Survivalist: Invisible Strain News

It's happening! Invisible Strain has been in beta for nearly a year and it's time to make it available for everyone. Early Access starts on 1st June 2020! Of course, early access is just the beginning - it'll be in there for a pretty long time, at least a year I would say, while I add more stuff and work on story mode.

The early access price will be $6.99, but there'll be a 25% launch discount so you can get it for around $5.25 in the first week.

I've posted a new gameplay trailer, which is basically a cut-down version of a playthrough I did last week. The somewhat tragic adventures of Brody Cantu and his gang, the Ugly Snakes:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Many thanks to everyone who participated in the beta and sent me feedback and (so many) bug reports. I still have a long todo list from that, which I expect to be working through during early access.

Oh, I should also mention for beta testers there's a new small patch out (v72):

• Made green and blue strain antigen a little less common again
  
• Fix for characters sometimes not crouching while following you when you're crouching
  
• Some fixes to surrendering and feuding
  
• Fix for characters not reacting to enemies right in front of them sometimes
  
• Fix for binding keys to switch targets not working

This one's mainly about tweaking the difficulty to make it a little easier to start with, and fixing a few bugs.

• Get rid of burned out vehicles (for new maps) as it's confusing/frustrating that you can't enter them. Also increased number of vehicles generated on roads so there's more hiding places.
  
• Made pickaxes, shovels and antigen more common
  
• Made ranged weapons a little more accurate and faster to aim
  
• Increased time to fight off a zombie when they grab you, before they get bitten
  
• Made you get a little less tired in melee combat
  
• Made zombies a little more easily distracted by rancid meat, added a hint for that, and fixed some bugs with stealth
  
• Fix for sometimes triggering war with friendlies by swinging a weapon at a dead zombie
  

New patch today! This one introduces the possibility that, if you have recruited someone with invisible strain, they may bite other people within your community while you're not looking and if no one else is currently around, thus spreading the infection and taking over :)

• Invisible strain can spread in your community
  
• Added more hints for noobs
  
• You can ask bunny-hunt quest givers for hunting tips
  
• Allow moving between different motel rooms
  
• Added back doors to vans and ambulances
  
• Guarantee no red or white strain zombie spawnpoints within a certain distance of player start (hordes might still wander by though)
  
• Fix for raiders/hordes sometimes being able to track you down forever
  
• Debug features
  

EDIT - had to release another one (v68) to fix some crashes in that:

• Added some more new music tracks for exploration and combat
  
• Crash fixes
  

EDIT - and another lol (v69)

• Fix for hint messages jittering
  
• Another crash fix, and fixes for some glitchiness when transitioning to invisible strain
  

Someone reported a crash so I decided to release a quick patch, this fixes the crash and also includes a bunch of other fixes I was working on this weekend:

• NPCs will also not blame you for leading zombies to them if you save someone from being bitten
  
• Fix for miners going to rocks outside your base even if you tell them to use a Mine
  
• Fix for miners and lumberjacks giving up if they can't get to a particular tree/rock
  
• Fix for crafters failing to find minerals if they are stored in a mine's inventory
  
• Fix for trappers failing to get the equipment they need to reset traps
  
• Fix for NPCs not reacting in some situations when you destroy a building of theirs
  
• Some fixes for combat AI failing to attack defence buildings
  
• Allow direct controlled player character to open gates even if policy is Always Closed
  
• Crash fix
  

EDIT - released another new patch (v66) to fix an out of sync error.

In other news I've sent out beta keys today to all the people who were in my waiting list! There's still a few keys left in the batch so email me if you want one. My email:
EDIT - they're all gone now, sorry!

I think I'm going to start my last round of beta testing after this, so to those people who I said I would add to the waiting list, I'll hopefully send you a key in the next day or so :) Here's the changelist:

• Show Take All and Scavenge actions on buildings so you can see/take stuff without entering them (unless they are owned by another faction)
  
• You can hide inside vehicles (except the burned out ones)
  
• Refugees don't try to attack player to take over abandoned bases
  
• Early game hints about aiming and target switching for noobs
  
• NPCs won't blame you for their friends being killed by zombies, if they've seen you killing a zombie recently
  
• Instead of hiding crafting options you don't have the required skill for, just grey them out
  
• Button prompts for rotating camera in command mode
  
• Make enter building first on list of actions for Mine
  
• Character Save/Load includes equipment, skills and personality