Hello brave survivors. First of all, a recap for those who aren’t up to speed with the wonders of Build 30.

*Gravel voice*

“Last time, on Project Zomboid…”

*Exciting music*

Fast cut #1: A pretty lady smokes a cigarillo and looks a bit suspicious.

Fast cut #2: Build 30 is currently undergoing public testing, and you can find out how to join here.

Fast cut #3: A man shouts at an older man about who his real father is.

Fast cut #4: Build 30 contains the integration of TurboTuTone’s Erosion mod, the new medical system and the reintroduction of split-screen co-op.

Fast cut #5: A car drives off a big ramp in slow motion and looks awesome.

Fast cut #6: Build 30.7 was released last Mondoid tested out some mechanics that would make the game tougher such as our Endurance Revamp and new zombie clumping behaviours – alongside a new shader to make our world look more realistic.

Fast cut #7: The suspicious pretty lady does an evil smile

*Project Zomboid theme tune plays*

Builds 30.8 and 30.9

We recognise that not everyone watches the forums avidly, so here’s a brief recap of new additions. For the full run-down please click through here.

It’s been a really interesting week on our forums as the debate over our new exhaustion system boiled hither and thither – with, we think, a positive result through balancing and making the old system available to everyone via the Sandbox custom options. For a lengthy missive on what we’re doing in terms of Survival mode difficulty then Lemmy’s post on the Steam forums is also a good place to start.

The response was generally favourable, but the new exhaustion system hampered the gameplay of those who play the game with repeated melee swings without charging them up [the avoidance of which we will have to communicate better in future, beyond the Spiffo instruction screen]. As such, 30.8 tied endurance lost through swinging weapons to zombie damage instead – which was a necessary solution, even if it was somewhat at odds with realism. Along with 30.9 we also did a lot of general, running, stabbing and stamina regeneration balancing and are pretty happy with how it plays currently – and indeed the overall community response.

Amidst loads of bug fixing and zombie behaviour revamps, as part of RJ’s ‘Community Suggestion Coding Day’, we also introduced pickling and canning to the game, so vegetables can be given 2-3 months of extra life through cooking them up inside a jar with water, vinegar and sugar. Because we’re big meanies, we also reduced food spawn rates in general though…

Upcoming: Build 30.10

We’re now content locked on Build 30, and as such Build 30.10 will consist of balancing and bug fixing. We’re aiming for this week in terms of release, but ETAs etc etc. We hope that this will then become the public release that makes that big fancypants step out of the IWBUMS beta branch and into the public domain.

We are also sorry to say report that our watermelons might be alcoholic, and as such will have to be booze-nerfed.

Beyond!

This week has seen some exciting map work getting underway, as Binky and RingoD began unifying the layout of the new city-approach residential zone with the main map file – more of which [alongside Mash’s cool additions elsewhere] will be covered in a later Mondoid.

Initial work on Build 31 is also on course – alongside Lemmy’s ever-present NPC development and all the other must-haves we require before we break out of Early Access. The focus of the next build will be on stealth – that sneak key is about to get a lot more obvious/relevant – and we already have a build in which it’s possible to hug close to walls and nervously look around corners to provide a view-cone glimpse of what horrors could be shambling nearby. It’s all animated, but still looks a little rough as we haven’t implemented transition anims yet – hopefully we can chuck a video your way when it’s all in though.

Finally, new boy TurboTuTone has brought a really interesting (and complex) design for radio transmissions and broadcasts to the table – which will allow for writer Will’s work to spin out in many interesting new ways. That will be their focus in the run-up to Xmas. Oh, and RJ says there’ll be jam-making in a future build too. Which we’d imagine is something of a survival game first?

Until next Mondoid!

This week’s featured screenshot taken by Wick over on Steam.

And once again, we remind you to keep your eyes locked onto the TIS twitter for build updates and testing news, and if you can’t then why not subscribe to our newsletter so that you can have all the PZ goings on sent straight to your email?