Hello everyone. A little bit of a short Mondoid this week. In fact the last one ever. But don’t worry, we’re still keeping up with the weekly updates.

It’s the end of an era. This Mondoid is just an announcement to say that from this point the traditional Mondoid blog will be moving to Thursday – henceforth to be known as ‘Thursdoid’.

There are several reasons for this. We know some people look forward to Mondoids to combat the back to work/school Monday blues, but as our team has grown quite dramatically over the past year, it has become more and more clear how inconvenient Monday updates are, how much harder it is to coordinate the week’s work after a weekend, and how they are ultimately of detriment to the game, player-base and developers. From the game’s side, it means we’ve had an entire weekend just prior to the most important day of the week, where it may have been more difficult to get hold of people, or work has been at its lightest. From the developers side, many of the contractors we’ve taken into the fold have families, and its a bit crappy of us to impose our historic looming Mondoid pressure onto them.

We feel that moving to Thursdays will be better for everyone, as we’ll have had several working days of preparation and week day communication to make sure the Thursdoids are on point, versions have had sufficient time in the incubators during the week, and yet we’ll still have Friday to fix up any problems that crop up before the weekend starts (that’s not to say the workaholic elements within will not continue to poke at the game during the weekend as we always have). It’s also closer to the weekend, so when versions emerge, players have less time to wait to have dedicated time to enjoy them.

Also we ran out of Monday puns a long time ago.

We had hoped to sweeten this final Mondoid with a public release of build 38, but in the last hours discovered a few issues we really need to address. As such we will warm up for a full release as soon as we can this week, and we’ll see you on Thursday!

Hello everyone. A little bit of a short Mondoid this week. In fact the last one ever. But don’t worry, we’re still keeping up with the weekly updates.

It’s the end of an era. This Mondoid is just an announcement to say that from this point the traditional Mondoid blog will be moving to Thursday – henceforth to be known as ‘Thursdoid’.

There are several reasons for this. We know some people look forward to Mondoids to combat the back to work/school Monday blues, but as our team has grown quite dramatically over the past year, it has become more and more clear how inconvenient Monday updates are, how much harder it is to coordinate the week’s work after a weekend, and how they are ultimately of detriment to the game, player-base and developers. From the game’s side, it means we’ve had an entire weekend just prior to the most important day of the week, where it may have been more difficult to get hold of people, or work has been at its lightest. From the developers side, many of the contractors we’ve taken into the fold have families, and its a bit crappy of us to impose our historic looming Mondoid pressure onto them.

We feel that moving to Thursdays will be better for everyone, as we’ll have had several working days of preparation and week day communication to make sure the Thursdoids are on point, versions have had sufficient time in the incubators during the week, and yet we’ll still have Friday to fix up any problems that crop up before the weekend starts (that’s not to say the workaholic elements within will not continue to poke at the game during the weekend as we always have). It’s also closer to the weekend, so when versions emerge, players have less time to wait to have dedicated time to enjoy them.

Also we ran out of Monday puns a long time ago.

We had hoped to sweeten this final Mondoid with a public release of build 38, but in the last hours discovered a few issues we really need to address. As such we will warm up for a full release as soon as we can this week, and we’ll see you on Thursday!

Hola gang. Here’s the latest slice of Monday.

Build 38 is fully baked, but requires two roof-rendering fixes to player-made bases from ChrisW who’s beavering away at them as we speak. We didn’t want to wreck the views of solo savegame and server player bases with a public release, and will be patching in further tweaks to the system (improved peeking, fairer window/zed visibility at NW corners etc) after release.

In the mean-time there’ll be a new public IWBUMS beta release tomorrow with other general/necessary pre-launch bug fixes from RJ and Connall.


With the current vehicles beta soon to transform into Build 39 this week we’ve had extra hands descend upon it. Yuri will continue to oversee physics issues, car shadows, visible damage and general vehicles performance – meanwhile Steve will be providing optimization support game-wide, and now RJ is in amongst it working on gameplay aspects like realistic vehicle spawning, the Mechanic skill, gas used during journeys and the like.

[In the meanwhile Turbo will continue to work on his devices code, work will begin on the next big map update and Bitbaboon Mark will continue to work with the PZ team with the new animations for integration into the build(s) that follow.]

In terms of Build 39 RJ has begun this work with Vehicle build 19 (directions on how to access here) in which he transferred aspects of Yuri’s work into the overall PZ zoning system, added Mash’s latest textures for burnt-out cars, balanced attributes of particular cars, restarted work on car keys and added various Sandbox options to let players tailor their vehicular PZ experience a little better.

Build 19 also introduced some of Yuri’s fixes to vehicles in co-op and MP, so that will hopefully make for a smoother ride online – with less disappearing cars and loot.

Over to RJ for a brief word on his automobile work:

“Up until Vehicles Build 19 properties like engine condition, maximum speed and how much gas a car had were purely dependent on where the vehicle spawned. So at the moment I’m giving each car some individuality, although spawn area still matters as a vehicle spawning in a beautiful neighbourhood won’t have the same condition as something found in a trailer park.”

“Also now in the vehicles build the amount of gas consumed by a car is no longer static – previously you lost a set amount per-tick, but now it depends on various things: stuff like the total mass of the car and your loot, engine quality and the speeds you’re travelling at. So gas usage will really depend on how you use the car.”

“I’ve also made sure that when driving on non-tarmac surfaces cars will be slowed – and ultimately damaged if you’re driving over bumpy wilderness.”

“In terms of car spawning zones – that should now be improved, although spawn numbers will likely still need balance. Not every zone is done but where I’ve done work then cars should be appearing in more accurate places, burnt out cars should be appearing in junk yards and trailer parks, and ‘special’ vehicles like the Spiffo’s truck should be parked outside the Spiffo’s restaurant. Still to come is work that’ll make the way that they’re parked look a bit more ‘natural’.”

“Until Build 38 is released and I need to get back onto bug fixes I’m also working on engine power, car keys and locked cars, and balancing general vehicle stats. We’re also finalizing the ‘Mechanic’ skill design doc, and should be getting the sign off from the rest of the team this week.”


Optimization is currently vital as the vehicle build is careering towards a wider audience. As such Bitbaboon Steve’s opti-mission continues – chalking up two more FPS salves that we’ll test out in the Vehicles Build (Build 39) towards the end of the week, and also spotlighting something funky deep in the PZ engine rendering system that’ll require further investigation.

To aid him in his quest we’re investigating an update from lwjgl2 to lwjgl3 – which is no simple task, but has been on the ‘must do’ tasklist for a fair while. We’re at a point with it that should help Steve a fair amount when he dives deep into the rendering code, but when it reaches its full fruition then this will hopefully make for general better running of PZ, remedied display issues and general headache easing.

• Connall’s work on the ‘small things that make a big difference’ suggestion list continues, with the integration of imperial measurements (pounds, miles, Fahrenheit etc) to make our American audience feel a little less like… they’re in a European zombie apocalypse.

• We’ve stolen Nasko, our community manager, away from his actual real world workplace for a month or two to work on revamping the PZ Wiki – so it’s more accessible and better structured for community efforts. If anyone has any thoughts, or maybe even would like to help him on his quest when details need to flood the system, then please give him a shout.

A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Hola gang. Here’s the latest slice of Monday.

Build 38 is fully baked, but requires two roof-rendering fixes to player-made bases from ChrisW who’s beavering away at them as we speak. We didn’t want to wreck the views of solo savegame and server player bases with a public release, and will be patching in further tweaks to the system (improved peeking, fairer window/zed visibility at NW corners etc) after release.

In the mean-time there’ll be a new public IWBUMS beta release tomorrow with other general/necessary pre-launch bug fixes from RJ and Connall.


With the current vehicles beta soon to transform into Build 39 this week we’ve had extra hands descend upon it. Yuri will continue to oversee physics issues, car shadows, visible damage and general vehicles performance – meanwhile Steve will be providing optimization support game-wide, and now RJ is in amongst it working on gameplay aspects like realistic vehicle spawning, the Mechanic skill, gas used during journeys and the like.

[In the meanwhile Turbo will continue to work on his devices code, work will begin on the next big map update and Bitbaboon Mark will continue to work with the PZ team with the new animations for integration into the build(s) that follow.]

In terms of Build 39 RJ has begun this work with Vehicle build 19 (directions on how to access here) in which he transferred aspects of Yuri’s work into the overall PZ zoning system, added Mash’s latest textures for burnt-out cars, balanced attributes of particular cars, restarted work on car keys and added various Sandbox options to let players tailor their vehicular PZ experience a little better.

Build 19 also introduced some of Yuri’s fixes to vehicles in co-op and MP, so that will hopefully make for a smoother ride online – with less disappearing cars and loot.

Over to RJ for a brief word on his automobile work:

“Up until Vehicles Build 19 properties like engine condition, maximum speed and how much gas a car had were purely dependent on where the vehicle spawned. So at the moment I’m giving each car some individuality, although spawn area still matters as a vehicle spawning in a beautiful neighbourhood won’t have the same condition as something found in a trailer park.”

“Also now in the vehicles build the amount of gas consumed by a car is no longer static – previously you lost a set amount per-tick, but now it depends on various things: stuff like the total mass of the car and your loot, engine quality and the speeds you’re travelling at. So gas usage will really depend on how you use the car.”

“I’ve also made sure that when driving on non-tarmac surfaces cars will be slowed – and ultimately damaged if you’re driving over bumpy wilderness.”

“In terms of car spawning zones – that should now be improved, although spawn numbers will likely still need balance. Not every zone is done but where I’ve done work then cars should be appearing in more accurate places, burnt out cars should be appearing in junk yards and trailer parks, and ‘special’ vehicles like the Spiffo’s truck should be parked outside the Spiffo’s restaurant. Still to come is work that’ll make the way that they’re parked look a bit more ‘natural’.”

“Until Build 38 is released and I need to get back onto bug fixes I’m also working on engine power, car keys and locked cars, and balancing general vehicle stats. We’re also finalizing the ‘Mechanic’ skill design doc, and should be getting the sign off from the rest of the team this week.”


Optimization is currently vital as the vehicle build is careering towards a wider audience. As such Bitbaboon Steve’s opti-mission continues – chalking up two more FPS salves that we’ll test out in the Vehicles Build (Build 39) towards the end of the week, and also spotlighting something funky deep in the PZ engine rendering system that’ll require further investigation.

To aid him in his quest we’re investigating an update from lwjgl2 to lwjgl3 – which is no simple task, but has been on the ‘must do’ tasklist for a fair while. We’re at a point with it that should help Steve a fair amount when he dives deep into the rendering code, but when it reaches its full fruition then this will hopefully make for general better running of PZ, remedied display issues and general headache easing.

• Connall’s work on the ‘small things that make a big difference’ suggestion list continues, with the integration of imperial measurements (pounds, miles, Fahrenheit etc) to make our American audience feel a little less like… they’re in a European zombie apocalypse.

• We’ve stolen Nasko, our community manager, away from his actual real world workplace for a month or two to work on revamping the PZ Wiki – so it’s more accessible and better structured for community efforts. If anyone has any thoughts, or maybe even would like to help him on his quest when details need to flood the system, then please give him a shout.

A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Ello, ello, ello – here’s some of the latest.

The public Build 38 release is feeling increasingly imminent – although there are still a few fixes to the new roof rendering and player view system that are still in the oven. Today we released IWBUMS public beta 38.11 that focuses on transferred optimizations from the vehicles build – so improved garbage collection, optimized lighting, memory leaks plugged and improved map loading.

There’s also a VoiceManager fix gone in, spotted by BitBaboon Steve and remedied by General Arcade, that should provide an FPS improvement in SP – especially on lower spec systems. So if you see/feel/sense any improvements then please let us know.

The build also does various soon-to-launch jobs like updating community translations, alongside several of Connall’s Community Suggested tweaks: first aid kits now spawning with sterilized bandages, suture needles being able to be used for sewing like regular needles and the ability to sterilize bandages in boiling water. He’s also made aspects of tea preparation and drinking less frightful through the addition of a new recipe. Full changelist here.


This week Yuri is moving onto commonly reported MP issues in the public vehicles beta in preparation for the wider testing audience when Build 39 goes into IWBUMS. As such stuff like vehicles disappearing on exit, precious loot removing itself from the boot (trunk if you’re American) and similar will all come beneath his steely glare.

He’s also, finally hopefully, zapped the ‘trapped in walking animation’ bug that’s been vexing our car testers for several builds now – with a fix due in Vehicle Build 19.

Vehicle Build 18, meanwhile, came out last Friday – and came with the much requested addition of making sure that the number of players that can fit inside each car model is accurate to the number of seats, and hopefully a fix to the strange lights on/off syncing issue that MP players have been reported. It also came with actual visible headlights appearing on vehicles (rather than just having the beams) and red brake lights to boot.

It brings a surprising amount to the vehicles when it’s all seen in-game, as you can hopefully see in this video. [Although Yuri’s coding music is a little… mellow (?) for our taste.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uAOvTz-DUk

We’ve also updated the Vehicles Build with the latest IWBUMS, so testers can explore the new town of Riverside and the Knox Heights Country Club in relative leisure – as seen below.




Once Build 38 releases the current plans are for Build 39 to be a relatively quickfire release, essentially getting the existing experimental vehicles out to the public in as bug-free a state as possible – albeit on the current selection toggle. We anticipate improving on their current zoning/spawning alongside aspects of their optimization, but the meat of their maintenance will come in the following build.

We’re currently firming up the design docs – but the current plan is for vehicle damage, repair and car wreck player injuries to be a focus in Build 40, and then to turn to player-crafted improvements and realistic ‘apocalypse survival’ modifications in later versions.

As we’ve mentioned before, maintaining your cars will work in much the same way as our current medical system – covering stuff like dead batteries, burst tires and the more common engine issues as well as structural damage. Don’t expect My Summer Car levels of vehicular knowledge requirements [although we certainly hope the modding crowd will think towards this] but do expect the Mechanic profession to be a fun/useful one to have.

Elsewhere Turbo is making good progress with his Devices overhaul (this week reworking radios so it’s easier to find and tune into different player wavelengths), Bitbaboon Mark is fixing up the new skinned renderer in the now integrated model loader in the anims build and his colleague Steve is marking up various targets for optimization to ensure that vehicles run as swimmingly as possible when they’re released. Oh, and Mash is adding more detail to the wilderness areas around Riverside for those who venture into the back of beyond.

Today’s featured massacre from C.P. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Ello, ello, ello – here’s some of the latest.

The public Build 38 release is feeling increasingly imminent – although there are still a few fixes to the new roof rendering and player view system that are still in the oven. Today we released IWBUMS public beta 38.11 that focuses on transferred optimizations from the vehicles build – so improved garbage collection, optimized lighting, memory leaks plugged and improved map loading.

There’s also a VoiceManager fix gone in, spotted by BitBaboon Steve and remedied by General Arcade, that should provide an FPS improvement in SP – especially on lower spec systems. So if you see/feel/sense any improvements then please let us know.

The build also does various soon-to-launch jobs like updating community translations, alongside several of Connall’s Community Suggested tweaks: first aid kits now spawning with sterilized bandages, suture needles being able to be used for sewing like regular needles and the ability to sterilize bandages in boiling water. He’s also made aspects of tea preparation and drinking less frightful through the addition of a new recipe. Full changelist here.


This week Yuri is moving onto commonly reported MP issues in the public vehicles beta in preparation for the wider testing audience when Build 39 goes into IWBUMS. As such stuff like vehicles disappearing on exit, precious loot removing itself from the boot (trunk if you’re American) and similar will all come beneath his steely glare.

He’s also, finally hopefully, zapped the ‘trapped in walking animation’ bug that’s been vexing our car testers for several builds now – with a fix due in Vehicle Build 19.

Vehicle Build 18, meanwhile, came out last Friday – and came with the much requested addition of making sure that the number of players that can fit inside each car model is accurate to the number of seats, and hopefully a fix to the strange lights on/off syncing issue that MP players have been reported. It also came with actual visible headlights appearing on vehicles (rather than just having the beams) and red brake lights to boot.

It brings a surprising amount to the vehicles when it’s all seen in-game, as you can hopefully see in this video. [Although Yuri’s coding music is a little… mellow (?) for our taste.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uAOvTz-DUk

We’ve also updated the Vehicles Build with the latest IWBUMS, so testers can explore the new town of Riverside and the Knox Heights Country Club in relative leisure – as seen below.




Once Build 38 releases the current plans are for Build 39 to be a relatively quickfire release, essentially getting the existing experimental vehicles out to the public in as bug-free a state as possible – albeit on the current selection toggle. We anticipate improving on their current zoning/spawning alongside aspects of their optimization, but the meat of their maintenance will come in the following build.

We’re currently firming up the design docs – but the current plan is for vehicle damage, repair and car wreck player injuries to be a focus in Build 40, and then to turn to player-crafted improvements and realistic ‘apocalypse survival’ modifications in later versions.

As we’ve mentioned before, maintaining your cars will work in much the same way as our current medical system – covering stuff like dead batteries, burst tires and the more common engine issues as well as structural damage. Don’t expect My Summer Car levels of vehicular knowledge requirements [although we certainly hope the modding crowd will think towards this] but do expect the Mechanic profession to be a fun/useful one to have.

Elsewhere Turbo is making good progress with his Devices overhaul (this week reworking radios so it’s easier to find and tune into different player wavelengths), Bitbaboon Mark is fixing up the new skinned renderer in the now integrated model loader in the anims build and his colleague Steve is marking up various targets for optimization to ensure that vehicles run as swimmingly as possible when they’re released. Oh, and Mash is adding more detail to the wilderness areas around Riverside for those who venture into the back of beyond.

Today’s featured massacre from C.P. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Ello’ all, and happy Bank Holiday for UK-ers and beyond.




The town of Riverside and the countryside around it was added to the IWBUMS public beta Build 38 last Thursday in 38.8, and we’re getting plenty of positive reports from the testers exploring its separated rich/poor districts, the Scenic Grove trailer park, the stone angels of its graveyards and the delights of the Knox Heights Country Club.





We’ve also added a lootable map, and have been adding foraging zoning etc to it since release. Here’s a section of it, but there’s plenty more besides.




We’ll be adding the map to the vehicles build imminently, tomorrow hopefully, which will probably help you in your exploration as it’s been constructed to favour drivers a little more than previous map expansions. Initial reports suggest people are digging the different building styles, and there’s still some more to come from Mash in terms of extra buildings and detail. It sounds like zombie numbers need to be topped up a little, though, so if the Country Club tennis courts feel like they need a bit more action then please let us know.







Last Wednesday we ran the IWBUMS Megatest II to try out Bitbaboon Steve’s new effort in the War Against Zombie Lag – and we’re very pleased to report a resounding success.


We opened up the server toward the end of the test and had 141 people playing off/on over the hour, and 87 at its peak – and the usual peril of ghosting zombies, unfair bites and general combat sludginess was hugely improved. Even better, things didn’t seem to degrade the more players got online.


If this summary from Svarog is anything to go by, life for our MP players should be vastly improved when 38 is released: “I’ve gotta say that it’s incredible how much better it is when it comes to zombies. There is almost no lag, combat is much, much more pleasant. I can even use knives as weapons. Awesome job.”


Our thanks to Steve for his eagle eyes and code skills – and also for his ongoing work as there’s still room for improvement. During the test he set up various headache testcases with groups of helpful players, and there’s still plenty of areas he feels he can ratchet MP performance tighter, before moving on to general PZ optimization to aid and abet both vehicles and the animation system that his colleague Mark is helping out with. Hurrah then!




Current focus is to tidy up Build 38 and get it out of the door – with IWBUMS 38.9 fairly imminent with Riverside forage zoning, new spawnpoints, Yuri’s recent gamepad work and some work on legacy bugs from Connall.

(Incidentally Connall is now taking ownership of much of the ‘Small but Important Suggestions thread‘ so if there’s any minor thing that you think could make life that little bit more fun or realistic in the game then feel free to holler at him there. From 38.9 if you’re sleeping outside then rain will wake you up, for instance.)


Yuri, meanwhile, continues his work on the public vehicles test – and is currently adding brake lights, and a change in appearance of the physical headlights to accompany the light beams we already have in the game. He’ll most likely be turning to co-op issues later in the week, while we’ll also be internally testing his engine optimizations when they’re integrated into Build 38 so that we can pave the way for the release of the first iteration of vehicles in Build 39.


A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Ello’ all, and happy Bank Holiday for UK-ers and beyond.




The town of Riverside and the countryside around it was added to the IWBUMS public beta Build 38 last Thursday in 38.8, and we’re getting plenty of positive reports from the testers exploring its separated rich/poor districts, the Scenic Grove trailer park, the stone angels of its graveyards and the delights of the Knox Heights Country Club.





We’ve also added a lootable map, and have been adding foraging zoning etc to it since release. Here’s a section of it, but there’s plenty more besides.




We’ll be adding the map to the vehicles build imminently, tomorrow hopefully, which will probably help you in your exploration as it’s been constructed to favour drivers a little more than previous map expansions. Initial reports suggest people are digging the different building styles, and there’s still some more to come from Mash in terms of extra buildings and detail. It sounds like zombie numbers need to be topped up a little, though, so if the Country Club tennis courts feel like they need a bit more action then please let us know.







Last Wednesday we ran the IWBUMS Megatest II to try out Bitbaboon Steve’s new effort in the War Against Zombie Lag – and we’re very pleased to report a resounding success.


We opened up the server toward the end of the test and had 141 people playing off/on over the hour, and 87 at its peak – and the usual peril of ghosting zombies, unfair bites and general combat sludginess was hugely improved. Even better, things didn’t seem to degrade the more players got online.


If this summary from Svarog is anything to go by, life for our MP players should be vastly improved when 38 is released: “I’ve gotta say that it’s incredible how much better it is when it comes to zombies. There is almost no lag, combat is much, much more pleasant. I can even use knives as weapons. Awesome job.”


Our thanks to Steve for his eagle eyes and code skills – and also for his ongoing work as there’s still room for improvement. During the test he set up various headache testcases with groups of helpful players, and there’s still plenty of areas he feels he can ratchet MP performance tighter, before moving on to general PZ optimization to aid and abet both vehicles and the animation system that his colleague Mark is helping out with. Hurrah then!




Current focus is to tidy up Build 38 and get it out of the door – with IWBUMS 38.9 fairly imminent with Riverside forage zoning, new spawnpoints, Yuri’s recent gamepad work and some work on legacy bugs from Connall.

(Incidentally Connall is now taking ownership of much of the ‘Small but Important Suggestions thread‘ so if there’s any minor thing that you think could make life that little bit more fun or realistic in the game then feel free to holler at him there. From 38.9 if you’re sleeping outside then rain will wake you up, for instance.)


Yuri, meanwhile, continues his work on the public vehicles test – and is currently adding brake lights, and a change in appearance of the physical headlights to accompany the light beams we already have in the game. He’ll most likely be turning to co-op issues later in the week, while we’ll also be internally testing his engine optimizations when they’re integrated into Build 38 so that we can pave the way for the release of the first iteration of vehicles in Build 39.


A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Plenty on at the moment, and a new Community Megatest with free PZ codes up for grabs coming up on Wednesdoid…

We released a new build of the Vehicles test branch today, in preparation for it becoming Build 39 once Build 38 gets a full release. Vehicle Build 15 fixes bugs with car wrecks spawning in the air and gently floating down, and also goes through and corrects the vehicle shadows and collision boxes of all our car models – meaning that flipped cars can no longer be walked through.

Yuri also finished off his gamepad integration work, adding gamepad control to our lootable map interface, which he will be transferring to Build 38 alongside the rest of his controller work.

The original plan was to release our new map expansion featuring the town of Riverside and the Knox Heights Country Club into the vehicles build, but as the week has gone by it’s seemed increasingly daft to sit on something that’s finished for longer than is necessary. As such we’re currently working on the zombie spawn maps and player spawn points necessary for it to be released earlier with Build 38.


Our intention is to get this out, alongside rooftop rendering and general RJ fixes, in time for a Community MP Megatest we’ll be holding on Wednesday evening. This is as a result of the…


We currently have two technical director chaps working on Zomboid. There’s Mark who’s setting up animations and currently getting a character skinned renderer active on a toggle (so we can turn on the new anims on the dev-side one-by-one as we go), and Steve who we’ve initially tasked with optimizing MP connectivity.

Steve’s primary aim is to remove zombie lag (teleporting zeds, unfair bites and general server strain) and this past Friday he might have made a bit of a breakthrough – which has now been coded and is due to be released into our IWBUMS public beta for testing tomorrow. Essentially Steve discovered a way to optimize zombie transmission – limiting the amount of zombie placement and zombie movement data that’s shared between players, while still keeping the online gameplay rolling.

This, combined with Stas from General Arcade’s ‘server save pause’ that’s already part of Build 38, could hopefully provide a massive improvement for all our MP players and server owners when released.

Through the power of maths we can tell it’s likely to be a nifty optimization, but we can’t tell how nifty it will be without putting it to the test… and so…


This Wednesday 23rd August at 8pm BST (GMT+1) we will be opening up a server that’s running the current IWBUMS build, and we’d politely ask those interested in helping out to attend. Full details in this thread.

As with our previous Build 38 Megatest, participants will all receive a free Project Zomboid code to give to a friend/enemy/close family relation. All we need is for you to be running around on the server for an hour or so, and it’ll probably be quite a fun escapade.

The only difference between this time and the last Megatest is that, to properly emulate a normal live PZ server, we will be capping the number of participants at 50. When the test is over, however, we will open the server a little wider. This does mean, however, that there will only be 50 Steam codes up for grabs.


Massive props to SoulFilcher for recreating this little scene in LEGO. Terrifying indeed.



Today’s featured image from SAS 6007. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Plenty on at the moment, and a new Community Megatest with free PZ codes up for grabs coming up on Wednesdoid…

We released a new build of the Vehicles test branch today, in preparation for it becoming Build 39 once Build 38 gets a full release. Vehicle Build 15 fixes bugs with car wrecks spawning in the air and gently floating down, and also goes through and corrects the vehicle shadows and collision boxes of all our car models – meaning that flipped cars can no longer be walked through.

Yuri also finished off his gamepad integration work, adding gamepad control to our lootable map interface, which he will be transferring to Build 38 alongside the rest of his controller work.

The original plan was to release our new map expansion featuring the town of Riverside and the Knox Heights Country Club into the vehicles build, but as the week has gone by it’s seemed increasingly daft to sit on something that’s finished for longer than is necessary. As such we’re currently working on the zombie spawn maps and player spawn points necessary for it to be released earlier with Build 38.


Our intention is to get this out, alongside rooftop rendering and general RJ fixes, in time for a Community MP Megatest we’ll be holding on Wednesday evening. This is as a result of the…


We currently have two technical director chaps working on Zomboid. There’s Mark who’s setting up animations and currently getting a character skinned renderer active on a toggle (so we can turn on the new anims on the dev-side one-by-one as we go), and Steve who we’ve initially tasked with optimizing MP connectivity.

Steve’s primary aim is to remove zombie lag (teleporting zeds, unfair bites and general server strain) and this past Friday he might have made a bit of a breakthrough – which has now been coded and is due to be released into our IWBUMS public beta for testing tomorrow. Essentially Steve discovered a way to optimize zombie transmission – limiting the amount of zombie placement and zombie movement data that’s shared between players, while still keeping the online gameplay rolling.

This, combined with Stas from General Arcade’s ‘server save pause’ that’s already part of Build 38, could hopefully provide a massive improvement for all our MP players and server owners when released.

Through the power of maths we can tell it’s likely to be a nifty optimization, but we can’t tell how nifty it will be without putting it to the test… and so…


This Wednesday 23rd August at 8pm BST (GMT+1) we will be opening up a server that’s running the current IWBUMS build, and we’d politely ask those interested in helping out to attend. Full details in this thread.

As with our previous Build 38 Megatest, participants will all receive a free Project Zomboid code to give to a friend/enemy/close family relation. All we need is for you to be running around on the server for an hour or so, and it’ll probably be quite a fun escapade.

The only difference between this time and the last Megatest is that, to properly emulate a normal live PZ server, we will be capping the number of participants at 50. When the test is over, however, we will open the server a little wider. This does mean, however, that there will only be 50 Steam codes up for grabs.


Massive props to SoulFilcher for recreating this little scene in LEGO. Terrifying indeed.



Today’s featured image from SAS 6007. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless Mondoids for info. 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! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.