCR tapes and all that kinda fun stuff.

We also had a really productive Metalwork meeting last week with RJ (who is ill today, with ailments you don’t want to hear about at all) and hammered out improvements and changes that are again more in-line with community feedback.

Multiple versions of makeshift forges, wall and barrier recipes that involve building frames to build-upon (and crossover with the carpentry skill), tools that aren’t up to the same standards as looted equipment and more were on the menu. We’ll go into more detail with that when it’s in and working in-game, as it’s a subject that’s had a lot of debate and we want to get it right.

Finally, it’s been a while since we did a main build release – players outside of our test builds haven’t been experienced the 2x visuals yet. Now co-op is in we’ll be directing attention towards getting Build 34 out of the door. That said, with Nutrition requiring polish and Metalwork still in progress it’s likely one will be left behind and kept for 35. We’ll have a chat with RJ once he’s off his sick-bed and work out what’s best.

That’s about it for today, fingers crossed we’ll have some anim fun for you to have a look at next Mondoid. Laters!

This week’s featured image by the amazing base of Opt_0 over on Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the[/u] PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Okay thanks bye! Oh, and community GoT spoiler chat goes… here!

Greetings survivors. It’s been an exciting week watching testers ease into General Arcade’s fantastic ‘Easy PZ’ co-op set-up, and we’re now pleased to announced that the OnlineTest build into the main IWBUMS Public Test Build. There are still kinks to be ironed out, but overall we’re really pleased that such a complex bit of work appears to be operating well on the many and varied internet connections of our users.

If you want to engage with IWBUMS public testing procedures then visit this post. The full IWBUMS release notes and feedback thread, meanwhile, can be found here.

Even better, the GA guys are game for doing some more work on our MP contingent while we crack on with the main game features. A preliminary poke around VOIP integration is next on the list, but we won’t talk of it again until it’s close – as this will again be long and difficult job for our Russian code buddies.

Elsewhere TurboTuTone has released his direct-to-game radio and TV localization software, and the full modding tool known as WordZed will be released in coming days. We’d like to ask all our community translators to have a look, have a play around and come back to us with comments and questions.

Once Turbo has finished with WordZed he’ll then be returning to main-game activities, making our somewhat digital radio system feel more ‘analogue’ so secret transmissions (whether scripted or player-made) can be discovered more easily, improving the impact particular shows or transmissions have on character boredom, letting the player learn recipes from recorded VCR tapes and all that kinda fun stuff.

We also had a really productive Metalwork meeting last week with RJ (who is ill today, with ailments you don’t want to hear about at all) and hammered out improvements and changes that are again more in-line with community feedback.

Multiple versions of makeshift forges, wall and barrier recipes that involve building frames to build-upon (and crossover with the carpentry skill), tools that aren’t up to the same standards as looted equipment and more were on the menu. We’ll go into more detail with that when it’s in and working in-game, as it’s a subject that’s had a lot of debate and we want to get it right.

Finally, it’s been a while since we did a main build release – players outside of our test builds haven’t been experienced the 2x visuals yet. Now co-op is in we’ll be directing attention towards getting Build 34 out of the door. That said, with Nutrition requiring polish and Metalwork still in progress it’s likely one will be left behind and kept for 35. We’ll have a chat with RJ once he’s off his sick-bed and work out what’s best.

That’s about it for today, fingers crossed we’ll have some anim fun for you to have a look at next Mondoid. Laters!

This week’s featured image by the amazing base of Opt_0 over on Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the[/u] PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Okay thanks bye! Oh, and community GoT spoiler chat goes… here!

Nothing super interesting to talk about this week with the animation system, but plenty of progress. We’ve been doing a lot of work on fixing up various bugs with the new software skinning system (the system that allows for 3D models to work across much older hardware) that became apparent when trying to make the video for last week’s Mondoid and resulted in huge scary spikes of flesh petruding from players chests. We’re meeting up with Martin on Thursday to discuss what comes next for models or animation work for the update, or perhaps future ones (ideas are always welcome!), and Binky is progressing with the model texture and UV revamp that will bring in new opportunities for blood overlays, as well as to get the ladies back into the animation build of the game.

We were planning on releasing a build of the co-op system alongside the Mondoid, however a few last minute fixes are still being pushed out, and as 11 o clock ticks around in the UK we thought we better get the Mondoid out there before the panic buying of canned food starts. It’s still possible it will make it out tonight, but if not you can otherwise expect it very soon, likely tomorrow. Keep a look out on the TIS forums for an announcement, as it will not be appearing on IWBUMS and will in fact be on an entirely new branch for testing purposes.

(Edit: Help us help you: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/19172-easy-co-op-test/#comment-231159)

Big thanks to General Arcade for their tireless efforts bringing some clever networking tech to Zomboid, as well as to EasyPickins for his work on the in-game server settings and his work getting the new system ready to test out,. At the moment it’s only the Steam version using steam invites that we’re testing out. There are still a few changes in the pipe to make non-steam servers work comfortably, though we’re on the case and this will be in place before it goes into IWBUMS proper.

The new multiplayer uses UPnP to completely avoid any requirement for port forwarding. In addition the way maps are transmitted to clients has been changed, and we’re hoping it’ll be much more robust with less chance of the langolier style black border issues that strike some players. At the moment the current version in testing still has a few UI improvements required to make it completely newbie proof, but it should prove infinitely more straightforward for the technically challenged. The steps are as follows:

1) The ‘host’ simply starts a game using the HOST menu option, launches the server from within the game, creates their character and selects a spawn location.
2) Once in-game, the host can send invites to their friends via the ESCAPE menu INVITE FRIENDS menu, here all their steam friends who own PZ and are online will appear. Invite away!
3) Their friends will get the invite through a Steam message, and when they click on it, the game will launch and …

That’s it. It really is that simple! In fact, in lieu of the version being live for the Mondoid, we planned to provide a few screenshots until we realized the process is so simple there’s not really anything to show!

There is of course the potential for bugs with some people’s set ups, in which case please let us know your router and PC configuration and we’ll try and get them resolved as soon as possible. We hope this will bring multiplayer with small groups of friends to a lot of people who until now found the process daunting and confusing.

In a related topic we apologize for the random update people will be getting. This is the Visual Studio 2013 redistributable package the co-op system will require to function. Sadly we don’t have the option of switching this on for only the testing branch, so will undoubtedly get a few people excited about a main branch update.

We want feedback from people playing the current IWBUMS build (34.15) on the way they currently feel about the food system balance. We’re aware it needs some extra love before it’s released, and will only release stuff to the wider community when we’re happy – so knowing your relative happiness levels to the whole shebang is pretty vital. So please deposit thoughts here.
We want to know how its impacting on your survival, what you’re doing differently while you play and overall if it makes you happy/sad. If possible, please keep your suggestions as to ‘how’ it can be improved to other threads – it really is the ‘feeling’ of the game in this current iteration that we want to hear back about in this instance.

Recently added to Build 34.15 is a server option that allows sleep during co-op MP , something that EP and the team felt important given the imminent easy co-op builds. When all players sleep the server clock speeds up until players wake themselves by aiming or moving. As we move on into other builds our non ‘BIG STUFF’ focus will be a lot more on polishing our older systems to gain more control and gameplay nuance – fire, moodles, boredom, building… that kinda thing. Sleep is also on the list, wanting to return to the scariness of waking up at unknown times from our earliest builds – and this is a step towards that. Similarly, EP has been experimenting with how we process rain in-game and seeing what other effects we could get from the system .
Unrelatedly, while we’re on EP stuff, wood stoves now work like fireplaces. They emit light, warm/dry the player, can be used for cooking, and don’t require electricity. Likewise barbecues, campfires and woodstoves can now warm/dry you.

We didn’t realize that quite an important feature for large construction projects wasn’t known about by some proportion of our playerbase. Upon reading mertsu’s quite humourous revelation on Reddit and a few people responding in shock at his findings, we thought we should give the community a reminder that while our game is hardcore permadeath, there is nothing to stop you creating a new character in your single player world, finding your old stomping ground, introducing your old dead self to your base-ball bat, and your new character claiming your previous self’s construction projects and loot as their own.

This week’s Featured Image from Max, with an RP shot taken from the Aggressive Gaming New Dawn Server. Amazing stuff guys! The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here!

Nothing super interesting to talk about this week with the animation system, but plenty of progress. We’ve been doing a lot of work on fixing up various bugs with the new software skinning system (the system that allows for 3D models to work across much older hardware) that became apparent when trying to make the video for last week’s Mondoid and resulted in huge scary spikes of flesh petruding from players chests. We’re meeting up with Martin on Thursday to discuss what comes next for models or animation work for the update, or perhaps future ones (ideas are always welcome!), and Binky is progressing with the model texture and UV revamp that will bring in new opportunities for blood overlays, as well as to get the ladies back into the animation build of the game.

We were planning on releasing a build of the co-op system alongside the Mondoid, however a few last minute fixes are still being pushed out, and as 11 o clock ticks around in the UK we thought we better get the Mondoid out there before the panic buying of canned food starts. It’s still possible it will make it out tonight, but if not you can otherwise expect it very soon, likely tomorrow. Keep a look out on the TIS forums for an announcement, as it will not be appearing on IWBUMS and will in fact be on an entirely new branch for testing purposes.

(Edit: Help us help you: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/19172-easy-co-op-test/#comment-231159)

Big thanks to General Arcade for their tireless efforts bringing some clever networking tech to Zomboid, as well as to EasyPickins for his work on the in-game server settings and his work getting the new system ready to test out,. At the moment it’s only the Steam version using steam invites that we’re testing out. There are still a few changes in the pipe to make non-steam servers work comfortably, though we’re on the case and this will be in place before it goes into IWBUMS proper.

The new multiplayer uses UPnP to completely avoid any requirement for port forwarding. In addition the way maps are transmitted to clients has been changed, and we’re hoping it’ll be much more robust with less chance of the langolier style black border issues that strike some players. At the moment the current version in testing still has a few UI improvements required to make it completely newbie proof, but it should prove infinitely more straightforward for the technically challenged. The steps are as follows:

1) The ‘host’ simply starts a game using the HOST menu option, launches the server from within the game, creates their character and selects a spawn location.
2) Once in-game, the host can send invites to their friends via the ESCAPE menu INVITE FRIENDS menu, here all their steam friends who own PZ and are online will appear. Invite away!
3) Their friends will get the invite through a Steam message, and when they click on it, the game will launch and …

That’s it. It really is that simple! In fact, in lieu of the version being live for the Mondoid, we planned to provide a few screenshots until we realized the process is so simple there’s not really anything to show!

There is of course the potential for bugs with some people’s set ups, in which case please let us know your router and PC configuration and we’ll try and get them resolved as soon as possible. We hope this will bring multiplayer with small groups of friends to a lot of people who until now found the process daunting and confusing.

In a related topic we apologize for the random update people will be getting. This is the Visual Studio 2013 redistributable package the co-op system will require to function. Sadly we don’t have the option of switching this on for only the testing branch, so will undoubtedly get a few people excited about a main branch update.

We want feedback from people playing the current IWBUMS build (34.15) on the way they currently feel about the food system balance. We’re aware it needs some extra love before it’s released, and will only release stuff to the wider community when we’re happy – so knowing your relative happiness levels to the whole shebang is pretty vital. So please deposit thoughts here.
We want to know how its impacting on your survival, what you’re doing differently while you play and overall if it makes you happy/sad. If possible, please keep your suggestions as to ‘how’ it can be improved to other threads – it really is the ‘feeling’ of the game in this current iteration that we want to hear back about in this instance.

Recently added to Build 34.15 is a server option that allows sleep during co-op MP , something that EP and the team felt important given the imminent easy co-op builds. When all players sleep the server clock speeds up until players wake themselves by aiming or moving. As we move on into other builds our non ‘BIG STUFF’ focus will be a lot more on polishing our older systems to gain more control and gameplay nuance – fire, moodles, boredom, building… that kinda thing. Sleep is also on the list, wanting to return to the scariness of waking up at unknown times from our earliest builds – and this is a step towards that. Similarly, EP has been experimenting with how we process rain in-game and seeing what other effects we could get from the system .
Unrelatedly, while we’re on EP stuff, wood stoves now work like fireplaces. They emit light, warm/dry the player, can be used for cooking, and don’t require electricity. Likewise barbecues, campfires and woodstoves can now warm/dry you.

We didn’t realize that quite an important feature for large construction projects wasn’t known about by some proportion of our playerbase. Upon reading mertsu’s quite humourous revelation on Reddit and a few people responding in shock at his findings, we thought we should give the community a reminder that while our game is hardcore permadeath, there is nothing to stop you creating a new character in your single player world, finding your old stomping ground, introducing your old dead self to your base-ball bat, and your new character claiming your previous self’s construction projects and loot as their own.

This week’s Featured Image from Max, with an RP shot taken from the Aggressive Gaming New Dawn Server. Amazing stuff guys! The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here!

 
Evening all! Hope we’re all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, and yes this is a line purely intended to reference the amazing boat construction that appeared on Steam this week.

Release-wise we’re hoping to have public test versions of the easy server creation and easy friend invite co-op that General Arcade are working on towards the end of the week. It’s complex stuff that’ll need to work with an array of different set-ups, so may well justify having its own beta channel rather than being part of the current IWBUMS releases. Right now we have a few minor issues with the steam co-op build and a few UI things we need to sort, however it feels close. No ETAs as usual, but by close we hopefully mean close – not ‘in a few weeks’.

We should also be releasing a test version of Turbo’s radio/TV modding and translation tool in the near future, which is currently being played with internally. What else? Read on…


METALWORKING

As we mentioned last week we’ve rethought metalworking so that it features two new skills – welding and metalworking. We’re still underlining the specifics, but welding will see players using a noisy/bright blow torch and mask to adapt heavy scrap metal found around the map into defences – often used in conjunction with our existing carpentry skill.

Metalworking, meanwhile, involves you investing a many in-game days building a stone furnace stage-by-stage – and then creating makeshift tools/items through iron that you make workable within the furnace, then hammer away at on a lump of metal used as an anvil.

 



Metal objects will come with their own positives and negatives (a metal sheet welded together with discovered scrap will make more noise when banged on and attract more zeds, for example) and we intend it to be a high level and high input aspect of survival – and fully complementary to our existing skills. We really want to nail the delivery of it though, which is why RJ is industriously busying himself with it all backstage.
 

GREETINGS FELLOW SURVIVOR

Here’s a quick demo of a few of the new individual character animations, incidental movements and emotes coming to Project Zomboid. Whether triggered by a player or by the character automatically, the new animation system will bring a ton of new animations into the game so players know how their doomed survivors are feeling. And let them sit down! Woo!

As a bonus we’ve thrown in a few other anims. Can you guess what they all are without the benefit of context?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eKjSCEt_fo


This week’s Featured Image from Pikiiipow, from the tiny non-crowded hamlet known as Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! 
 

 
Evening all! Hope we’re all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, and yes this is a line purely intended to reference the amazing boat construction that appeared on Steam this week.

Release-wise we’re hoping to have public test versions of the easy server creation and easy friend invite co-op that General Arcade are working on towards the end of the week. It’s complex stuff that’ll need to work with an array of different set-ups, so may well justify having its own beta channel rather than being part of the current IWBUMS releases. Right now we have a few minor issues with the steam co-op build and a few UI things we need to sort, however it feels close. No ETAs as usual, but by close we hopefully mean close – not ‘in a few weeks’.

We should also be releasing a test version of Turbo’s radio/TV modding and translation tool in the near future, which is currently being played with internally. What else? Read on…


METALWORKING

As we mentioned last week we’ve rethought metalworking so that it features two new skills – welding and metalworking. We’re still underlining the specifics, but welding will see players using a noisy/bright blow torch and mask to adapt heavy scrap metal found around the map into defences – often used in conjunction with our existing carpentry skill.

Metalworking, meanwhile, involves you investing a many in-game days building a stone furnace stage-by-stage – and then creating makeshift tools/items through iron that you make workable within the furnace, then hammer away at on a lump of metal used as an anvil.

 



Metal objects will come with their own positives and negatives (a metal sheet welded together with discovered scrap will make more noise when banged on and attract more zeds, for example) and we intend it to be a high level and high input aspect of survival – and fully complementary to our existing skills. We really want to nail the delivery of it though, which is why RJ is industriously busying himself with it all backstage.
 

GREETINGS FELLOW SURVIVOR

Here’s a quick demo of a few of the new individual character animations, incidental movements and emotes coming to Project Zomboid. Whether triggered by a player or by the character automatically, the new animation system will bring a ton of new animations into the game so players know how their doomed survivors are feeling. And let them sit down! Woo!

As a bonus we’ve thrown in a few other anims. Can you guess what they all are without the benefit of context?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eKjSCEt_fo


This week’s Featured Image from Pikiiipow, from the tiny non-crowded hamlet known as Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here!