Oct 19, 2018

Pre-Alpha Devblog #7 (Fortifications | Traps | Feedback +)

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our seventh devblog! The 0.8 update is coming along nicely but it will not be released this week. We're still bringing the boys up to speed and also putting some additional work into fortifications. As mentioned in last weeks devblog, we're not far off an experimental build. Once we have something (most likely next week) we'll release with a small update across our social platforms to let you know. This update will not be a long one but as mentioned we'll do our best to get one out every week.

Fortifications (Coming in 0.8)

The fortification mechanic is shaping up very nicely. More importantly, the AI is behaving nicely and destroying/traversing fortified windows without major issue so far. The fortification mechanic is by no means fleshed out but will have a very solid foundation once introduced. Placement is very fluid. Players can place planks and eventually sheet materials e.g. plywood and tin. The system will allow players to place fortifications on both interior and exterior frames. Securing a structure will be a decent amount of work but should provide a safe haven with proper maintenance. Below we've included a few shots of zombies making it through window frames and fortifications.

Close one, AI reacting nicely with windows.

That's gonna leave a mark.

Traps (Coming in 0.8)

Structure traps are also part of our 0.8 update including the shotgun traps and the propane firetrap. AI and players will both be affected by fire so be sure to stand at a safe distance when interacting with that propane trap ;) Players should be able to find most needed parts and fuel with the introduction of harvest machines specific to the most needed loot. You'll find nails and hammers at the hardware store in town nearly every time you look for them, fuel at a fuel station and so on. We're trying our best to balance realism and fun. None of our mechanics are set in stone and all feedback is welcome. Below are a few recent tests of the new firetrap in action.

Lighting a fire trap (watch those fingers!)

Burning Zombies

Such a warm light isn't it?

Shotgun trap to the chest. Stupid zombies.

Bonus gif, Jos walking into his own shotgun trap...

Particle System

Jos has been working on a standard set of particle mechanics. The leaves shown in the gif below can be and will be swapped out for all sorts of garbage. The system is dynamic and should add a good deal of atmosphere to the world. The mechanic will be easily tweakable and something we'll showcase in the feedback section on the forums.

Atmospheric particle system to be introduced.

The Forums and Feedback

The forums have been updated both backend and style. We've also gone orange and decorated for halloween :). We'll soon be fleshing out and filling in our feedback section. We've spent the last 8+ months killing bugs, working on in game features and fixing issues we'd never have been able to find without the help of testers in the community. Issues that the team never would have run into without the extra game load at times.

It's now nearly time for us to enter our alpha stage. We'll be introduced to a new and larger audience as the game will be public and fully listed on Steam. The project is still on a lot of wishlists and stable re-playable alpha builds are not far off. The feedback section will be the main source of feedback for the team. It will be the place we check to see what everyone likes or dislikes. We'll do our best to include most important game features here. The first section to be polished up in the coming weeks will likely be weapons. Gunplay has always been important to the team and now it's your turn to give us some feedback on how things are going. We'll expand, including most interactable props and features eventually.

We're Hiring!

We're looking for help! If you are or know any programmers/unity developers looking for work in the UK please let us know. We're looking for like minded devs, the project is near and dear to us. The team is very small and being a team player is very important to us. If you'd like to send a CV to support@survivethenights.net please do so :)

As a reminder before we go, we'll be getting these devblogs out weekly. You can check our next set of goals and 0.8 progress whenever you'd like via the changelog. Thanks for checking in and the continued support!

Links

Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights
Forum: https://community.survivethenights.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STNgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive
Website: https://www.survivethenights.net

Oct 12, 2018

Pre-Alpha Devblog #6 (Points of Interest | Interns | Fortifications +)

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our sixth devblog! The 0.8 update is coming along nicely but it will not be released this week. The new interns (Rik and Marko) have slowed us just a bit but the boys are keen and going to be a fantastic addition to the project and team! We’ve not had new blood in the office for some time now. Bringing the guys up to speed, showing them our workflows and development process has taken a bit of time.

We should have a solid experimental build out in the next week or so. Once again all tentative but that’s what we’re shooting for. There will be a weekly update either way so you know what we're up to!

Interns and Workflow

In the last devblog we explained a small part of our workflow, fixing bugs and implementing features. We’re currently explaining the workflow to the new guys, Rik and Marko (obviously now being called Rik and Morty).

Marko is a programming student and intern excited to assist in any way he can. James is our only programmer (with André assisting when he can). He has spent the week explaining our systems, workflow and development process. Marko will be a fantastic asset to the team once brought up to speed and the project should be a great platform to learn and actively use new and existing skills.

Rik is being brought up to speed and is working alongside André so he’s in very good hands! Rik is getting used to our workflow and is already producing some test models. We’re excited to once again have a dedicated 3d artist on the team full time! Survive the Nights should be a great outlet for Rik to learn new skills and showcase the ones he already has. Below you can see an example of Rik's first model tests, a hammer and jerry can. Simple models but a totally new workflow and work environment. Rik is super eager to get cracking away on models!

Newly created models that have been created to introduce our workflow. (Credit to Rik)

Points of Interest (Future Updates)

Jos has been working on fresh spawns and points of interest. We still have a lot of design work to do as we work through pre-alpha and well into alpha. There are many more 'in-betweens' to fill out along with the possible addition of another north easterly town and theme park.

Jos has been designing fresh spawn areas adding structures like housing and commercial warehousing. Below are few examples including quite a few shots of the airport which will be introduced in an upcoming build.

Fresh spawn housing this will allow players spawning in for the first time to access some starting loot.

Housing and road sides directing players to nearby towns.

Airport design - Security

Airport design - Terminal 1

Airport design - Terminal 2

Airport design - Lobby 1

Airport design - Lobby 2

Fortification Update (Coming in 0.8)

The fortification mechanic is really coming together now. We're adding a few 'finishing touches' to what will become the base for the mechanic. Below you can see the update progress from the trailer's base mechanic to the more fleshed out version coming in the next update.

This is the core of the mechanic showcased in the alpha trailer.

The mechanic a bit further along taken from Devblog #4.

The mechanic as it stands, planks being applied and destroyed in game. These planks are only being tacked on, you'll be able to add more nails and strengthen them further.

Player and AI destroying planks.

Issues Will Arise

The logic we've introduced to allow zombies to traverse window frames has caused this hilarious bug with fence navigation points. Currently being fixed, this is a small example of an issue you can run into while introducing new mechanics to the main branch of a project.

We're Hiring!

Links

Oct 5, 2018

Pre-Alpha Devblog #5 (Workflow | Fortifications | AI)

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our fifth devblog! The 0.8 fortification update is nearly ready for our experimental branch. We're hoping to have an experimental build next Friday. We are taking on new interns today! Marko and Rik arrived safely and mostly intact this morning. They’ll be getting settled over the weekend before being sized for intern cages..I mean starting with us Monday morning. This could put a kink in our experimental release but we think all should be fine. There will be an update to inform you regardless.

Some of you have asked about our workflow in the past. It's been something we speak about on Discord but never really did an update on. We’d like to talk a bit about that now. The community has provided us with a lot of bug reports over the last 10 months. This is how the process is currently working for us. Remember, nearly everything we do we’re doing for the first time. This is the current iteration of our workflow which is ever improving and expanding.

Workflow - Fixing those Pesky Bugs

When a player or one of us finds an issue a ticket is created. Player created tickets come from our bug tracker. Internally the team uses Trello to report issues. We also use Trello to report the player created tickets. There are 7 steps to getting a bug 'fixed' with our current workflow.

1. The Report - The bug is reported via our issue tracker.

Created for example (old tickets are destroyed on tracker)

2. Replication and Ticket Creation - If needed the team will attempt to replicate the issue typically only needed for obscure issues or badly written bug reports. Either way, we will create an internal ticket on Trello. This is done so the team isn't overloaded with ticket repeats and bad tickets. Trello is also integrated with concept and feature adding.

The internal ticket is created on Trello. More detail may be added here, concepts, ideas and the entire team has access.

3. Branch! A branch of the game is created and development on a fix begins. Survive the Nights is developed like most games in branches. All branching from a master branch (the project you play).

4. Pull Request! Once the developer thinks he has a fix ready he then creates a pull request. Other team members can then check the fix in Unity and ensure all is well. At least two of us MUST test any fix. Once there are at least two approvals on the branch then the next step begins.

A pull request is created and ready for testing!

5. Merge! After the original pull request is approved the branch can be merged into our Development Branch. This branch is for internal testing and is always the most up to date branch internally. The team and some mods will test this branch ensuring nothing major is wrong and ensuring the original fix is actually fixed! :)

6. Experimental Release! The game goes to experimental branch and is tested by backers who opt into testing for us. This is a great opportunity for a few more people to get their hands on it before it’s pushed to everyone's download/update queue. Our updates are always pretty large and sometimes issues are found in the experimental build. These issues are fixed via the same process and don’t make it to the next and final step. Some issues of course aren’t found and new ones are always lurking.

7. Default Branch! We’ll push the experimental build, update the build number and release a patch note on Steam's default branch. This is when the project goes live to all, regardless of the branch you’re in. The process starts all over again at this point.

That’s how the team fixes issues. It’s basically the same process for adding features. The new feature is developed in a Future/Feature/(FEATURE NAME) branch. Once the dev is happy with it the feature gets a pull request and the process to get the feature in game begins as listed above.

Fortification Improvements and Optimization

The team has been busy working on the fortification mechanic getting it ready for release. We've spent some time this week on optimizing planks and fortifications. Below you can see planks combine when a player isn't within interaction distance. You won't notice this happen in game but it turns potentially hundreds of game objects into just a handful, so that's good! Planks will uncombine when other players interact with them or when the player shoots them from a distance.

We've begun adding in world harvest machines. The player can harvest worn planks and nails from these. This will allow you to begin fortification without needing to fell a tree, it will also work great for quick repairs.

The player can gather word wooden planks and nails from wooden objects like tables, fences and junk piles.

We’re smoothing out new rigs and animations in preparation for 0.8. Zombies are now attacking, damaging and destroying planks in game. The gif below is solely to show the mechanic. We’ll tweak board strength along with other fortification materials together. Zombies will not ‘stack’ on windows or doorways. If there’s already a zombie attacking one window the next zombie will try and find another entrance or exit. You will have to defend all points of entry.

We're Hiring!

Links

Sep 28, 2018

Pre-Alpha Devblog #4 (Fortifications | New Spawns | POI | Interns)

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our forth devblog! The 0.8 fortification update is coming along nicely. We're hoping to have an experimental build in the the next week or two. You can check in on our progress by having a look at the changelog.

Fortifications

Fortifications are really starting to shape up. Below is a concept .gif from the start of the month. This is the core of the mechanic showcased in the alpha trailer, the backbone of the feature. You'll also see the more up to date fleshed out version below that.

Our original 'trailer' mechanic from our last update. The fortification base.

Latest variant, you'll notice a more fleshed out UI on the planks as well as different plank types. Also shown here is a new hammer created by André.

Not a demonstration of plank strength just showcasing plank removal. We'll tweak fortification strengths together in our experimental branch.

Newly Added Spawns and Points of Interest (0.8)

With the coming 0.8 update and updates following them, we'll be introducing new points of interest. The player on initial spawn will always spawn near a point of interest. They'll include small industrial areas like store yards and warehouses. The player will also find clusters of houses, fuel stations and other small residential/commercial buildings. The spawn points should always point the player toward a point of interest and the closest town. We're still very much designing the game world.

Some of you may assume design has ended but that's not the case. We have a lot more to introduce, design and develop as we move forward into and through alpha builds. Below are a few screens of just some of these new points of interest.

Press 'W' to Walk Forward (0.8)

MOAR TIPS! Yes, we know a very minor detail but one we've not had a minute to address. It's been a back burner ticket for some time now. In 0.8, you'll see streaming tips while loading into a server. This thread has all the current in game tips. If you have any tip suggestions please provide them there.

More Hands on Deck

We're very excited to share that we're taking on new interns next month! As some of you might know, we've had a close relationship with ROC Friese Poort in the Netherlands. All of our past interns have come from ROC. Two of our current developers André and Jos are both ROC grads and ex interns. Next month we'll be joined by Rik (3d Modeler) and Marko (programmer). We're excited for the team to expand and are looking forward to the prospect of additional developers!

Signs Everywhere!

Signs so the new interns don't get lost :p

We're Hiring!

Links

Sep 21, 2018

Pre-Alpha Devblog #3 (Traps | Animations | Fortifications)

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

Thanks for checking out our third devblog! We're making great progress on the 0.8 fortification update. You can check in on our progress by having a look at the changelog.

Animation Updates and Additions (0.8)

John has been busy animating zombies. We've taken some of your Twitter and Steam remarks and have started adding additional animation variants. Check out the gifs below for a bit of a progress update on that.

Someone has had one too many!

A quick vault through.

Belly flop!

Quick hop

AI Tracking (0.8)

André has been busy cracking along on AI behavior and tracking. You'll notice in the gif below that zombies won't just pile up at doorways. If the AI has the chance to take a path through the door, it will. If the door is blocked, it will find the quickest way out.

Going through both the door and the window.

A Quick Update on the Fortification System (0.8)

You'll notice the player only swings once and the plank is fixed to the frame. The player swings and the plank is 'tacked on'. The plank at that point is in its weakest state. The player can continue to tack additional planks on or choose to strengthen the initially tacked plank. Adding more nails (with additional hammer swings) will bring the boards strength up. Destruction in this gif is so simple because all boards have only had their initial tack up. You'll also notice some placement effects and general smoothing from the last update.

UI, initial placement and destruction and smoothing.

These are weak planks, these planks will be harvestable from fences and wood piles.

Traps, Persistence and GUI (0.8)

Jay has been working on trap persistence and logic. Below you can see some of the logic that has gone into the trapping system. UI overhauls to allow for direct placement, machine persistence to keep track of fuels and ammo.

Trap placement done directly from the inventory.

Interaction, moving ammo from and to traps.

Picking up a trap done directly from the traps interface.

Inventory Management (Future Update)

We've noticed in videos and while playing ourselves that some players do not use inventory tabs. After playing for some time we've noticed the inventory list can get quite long. We're doing some rework for a future updated and had the idea if tab highlighting. This is just a quick mock up for the purpose of some feed back.

The general idea an items specific item tag will highlight when it's added to your inventory. Either with a dot or a glow etc. The player will take more notice to an exaggerated tab getting them used to using the tabs and making it easier to figure out if you picked up something new.

Let us know what you think of this possible addition or if you have any better ideas!

We're Hiring!

Links

Sep 6, 2018

Patch Notes 0.7.19

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

We’re moving our experimental branch to default today. 0.6.19 will become 0.7.19 :) The update below will go over what we’ve been up to. Along with what has changed in 0.7 and what to expect in 0.8.

This is a big update for the team. We’ve said from the start that Survive the Nights would be as optimized as possible. We’ve kept optimization in mind while developing. We’ve also learned a lot since we started development. We’ve done our best to maintain a standard when it comes to keeping things optimized, however as always, things can slip. It’s not just a loss of attention, everyday the team learns something new. 0.7 focuses greatly on optimizations but it’s not only optimizing we’ve been working on. Quite a bit more has gone into the project backend wise and will require a great deal of testing. You’ll find our current changelog below, it’s a great way to hunt for bugs. As always please leave any issues on our tracker so we can get them fixed! :)

We’ve also spent a great deal of time focusing on quality of life improvements in game. From improved player spawns to containers showing a inventory preview in our small UI box. Below you’ll find a list of fixes, improvements and additions that have been made for 0.7. Below that, you’ll find some information about 0.8 and our plans for the future.

General Fixes and Improvements/Additions

Fix for game starting in windowed mode.
Fix for hidden servers not working correctly.
Reduced overall size on disk for game from approximately 10.5gb to 8.5gb.
Fixed broken UV's on low quality water.
Dead/Ragdoll characters no longer fall through roads.
Fixed issue where not all items that should be spawning were being chosen.
Hospital specific props added.
Weapons now hide correctly when in placement mode.
Shooting locks no longer leaves a floating impact decal.
Own shadows now move up and down when looking around.
Machete now has weight.
Lock hasp and staple visualization no longer casts shadows.
Fixed issue where floating impact decals would be left after shooting a light bulb.
Updated light bulb smashing effect to make it look nicer.

Quality of Life Improvements

Improved initial player spawn locations to create a more immersive new character experience.
Containers now show item quantity and capacity directly in the hover UI which saves the player having to open all containers when searching for loot. Example - Quantity 2/10
Added reload complete notification which gives info about loaded ammo and remaining ammo in the inventory.
Reload and consuming actions are now considered finished when the animation is 80% complete. Previously the player could open the inventory and accidentally cancel an action when it appeared to be finished.
Can no longer open the menu while in the player list.
Added walk and sprint lock support. Press = key while holding either walk or walk and sprint key to lock input.
Server IP now displays as name for servers that don't have a name input.
Player no longer freezes when escape is pressed to gain access to the menu.
This could result in players being frozen in mid air.
Re-added correctly working kitchen container locks which had been removed in the previous build due to issues.
Improved melee impact sounds including punches.
Pills in pill eating animation are no longer pink.
Inspect readout now correctly shows overall health instead of calories in the overall health section.
Hotkeys no longer work while in the map.
Hitting locks with melee weapons now deals damage to the lock.
Added ability to hit doors to damage locks. The first available lock will take damage.
Fixed issue where the player could be unlocked while still in the menu when pressing escape to close the terminal window.
Added battery requirements to descriptions of flashlights.

Performance

Optimized shader parsing during environment load which was causing spikes in performance.
Reduced memory garbage allocation associated with debug GUI in bottom right corner of screen.
Reduced memory garbage allocation when loading terrain environment.
Slowed the rate of world loading to prevent too many assets being set active in a single frame.
Improved scene unloading which could cause hiccups in fps.
Asset pre-loader added which pre loads assets during first load into game.
Helps with large lag spikes caused by initial load of assets.
Enabled v-sync by default which limits frame-rate to 60fps and stops the GPU running at 100% usage unnecessarily.
Terrain in distance no longer casts unnecessary shadows.
Reduced waters overall GPU overhead.
A project wide review and optimization of over 3500 textures.
Removed some lag caused by player foot step sounds.
Improved performance to tree loading as the player moves around the environment.
Fixed large lag spike being caused by unnecessary reloading of terrain related textures.
Fixed lag spike being caused by premature destroying of terrains during world unloading.
Fixed lag spike being caused by unnecessary calculation.

Environment

Added two hospitals to the map and relevant surrounding design.
Fire station exterior design improved.
Added signs to police and fire stations.
Improved exterior design around police stations.
School desks now function as containers.
Several police and fire station specific props added.
New signage added for police station. Can be lit with electrics.
New signage added for fire department. Can be lit with electrics.
New red rolling garage door variant added for fire station.
New red door and frame variants for police and fire stations.
Fixed strange effect on carpark in terrain 8.
Fixed scenario where roofs could have snow on them when they shouldn't.
Outhouse toilet building loading distance fixed.
Tweaked position of police stations.
Designed hospital interior.
Added hospital building to the game.
Added Interior design to the fire station.
Added New floor material for the fire station.
Added design to the police station.
Church reworked and designed inside.
Added locker variants. School and armory types.
Reworked police station model.
Added meter and breaker to school building so that it can now be powered.
Added meters and breakers that were missing on buildings House_Wood_3_variant_3 and House_1_variant_1.
Fixed floating roads on terrain 27.
Fixed several materials in the finishing town that didn't have use effects.
Fixed missing material on truck docking area in large grocery store.

Engine Upgrade to Unity 2017!

After being in unity 5 for over a year, we felt with this update it was time to upgrade to newer version the engine. This will allow us to take advantage of newer features/optimizations and not fall behind on supported Unity builds. After extensive testing of the newest unity releases, we felt that Unity 2017 LTS (Long Term Support) offered the best upgrade and stability at this time. Listed below are some of the advantages of upgrading the engine.

Shadow Improvements

Culling of shadows casters in 2017 has been optimized. This means there will be less objects casting shadows resulting in better performance. Improved filtering algorithms should also improve the look of the shadows as well.

Scene and Asset Bundle Improvements

The new unity update also includes improvements to the loading times of scenes and asset-bundles. These changes and several other small fixes we've made should help reduce the lag spikes when walking around in the world.

Particle Improvements

New tweaks to the particle system will allow us to create more realistic and optimized effects.

Future Proofing

Staying on newer builds of unity keeps us up to date with the newest features and support.

0.8.x and What's to Come!

We're very excited about our next update. The 0.8.x update will introduce our first iteration of window fortifications. The player will be able to attach fortification materials to window frames and door frames. We'll introduce the feature with multiple plank types along with sheet based materials such as plywood and corrugated tin. Below you can see the system in the works.

Ignore the blue highlight, that's backend stuff. The player will simply walk up to a window with the proper tool in hand and if they have the required fortification materials it'll come out and snap to the window.

The player here is switching (ignore textures) through plank types. Weak planks (harvestable via fences and wood piles) vs stronger planks crafted from felled trees. We'll also include sheet materials like tin/plywood.

Just a short example of how boards can be manipulated once snapped to a window frame. This should add quite a good deal of customization adding the ability to totally cover windows or create space for shooting/viewing.

Here's the mechanic a bit further along showcasing the on plank UI. This will let the player know exactly what type of plank they're adding, how strong it is and how many they have. If the player highlights an already placed plank, it will show the player that planks current strength and that they can add nails to improve it.

Aggressive AI, Traps and Trap Damage

Of course now that windows are fortifiable, zombies will have to get through them. Below is a gif of the logic going into making that happen. You'll notice our off navmesh link orbs in the gif, this allows the AI to move through the opening and it's part of our test scene. This is a showcase of the logic. Eventually zombies will come through openings in many ways with the addition of more animations.

Defensive traps will also be introduced in 0.8.x. With that in mind, work has been going into environmental damage. Below you can see both the player and a zombie taking fire damage. We've also smoothed out placement system, objects (traps included) will now follow the terrains contour on initial placement.

Smoothed object placement snapping to terrain regardless of it's angle.

The logic behind player damage via world objects like fire and traps are now working.

AI taking fire damage. We love the smell of burning zombie in the morning :)

New Spawns and Points of Interest

We've introduced new a new spawn point system in 0.7.19. We'll be slowly introducing points of interest at these spawns in the next couple of updates. The player should begin spawning near stuff making initial gameplay a bit more exciting.

Orange arrow is one of the spawns. All the green boxes are additional structures or design.

Just off a fresh spawn, small areas like the one above will also have road signs pointing towards the nearest towns.

Small Weekly Devblogs

Some of you might have caught some of these screens and gifs in our DEVBLOG. We'll do our best to get smaller updates out every week (unless we're releasing a proper update like this). These updates will serve to provide our supporters with up to date information, showing some of what we've been up to each week.

We're Looking for Help

As our last update mentioned, we’ve moved from our tiny closet of an office into a much larger and not so embarrassing space :) We actually have the room to expand the team now and we’re looking to do just that. If you are or know any programmers/unity developers looking for work in the UK please let us know. We’re looking for like minded devs, the project is near and dear to us. The team is very small and being a team player is very important to us. If you’d like to send a CV to support@survivethenights.net please do so :)

As always, thank you very much for the continued support. The project is really starting to shape up and the team is very excited for the future. Feel free to drop into the Discord and talk with us one on one!

Aug 27, 2018

Pre-Alpha Devblog #1 (Optimizations | Spawns | Fortifications)

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

Our 0.7 build is live on our experimental branch. We've been pretty busy, optimizing for 0.7 and starting on our new fortification systems. We've decided to do smaller weekly forum updates to keep everyone in the loop. We will also do a small updates like this when the any builds go live on Steams experimental branch.

How to get into experimental branch:

1. Open Steam and go to your games library
2. Right click on STN and select "Properties"
3. Navigate to the "Betas" tab and select "experimental" in the drop down menu.
4. Close the properties window.

For those that don't follow along with us on Discord , it may seem like we're slacking when in fact we're busier than ever. We'll keep these updates short and sweet with just a few pictures and examples of what the guys have been up to for the week. Please feel free to check out the changelog and see exactly what we've been working on.

Optimizations

We've spent a good deal of the last 5 or so weeks optimizing the project. Digging into the profiler and doing our best to smooth things out. We've made a start of it and although there's a lot of work left to do many of you will already feel the benefits. We've tidied up our scenes, taken care of small sector ticks like interiors loading and crunched the project down. You'll notice the disk space now is just over 8gigs where before our 0.7 it was nearly 11! We'll not bore you (as this work can be very tedious and not so enjoyable) with the details but things are running better. We'll remain committed to optimizing at the end of ever future update moving forward.

New Spawn Points and soon to be added Points of Interest!

We've decided that our old spawn system, consisting of over 100 spawn points for new players was a bit too over complicated and didn't really provide any general direction for the player. We've listened to backers who are tired of walking through our pre-alpha wilds only to find a town and be slaughtered instantly.

The new spawn system consists of far fewer new player spawns and will always have a point of interest or direction to a town/structure. Below are some shots of how the new spawns are being set up.

The orange arrow is one of the new spawns all the green boxes are fresh design and direction for the player.

Example of a fresh spawn, structures to raid and direction to nearby towns.

Another example of addition player guide and design.

This is just the start, new spawns are currently however design requires rebakes so new points of interest will come with each additional update as we move forward.

Fortification and Aggressive AI (Coming in 0.8.X)

Zombies are traversing through windows (no you're no longer safe in a locked house you will need to fortify the windows!! :)

Above you can see a zed on his way into a structure, our nav-mesh links visible in our little animation test scene :)

Well that's all for this little update, we should be pushing 0.7 to default this week after a bit more testing by the dedicated few. If you're interested in helping out with development as always comment below or join us on Discord.

Thanks much for the continued support, come share your ideas, thoughts or concerns with us any time of the day!

Regards,

The team at a2z(Interactive);

Jul 7, 2018

Patch Notes 0.6.16

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

We’re moving our experimental branch to default today. 0.5.15 will become 0.6.16 :) The update below will go over what we’ve been up to (sorry for the delay) along with what has changed in 0.6 and what to expect in the future.

This update has been a while coming as we've not updated in over two months to our default branch. There have been massive development and backend changes, some of which took a bit longer than expected. Lots of work has gone into network relevance. We’ve added measures to stop player states from syncing when players are far away from each other. This will disable far away players saving on some performance. The same has been done with all drops. All physical loot dropped and spawned will cull via our systems completely clearing them from the client. Quite a bit more has gone into the project network wise and will require a great deal of backer testing. You’ll find our current changelog below, it’s a great way to hunt for bugs. As always please leave any issues on our tracker so we can get them fixed! :)

Now that physical loot is possible, we’ve expanded on all the in game shops. We've created loot specific shops i.e. convenient stores for drinks/food, pharmacies for meds, hardware stores for fortification loot, etc. Nearly 250 shop specific props were added to help rework and redesign shops with more planned for the future! This all needs a great deal of expansion and tweaking, something we’ll work on over the coming months but it has now been reworked and introduced. Below are a few shots of physical loot systems and specific (backer named) shops in game.

Physical loot spawners

Reworked grocery stores (all 'Popov' variants have been redesigned)

Roof access added to grocery stores

Backer named shops will provide shop specific drops (e.g. hammers in hardware stores)

With the introduction of this new culling and relevance system, loot that is dropped from the inventory with the [Drop] button will be decay over time. Up until now, there has been zero cleanup on servers. Every item spawned, used and dropped around the world stays on the server. This new system will ease server load. Players that want to keep their goods will need to use placement mode after dropping them. This will shortly be made more user friendly with the introduction of a place mechanic right in the inventory.

There have also been some massive team changes, all for the good :) We're moving on up! As many of the close followers may know, in the beginning our team was working from home. A handful of us worked what hours we could to put our concepts together. After the amazing success we had with Kickstarter we were able to move to the project full time. We rented a small corner office in an industrial park just East of the city of Hull in the U.K.. The office was 120 square feet and as many of our past interns will confirm, not the most comfortable or creative space. The office was attached to what was essentially a noise manufacturing plant and across the road from a chemical park which wasn't the most inviting work environment. Aside from the aesthetics, the space made expanding the team impossible.

Jay sitting in our old office on moving out day :) Some good times in this tiny space!

In the beginning of June, we had the opportunity (also due to leases expiring) to leave our tiny office. The team has moved to the center of Hedon just east of our former location. The space is amazing although it has come with its fair share of work. Vacant for the last 5+ years, it was in rough shape but this would later play to our advantage. Luckily John and James have had their fair share of experience with carpentry and general construction being their now former livelihoods. With the help of Andre, Jos and some friends/family, the office quickly became the team's nightly project! We're happy to say we're done and incredibly pleased with the results. We have only the dedication and continued support of the community to thank for this opportunity. It will not only give us the opportunity to work in a beautiful creative space but allow us the option to expand and bring in additional developers post alpha release!

Below you’ll see a time lapse of some of the work done over the last month or so.

Mural Time Lapse
https://youtu.be/P_v1-Hb7xhs

Patch Notes 0.6.16

Hotfix 0.5.16

Fixed issue where spawned items wouldn't spawn with resources (ammo
boxes would be empty and have no weight.);
Fixed issue where spawned items could start with 0 condition which resulting in them being able to have negative condition.
Fixed purifying water with purification tablets.
Removed duplicate gauze drop.
Fixed names of instant potatoes.
Fixed beets that had duplicate names.
Fixed energy bottles drinks which had wrong names.

Hotfix 0.5.15

Added physical spawner locations to residential building interiors.
Fixed moulding in strip malls that were out of place.
Changed strip mall interior loading range so that it’s not so obvious when it turns on.
Removed double bar prop in string mall variant 3.
Fixed missing pole on gas station sign.
Rain no longer falls through large popov grocery stores.
Fixed shelf that was clipping in variant 3 Popovs.
Counter in popovs now have collision.
Increased the range that the interior loads in at for popovs.
Interacting with the generator no longer plays the take animation.
Fixed clipping tool boxes on large building roof top.
Collision with fence on top of large building roof top now works.
Zombies no longer walk through large apartment blocks.
Shopping cart LOD transition improved.
Moved sink cabinet in house_9 that wasn’t against wall.
Fixed floating shadows when having the r-6804 equipped.
Zombies should be jumping into swimming pools again.
Fixed issue where some trees wouldn’t spawn appropriate pickups.
Improved floors material in school building.
Fixed terrain where it was clipping with floor in terrain 44 and 52.
Removed lawn mower prop as it was low quality.
Moved props that were blocking several electricity meters.
Cooking items no longer duplicate.
Missing door slam open sound assigned.
Fixed MRE drop and reduced overall stat gains.
Fixes to type names on energy drink drops.
Fixed typeName on potatoes cooked.
Fixed typeName on beets cooked.
Tree piece pickups are now the correct scale.

General

Gravity now instantly activated on items that exit placement mode..
Easy way to access Inventory crafting and guide tabs. Inputs i o and p now open the inventory to relevant tab.
Fix for infinite stamina glitch when locking inputs.
Inputs no longer get stuck when entering/exiting chat.
Command accepted no longer goes in to the chat multiple times when inputing a command.
Stopped all player stats being able to go negative or higher than their max amounts.
Switching weapons has been optimized.
Reduced radius in which zombies are cleared up when a player spawns nearby.
Fixed errors when attempting to remove items from the world.
Fixed scenario where you could enter game, exit and then rejoin but not keep your persistence.
Fixed issue where starting items weren't persistent through relogs.
Fixed persistence issue with attached objects in the inventory. Previously if you dropped a gen, added a part, picked it up and then dropped it again the parts would be back to 0/1 (Other than the fuel tank)

Physical Loot

Added physical loot system which spawns relevant loot around the world.

Network Culling and Performance

Added player network relevance system which stops state sync when you get far enough away from each other. This limits bandwidth and disables the character model as well.
Added pickup network relevance that makes network aware pickups on only relevant to the players within the set range. This also turn off the models which saves on rendering and LOD calculations.
Added pickup placeholder system which turns pickups into none network aware objects when no player is relevant.

Music

Full music soundtrack added.
Adaptively changing music based on time and situation.

Improved server search and 'Clear History' buttons layout.
Added Server filter toggles to server selection menu. Options include: Compatible, Private and unofficial servers.
Player list is forced off when being disconnected from the server.
Added triple monitor support for all menus.

Item Placement

Pressing enter/return now exits placement mode.
Smoothing added to items that are in placement mode so that they’re not as jittery.
Fully disabled plastic tote pickup until spawn-able containers are implemented.

Crafting

Animal trap crafting recipe now takes 4 planks.

Items

Removed all consumable portions
Changed consumable stats to reflect portion removal
Renamed all drops favoring a standard (Pot) (Can) (Cooked) name convention
Renamed internal drop names to reflect portion removal and new name convention
Removed cookable dirty variants and pointless dirty variants
Fixed all broken cookable variants (everything should cook now)
Adhesives bandages weight updated to make it more realistic
Empty water bottle weight updated to make it more realistic.
Gun cleaning kit weight updated to make it more realistic.
Saucepan of boiling water weight fixed to match other items.

Environment

Shop specific props added. 250 new items in total.
Large grocery stores have been fully redesigned.
Added new rooms in large grocery stores to make them more realistic.
Strip malls have been fully redesigned using new props with all new pharmacy, bar, weapon, hardware stores and more.
New store signs have been added. Most take power and can be lit.
Gas stations redesigned.
Strips malls variant have been evenly spread between towns to fairly distribute loot.
Collision with shower head fixed.
Parking islands now have collision.
House_5 interior now has collision.
Added electrical breaker and meter panels to house_4_variant_2.
Fixed door alignment in House_Old_House_variant_2.
Improved textures in junk pile.
Kitchen cabinets are now easier to access and open.
Fixed floating cabinet in large exterior junk pile.
Added collision to door frames in school building that were missing.
Raised message board that was stuck in the ground.
Removed remnant collision from carports on plaster variant houses.
Fixed trash bag variants that where incorrectly showing interaction information.
Fixed gaps in windows in Old_House variants
Moved tree that was clipping building
Moved clipping rain barrels from building.
Moved trash can that was clipping the ground.
Added design to rooftop.

Particles

Improved fluorescent light smash particle.

Zombies now jump into swimming pools.

Admin

Added /chat on/off command which enables or disables the chat globally.

Weapons

Reload sound fixed on r-6804.
Shotguns can now damage locks.

What’s to Come!

0.7.X

The next build will focus on some optimization and feature polish. It will be a quality of life patch that’s a bit over due now. We’ve been grinding away reworking systems. Now that players are giving us feedback, we're trying to find better ways to do things. It’s become time to put that research to work and give the current build a good once over. We’ll focus the month's update basically on getting our mechanics ready for the 0.8.x update.

0.8.X

This update will focus on fortifications, a massive part of what Survive the Nights will become. We’ll be introducing a feedback system in a close future update. The system will allow players to give the team direct feedback as to how features are working or aren’t and how players think they can be improved. This system will allow us to collect data in a more reasonable manner. Right now, the majority of information fed back to the team is issues. We’re working on a better way for you to share your opinions with the team directly and without having to do so on an open forum.

As always, thanks so much for the continued support. The team is excited about the upcoming months, the build and the opportunity our new space will give us to expand. As many of you already know, we’re always available for a chat on our Discord so come on through and say hello, share your ideas or get answers to any questions you might have!

Apr 20, 2018

Patch Notes 0.5.13

Survive the Nights - a2z Interactive

Hello all,

We're moving our experimental branch to default today. We've done a bit of testing there and feel it's stable enough. We're also introducing our new and improved changelog and roadmap developed by Clinton. This new changelog will allow you to keep tabs on us a bit better and should showcase exactly what it is we're working on.

As mentioned in the last update, we've reworked our base electrical system. We've added some features along with a massive amount of tweaking.

The machine UI's (generators, electrical meters and breaker panels) all function now. They've also all been reworked to include the ability to interact and activate the machine. You're still able to hold E to activate without ever opening the machine's UI.

Breaker panel logic has been reworked. If a panel is powering more than it should and is overloaded, breakers will fail and the player will need to replace them. Each breaker can power a set amount of electrical equipment. Although other mechanics do already draw electricity, you'll find the main draw is lighting. You will have fair warning...as you can see in the gif below, the lights themselves will flicker and let you know things are about to go wrong.

Generators now use fuel based on the amount of draw on them. If you're powering a structure and keeping one room lit, your generator may run the entire night. If you're powering an entire house, you'll need to top up those fuel levels!

Fuel stations are not fully functioning. The player can gather fuel from any fuel stations with just an empty fuel can and a siphon. Once fuel stations are powered you'll find the fuel pumps function and fuel can be gathered without the siphon. The garage doors are also functioning along with the exterior signs and lights!

There are many more additions and fixes in this update. It's the largest we've done. If you have the time, please remember to submit any bugs or issues you find on our tracker. It's a great help to the team!

Here you can see the new interactable generator UI

New interaction on breaker panels

A breaker explodes in a panel box due to overload. Avoid this by adding additional breakers.

Random light flicker

New fluorescent lighting - Bonus Tip: Clear buildings first! :p

Making a little too much noise testing electrics :)

Patch Notes 0.5.13

Below are all the changes and fixes since our last default update

Hot fix 0.4.13

Wind up flashlight attack animations now play for others.
Flashlight inspecs now work again. This was also breaking weapons.
Lock kits now spawn in various containers.
Tweaked electrical items spawns so that they're a bit more varied.
Generator no longer starts with parts.
Electrical meters no longer start with parts in them.
Windup flashlight no longer casts incorrect shadows.
Small work bench should no longer spawn and can only be got through crafting.
Fuel extraction points now work more consistently and take the correct amount of fuel for the containers you have.
Fuel extraction points now run out of fuel.
Worklamps now cause the generator to burn fuel quicker.
Single input commands that take no arguements now work again.
/Help command should now be working again.
Fixed issue where certain items would turn into cardboard when being dropped or moved into containers.
Tree stems should no longer disapear after being cut.

Hot fix 0.4.12

Generators no longer stack in the inventory.
Fixed issue where fluorescent light strips were trying to use regular light bulbs

Hot fix 0.4.11

Fixed generator turning on when dropped for the first time. Generator wasn't actaully on, only the effects.

Hot fix 0.4.10

Fixed issue which stops server restarting after crash without a db reset. Cause of initial crash still needs identifying. Please report any info you can figure out regarding it.

General

Added ability for items to turn into other items rather than being destroyed when they are empty/0 quantity. Example: water purification tables can now turn in to empty card board box.
Now possible to log off at bus shelters.
Shooting door handles no longer shows decals hitting an invisible box around them.
Game volume no longer resets to full volume between play sessions.
Fixed weird spelling on coffee pot texture.
Added coming soon UI to the radiator.
Added coming soon UI to the Coffee pot.
Fixed issue where sounds could be incorrectly heard after death.
Pressing interact key on dirty water sources now opens the inventory.
Weather now syncs with other players when first joining the game. Previously it was only updating after the weather changed again.
Significantly increased the burn time of fire wood and coal. Fires can now in theory last through the night.
Other players flashlights should always be visible to each other now and be persistent when joining the game.
Zombies take longer to disappear after being killed.
Notice boards now give maps.
Players now do varied amounts of damage to locks dependant on what weapon they are using.
Zombies now do less damage to locks.
Zombies now have a chance of giving up when attacking a door.
Improved fuel cap lid model to make it more clear.
Pallet variants now spawn electrical items based loot.

Electrics overhaul

Fuel burns quicker based on the amount of load on the generator.
Generators now stall when load becomes too much.
Breaker panels now blow breakers and trip the power when the load is too much.
Generators now have startup, miss start and dying logic and effects.
Fuel station signs now works.
Electric garage doors now work.
Sinks now provide clean water when pumps have power.
Fuel station pumps now provide fuel when station is powered.
All light bulb types can now be shot and destroyed.
Added work light variant that is triggered by a movement sensor that can be triggered by players or Ai.
LED indicator light added to generator.
LED indicator light added to meter and breaker panels. Off = no power, Red = power but inactive panel and green = power and active panel.
LED indicator light added to various other machines that require power.
Lights now have a chance of randomly flickering which is synced on all clients.
Fixed scenario where [Add] button was missing when trying to add fuel but can't. Now displays grey [Add] button for clarity.
Jerry cans now show fuel amount in name. Example: Jerry can (11/20)
Jerry cans no longer stack.
Generators now spawn with some parts.
Generator fuel tanks can no longer be removed and act as a fixed attachment.
Fuel tank in generator now shows how much fuel is remaining next to name. Example: Fuel tank (11/20)
Added fuel gauge to generator GUI to better indicate how full the tank in and added button for taking and removing fuel from that location as well.
Electric meter and breaker panels now have animated leavers.
Improved switch/lever model on meter and breaker panels and reversed direction.
Moved runtime remaining display under generator picture.
Changed top right corner button in generator UI from [move] to [Close]
Added [Interact] button in the generator UI next to the new fuel gauge which allows you to start the generator from the UI.
Added [Take] and [Place] button next to new [Interact] button which lets you pickup or move the generator.
Added [Interact] button in breaker and meter panel UI's so that they can be activated while still in the UI.
Added indicator light in UI for generator, meter and breaker panel.
Added indicator light key to UI in the generator, meter and breaker panel to help guide players.
Fixed issue where parts couldn't be moved to a generator from the inventory using the [Move] button inventory.
Changed required parts for the generator to make them more realistic.
Work lamp range increased.
Work lamp light intensity increased significantly.
Freestanding lamps now have a [Interact] button in the UI instead of an independent switch.
Generators now only power meters that are within 5m.
Generators, meter and breaker descriptions no longer run off screen.
Added fluorescent light type and placed them around the world in appropriate locations.
Exterior lights all work
Reduced size of work lamp
Added additional particles and sounds to lights and electrics.

Crafting

Clicking the search bar in the crafting menu while crafting now cancels the current craft.
Fixed the width of the craftable names in the search list view that were being cut off too soon.
Updated [Minus] UI in the inventory so that it no longer clips the ].
Changed greyed out [drop] buttons to greyed out [minus] buttons while on the crafting page.
Stopped the crafting sound getting stuck in an endless loop when clearing or canceling the current craft.
Removed cleaning with dirty rags craftables.
New small workbench is now craftable.

Controller

Crouch height changed to bring it in line with how the proxy characters look.
Smoothed out crouch motion and made it feel more natural.
Added slight bounce at end of crouch to make the motion feel more fluid.
Added slight head raise when moving while crouched (Matches motion proxy animation makes).
Added slight head lowering when moving while standing.
Increased speed of transition between crouched and standing.
Default mouse sensitivity reduced.
Mouse sensitivity now correctly matches your previous play session.
Player steepness checks improved and are now more accurate.
Particles added when sliding on surfaces that are too steep.
Player can now walk up steeper slopes.
Players can no longer spam jump to get up steeper surfaces. Player is now pushed away from the surface being jumped on.
Camera jolt when landing from a jump is more intense based on the Y velocity.
Water bottles no longer get destroyed when filling from a dirty water source when you have more than 1 empty bottle.
Can now move water between saucepans and bottles.

Environment

Fixed floating road on terrain 57.
Fixed position of the furthest LOD on structure TwoFi_Brick_WGarage_Fix_pref
Reduced reflections on tv screens.
Removed unusable large generators to save confusion. For now all large structures can be powered using a normal generator
Fixed floating road on terrain 35.
Fixed texture seams in House_plaster_10 model.
Replaced ceiling material in house_plaster_10 model for something more appropriate.
Moved floating bushes on terrain 31 to the ground.
Moved floating stone wall on terrain 38 to the ground.
Fixed water clipping through the ground on terrain 30.
Missing water added on terrain 27.
Moved floating bushes in scene 52 to the ground.
Moved tree that was clipping rock on terrain 37.
Added bus stops to entrances and central areas in towns around the island.
Added a bit of extra design around new bus stops

Performance

FPS limited during the splash screen
Improved performance while firing weapons.

Weapons

Fixed scenario where reload sounds were being unloaded incorrectly. Most noticeable on progressively reloaded weapons.
Fixed scenario that would make the ammo in weapons go out of sync.

Items

Added fluorescent light pickup.
Added small work bench.
Added pull start pickup for generators.
Added carburettor pickup for generators.
Empty can weight changed to 0.2 lbs
Firewood weight changed to 12 lbs
Box of nails weight changed to 1 lbs
Planks weight changed to 2.5 lbs
Empty saucepans weight changed to 2.2lbs
Camping tripod weight changed to 26 lbs
Camping tripod now requires metal rods to craft.
Hatched weight changed to 2.3 lbs
Hatched handle weight changed to 0.65 lbs
Hatched Head weight changed to 1.65 lbs
Campfire weight changed to 12 lbs
Empty water bottle weight changed to 0.1 lbs
Saucepans now weigh 3.2 lbs
Cans now weigh 1.2 lbs
Changed bateman weight to 3 lbs
Changed the rauser weight to 1.5 lbs
Changed the lola weight to 1.8 lbs
Purification tablets name updated for clarity.
Mugs can now be cleaned via crafting.
Fixed the tackle box drop so that it is now a tackle box.

Animations

Various new consuming animations that were previously missing.
New generic eating animation for items that don't have a dedicated animations.
Fixed clipping animation when consuming canned items.
Fixed clipping lola&garrry handgun inspect animation.
Wood stove door now has animations for opening and closing.

Admin / Util.

Fixed /Kill command. Example: /Kill zombie 50
Added kill command chat return which gives detailed information about what was killed.
Deleted or re-id'd items no longer break the inventory for players that had those items when they last logged off.

KNOWN ISSUES

Audio issues that stop the sliders working as expected.

What's to Come (0.6.X)

Our biggest milestone for 0.6 is physical loot. Physical loot will allow us to greatly expand on loot variety and spawn places. You'll soon see purposefully designed structures and shops i.e. bars and pubs, factory props and design, garage props and design, grocery stores and design, weapons shops and pharmacy design etc.

Bar Redesign

Once physical loot is in and tweaked players will know they can go to a certain town or shop when looking for certain loot. Generators can be found in hardware stores, fuel from fuel stations, drugs from the pharmacy and so on.

We'll be working on network performance. We're also in the process of developing a network culling tool that should allow us to really flesh out a physically spawned loot system.

As always, to the those that have supported us, we thank you. Thank you for the current help sorting through issues and fleshing out features. We're very excited to be able to continue working on the project and look forward to a full fledge solid alpha release later in the year! Come join us on Discord (it's nice and quiet there now with only the hardcore bug hunters and testers chatting).