Hi all and thanks for the wonderful reception in the first day of Pandemic Express!
While there are issues, I'm happy we were able to fix a critical lobby bug and for most of the rest there's a clear plan on fixes. The only issue we don't fully know how to solve yet is Chinese players reporting crashes on startup when the system is in simplified Chinese -- figuring that one out.
Tomorrow we will be playtesting an important server and client update (featuring the first iteration of the friend invite system). This will require a few people to play together, and groups of Steam friends to stress test the system.
In order to make the best of the playtest, we invite everyone to join.
We'll be sharing details on our Discord Server - https://discord.gg/pandemicexpress
Please join the server, hangout, and wait for tomorrow's upcoming details on the playtest
Also if you haven't seen Twixted play today on the steam page, well, you've missed out on a single survivor taking out 29 zombies. It was insane. He's currently our #1 ranked player and I'm working on slicing up a few of his VODs into a showcase video. Absolutely insanity.
Much hugs and zombies,
See you on discord!
Friend invites are coming!
Hi all!
Thanks for a very eventful launch day! We just pushed out an update that addressed an issue with lobbies not filling up properly. It should now be fixed.
I wanted to reiterate on our upcoming roadmap. We initially pushed the feature to invite your frirends to a midterm backlog, and quickly realized we made a mistake.
So Friend Invites is now on our top priority list and is coming soon.
Thanks for the love thus far, and see you on the train <3
Lobbies Issue — Hotfix
Hey everyone,
We've ran into an issue with the lobbies — some players were put into empty lobbies that didn't fill quick enough.
We've fixed the issue, please restart your Steam client if you didn't get the update automatically.
The current build version is 0.7.9.5.190502
Thank you for your patience!
Pandemic Express Out Now, 1+1 Promo & Coupons Live
Good morning everyone! Pandemic Express is officially live on Steam! So let's get onto a whole bunch of important information and updates!
Launch Trailer
The launch trailer is now live on Youtube and Steam. Check it out right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCb-Jd7pEDo
1+1 Promo (Extra Key For a Friend) promo live
For the first 3 days if you buy the game, you get an additional copy to give to a friend!
Friend Invite System bumped to URGENT in the roadmap
We heard everyone loud and clear and bumped the Friends System up in the roadmap. Checkout the latest one:
Launch Discount is 34%
The game is below $10 at launch
Additional 10% Coupon Discount
If you own one of these tinyBuild games, you get an additional 10% off: Graveyard Keeper, Streets of Rogue, Guts & Glory, Lovely Planet, SpeedRunners Clustertruck, Party Hard 1 or 2.
Producer's Note
Producer's note on Pandemic Express' journey from Battle Royale to Zombie Escape
This was probably the most bizarre development cycle I've ever had the pleasure to be part of. We started off over 2 years ago trying to make a Battle Royale. Much like everyone at the time. We spent a lot of time iterating on the idea of a more melee focused battle royale, and quickly realized that the fun of looting in an open world doesn't really match well with the idea of using primarily melee weapons. Especially when vehicles are involved.
Having played a lot of mods back in the day (the team played the original DayZ mod, the original Battle Royale, and a ton of older Counter-Strike mods), we started experimenting. The initial idea was to have a Battle Royale-style game where fallen players would come back as zombies. While fun, it was really confusing and we had to add ranged weapons back to fight off swarms.
In a fun twist, we saw players organically teaming up while fighting off the swarms. And that was fun. So we pushed it further with putting all survivors -- without any weapons -- into a train station, and randomly infecting one of the players.
Then we saw a problem with the "goal". Zombie Escape style mods are typically made in corridor-like environments where the path is clear and has logical chokepoints. We had an open world and wanted to maintain the feeling of desperate looting like you have in survival shooters.
So we opted for a "goal" - a train. Because everyone loves trains and zombies. A train spawns at another station, and is clearly marked as a goal for survivors to get to - by running, sliding, driving -- all while looting through the open world. When survivors are on the train, it starts moving.
At this point, the zombies start to respawn in front of the train at strategically placed spawners. This gives survivors a feeling of constant onslaught as swarms of zombies attack the train.
I believe the strangest and most satisfying feeling of Pandemic Express is how non-stressful it is. You get to shoot off zombies after intense scavenging, and when you die, you don't really "lose". You get to experience something different in the match. And you also get to tear through your (5 seconds ago) previous teammates. Because they deserve it.
If you haven't tried mods like this before - we invite you to try Pandemic Express. It's a different experience, and we hope you like it as much as we do.
As always, any coverage is highly appreciated and feel free to reach out for additional keys, media materials, or whatever's on your mind.
Thanks
Alex Nichiporchik
CEO @tinyBuild
For press inquiries contact pr at tinybuild.com
We're super excited to be launching Pandemic Express TOMORROW at 9:30am Pacific Time!
Let's go ahead and run through everything that's happening tomorrow.
Launch Trailer
Get an early peek at the Launch Trailer
https://youtu.be/VCb-Jd7pEDo
Alpha Community Keeps The Game
Everyone who helped playtest the game (activated their Alpha test) gets to keep the game. Forever. For free.
Thanks for being part of the community and sharing your love and feedback early on. We really appreciate it <3
1+1 Promotion
If you haven't participated in the alpha tests — don't worry, we've got something for you as well!
To celebrate the launch, for the first 3 days, anyone who buys Pandemic Express on Steam gets an extra free copy to give to their friends. So go ahead and share the love!
Launch Price is under $10
The full MSRP for Pandemic Express will be $14.99, however we're launching with a 34% Launch Discount!
Patch Notes
If last time you played the game was this Winter or even Fall of last year — there's too many changes to count. If were chasing the survivors just last weekend — here's the list of changes for this week:
v.0.7.9.4.190502
- Fixed sliding animations
- Fixed the bug with the safe zone train stops
- Fixed the main menu UI bugs
- Fixed the server status notification
v.0.7.9.3.190430
- New zombie look
- Major UI overhaul
- New main menu
- New match end screens
- New airdrop UI
- Changed the color corresponding to health
- Added armor pickup sign
- Fixed freezes that occurred while connecting to a lobby
The Road Ahead
We've got big plans for the game. You can find the roadmap above, but we'd like to address three major community requests separately.
1) Regional servers As of right now, the game's servers are located in Germany. This means that players from the Asia-Pacific region, South America and West Coast of the US might experience latency issues.
We will be closely monitoring the player count in every region, and as soon as we see that regional servers are a viable option, we'll start working on implementing them ASAP.
2) Playing with your friends This is one of the most frequently requested features, it will be added into the game soon. For now — hit "Play" at the same time as your friends, and you should end up in the same lobby.
3) Control rebinds Another very important for a competitive game feature. We know it can be a pain, especially if you've used your custom keybinds for years. We'll work on implementing it as soon as we can, but it may take a little longer than the first two.
And we will have playtests leading up to it! If you haven't signed up for the Alpha yet, please do so at http://pandemicexpress.com
The game's been getting a lot of love on Youtube, check it out!
We're really excited about the launch, and we'll see you in the alphas every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 10am Pacific Time (Seattle / Los Angeles)
And the latest Gameplay Rundown is now on imgur - https://imgur.com/gallery/q4Y1ArQ
Pandemic Express Gameplay Rundown
Greetings survivors and zombies,
We've been getting some incredible feedback and love from the community during recent alpha tests. While the game can be a bit difficult to describe, we decided to make a short video explaining the full gameplay rundown for Pandemic Express:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNKI1pNdsrU
Feel free to share it with friends, and remember to subscribe to the alpha at http://PandemicExpress.com
We're doing playtests every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 10am Pacific Time.
Pandemic Express Playtesting Schedule
Hi everyone! We're finally ready to start wider playtests. There is no confirmed launch date yet, so keep that in mind - we're doing server scalability tests, and general gameplay tweaks.
Playtesting schedule:
Tuesday Feb 19 - 9am - 11am PST
Thursday Feb Feb 21 - 9am - 11am PST
Saturday Feb 23 - 9am - 11am PST
For a chance to participate please sign-up at http://PandemicExpress.com
Here's a recent video from MathChief giving you an idea of the most recent developments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTQIH-jT6_4
Welcome to Pandemic Express!
Welcome to our Steam page, comrades!
Pandemic Express is a "Zombie Escape" mod inspired open world shooter. A team of up to 50 humans spawns in a map, and one of them gets randomly infected. The infected (zombie) player needs to turn everyone to his team by attacking human players. Meanwhile the humans need to escape, by train.
