Improved HUD, texture improvements, DirectX 11 support, Broadsword, and more!
Texture Improvements/Changes:
The first aid kit has been changed to red with white lettering, Z Juice now looks like an energy drink, bricks have been completely remade, and the build-able stone floor and roof have been de-saturated to look more likes stone
Improved HUD:
The HUD has been remodeled a bit and is now much smaller, thus taking up less precious screen space. The reserve ammo number will now always display 3 digits to avoid spacing and alignment issues.
DirectX 11:
As of a recent update, Clickteam Fusion now supports DirectX 11. This performs significantly better than the DirectX9 mode so unless your PC somehow doesn’t support DirectX 11 I would recommend using it. The only caveat at the moment is the anti-aliasing looks a bit different on some text and the water shader isn’t currently compatible so the water will be static.
Broadsword:
A sword has been added to the game, just for more options when it comes to melee. But unlike the hammer and axe, it is unable to harvest resources.
Optimizations:
With the new support for Dx11 comes optimizations. Overall the Dx11 runtime performs around 60% better than Dx9. The latest engine update also included some extra optimizations but it was only about a 3% improvement from what I noticed.
Zombies:
Minor improvements to the zombie ai and slightly increased their memory so they will try to follow you a bit longer.
Underground Lab:
The entrance area of the underground lab has received a bit of a facelift. There is now some pipes near the wall and a checkpoint area with metal detectors.
*Picture taken with the darkness disabled
Fixes & Changes: – Internal Cleanup
– Minor saving changes
– Fixed config generation
– Fixed large doors
– Added pickup sound for all items
https://www.playzgame.net/devblog-34/
Devblog 33
Underground lab, new cross-hair, refillable water bottle, updated player model, and more!
Underground Lab:
An underground lab has been added to the world. It has a storage room, armory, a small barracks, and the testing area. Its pretty dark in there so you might want some night vision goggles before entering.
Player Model:
The player model has received a bit of a facelift. The shirt is now a darker and dull blue instead of the previous vibrant light blue. The melee animations have also been edited and cleaned up. The models displayed when weapons are held have also been cleaned up and made a bit more natural.
Refillable bottle:
Drinking water or Z Juice now gives you an empty bottle that can be refilled at any water source. Just stand in some water, open the inventory and click on the bottle.
Zombie Model:
A new soldier zombie model has been added to fit alongside the newly added labs and the areas that are already in such as the military camp.
Crosshair:
Two new crosshairs have been added, these can be selected from in the settings. This has no effect on gameplay, just gives some options.
DirectX:
DirectX9 is required to play the game but, this will now be installed upon launching the game for the first time and when verifying the games field. This should address the extremely rare case of not being able to see anything when the game was launched.
Fixes & Changes:
– Zombie spawning fixes
– Minor optimizations
– Fixed sound bug with menu music
– Fixed collisions with some doors
– Changed config generation methods
https://www.playzgame.net/devblog-33/
Devblog 32
New inventory tab, more buildings, a gas station, and more!
Inventory:
A new inventory tab has been added, the Gear tab. This tab will be for armor, gear, and some other miscellaneous items. Currently, the only item in the tab is the night vision goggles.
Gas Station:
A gas station has been added to the world. It is located south of the hospital. If you’re in need of food and drink then this is another good place to find it.
World Changes:
About 15 new houses have been added to the world. Nine of them being large houses and the other six small houses. With this, some new roads have been added to connect everything together. There is now also a parking lot next to the hospital. Once this portion of the map is finished The size of the map will be increased. The current map size is around 1.6mi². I’d like to get somewhere between 2-3mi² but we will have to see if that works out.
Zombie Spawns:
Zombie spawning has received a fair amount of tweaking this update. Overall zombie spawns have been decreased. The spawn timer has been increased and there is now a chance that nothing will spawn. This should give a bit more peace when outside of hot zones. This will make harvesting materials and building less annoying as you aren’t constantly bombarded with zombies.
Discord Integration:
There is now some lite Discord integration in the game. This doesn’t affect gameplay in any way but it is pretty neat. Speaking of Discord join our server HERE. I’ve also created a simple bot for the server which shares the devblogs and gives info about the game and website.
Texture Changes:
– Improved water texture
– Improved inventory and crafting menu textures
– Improved revolver texture
Fixes & Changes:
– Fixed collision issues with various items
– Fixed gun overlap bug
– Fixed time not being reset upon starting a new game
– Fixed bug where you could punch with inventory open
– Minor NVG changes
https://www.playzgame.net/devblog-32/
Patch 0.12.1
Patch Time! This patch fixes a few small bugs and some minor changes to a few textures.
Texture Changes:
Significantly reduced the color saturation of the Store roof. Changed the wall texture of the Diner. Disabled the candy cane texture.
Fixes:
Fixed various misaligned props and world items. Fixed improperly placed roofs. Fixed volume settings not being properly applied.
Devblog 31
New guns, harvestable trees, new buildings, music, and more!
New Guns:
Three new guns have been added to the game with this update. The new weapons are the Deagle, MP5 and Hunting Rifle. The hunting rifle spawns in Tier 1 areas, so it spawns pretty much anywhere. It uses 5.56 which will now rarely spawn in Tier 1 areas. The MP5 and Deagle spawn only in Tier 2 areas like the military outpost and police station. The MP5 uses 9mm and the Deagle uses .375 rounds.
Trees:
All trees are now harvestable and will respawn after five minutes. The size that trees spawn at is random so if a small one is cut down a large one could spawn in its place later and vice versa. This actually turned out to be easier than had I expected. I expected this to have a decent impact on performance but fortunately, it did not.
New Buildings:
Some much larger houses have been added to the world and with that some new props, a large bed, a sink, and a toilet. These larger houses also have bathrooms. Just don’t ask where the people who lived in the small houses had to go.
Music:
One part of the soundtrack has been completed and it is really good. All thanks to Rohan Hopewell. Currently, the track will only play in the menus until more tracks are completed. This may change before new tracks are made but I don’t really want just one track constantly repeating. Along with this, I’ve also added a volume bar in the settings specifically for music and removed the useless music buttons.
Fixes & changes:
- Disabled Santa zombie
- Minor HUD changes
- Fixed bullets not breaking doors
- Save file fixes
https://www.playzgame.net/devblog-31/
Devblog 30
Night Vision, locked doors, melee changes, and more!
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays:
Christmas day is tomorrow and 2018 is coming to an end. Its been a good year with a lot of progress. New weapons, new buildings, a crafting and building system, and coming to Steam. A lot of the framework is in place but there’s still more to come as well as improvements to what’s currently in place. We’re getting closer to the end of the road.
Night Vision:
Night vision goggles have been added to the game. They spawn in Tier 2 areas like the Military base and police station. Once you find a pair all you need to do is hit “N” or whatever key you have it bound to. Don’t use them during the day unless you enjoy being blind.
Locked Doors:
Doors throughout the world now have a chance to be locked. They must be broken down with a melee weapon or by shooting them. Most doors have a 20% chance of being locked. Some doors in Tier 2 areas have a 50% chance being locked.
Festive Items:
It’s the holiday season and Santa is in town, but he doesn’t want cookies and milk, he wants to eat you. The pumpkin head zombie has been replaced with a Santa zombie. Candy has been replaced with candy canes.
Melee Changes:
Melee combat has received some minor changes and now has audio feedback when a hit connects by playing a hitmarker sound.
Zombie Audio:
The zombies now make noise. They make noise when they get close or detect you as well as when they attack. The noise doesn’t play every time they detect you or attack you, this is intentional.
Winter Sale:
The game will be on sale for the entirety of the Winter sale.
https://www.playzgame.net/devblog-30/
Devblog 29
Quarantine Zone, Police Station, a new weapon, and more!
Name Change:
It’s time to change the name of the game. Around this time last year, I was informed that there was already a game called Z. The games don’t have anything in common but to avoid confusion and any other problems this could cause a change is in order. The new name is “Z: The End”.
Quarantine Zone:
There is now a quarantine zone located down the road from the trailer park. It has a couple of medical tents and military tents as well as a pile of corpses.
Police Station:
There is also a new police station located down the road from the church. It is a good place to find weapons and ammo.
Zombies:
Three new zombie variants have been added along with this update. There is now a hazmat zombie, a burnt zombie, and a “naked” zombie. The “naked” zombie is a remake of the zombies in the very early builds of the game.
SPAS-12:
A SPAS-12 shotgun has been added to the game. It has the same damage as the normal shotgun but it has a much faster rate of fire. It is a Tier 2 weapon so it will only spawn in areas like the military camp and police station.
Audio:
Eating and drinking now makes an appropriate sound instead of just clicking. Eating food now plays a chewing noise and drinking plays a drinking sound. Later this will be expanded to medical items.
Save Profiles:
There are now save profiles which allow you to have up to three different save games. The profile can be selected on the save screen.
World & Textures:
Medical stretchers, barb-wired chain link fences, and medical tents have been added along with the quarantine zone. The stretchers have also been added to the hospital. The police station doesn’t have much that’s too special other than the prison bars and the metal bench. The world should look a bit more fleshed out with the addition of red, yellow, and white flower patches.
Minor Changes and Fixes:
– Changed the handling of fire rates, fixes bug that prevented shooting
– Fixed offscreen collision issues, fixes “helicopter” zombies
Patch 0.9.1
Patch Time! This patch fixes a few small bugs as well as one more major one.
Zombie Spawning/Cleanup:
There is a maximum limit of 80 zombies in the game. After that the spawning stops, so unless they are killed or deleted they will never respawn.But this was only the start of the problem.
The cleanup system was supposed to fix this and it did. But, it didn’t work if the zombies were “inactive”. They become inactive if they are too far from the screen. This is to improve performance. When inactive nothing about them could be changed so the cleanup system didn’t affect them.
With this being fixed there will be more zombies and more action. I think its at a much better level now.
Minor Fixes:
– Fixed color of button
– Fixed game log date
– AI fixes
Devblog 28
New zombies, harvesting improvements, ambient sounds, candy, and more!
Update:
This month has been quite a mess. Bringing the website back online was a lot more challenging that I had originally thought it would be. Had to find a new host as the other one was trash and transfer all the files.
New zombies:
Two new zombie models this month. There is now a zombie with a pumpkin on its head and a construction worker zombie. I might have the pumpkin zombie be seasonal so it would be a activated around October every year.
Pumpkin Head Zombie
Construction Worker Zombie
Harvesting Improvements:
Harvesting resources was pretty messy, it worked but could be abused by spam clicking. Previously it was mostly based on clicks so spamming would get it done faster. Now it is based on the swinging animation.
Ambient Sounds:
A basic ambient sound system is now in the game. Every once in a while some audio clips will play. Currently there are only three clips but more will be added down the line.
Candy:
Can’t have Halloween without some candy. Candy will now spawn in tier 1 food spots.
Zombie Changes:
The zombies have received some tweaks this update. The zombies memory has been increased to 20 seconds. So after 20 seconds of no disability the will stop following you. There are now hot zones in certain areas, currently the military base and the hospital. Inside this zone zombies spawn much more frequently. This will make looting in these areas more challenging.
Devblog 27
Hospital building, new textures, loot spawning changes, optimization and more!
Delay:
This devblog was originally supposed to come out September 29th but there was something wrong with the server and the site has been down for the past two weeks. Due to the way this was handled we have now changed hosts because two weeks of downtime in unacceptable. There will still be another devblog in October.
Hospital:
A hospital has been added to the southern part of the map. It’s rather big and its a great place to find medical supplies. Other loot does spawn here but its not as common.
Loot Scarcity:
Finding loot in an area is no longer a guarantee as there is now a chance that nothing will spawn. This should make surviving a more challenging as you will have to search more places to find what you need.
Texture Changes:
- Improved bed texture
- New zombie corpse texture
- New blood splatter texture
- Improved blood pool texture
- Improved shotgun texture
- Improved AK texture
- New dirt road texture
Zombies:
A good amount of changes have been made to zombies for this update. Spawning has been improved and they are much less likely to spawn inside objects. Idle zombies outside of the players view will be destroyed every so often so new one can spawn. Zombie pathways are created at startup instead of manually and it not supports horizontal paths. A zombie surgeon texture was also added.
Optimizations:
It came to my attentions that the floors in buildings were decreasing performance when in view. After changing the type of object they were the problem was fixed. Other miscellaneous textures were optimized to decrease memory usage.
Minor Fixes and Changes:
- Fix for zombies not spawning as other types
- FPS counter changes
- Fixed minor freeze with game log
*Picture taken with the darkness disabled
