Happy Mondoid everyone. We come to you with the exciting news that our Steam integrated IWBUMS public test beta is now live. EasyPickins, hero of the hour, is working out the kinks – but Spiffo’s Workshop is open for business, we’ve got a proper anonymous dedicated server that can be installed and updated using Steam CMD and a myriad of tweaks and fixes have gone in alongside them.

For instructions on how to join our IWBUMS public beta channel then go here, while patch notes for the initial release 32.20 can be found here, and its follow-ups 32.21 and 32.22 here and here.

There’s clearly various other tweaks, additions and refinements en route, but at this exact moment in time the focus is on making sure the new package works for everyone: Mac/Linux/Windows, 32-bit/64-bit and in both Steam mode and non-Steam mode.

We’d like to thank some of our intrepid modders, like Hydromancerx and Svarog amongst others, for entering uncharted waters and getting some of their wares up on Steam Workshop already. Similarly Onkeen is doing some sterling work in terms of making the Workshop look organised and pretty by creating preview.pngs for our industrious workshoppers. Thanks everyone, it really is appreciated.

Everyone who owns Zomboid will be able to see it, but to fill in those who haven’t dipped in yet then this is the sight we’re all seeing…

Build 33

It’s starting to feel like the various strands of Build 33 are really coming together now. We’re not there yet, but in terms of both MP and SP then Creative Mode, Radio/TV, Movable furniture, the new botany trait, Blacksmithing and the fresh focus on a ‘lived in’ world (whether playing Week One or Eight Months Later) are all tying together to make it quite a special release.

Creative Mode, especially, is coming on in leaps and bounds – as these videos will attest to. Firstly, the top down map now allows you to quickly navigate to any point in the map in a heartbeat. As well as this the player can quickly move up and down between floors and fly around. This is a real time video, and please forgive any bugs and glitches.

Secondly, here’s a look at a few of the additions to Creative that allow for quick customizable and filterable copy and pasted map pieces, more precise pasting and clearing and the ability to copy and paste to/from specific floors or heights. We have also reworked stairs game-wide to allow for more compact stairwells and to overcome the collision issues that badly placed stairs can cause.

With a few other neat smaller features, narrative nuggets and musical/sound additions that are still likely be added to the Build 33 roster – it’s all starting to come together rather nicely. As, indeed, are work and plans for the Builds beyond.

This week’s Featured Image from NikNik64Rus over on Steam. As a block of italicised, central text it’s rare to feel any form of satisfaction in life, but the growth in activity on the PZWiki alongside various well-wishers on internet forums has made this past week a less distressing one. With a renewed sense of pride in my role as information-providing reading matter could I please direct you to the email subscription service offered by TIS for Mondoids, Build Releases, Changelists and Other Big News? Today is a new day. Yesterday a distant land. I know my role in life, and it’s one in which I excel.