Hello desperate survivor. I can offer you the latest news on Project Zomboid development in return for two Spiffos OR ten nails. Okay, thank you. That will just about do. Now let’s just go our separate ways… but not before we hit you with the baseball bat of Build 32 banditry of course!

Build 32 is currently in internal testing – the top-line of which is the extended crafting system (featuring traps and generators), the new challenges, the new tutorial and a myriad of tweaks, fixes and under-the-hood fiddlings. It’s going well so far. Here are some new items of note that will also feature.

New Zombie Respawn and Management system

Deep in EasyPickins’ Canadian fix factory, a new zombie-respawning system has emerged from a fiery furnace. Below is a pictorial rendition, accompanied by the man himself’s explanation.

“This picture shows a part of West Point. Each large rectangle is one cell (300×300 tiles). The small rectangle is the loaded part of the map around the player. Each red dot is one zombie. The yellow dots are the ‘real’ zombies in the loaded part of the map. In the top-left corner of each cell you can see the number of zombies in that cell followed by the number of zombies there were when the game first started (the desired population). The third number is how many hours before new zombies can spawn.”

“The sandbox option ‘Zombies Respawn Interval’ controls how often zombies respawn. Zombies will respawn only when the current population in a cell is lower than the desired population. In multiplayer, the HoursForZombiesRespawn server option is used instead. In survival mode this is set to ‘Every Day’. Meanwhile, the sandbox option ‘Zombies Respawn Percent’ controls how many zombies respawn in each of these intervals – adding a percentage and then another percentage until it hits a overall desired population. In MP the ZombiesRespawnPercent server option is used instead, and in Survival mode this is set to ‘10 percent’.

“Zombies won’t respawn in loaded parts of the map. This is to avoid zombies popping up in front of the player, and to double-down on stopping players from noticing it they also won’t spawn in any part of the map that was loaded within the last hour of game time.”

“Another benefit of this new system is that zombies should never respawn in any buildings or fenced-off areas. The game will check to see if there is a clear path from one randomly-chosen square on the edge of the world to the place it wants to place new zombies. If a path can’t be found, then no zombies will be spawned in that part of the map.”

You Have One Day Challenge

A challenge that we’re getting ready now, but will likely release towards the end of the Build 32 IWBUMS process to keep things fresh, is a challenge that takes place in the old PZ map from the 0.1.5d days. Community mapper BobHeckling rebuilt it with the current PZ toolset, and with his permission it’s now going to be part of the full game.

The challenge gives you one day of relative safety – filled with only sporadic zombies who won’t attack you. Come morning, however, zombies will arrive in huge numbers – and they will find you.

The jury is currently out on whether we recreate the old jukebox crash bug, but other than that your nostalgia glands should be pumping out rose-tinted endorphins like no-one’s business…

Death by Mall

The moment the zeds break through in the Opening Hours challenge is so much fun that we wanted to share. Slight spoilers in that it’s better to play, rather than watch. (It’s still good to watch though!)

Other Stuff

There’s currently a lot of work going into making the online experience smoother and far less niggly both as player and admin. There’s several irons in the fire on this one, some big and some small, so hopefully you’ll start to see improvements in both build 32 and 33. Oh, and in 32 you can remove broken glass from windows too by the way. Which will be a relief to patched up legs/groins everywhere.

We’ll hopefully be seeing some streamers and youtubers blessed with an early version of Build 32 showing off our wares later this week, so keep an eye on @theindiestone for news on that. See you all next week!

Oh, and check out the Russian community’s awesome Spiffo drawing contest. Still some time to go if you want to join in!

Today’s Featured Image taken by your own correspondent after a TV dinner burning incident after 25 hours in the You Have One Day Challenge. Want to get Mondoid in your email inbox amidst all the other companies pleading for your attention? Click here!