Project Zomboid News

Hey all, hope you’re all doing well and that thus far 2023 has been kind. Let’s get straight into it.


[h3]NEW FACES[/h3]
First of all we’d like to welcome officially three new people to the full Project Zomboid team.
 
Fenris_Wolf should need no introduction to the old hands of the Project Zomboid community. He took over and maintained the ORGM mod with great aplomb from the original creator ORMtnMan – and will be a name familiar to many.
 
Right now he’s reacclimatizing himself with the PZ codebase, charged with clearing out some of the niggly things that have been on our ‘to do’ list so he gets his fingers dirty in many and various different areas of the game. Clearly his expertise with guns and the firearms code will likely come into play at some point in his time with us, but for now it’s all about bedding down and getting comfy in Spiffo’s hovering mothership.

Also joining us officially, meanwhile, are Amz and Pat_Bren.
 
Amz is another familiar name from the community, and was a great help to us in the days of 41 MP testing. She’s now officially a full-time tester working with Sasha and Yana, and will also be making cool videos for our blogs and improving our (already extraordinarily professional) social media engagements.
 
Pat_Bren, meanwhile, has been writing up a storm for Build 42 on a part time basis – writing new radio and TV channels and content, new lore for what’s going on around the world and much more besides – and will now be working other cool future content in an official and ongoing capacity.


[h3]42 STUFF[/h3]
Right now, we’re probably due an ‘overview’ of Build 42, so everyone is on the same page about its contents rather than skipping about between them each blog.
 
42  boils down to four large chunks of deep-rooted work that we want to all come together: the crafting/animals update, the map expansion, the optimization/lighting/basements engine upgrade, and the weighty job the MP team have taken on to move all inventory interactions over from clients to server.
 
These are all at different stages – for example animals are further ahead than a lot of the elements of crafting in terms of being ready to actively test and play with. Right now with the crafting, the work taking place is on the back-end codeside of crafting stations and component UIs.

Meanwhile with the engine upgrade at this point we’re essentially fixing up various different rendering issues that were broken with our quite fundamental changes to the system up to a point at which it’s ready to be merged into the test build.

The map team meanwhile continue to pump out new towns, interesting locations and fun places to travel to and hold out in.



Around these big ticket items we also have other coders, writers, artists and 3D modellers working to improve aspects of the current game.

So there’s the in-depth fire overhaul, Aiteron’s revamped fishing, better farming, more imaginative and fun items to find and use, better events to come across, improved recipes, new animations and activities, improved music system and deeper soundscape – and general piles and piles of polish and improvement throughout.
 
So with all that firmly held in mind, let’s have a quick dart around some of the different departments of PZ to catch up on a few bits and bobs.

• Our smashing friend Steve N, who we’re borrowing from EverCurious Entertainment, has been digging into our animation system and working out some longstanding issues that we’ve been desperate to fix. We’re currently jumping into a test build to check nothing else has been broken by his changes, but the result will be a lot more silky smooth turns and 180s in your survival forays.

• The big debate currently in our work with livestock is how to make it clear to players that you’ll need to designate areas that you want them to occupy and produce within, alongside building them fences they won’t escape through. We’ve got various ideas for this and will be running our experiments past the testers.
  
  Increasingly we’re realising just how much more ‘life’ these non-human and non-zombie creatures bring to the game. To which end we are also experimenting with some non-interactive beasts that will run before you get near, and give the game a smidge more desolate color…
  
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  
  

• As mentioned before, alongside refinements and improvements to the music system, right now via Formosa/Noiseworks we’re in the process of getting real life human actors (in Los Angeles! In America!) to record some basic bodily noises to give extra life (and pain) to our Knox Event survivors. Imagine how cool it will be in MP when one of your buddies reaches you, having escaped zombies and run in terror, and you can hear their panicked heavy breathing.
  
  That’s the sort of thing we want to capture, alongside noises of hurt and exertion as you tumble around the landscape. While we’re there we are also going to get a variety of other ‘spoken’ TV and radio noises that we can then obfuscate to improve the entertainment system slightly.
  

• Aiteron is back with us and has picked up on his work on fishing. This is its current iteration, which will shortly be mixed into the internal test build. This probably needs some more tweaking with the ‘strain’ animations – and the indications that a big fish is being caught – but is really getting there now. It’ll be mixed into the internal test build soon, which is also the point at which Formosa can start working on the new sound effects and such.
  
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  
  

• About a bazillion new items – some useful (hose now required for gas siphoning, kids) and some more aimed at making the world feel fuller and more ‘real’ are also currently going into the internal test build. Here are a few examples.
  
  

This week’s wintry scene from BruceWayne (not the real one). A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here. Thanks to everyone who voted for Spiffo in the Labo(u)r of Love awards. He seemed quite chuffed about it.

First off… ahem… “Vote for Project Zomboid in the Steam Awards!”

In a fairly mindblowing chain of events, mainly due to the awesomeness of the survivors of the Knox Event, Project Zomboid has been nominated for Labor of Love in the Steam Awards.



We are up against some fantastic other games (vote Deep Rock or No Man’s Sky if you’re less keen on us – those teams are incredible!) but just being on the list is a massive achievement for us and we’re so grateful for the community for getting our name up in lights like this.

So thanks everyone, it really does mean a lot!

[h3]BLOG BEGINS[/h3]
We’ve got a lot of the team away on their Christmas break this week who weren’t around to prod for contributions, or have a house full of sick people who need attention (that’s me, Hi), however the following items were shoved into the blog writer’s sack nonetheless.
 

• In preparation for getting real actor-recorded body sounds, huffs and puffs for the game – Matteo has been recording his own voice to get a feel for what’s required. He’s kept them quite subtle to match the perspective, and the consideration that the player doesn’t want to be heard by zombies, so right now they’re not too over the top. We might change the approach with this, but it’s interesting to consider them and think what they’ll bring in terms of immersion to the game.
  
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  

• We’re currently working on bringing our optimization and basements branch (both mapper-placed underground areas that always appear, and the randomly occurring ones placed as surprise features and treasure/zombie boxes) into a testable state. This is an ongoing process, but a lot of progress has been made this week so it’s rather exciting nevertheless.
  
  
• The integration of fire is still trucking along with most of our attention currently being on making flames fit the scene, we have a VFX artist joining us for a little while early in the new year – and in the meantime are experimenting code-side too. We’ll share some vids when we’re closer to the finished article.
  
  
• Blair is working on a variety of things – and is currently super proud of ‘LootLog’ which he wants advertised so modders are aware of it. This is a dev and modder tool that, once activated, logs every item that spawns around the player rather than wait for the player (or modder/dev) to discover it. Info logged includes a list of items; the room definition in question; the container type in question; and the X, Y and Z coordinates of the container in question.
  
  This is intended as a tool for us and the modding community to evaluate the amounts of loot that spawn, and where it spawns. The blog writer is aware that it isn’t super sexy blog content – but Blair underlines that it is a ‘niche pleaser’ so if you are in that niche: consider yourself pleased.
  
  
• Also in the Algol pipeline this week: improved ‘profession’ houses with cars outside that match the profession, new weapons, new zed stories, new ‘filler’ book items with names dreamt up by dreamy Pat_Bren and the implementation of all sorts of new foods and 3D items.
  
  
• RJ’s animals have entered initial testing, which made for an extremely fun first day of crazy bug reports and ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ and cuteness. It’s amazing what ‘life’ non-human and non-zombie animated creatures suddenly bring to PZ when you encounter them in-game.
  
  Fun bugs we dealt with included:

Alongside the chickens that keep opening doors, five eggs dropped on a wooden floor created a house full of roosters.



Pigs breeding so fast that a piglet horde started to form before one of our tester’s eyes.



While not a bug, this one was deliberate, here’s also a picture of some cows in a strip club.

Merry Christmas.



This week’s festive grave visit from 지혁! A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here. We’re also on sale at the moment if any of your mates fancies it x

THANK YOU to everyone who has already ordered their future survival companion.

Head over to the Makeship campaign page to order your own :spiffo: Spiffo:

https://shop.makeship.com/3FHlgG8

Happy December Thursdoid, and a big hello to all the new survivors who’ve jumped on board in recent weeks. This week we’ll be doing a quick check-in with the various different departments who are at work on Build 42 and providing a little freeze-frame of exactly what’s being worked on.

First though, we would be remiss if we didn’t inform all fans of raccoons, soft toys and ‘both of these things’ that: the Makeship campaign for the Spiffo plush has been EXTENDED for a full extra week due to everyone getting all excited about it.

If you are interested in sliding under a closing door then reaching back for your fluffy Spiffo, like Indiana Jones, then final orders can be made here:

https://shop.makeship.com/3FHlgG8


Okay, so let’s go round the Zomboid houses. Starting with… the sound team?

[h3]SOUND DEPARTMENT[/h3]
Formosa (formerly Noiseworks) have a lot of different things on the brew – work on new music and music systems, all the new actions and items for B42 (switchblade, firecracker etc) and clearly all the animal stuff which they’ll be starting on in due course.

Something else they are starting work on, however, are ‘acted’ character noises – pants and puffs recorded by real life actors to add a little more depth and feeling to the game, not to mention a greater feeling of ‘real’ when you are standing next to a character who has exerted themselves or is being injured in MP.

This will likely be an option you can turn off if you find it intrusive, but the Sound team believe they will provide an extra layer of immersion for Knox Event survivors. The sorts of things they’ll be recording will be: effort noises for window and fence climbs, sleeping noises, pain noises when bitten or scratched, vomiting, sneezing coughing etc.


[h3]ANIMS DEPARTMENT[/h3]
As those who read this blog might recall, we’ve been screaming out for a big brain to come in and lend their clever thoughts to some of the movement bugs and issues in our anims system for a while. Previous attempts to find a Chosen One didn’t work out, and as such since the 41 release we’ve had a significant blocker in terms of improving our animation system and our animation tools.

There has been significant rejoicing, then, that our friends at Ever Curious Entertainment have lent us their own big brain Steve North – who has been deep in AnimZed of late, and should be providing a range of changes and improvements that will help out our animator Martin no end.

In terms of a player-facing end result, this means that in B42 hopefully there’ll be better blends between anims to tighten everything up and make things look smoother. It could also, potentially, improve the responsiveness of controls and give gameplay a slightly tighter feeling. We’ll see how it goes when the fixes go in.


[h3]FIRE DEPARTMENT[/h3]
Work on integration of the previously in-dev fire system continues, this week with the introduction of new mechanics like burnable oily surfaces and development of fire spread in save games and MP code.

We are also experimenting with visuals in that a more pixelated fire looks better in-game, and also will be having a VFX artist joining us for a time in January to further improve its appearance in our isometric illustrate-y looking world. It’s already looking a smidge better though.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h3] MAPPING DEPARTMENT[/h3]
Lots of fun new locations appearing from Xeonyx and Ayrton in the map channel, including this little doozy…



Over to RJ, resident of a country doomed to failure in a World Cup football match this coming Saturday.

“Right now I’m prepping my stuff so it can be put in front of our testers. I’m trying to improve the ‘meta’ part of the system that governs them when you’re not in their direct presence – primarily how the feeding trough and water troughs are managed while you’re away. That’s my main focus at the moment – but also need to add some polish to the genetics when animals breed, and I’ll be moving onto animal sickness soon also.”

Now onto Turbo, a resident of a country who will most likely be getting spanked by Argentina at the moment this blog goes live at some point this evening.

“I’m getting stuff ready so that other team members can jump into the more stable parts of my craft branch and help expand it, and plug stuff in. First, though, I’m going back over my crafting stations, and doing some refactoring – in essence adding a lot more automation to the way the system works in the code.“

“It should be worth the extra thought that’s going into it though, at the bare minimum you should be able to create a new station purely through scripting alone. If a certain station requires it then custom logic or a custom UI panel or element can easily be added – it should be as great for modders as much as ourselves.“

 
[h3]BLAIR ALGOL DEPARTMENT[/h3]
If you are/were aware of Blair as a prolific PZ modder, it will come as no surprise that on the team he is a WHIRLWIND of cool ideas and always has multiple gameplay tweaks and features on the go – and has struck up an amazing combo team with our ‘Loot Placement Artiste’ Baph.

Here’s some fun stuff that’s recently gone in for testing from the world of KEYS:

• Zombies will now only have a key, or a key ring with a key in it, for suitable buildings that they spawn in or near to. Prison Guards can have Prison keys, inmates cannot. Employees of a business can have a key for it, customers cannot.
• More keys will spawn in buildings, not just for the building, but also possibly for nearby vehicles. Sometimes those nearby vehicles may also have a key for that building in the glovebox.
• When a vehicle spawns a key (in its glovebox, on a zombie, or on the ground) it has a chance of being accompanied by a key for a nearby building as well.
• It’s ensured that only cop zombies get the cop car keys – although Survivor zombies could have anything.
• Building keys may well come pre-named according to the sort of building or business they unlock.
• We are doing more fun stuff with Key Rings in general, watch out rabbits!

 

So in essence: it will be possible for your survivor to find a locked building, find a key for it in the glovebox of a vehicle parked nearby, and then find a key for that vehicle inside that building. The keys may also be on a Lucky Rabbit’s Foot Keyring.

A Lucky Rabbit’s Foot Keyring may, or may not, have a minimal boost to your Luck. We will never truly let on.

Also: new options to let you mix in your runners with your shambles


[h3]OTHER DEPARTMENT[/h3]
Clearly this isn’t everything – we’ve also got optimizations, basements and other fun stuff lined up for 42 but there’s not a huge amount of news on these beyond ‘it’s all coming along’. Hopefully we’ll have a few more updates on these in our next pre-Xmasdoid.

Fanks all love yus x

This week’s good use of 41 fire from BoinXaysa. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.

Now, the Block of Italicized Text demands: go and buy Dwarf Fortress on Steam! The original, best and most brilliant simulation there is – and ever shall be.
Its development, and developers, bay12games, are LEGENDARY and built the road that Project Zomboid travels on each and every day. Now DF is finally on Steam, and we implore you all to join in the fun!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/