Hi
There are plenty of news I want to share with you. I haven't been providing much news lately but there is a reason for it. Some news about development process. I've finally fixed first boss (Father) animations now they all displayed correctly and not backwards. I've gathered a lot of your feedback on how hard combat is in current state of the game. Too many enemies, they are too fast and you suffer from constant lack of bullets. So I've decided to replace old combat system with a new one. Now you don't need to have a fast reactions, keep your head cool or struggle to find weak spots - instead new combat system features advanced scissors-paper-rock game. In your arsenal there are not only three classic moves but 15 more unique "gestures" which can be unlocked by progressing your character, completing quests or competing with NPCs.
But there are also a bad news...I'm going through a divorce right now, things are getting intense. My future ex-wife is a lawyer and she literally trying to put a lien on my PC. She’s not just taking the kids; she’s taking the half of my monitors and motherboard with CPU. So I don't know when I'll be able to release the update.With all the changes, unfortunately old saves won't be compatible with upcoming version.
Okay...
Jokes asideI'm still working - I've done a lot, there's still a lot I want to do, and a lot that still needs to be done.
I've finished working on first part of Clape's quest chain. The second part with her is already in progress and about 50% complete.
I've also been working on optimization. Since this is quite an old engine, some systems needed updating and optimization. I optimized all enemies and the dismemberment system, making both the enemies and the system about 3.5 times lighter, so there shouldn't be heavy FPS drops caused by bottlenecks. As a reminder, Unreal Engine 4 has its own architectural limitations.
I've also written descriptions for all items, which you can now read in the inventory via the context menu.
I did some work on the lore and updated the user interface. It's still a work in progress, but it's fully functional.
I've updated the appearance of the Zomboid and the Symbiont - made them more lore-accurate, and honestly, I just wanted to do some modeling.
I've also updated some locations (again) - made some adjustments to the settlement.
I don't exactly remember what I've already mentioned and what I haven't yet, but… here is demonstration of UI with new grenade action mentioned earlier
Yes, there might be some delays or things not going as smoothly as I'd like, but that's normal - it's just part of the development process.
Sometimes you get stuck on something longer than planned, sometimes you get distracted by bug fixes, update things that didn't really need updating, or end up refactoring because you got lost in your own code - but overall, everything is fine.
Right now, I plan to finish the core foundation for special business interaction system with NPCs and add several animations for it - that's what I'm currently working on.
I'm also working on one new enemy and a quest for Sophia. So I think by the end of this month, or possibly at the beginning of next month, I'll release an update.