Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Infection Free Zone
Major Update #4 - Terrain Elevation, Merchant, Car Workshop and Animals
Greetings, Survivors!
The time has come! A new update for Infection Free Zone is now available on Steam and we cannot wait to see your feedback! We are introducing some huge, new features, and one that was probably the hardest to implement in the history of Infection Free Zone so far - the terrain elevation. We have also been constantly verifying your feedback. That's why some significant balance changes are present in this update too. As you may notice, we haven't been able to introduce the Lairs yet. This feature is planned for release during the next update. Let's check all the changes in the newest version!
Highlights
Terrain Elevation and 3D Roads have been added (enable it via checkbox in Game Customization).
Edinburgh and San Francisco have been added as built-in maps. Those maps are recommended to try the Terrain Elevation.
Merchant and Trading Events have been added.
A Car Workshop building (with Car Construction/Modification/Deconstruction) has been added.
Tree Planting area work has been added,
Forrester Hut building has been added. Workers assigned to this building will plant trees nearby automatically.
Sawmill building has been added. Workers assigned to this building will cut down the nearby trees automatically.
Huntable Animals - Boars and Deer have been added. Huntable animals drop Raw Meat for further processing in the Cookhouse
Infected Animals - Cattle, Moose, and Bears have been added as a serious threat. Check if your chosen map can spawn them, as they do not appear in every location.
Story Alteration (different storylines can occur first) has been added.
Balance
The amount of ammunition that can be stored in Pistol, Shotgun, and Sniper Rifle weapons has been increased to 200.
The amount of ammunition in 1 crate has been increased from 100 to 200 ammo.
The amount of ammunition crates that can be found during scavenging has been decreased accordingly.
Building Fortification has been rebalanced and is now 3 times longer when increasing the Building's HP. The Building HP acquired from Fortification has been increased from +30% to +50%.
The Sniper Rifle has been rebalanced and now requires 2 ammo per shot. The cooldown between the shots has been increased from 3.3s to 3.66s.
Squad members' skill acquisition has been rebalanced. The squads now get x2 more exp for fighting skills from killing infected enemies and x1.3 more exp for driving skills from driving. They also get x4 less exp for scavenging skills from scavenging. This should help avoid a situation where most squads have scavenging-related skills.
The HP for all Wall types has been increased by 50%.
The Mood drop time has been increased to avoid the situations where players have instant issues when trying to repair shelters or other important social buildings.
The amount of gatherable metal from different objects on the map has been increased by 12%-50%, depending on the object.
The amount of secondary resources obtainable from deconstruction has been increased. In most cases, this will result in fewer bricks and more metal and wood from deconstruction.
Vehicle wreck spawning has been updated and there should be more of them next to the roads.
Overall, we believe that the issues with the insufficient amounts of wood should be fully fixed now. The amount of metal resource should also be significantly higher in this build. We will keep on tracking the data and feedback from the players to decide on the next changes in regards to metal acquisition.
Other Changes
New events about people wanting to join our Zone have been added. Different groups of immigrants will now appear, each with their own characteristics.
New animal-related events have been added.
Squad Creation has been reworked and now takes 3 in-game hours. Remember about recruiting squads in advance!
The Building roof type algorithm has been updated. There should be fewer buildings with flat roofs overall.
The New Recommended Cities are now visible at the top of the list. The "Downloaded" section will adjust its size depending on the number of downloaded cities.
An option to download the Google Maps' satellite images for the map background has been added in the Settings.
New research has been added to the Technology Tree.
The research cost of some technologies in the Infection tree has been decreased.
The "Symptomatic Treatment" research has been updated to include the information about the number of days required to treat the citizen.
The number of workers required to adapt the Kindergarten building has been decreased.
The Map Info Panel has been updated with more data about the specifications of the selected location.
A new "Unsupported Save" pop-up has been added. While your old saves should still be playable, we recommend starting a new game on this build.
Fixes
An issue that allowed duplicating items by dropping them in the buildings has been fixed.
An issue with grass overgrowing roads too much has been fixed.
An issue with Infected being capable of dealing damage to squads in vehicles has been fixed.
An issue with custom buildings being hard to place due to the "lines cannot intersect" error has been fixed.
An issue that Custom Building entrances changing location after save/load has been fixed.
An issue that allowed placing walls inside buildings has been fixed.
An issue with Squads not scavenging buildings when clicking on the POI icon has been fixed.
An issue with squads sometimes getting stuck at the building's entrance has been fixed.
An issue with infected leaving buildings for a brief moment when spawned has been fixed.
An issue with vaccine research resetting overnight has been fixed.
An issue with deconstructed/destroyed medieval walls reappearing after save/load has been fixed.
An issue with the game becoming unresponsive when trying to discard less than 1 resource has been fixed.
An issue with ESC button not opening the ESC Menu when more than one squad was selected has been fixed.
An issue with missing Vehicles on expeditions has been fixed.
Performance and stability improvements have been introduced to increase your FPS and reduce the amount of crashes.
Let us know how you feel about all the recent changes! If you encounter any issues, please report them via in-game Bug Reporter, available under the ESC Menu. This will provide us with necessary logs which make solving the reported issues way easier. Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone! We hope that you will have a great time with Major Update 4!
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Major Update #4 Preview - Part 2
Greetings, Survivors!
Our work on the next Major Update continues. There's still a lot to be done, and many systems are as complicated to tackle as we expected. But we are doing our best to bring you the new content and functionalities your way. In the previous update, we mentioned that land elevation, planting trees, car workshops, and lairs are in the works. Now we want to showcase a few more things coming in Major Update #4. Have fun!
Merchant
We have seen several players mentioning that they lack resource X on their map but they have a lot of resource Y. And the opposite, on some other map another player reports that they have too much Y, but they want to get rid of X. This kind of balance might be tricky, especially when players choose all kinds of locations across the world. That's why we are working on adding a Merchant, who can visit the Zone from time to time and exchange the resources (including valuable things like armor and weapons) with the player.
New Roads and Bridges
Together with Land Elevation, we are redoing the whole system behind road generation. It will be more realistic and accurate to the data and allow us to generate way better bridges than the flat surfaces we had before. Mind you, the video above doesn't depict a final version of this feature and there are still a lot of tweaks to be done. The final result should not only make the game look better but also impact the gameplay in a significant way. A scenario where you shoot from the bridge at the Infected located below is now an option.
Animals
Animals are the last new feature that we want to showcase today. We want to add them not only as a decoration but also as an additional source of food throughout the early game. For now, we want to add Deer and Boars that the player can chase, hunt, and obtain the meat from. But we're also thinking of adding Infected Animals. Is that an enemy that you would like to encounter? What infected animals could pose a threat to the player?
When is the Major Update #4 coming your way? It's really hard for us to estimate. We would like to share the first builds on the open_branch with you somewhere in February. Then we will analyze all your feedback and bug reports to decide on the default launch. Pushing this Update on default in a timely manner is important for us, but it's even more important that we can provide you with a stable experience when that happens. Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone!
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Major Update #4 Preview
Greetings, Survivors!
We are in full development mode. New features and content are being developed for Major Update #4 which we cannot wait to deliver your way. Still, due to the level of complication of some features, it might take us some time before we are ready to publish it for everyone to play through. While it's possible that the first open_beta builds with new features will come your way somewhere in January 2025, the default branch update is expected to arrive somewhere at the end of February 2025, or even at the beginning of March 2025.
Having said that, let's take a closer look at some of the cool things coming your way in the next Major Update. While this is not the full list of all new things that you can expect, the areas mentioned below are either the most interesting ones or most anticipated in our Surveys.
Land Elevation
Land Elevation was showcased first in 2022, long before the game's release in Early Access. While this concept seemed extremely interesting to us, it also caused a lot of issues that we weren't ready to tackle at that time. Now, due to popular demand, we are doing our best to implement this feature once again. Land Elevation is not only meant to make the game look better but also to enhance the defensive potential of your Zones and increase the game's realism.
Planting Trees
Many of you report to us that the amount of wood the player is able to obtain is still too low. At first, we wanted to solve this issue with trees regrowing on their own. While this solution helped a little bit, it still wasn't enough. That's why we decided to add an option to plant trees via area work. The areas previously unplayable due to resource scarcity should now be playable. On top of it, we are still considering adding a Forrester building. The Forrester would plant the trees on their own within their building's range. Let us know in the comments if that's something you would like to see in the game.
Car Workshop
We know that many experienced players start by looking around the map for the best available vehicle. They grab the nearby Sedan and drive around looking for trucks, vans, or SUVs to increase their cargo space. Sadly, sometimes the luck isn't on the player's side and no interesting vehicle can be found. The implementation of a Car Workshop will help deal with those situations by adding:
Car Construction,
Car Modifications and repairs,
Car Deconstruction,
In short, if you encounter 5 cars that you find obsolete, you can now deconstruct them all to construct a bigger vehicle that you desire. An option to upgrade your vehicles is planned too. Armored plates, spiked bumpers, enlarged tank, or additional trunk - the choice is yours!
Lairs of the Infected
When fighting against the hordes, the player deals with separate groups of Infected that can be found during the night and large swarms that attack every few days. While there is no way to avoid the swarms that arrive from far away, we want to add an option to clear the smaller groups the player has to deal with at night. Identifying and burning down the Lair will provide the players with several nights of peace. While we still have to prepare for the swarms, it will now be possible to safely scavenge the nearby area at night in between those large waves.
Is that everything that we have in plans for Major Update #4? Absolutely not, expect to see more exciting news at the beginning of the next year! But for now, we want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone and being with us. Your support means the world to us and we are extremely happy to have such an amazing community on our side.
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Bugfix Update #16 - Workers Stability Update
Greetings, Survivors!
This time we are coming to you with a small, but important change. It seems that sometimes multiple actions related to building, deconstruction, and assigning workers to those works could have resulted in exceptions and Bug Reporter launching during gameplay. We are happy to let you know that this issue was fixed.
Changelog
Scripting backend has been changed from IL2CPP to Mono.
An issue with the most popular exception happening when adapting multiple buildings, canceling adaptation, and changing the number of workers involved has been fixed.
Major Update Preview
While this update is relatively small, we are working on several new things at our internal branches. Expect a Major Update Preview somewhere towards the end of this week. We can't wait to show you some of the cool new features we are working on!
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Bugfix Update #15 - Save System stability, Production cycle improvements
Greetings, Survivors!
We are happy to let you know that we have started working on the next Major Update! This is probably the last Bugfix Update this year, and we are focusing now on the new features and content for the game. While it might take us some time, expect some cool, new things coming your way on the open_beta branch. But for now - check all the recent improvements and bugfixes that we have prepared for you!
Changelog
The amount of weapons dropped by Raiders has been increased and made dependent on the "Resources" Game Customization setting. On the default x1 modifier, the Raiders will now have around 75% chance to drop their weapon, while on x1.3 modifier, the chance will be 100%.
The Mood drop modifier has been significantly slowed down in situations where the player is losing the Living Quarters.
Gatherable resources from Aircraft wrecks will now depend on the Aircraft type. Smaller aircraft wrecks will now provide the player with 50 metal resources, while bigger aircraft wrecks are set to 100 metal resources.
A new Map Overview Emblem for the Scientist faction has been added.
The Save System stability has been improved.
An issue with Workers auto-assigning to Production buildings beyond the limit set by the Player has been fixed.
An issue with Squads not going to desired locations when sending them to POI or Mission markers has been fixed.
An issue with indoor path rendering not working as expected has been fixed.
An issue with Immigrants not having the desired number of weapons in some game modes has been fixed.
Issues with incorrect production cycle queuing have been fixed.
A new set of stability updates has been introduced to reduce the number of crashes in the game and improve the game's memory allocation.
The Steam Awards
Today is the last day to nominate Infection Free Zone for The Steam Awards. We will appreciate you nominating us in the "Most innovative gameplay" category, or any other you see fit! The whole announcement about this event can be found HERE. Thank you for all your nominations! We are extremely proud that so many players keep enjoying the Infection Free Zone. And we hope that with all the upcoming updates, you will only like the game even more.
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Nominate IFZ as Most Innovative game in Steam Awards
TO ALL SURVIVORS!
We need your help!
Our dev team took extra care to give you a unique opportunity - to rebuild your own neighborhood after the apocalypse, using real geographical data. Surely this is one of the Most Innovative gameplay ideas, and we count on your vote in Steam Awards!
Over 915 000 different locations from all over the world have been played so far!
(this map represents 6000 of the most popular cities that the players played)
Updates Summary
By the way, now is the best time to review the game, after all the updates we have delivered since its Early Access release!
Within those last 6 months, we delivered 3 Major updates:
We also delivered 13 regular updates, rebalances, smaller features and fixes! Check them all here
Thank you for staying with us Thank you for all the positive feedback you provided Thank you for playing the game regularly :)
Stay with us and stay tuned for future updates! We are cooking something special :)
Cheers Jutsu Dev Team
FIXES, IMPROVEMENTS, REBALANCES
TO ALL SURVIVORS
We managed to cook another stable update this week. Check out what's new:
Changes
- Newly turned infected look different now to avoid confusion. - Custom buildings rebalanced - now they require 5x fewer minor resources instead of 2x - Squads with pistols now automatically switch to more efficient machetes in close-quarter melee - Workers now collect resources from unscavenged buildings when adapting them - Raiders now have a 50% chance to drop weapons and ammo - previously they had 100% and were too easy a source of both. - Some friendly migrants now might have firearms too, to compensate the raiders and be any challenge at all to raiders and the infected. - Slight UI improvements - Current research is now shown in the main UI, as well as weather warnings. - Radio log limited to 100 positions, greatly reducing save file size and loading time - Trees that can regrow at the same time limited to 100 - be careful not to deforest your zone too fast! This also greatly reduces savefile size and loading time
Major bugfixes
- crashes related to FMOD music system greatly limited - old, troublesome post processes removed
Known issues
- Workers still autoassign to any workplace after the last areawork or deconstruction finishes. Sorry about that.
This might not be the last update this year yet, but if it will be - be assured that we will use this time to develop even bigger and more important features - with land elevation, game replayability, extra customizations, and car workshop as one of our main priorities.
MORE PEOPLE, MORE PERFORMANCE
TO ALL SURVIVORS
We provide a regular update, more performance, more people, and a new survey. 0.24.11.14 14 is now available for everyone.
The new survey is linked in the main menu - please fill it out! That is the best place to vote for new features and dev team focus!
Rebalances
migrants significantly rebalanced: you can now reach up to 500 population with migrants and 800 with reproduction
NO STORY mode significantly rebalanced, to compensate profits from the events. You can find APC on expeditions using this mode.
mood swings slower if there are no houses.
new ice texture + snow forced when the temperature drops <0'C to make sure you notice that the water froze and the infected can pass it faster.
rain refactored to be more typical for the geographical region. No more forced rain or storm around day 6
News
a new welcome message was added to remind everyone that the game is in fact still a "work in progress"
missing translations added
several sound effects were added and balanced (buildings, weapons, etc)
Engine update to Unity 6 - large improvement in stability and performance expected.
+loads of minor bugfixes, but as most of them happened to less than 1% of the players, or were harder to spot, we won't list them this time ;)
Bugfix Update #12 - Traditional Chinese language Fix, Wood and Metal re-balance
Greetings, Survivors!
We come back to you with another set of issues fixed! Other than that, we have focused on improving the Wood and Metal yield from the area works. Mind you, we are fully aware that Wood still remains one of the most valuable resources due to constant usage in the food production cycle. That's why we want to continue working on some further improvements in the future. While we cannot tell you more yet, we hope that you will like the new features coming your way!
Area Work Resource re-balance:
The amount of Wood obtained from a single Tree has been increased from 5 to 6.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single ATM has been increased from 1 to 2.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Outdoor Gym Equipment object has been increased from 1 to 2.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Street Lamp has been increased from 3 to 4.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Playground object has been increased from 1 to 2.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Traffic Sign has been increased from 1 to 2.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Boat has been increased from 6 to 10.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Train Wagon has been increased from 20 to 25.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Vehicle Wreck has been increased from 10 to 14.
The amount of Metal obtained from a single Big Vehicle Wreck has been set to 20.
Other Changes:
The amount of days that have to be spent on each recommended map for the Globetrotter achievement has been reduced from 12 days to 5 days.
New SFX have been added for the infected attacking structures, and structures collapsing.
Some of the Tooltips have been updated to include more information.
An issue that caused the Traditional Chinese language to not work properly has been fixed.
An issue with the vehicle being able to push the infected over the Zone walls has been fixed.
An issue with Custom Buildings being placable on water in some specific cases has been fixed.
An issue with Aircraft wrecks and some other objects not being scavengable has been fixed.
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Bugfix Update #11 - tweaks and fixes
TO ALL SURVIVORS
This is the Infection Free Zone. We provide a small update with some minor tweaks.
CHANGES:
Area Scavenge with Multiple Squads selected has been added to the game,
Abandoned Vehicle icon visibility has been moved to the main UI layer to make the Vehicle visibility better (no need to go to Scavenge View anymore to see obtainable vehicles)
The vehicle spawning system has been improved to reduce the situations where vehicles were spawning in incorrect places,
New Alpha Infected attack sounds have been added,
The general Vehicle repair cost has been reduced by 20%,
FIXES
An issue with the vehicle panel displaying incorrect health amount has been fixed,
An issue with the vehicle coming back to the warehouse after exchanging resources with the warehouse has been fixed,
An issue with the snowflake animation stopping has been fixed,
An issue with finishing area scavenge with a shift over the UI making the next area scavenge include unnecessary buildings has been fixed,
An issue with the technology panel opening when clicking on transmissions upon game start has been fixed,
A new batch of stability changes has been introduced to decrease the number of crashes and improve performance.
An issue that prevented the Repairmen from working correctly after loading up a saved game has been fixed,
An issue that made Barbed Wire to not work as intended has been fixed,
An issue that caused the swarm direction marker to not work correctly has been fixed,
An issue with the scrollbar not working in the Medbay panel has been fixed,
A new set of changes aimed at improving the game's stability has been implemented.
