Yet Another Zombie Survivors News

[h3]Welcome, Survivor![/h3]

We're releasing an update to both fix some issues that were present in version 0.5.0, as well as add some much-needed additions.

First of all, we apologize for the less-than-ideal state of some things within the previous version. These problems stem from some of the big changes that happened in the 0.5.0 public beta branch, which changed a lot of things. For example, the minor and major level-ups were reworked into the military training system, which drastically changed the pace of leveling itself.

We're sorry that we didn't address this properly before we released the 0.5 update, as we didn't want to make you wait any longer for the update. We'll do our best to make sure situations like this don't happen again with major version updates.

Moving on, this update brings:

• Improved leveling curve with more frequent level-ups.
  
• Better Military Training / passive level-up upgrade values / numbers.
  
• Higher chance of stackable items to reappear in Item Chests.
  
• Buffs to area of effect melee attacks, chemical damage, etc.
  
• New QoL features, gameplay tweaks, and fixes for reported issues.
  
• And more! (see below).

[hr][/hr][hr][/hr]
[h2]GAMEPLAY & BALANCE CHANGES:[/h2]

• Improved balance of experience progression for better gameplay feel (TLDR: more level-ups!).
  
• Further improvements to the passive leveling / military training system:
  
  • "Common", "Rare", and "Legendary" variants now offer much better bonuses, ranging from 2x to 4x better than in version 0.5.0.
    
  • Passive upgrades that appear when the level-up selection pool dries up are now of “Infinite” rarity, which usually defaults to half of the updated “Common” values.
    
  • Life Steal Chance and Amount passive upgrade cards have been removed (even tiny amounts of +% for these stats were really strong, but getting +0.05% upgrades didn't look good to players. We'll most likely rework these stats in a future update).
    
  • Slightly increased the rarity boost effect of the "Luck" stat.
    
  • Reduced the spawn rate of the Military Training powerup slightly to balance the changes above.
• Picked items now have a higher chance of reappearing in Item Chests if they have more than one available stack.
  
• (Ghost: / Pyro:) Area damage melee weapons now always hit all enemies within their radius (previously there was a limit to the number of enemies hit per attack), but their damage is greatly reduced after reaching a certain number of targets.
  
• (Medic:) Chemical damage over time now also deals additional damage equal to 1% of the enemy's maximum HP per tick.
  
• Engineer: "Energy Shield" ability base cooldown increased to 50 seconds (from 40).
  
• SWAT: "Grenade Trail" ability Amount stat increased by +2 and base damage increased by +50.
  
• Pyro: "Flamethrower" area of damage increased (also, killed zombies now have a burning visual effect).
  
• "Runner Zombie" enemy health points scaling reduced / nerfed.
  
• Endless: Horde stats adjusted - slighty faster HP growth, slighty slower damage growth.
  
• Adjusted spawn rate of various pick-up/power-ups.

[h2]QUALITY OF LIFE:[/h2]

• A visual representation of enemy that killed the player is now displayed at the endscreen interface.
  
• Stats that are at their cap (limit) are now grayed out and have an exclaim mark next to their value.
  
• The Reset Progress function in the Options menu now has a hold-to-confirm button to prevent accidental progress erasure.
  
• Added information in the bottom right corner of the screen to show the current status of the Manual Aim/Auto Fire settings when the game starts or when they're toggled using a hotkey.
  
• Changed "Team Level" to "Survival Level" to better differentiate between the in-game team level and the meta progression profile/account level.
  
• Tweaked the "hitbox" of the buttons on the character/map/game mode selection screens when using the mouse cursor.
  
• Added new sound effects. Please note that some sounds and their volumes are still under development.
  
• Added additional information about the "Reset Points" button to the "Forget It" achievement.
  
• Added a custom description for the Health Potion item to better convey information about how it works.
  
• Updated most instances of "reload speed" phrases to "weapon cooldown reduction".
  
• Changed the title of the "Kill Characters" option to "Conclude Run".
  
• Some other translation improvements.

[h2]ISSUE & BUG FIXES:[/h2]

• Entering menus while in-game should once again always pause the gameplay.
  
• The Steam API has been updated to the latest version, which should help with some savegame-related issues.
  
• SWAT: Bullets created by the "Ricochet" ability will now always spawn correctly on the enemy hit by the original projectile.
  
• Huntress: Leveling the "Arrow Penetration" ability will no longer wrongly decrease the chance of its effect to occure.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause the movement speed decreasing effect of "Frozen" status to stack multiple times, instead of always causing an exact -50% movement speed debuff on the enemy.
  
• Fixed the stacking amounts of the "Teddy Bear" and "Golden Key" items.
  
• Using the "Switch Tab" key while in the "Reset Progress" option of the Options menu will no longer break the options interface.
  
• Fire Walk With Me" achievement progress is now saved correctly and no longer resets between game restarts.
  
• Fixed the "Fatigue" popup in the pause menu displaying an incorrect tooltip.
  
• Fixed weapon and ability usage endscreen times to properly display values greater than 60 minutes.
  
• The visual representation of the experience bar should no longer freeze in rare cases.
  
• Other minor bug fixes and improvements.

[hr][/hr]
For the next major update (0.6), we have decided to focus on the current state of meta progression, among other things.

We plan to both expand the meta progression skill-tree and introduce per-Survivor skill-trees, which will allow us to easily add new powers, enhancements, and ability modifiers in the future.



Here's one of our early WiP concept arts for one of its pages. Let us know what do you think about it!

[hr][/hr]
In addition, we've partnered with Wiki.gg to open an official Yet Another Zombie Wiki!

[h2]https://yetanotherzombie.wiki.gg[/h2]

It's still in its infancy, but you can check it below, as well as help us fill it with new content.
If you'd like to help us in maintainging it, be sure to come to #yazs-wiki on our Discord!

As always, we're grateful for all of your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. Thank you! ːheart_meː

ㅤStay awesome,
ㅤㅤAwesome Games Studio


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2163330/

[h3]Welcome, Survivor![/h3]

Update 0.5 - "Fire Walk With Me" is finally here!

It's taken us some time to finish, but we hope this update was worth the wait, as it's the biggest one yet! Here are some of the highlights:

[h2]New Survivor: Pyro[/h2]

Once a firefighter, he found himself in a somewhat unhealthy relationship with burning flames. Though unpredictable and impulsive, his true nature is that of a kind soul who'll walk through inferno to help his comrades survive the hell on Earth.

Pyro is a specialist character, offering both melee and ranged damage options. Focusing primarily on fire damage, he can be incredibly resilient, as his tolerance for pain has allowed him to not only survive the fiery hells, but also allow the entire team to gain strength as they lose health!

As he is tied to an update that introduces elemental damage mechanics, he not only excels at dealing this type of damage, but also boosts all elemental damage dealt by the rest of his squad. We hope you'll find Pyro a fun addition to your teams, and that his flames will heat up this cold winter season.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

[h2]Stat Reworks & Elemental Damage[/h2]

One of the reasons this update has taken so long to complete is because of the amount of under-the-hood code changes we've made to the game. We've improved the number generation mechanisms on several fronts, both the obvious ones and the more cryptic ones.

We've tweaked all the stats for every single one of them so that the higher the number you get, the better the outcome. Say goodbye to "the lower this statistic is, the better". We've also tweaked the armor stat, which had a bit of a wonky implementation before, being a flat amount of damage reduction. Now it's a percentage, so if you have 50% armor, you take 50% less damage from every single source.

In addition to the stat tweaks, we've also added brand new ones, from the previously missing Critical Chance and Damage to the fan-favorite and much-requested Ability Area and Duration. But that's not all! There are now four additional damage modifiers tied to each of the game's elements: Fire, Ice, Electric and Chemical. Investing in these will hopefully increase build variety, but more importantly, it'll allow us to introduce new fun synergies in future versions of the game!

ㅤ

[h2]Passive / Minor Level-ups[/h2]

Here's a fun addition to the gameplay that we hope you'll all enjoy: In addition to normal leveling during a run, you'll now be able to earn new powerups that, when collected, will directly increase your team's stats. These upgrades are per run only and can be earned indefinitely, so when you run out of weapons and abilities to choose from on the leveling screens, you'll be then offered these passive upgrades instead.

Items that served a similar purpose in the past have been reworked and repurposed to both add interesting new gameplay effects and serve as "pros vs cons" gameplay modifiers to provide more build variety. Note that in a future update (hopefully 0.6), we'll also be adding an option to customize the pool of available items, allowing for further customization of each player's gameplay.

With the introduction of infinite upgrades, we've also had to implement hard caps for some stats, as in several cases, stat celling was required. For example, reaching 100% in either Dodge Chance or Armor would make your characters invincible, and most of us can agree that wouldn't make for very exciting gameplay in the long run. Don't worry though, both the stat scaling and the caps are subject to change as more content is unlocked in future updates.



[h2]New Original Soundtrack![/h2]

Some of you may remember the cool and catchy tunes we had in our previous title, Fury Unleashed. These were created by our friends and industry veterans who also worked on titles like The Witcher, Bulletstorm, and Shadow Warrior 2.

Well, Adam Skorupa, Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz & Michał Cielecki are back in action, and we're happy to let you know that they'll be handling the audio side of things for YAZS. Since the game is still in Early Access, both the OST and sound effects libraries will grow over time, and we'll be incorporating their work into our game from now on!

With the introduction of the 0.5 update, we're adding new music to the game, which currently consists of the main menu theme and two music tracks for each of the available maps (five tracks in total). In addition, the level music now consists of an intro theme and a separate loop for when the gameplay unfolds and the action really gets going.

Different game modes also offer music of different intensity: Normal & Nightmare variations of the songs. In the future, we'll be exploring new ways to incorporate music into the game to create an exciting and heart-pounding experience, so be sure to let us know what you think of the new OST!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[hr][/hr][hr][/hr]
[h2]GAMEPLAY CHANGES & ADDITIONS:[/h2]

• New playable Survivor - Pyro. Melee/ranged hybrid focused on fire-type elemental damage.
  
• Enemies now drop a new power-up - Military Training. Collecting 4 of these grants a choice of 4 random per-run passive stat improvements.
  
• Elemental damage system and new stat scaling for set Survivor's weapons and abilities: Fire, Ice, Electric, Chemical.
  
• New stats: Ability Duration, Ability Area, Ability Critical Chance, Ability Critical Damage.
  
• Stat reworks: Armor (percentage damage reduction), Ability & Weapon Cooldown Reduction (+% instead of -%).
  
• Passive stat options are now offered indefinitely instead of money/health in cases of empty reward pools.
  
• 17 new items added, 28+ item reworked (item banning / pool customisation planned for Update 0.6).
  
• 18 new achievements + redesigned item rewards for most of past and current ones.
  
• Completely new, original soundtrack, with different intros & loops and separate normal & hardcore versions of songs.
  
• New sound effects and improvements to existing ones.

[h2]QUALITY OF LIFE:[/h2]

• UI/UX reworks and QoL tweaks for multiple different interfaces.
  
• Items now show their maximum stack amounts at the selection screen and in their popups (e.g. 1/3).
  
• Active ability effects are now displayed above the Survivor's in-game position.
  
• Damage numbers are now also colored to show what damage type is being dealt.
  
• New level-up description system implemented: "Current >> New" instead of "New (+changed by)".
  
• New accessibility option: HUD Transparency (for abilities and item icons).
  
• New accessibility option: Arachnophobia mode.
  
• Weapon volume option added to sound settings.
  
• "Toggle Auto Fire" key added to control binding options (defaults are: T key / left thumbstick button).
  
• Improved default controller binding to better take 4 options in selection interfaces into consideration.
  
• Large numbers now show spaces as separators (e.g. 12 734 125 instead of 12734125).
  
• SWAT's "Pistol" weapon changed from an unspecified handgun to a Desert Eagle.
  
• Language/translation improvements & terms unification, such as:
  
  • "Weapon Fire Rate" renamed to "Weapon Attack Speed".
    
  • "Weapon Reload Speed" renamed to "Weapon Cooldown Reduction".
    
  • "Team Level" in main menu and skill-tree renamed to "Account Level".

[h2]ISSUE & BUG FIXES:[/h2]

• Potential fix for rare cases of save game being reset.
  
• Achievement panel now displays correctly on ultrawide resolutions.
  
• Potential fix for freezes related to V-Sync being enabled on some of the 60+ Hz displays (if problem continues, please check if turning V-Sync off and limiting FPS to 60 in game's options fixes the issue).
  
• Yet another set of improvements to aiming AI and game's overall optimization.
  
• Other minor fixes.

[h2]ITEM CHANGES:[/h2]

• New items added: Detective's Pipe, Icon of Cinder, Icon of Stillness, Icon of Tempest, Icon of Pestilence, Spoil Canister, Special Snowflake, Jacob's Ladder, Plague's Visage, Zugzwang Hypergaster XD, Glass Cannon, Bells & Whistles, Camping Set, Pocket Watch, Golden Key, Jewel of Life, Jewel of Death.
  
• Armor stat values of multiple items were adjusted for the stat update (flat damage reduction amount changed to percentage-based).
  
• Items modified to offer an extended or more interesting stat variations: Axe, Wrench, Bolts & Nuts, Compass, Duck Tape, Electric Perosnality, Frozen Heart, Frying Pan, Giant Enemy Crab, Lucky Bill, Slingshot & Toilet Paper.
  
• "Chocolate Box" now increases armor by 20% (from flat +70) when its effect is active.
  
• "MedKit" now also instantly restores 25% health points but decreases Movement Speed by 50% for 5s.
  
• "Health Potion" now instantly restores 100% health points.
  
• "Congratulation Letter" now has a new effect: Increases Movement speed stat by +50% for 5s after gaining a level-up.
  
• "Coffee Cup" now has a new effect: defeating a boss increases the Ability Cooldown Reduction and Ability Duration by 25% for 3s.
  
• Items "Barrel Roll", "Power Glove" and "T-Pose Doll" reworked so that they offer different bonuses than invincibility frames.
  
• "Apple" now has a new effect: For each 200 points of maximum HP, increases Health Regeneration by +1/s.
  
• "Suspicious Pendrive" now has a new effect: Opening an Item Chest creates an explosion around the Survivors, pushing enemies back.
  
• "Self Care" now has a new effect: When HP drops under 20%, vaccums all healthpaks from the map. Effect can activate up to once per minute.
  
• "Pills" now has a new effect: You are now able to collect health pickups when at max health. Each health pickup collected this way gives you a damage buff of +100% for 5s.
  
• "Teddy Bear" now has a new effect: Every charge of Lockdown, Reroll, and Banish now have a chance to not be consumed.
  
• Fan favored "Annoying Trumpet" reintroduced, with a new effect: When you get hit, you have a 25% chance to create an explosion around the Survivors, pushing enemies back.
  
• "Potato" now has 1 stack (from 3) and its effect is boosted to 50% (from 15% per stack).

[h2]BALANCE CHANGES:[/h2]

• Level-up selection screens now always offer 4 options, instead of 3 + 1 on full teams.
  
• Item chests now always offer 4 options, instead of 3.
  
• All weapons & abilities now have 4 levels instead of 5/3.
  
• All weapons & abilities stats tweaked accordingly to the new leveling curve.
  
• Most stats now have hard caps, which can be displayed in their popup windows (these clamps will be tweaked with future content additions).
  
• Base yellow XP gems value increased from 10 to 11 (blue gems scale 5x of this value).
  
• One Hit: Vile Wasteland wave definitions rebalanced to offer a fairer challenge.
  
• "Protocol: Critical" became a passive ability, which focuses on buffing Ability Critical Chance and Damage.
  
• Engineer's weapon "Laser" now deals continuous damage.
  
• Other balance and number tweaks.

[hr][/hr][hr][/hr]
As mentioned above, there are a few things we want to do for the next major update. While we have a lot of things planned, we'd also like you to enjoy smaller but more frequent updates, so some of the upcoming features may come in pieces rather than one huge patch.

Our next goals for 0.6 and beyond are (among others):
[h3]

• A new map

[/h3]
This also means new enemy types/variations, new stage hazards, and new music tracks. It goes without saying, but there's more to making a new map than just the level design, so we appreciate your patience while you wait for more of this content. We'll do our best!
[h3]

• Skill-tree rework

[/h3]
We're well aware that many of you have filled it up way back in the past and are longing for more meta progression to be added. We're thinking about a new implementation that will hopefully give you many more skill nodes to spend points on, as well as an easy way for us to implement new ones in the future. Thank you for your patience!
[h3]

• Item pool customization

[/h3]
Yes, there are a lot of items in the game, and we couldn't help but add more >_[h3]

• Optimization improvements

[/h3]
While we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, there is a real possibility that the next update will bring a pretty big performance boost. With the help of some of our friends' experience, behind-the-scenes code tweaks, and planned updates to many of our tools and the engine itself, we expect the game to continue to run better and better. Even if it would turn out to be a small improvement, get ready for one coming soon!
[h3]

• Elite enemies

[/h3]
While we already have "normal" bosses in the game, and we've always thought about the possibility of adding stronger main bosses, we'll try to take a step back as we'll most likely first implement the elite variants of each enemy. We hope that they will serve as an exciting addition to your standard gameplay loop, as they will both be more challenging to defeat than standard enemies, but also offer greater rewards when defeated. What do you think of this idea?
[h3]

• Synergies

[/h3]
While we originally planned for these to come sooner, we'll try to implement different ways for things to work well together. We're discussing possibilities, such as the element, item, and ability combinations working together to create additional effects. We'll try to implement some of those in upcoming updates!
[h3]

• Lots of other things...

[/h3]
This consists of both our and your ideas for content additions. There are a lot of them! We'd like to keep the scope of the game realistic, but after reading some of your suggestions, we can't help but wonder what else is in store for us in this adventure together!


Thank you for being with us, playing, giving us feedback, reporting issues, and leaving us reviews on Steam! Be sure to check out our roadmap to see what we are currently focused on: https://trello.com/b/Ipc33X20/yet-another-zombie-survivors-roadmap


Special thanks to all of our beta testers who helped us make version 0.5 a great update (we hope!). We are always grateful for your support, but those who have played this public beta know how much YAZS has changed for the better based on your suggestions and feedback. Thank you so much!

If you'd like to, be sure to hop on any of our social media profiles and/or our Discord server:

ㅤ  @AwesomeGamesStd
ㅤ  @AwesomeGamesStudio
ㅤ  @awesomegamesstudio
ㅤ  @awesomegamesstudio
ㅤ  https://discord.gg/m4JfXuS


Thank you everyone! Show the Horde the meaning of FIRE!

ㅤStay awesome,
ㅤㅤAwesome Games Studio


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2163330/

[h2]Welcome, Survivor![/h2]

First of all: Merry Christmas!

Whether you join in the festivities or not, we wish you a wonderful holiday season. While various circumstances have prevented us from bringing you a full update release just yet, we'd like to invite you to see first-hand what we're working on in the Update 0.5 Public Beta.


IMPORTANT: To reduce any possible confusion and accelerate the implementation of changes, please keep all the discussion related to the test versions to the spaces listed below:

• A dedicated #yazs-beta channel on our Discord server.
  
• "Public Beta Test" sub forum on YAZS Steam forums.
  
• Comments under this post.

You can also send us your feedback at [email protected]
adding "0.5.0 BETA" somewhere in the title of your message. Thanks!

[hr][/hr][h2]How to join the Public Beta Test?[/h2][hr][/hr]
Want to help us out & get an early look at the new version of the game? Awesome!

[h3]DISCLAIMER: Before jumping straight in, please understand, that this version of the game might be unstable, create issues when switching between old & new builds of the game, and may generally be less stable, more buggy, and in an overall imperfect state. We will do our best to help you with any issues, but please understand the risks associated with beta testing.[/h3]

If you understand the potential problems and are willing to take the risk, here's how you can get in:

[h2]How to join:[/h2]

1. Open your Steam client, find Yet Another Zombie Survivors on your games list, right-click its name and select the "Properties..." option.
   
2. Enter the "Betas" tab, click the "None" drop-down menu on the right, and select the "public-beta" option. You can always return to the default version of the game by selecting "None" again.
   
3. If you want to share your feedback about the beta version (thanks in advance!), click the image below to join our Discord server (you'll need an account for that, but it'll be worth it, believe me!):
   
   
   
4. When joined, you will be able to comment on the current beta version in the new #yazs-beta forums, which you can join by selecting it from the drop-down list:
   
5. And that's all! If the beta/test version of the game is different from the current one, the Steam will update the game with its changes. You will know that the Beta Branch is active from the "[public-beta]" text to the right of the game's title in your game's library.

[hr][/hr][h2]What should I test in this version?[/h2][hr][/hr]
There are multiple things we'd like you to take a look at and share your feedback on them.

Here are some of the things added/changed in this version:

• New leveling system:
  
  • Minor level-ups offering passive stat upgrades.
    
  • Major level-ups offering weapon & ability upgrades.
    
  • All weapons & abilities to have 3 levels instead of 5.
    
  • Always 4 selection options in major level-ups.
    
  • Increased XP gain and decreased level requirements.
    
  • Minor level-up options instead of money/health in cases of empty reward pools.
• New stats: Ability Duration, Area, Critical Chance, Critical Damage.
  
• Elemental damage system and new stat scaling: Fire, Ice, Electric, Chemical.
  
• Stat reworks: Armor (percentage damage reduction), Ability & Weapon Cooldown Reduction.
  
• New playable Survivor, melee/ranged hybrid focused on fire-type elemental damage.
  
• 17 new items, 28 item reworks (item banning / pool customisation planned for Update 0.6).
  
• 18 new achievements + redesigned item rewards for most.
  
• UI/UX reworks of multiple different interfaces + language improvements / terms unification.
  
• Completion marks for game modes, different for one victory and completion with all team leaders.
  
• Balance changes and systems update to weapons & abilities.
  
• New accessibility option: Arachnophobia mode.
  
• New soundtrack & sound effects improvements.
  
• Potential fix for freezes related to V-Sync being enabled on some of the 120+Hz displays.

We're especially interested in your feedback on:

• How do you like the new leveling system?
  
• For you, is the game as fun as it was before, or less / more?
  
• What do you feel about the current game difficulty & balance?

Please remember that Elemental Damage Sources & Synergies is a work in progress that will likely take more than one update to fully complete and polish. Please also note that there are a lot of changes under the hood in this update, which will hopefully make each future update faster to develop.

Given the holiday season and the amount of system changes this update will bring, we expect the 0.5 beta to run until around the first half of January, after which we will release an updated version of the game.

Thank you so much for your support and for your patience
Have an awesome, warm holiday!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2163330/Yet_Another_Zombie_Survivors/


[hr][/hr][h2]HOTFIX 1:[/h2][hr][/hr]

• Pyro now unlocks properly.
  
• Base experience per XP gem increased to 15 from 13.
  
• Huntress's Explosive Arrows are exploding once again.
  
• Glass Cannon now properly works as described (removes 10% of max HP).
  
• Apple now has the correct description and works properly. Also it grants +1hp/s for each 200 max HP now.
  
• Item Chest Chest now properly increases Dodge Chance by 0.2% per chest instead of 2%.
  
• Jewel of Life should work properly now (previously it did resurrect the player but somehow still passed the damage, so when killed on low HP or when overkilled it would just kill them again).
  
• Music should not glitch out that much anymore.
  
• Pyro achievement description now correctly displays the required elemental damage value.
  
• Nuts & Bolts now correctly highlight Weapon Damage when highlighted.
  
• Eagle Eye and Critical Protocol now apply correct values on leveling up.
  
• Eagle Eye now grants +20% Critical Damage on level 2 and +10 Critical chance on level 3 instead of +8/+8 on each.
  
• Critical Protocol now grants +20% Critical Damage on level 2 and +10 Critical chance on level 3 instead of +8/+8 on each.
  
• Added Weapons Volume to Game Options (also please keep in mind that a total SFX rework is currently in progress).
  
• Barrel Roll now grants +0.1s immunity time
  
• MedKit now slows the player accordingly instead of speeding up
  
• Toilet Paper now grants +5% Chemical Damage per stack (previously 25%)
  
• Limit of carried Camping Sets set to 1 (previously incorrectly 3)
  
• Arrow Rain particles now properly scale with Ability Area
  
• Progress bar isn't displayed in the Achievements Menu anymore when achievement is unlocked.
  
• Banish now works properly for minor level-ups.
  
• Added Weapons Volume to Game Options (also please keep in mind that a total SFX rework is currently in progress).

Also, a note from us, developers - we really want to thank you for your feedback! It helps us a ton to know what's good for the game and what's not. We also want to assure you that every single one of your messages is read. We may not have enough resources to answer them, but we do receive them and we do read them (by the way, the current record for the length of a single feedback we received is 12,168 characters).

In the meantime - once again, we wish you all happy holidays!

[hr][/hr][h2]HOTFIX 2:[/h2][hr][/hr]

• Introduced stat clamp mechanic (which will be further improved and balanced throughout the game updates).
  
• “Stimpack“ now work as described.
  
• “Protocol: Critical“ no longer shows duration stat, since it's now a passive ability.
  
• “Fury Unleashed“ now displays correct values.
  
• Ghost's 3rd tier weapons were slightly buffed.
  
• Achievement panel now displays correctly on widescreen resolutions.
  
• To complement the Armor rework, Fatigue debuff now increases maximum damage received up to 10,000, from 5,000.
  
• Added HUD transparency (item & skill icons) to accessibility options.
  
• “Om nom nom“ achievement once again correctly calculates zombies eaten by the Desert Worm.
  
• Dodge now works correctly.
  
• “Apple“ now correctly adds value to pickup.
  
• Interface no longer freezes when player obtains all available items.
  
• Large numbers now show spaces as separators (so 12 734 125 instead of 12734125).
  
• Fixed some SFXs (hello, SWATs turret).
  
• “Laser”, “Blowtorch“ and “Flamethrower“ weapons now deal continuous damage (along with “set on fire” damage for the latter two).

What now? After fixing some critical bugs and “band-aiding” the balance we want to focus on polishing the fun factor.Some of the things we're considering right now:

• Slowing down leveling a bit but returning level-ups to their previous "ability & weapon upgrades only" shape.
  
• Keeping minor (stat/passive) level-ups, but moving these to a different in-game event (radio support/shop), where you would be able to trade yet unspecified per-run gathered points for them.
  
• Adding some not yet precised minor balance & fun changes

[hr][/hr][h2]HOTFIX 3:[/h2][hr][/hr]

• Core leveling system returned to its pre-0.5 shape, but now offering 4 options instead of 3.
  
• Enemies can now drop a new power-up type, that grants passive upgrades (AKA minor level-ups) when a separate bar is filled.
  
• Minor level-up options are now also available when the weapon/ability upgrade pool runs dry.
  
• Weapons and abilities now have 4 levels, instead of 3 (or 5).
  
• Item chests now always offer 4 options, instead of 3.
  
• Lots of new sound effects (please share your feedback on these).
  
• Most weapons were tuned down to a form similar to their 0.4.2 counterparts.
  
• Items: Barrel Roll, Power Glove and T-Pose Doll reworked so that they offer different bonuses than invincibility frames.
  
• "Beeping sounds" removed from the first level's music track.
  
• Lots of other bugfixes, refractions, and number tweaks.

[hr][/hr][h2]HOTFIX 4:[/h2][hr][/hr]

• Military Training points spawn a bit more often.
  
• Military Training pick-ups no longer despawn and have a “blob” indicator enabled.
  
• Military Training’s amount needed to level-up is now displayed under its new progress bar.
  
• Military Training level-up now offers 4 options, instead of 3.
  
• Statistics are now correctly shown when hovering the cursor over them on the Military Training level-up screen.
  
• Shotgun damage slightly lowered and it’s reload time increased by 0.25s.
  
• Added “Toggle Auto Fire” to binding options (default: F/Left Stick Button).
  
• New level-up description system implemented (“Current >> New” instead of “New (+changed by)”.
  
• Fixed descriptions for some items that were incorrectly displaying substracting stat while in reality they increased it.
  
• Improved default controller binding to better take 4 options in selection interfaces into consideration.

Let us know what you think about these and thank you 🤟

ㅤStay awesome,
ㅤㅤAwesome Games Studio

[h3]Welcome, Survivor![/h3]

We're happy to announce, that we're taking part in this year's Steam Autumn Sale!

You can get a copy of YAZS at a 20% discount and vote for us in this event!

[hr][/hr][h3]Have you been enjoying your chill evenings in the Isolated City?
How about voting for us in the "Sit Back and Relax" category?[/h3][hr][/hr]
In other news, our work on Update 0.5 is progressing well. We still don't have an exact timeframe for its release, but when it hits the public beta branch, it will certainly warm up the winter season 🔥❄️

In the meantime, we've got something awesome for you!

We'd like to give you a small preview of the upcoming YAZS Original Soundtrack!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The new music is composed by Adam Skorupa, Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz & Michał Cielecki, who you might know from their work on the OST's for titles such as The Witcher and Shadow Warrior 2.

Let us know what you think of this original composition and get ready for more bangers!

Thank you, see you next time ❤️

ㅤStay awesome,
ㅤㅤAwesome Games Studio


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2163330/

[h3]Welcome, Survivors![/h3]

We're happy that you're enjoying the content update we've prepared by the end of October.

Here's another devlog with juicy news from us and our friends. Enjoy the read!


ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ


[hr][/hr]

• [h2]Help us by filling a quick survey![/h2]

[hr][/hr]
We always want to hear the opinions of our players loud and clear and understand your feelings about the current state of the game. We would therefore like to invite you to take part in this important survey:

ㅤㅤ👉 https://forms.gle/M71fVXyUHXSCWVwYA

If you can, please take a quick look at the survey at the link above. It should only take a few minutes.

While we always take into account any feedback you give us (Steam forums, our Discord, feedback form, emails & social media comments), we would also like to invite you to fill out this short online survey, the content of which will be very important in shaping the future of Yet Another Zombie Survivors!


ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤThank you for your participation!

[hr][/hr]

• [h2]Demo Version has been updated![/h2]

[hr][/hr]
The YAZS demo was in a strange place. Not only did it offer a rather ancient representation of the game, being around 4 months old, but it also offered no way of transferring your progress from it to the Early Access version.

Well, no more! We're updating the demo to include the latest improvements and quality-of-life features, including now-standard features such as mouse movement, manual aim/shoot, indicator positions and FSR support. Gameplay-wise, the demo is largely the same as before, but with the added compatibility, you will now be able to transfer your training points, character progression and achievements to the full version!

Due to the amount of changes that have been made, this demo is not compatible with saves made in the previous, old version. This is unfortunate, but we decided it was better to update the demo than to keep the old, outdated saves that can't be used in the full version. On the bright side, this demo update will allow us to compile future demo versions much more easily than before.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2265230/


If you decide to give the new demo a try, we hope you enjoy it!


[hr][/hr]

• [h2]What are we working on currently?[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
In the interests of complete transparency, we'd like to share some thoughts on the current direction of development we're aiming for. As always, please bear in mind that everything we write here is subject to change and much of it is just "on paper".

Firstly, we need to do some work on the in-game stats and the code behind them. Some of the stats are calculated as flat values and can't be changed with percentages (e.g. Armour, HP+). Others benefit when their number is reduced rather than increased (e.g. Cooldown, Weapon Reload), so they need to be reworked to provide a more streamlined experience. As well as tweaking the above, we're also thinking about introducing two new stat types that have been requested by players, namely "Ability Range" and "Ability Duration", which on paper should increase the number of build combinations and make it more fun to experiment with abilities.

Thirdly, there's the issue of element/attack types, which I think most of us would agree would add a lot to the gameplay. While we already have Normal, Explosive, Fire, Electric, Ice & Antidote attack types, the game itself doesn't see them as different from each other. We think it's time to change that and introduce stats for each element, as well as the possibility for them to overlap, potentially creating a lot of fun synergies. While the synergy part is quite a big thing, and we believe it will take a few updates to fully implement, we have to start somewhere, and that's what we plan to do with the upcoming 0.5 update.

One pretty big change we're planning to test internally is the reworking of the level-up and item mechanics. Currently, each level-up offers weapon & ability upgrades, which can feel a bit repetitive, and the upgrade paths can get a bit old after a while (5 upgrades -> 5 evolved upgrades -> 3 yet another evolved upgrades). Players may also not get the weapon evolution they want, and roll the other available instead. There's also no real place to get bonuses to different team stats outside of the item chest system. These are some of the reasons why we're thinking of implementing the changes listed below:

1. Minor level-ups which offer a selection of randomized stat bonuses to choose from (e.g. movement speed, cooldown reduction, dodge chance).
   
2. Every other third level-up to be a major level-up (with additional visual effects), offering the classic new/upgrade option of Weapons and Abilities.
   
3. Weapons and Abilities, to have 2/3 upgrade levels instead of 5, to compensate for the now rarer major level-up panels.
   
4. Adding an additional evolution option for all current and future weapons, which would be an improved version of the first/second weapon in the evolution line (e.g. Super Shotgun for Tank).
   
5. Evolution options to be a single level-up selection option, where you're able to freely select which evolution you want to take (e.g. Laser / Blaster / WIP Tesla upgrade).
   
6. Reworking item chests to offer just the advanced items, like the ones with special features, as basic "+5 bonuses" are now in the minor level-up panels.
   
7. The experience curve will be adjusted to provide enough experience for the major level-ups to not feel too far between.

Ooh, that's a lot of information to take in at once, but let us know what you think of these potential revisions we're planning. There's also the new Survivor we'd like to add in 0.5 while we're working on the above, so the next update might take a little longer than usual, but we'll do our best to make it fire! 🔥


[hr][/hr]

• [h2]We've got a new team member![/h2]

[hr][/hr]
Meet Wioletta, who has joined us in the Quality Assurance department!

She's been a great help to us in the past. If you've been to any of the Poznań Game Arena (PGA) events in Poland, you might have seen her at our booth. Now she's officially a member of the team, helping with bug reports, testing, finding and confirming the problems that have appeared or might appear in our titles. Here's a word from her - make sure you give her a warm welcome:

ㅤ

[hr][/hr]

• [h2]Bullet Heaven Fest (November 6th - 20th)[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
We'll be taking part in a brand new Steam event, as for the first time in gaming history there will be an event dedicated to the emerging genre of reverse bullet hell/horde survival games, of which YAZS is a proud representative.

The event takes place from November 6th 10:AM PST to 20th 10:AM PST. You'll be able to play tons of different games in the genre and acquire them at a discounted rate. This pairs nicely with yet another discount on our part, as well as an updated demo version that you can now check out if you're still undecided, or tell your friends about!

And if you're reading this as someone who just found out about Yet Another Zombie Survivors - welcome to the party! We're doing our best to make a great game in close cooperation with our community, constantly adding/changing/improving things based on player feedback, so we hope you'll join us on this adventure!

Feel free to check out the Bullet Heaven Fest event page:

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41046058/sale/BulletHeavenFest



[hr][/hr]
Thank you for reading. Thank you even more for your continued support! We wouldn't be where we are without your comments, feedback, suggestions, Steam reviews and all the things that you are doing to help us make this one of the best Bullet Heaven games ever!

We'll continue to do our best, and while it sometimes (often) takes us longer than expected, we can guarantee that we're doing our best to give you a crazy fun title to enjoy!

If you'd like to, be sure to hop on any of our social media profiles and/or our Discord server:

  @AwesomeGamesStd   @AwesomeGamesStudio   @awesomegamesstudio   @awesomegamesstudio   https://discord.gg/m4JfXuS


Thank you, stay warm this season and have fun slaying the hordes!

ㅤStay awesome,
ㅤㅤAwesome Games Studio


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2163330/