Happy March survivors, let’s check in with some of the departments we didn’t visit in the blogapalooza of two weeks ago.

FISHING

Over to Aiteron for the latest on his fishing additions.

“This week I’ve mainly been working on a unique random seed that procedurally determines where groups of fish will be located in PZ’s waterways, the radius of the different zones, and the base number of fish that could be found within them.”

“You’ll see this through splashes of water, which will depend on the groups of fish. So, the more fish in the fish group area, the more splashes on the water’s surface of the water. As such finding the best place for you to fish will be a big part of the system’s revamp. Each groups will react to the noise by the noise that goes on in the world too. So, if there’s a loud noise then the fishing circles will stop being active for a certain amount of time.”

“If you craft some chum, meanwhile, you’ll also be able to attract a group of fish – for a limited amount of time. In the following video you’ll be able to see groups of fish (red circles) and a chum area (green circle)”

“The team at Formosa have also been working with me to create new SFX for the fishing revamp, and I am very pleased with the results so far! We are also working on different sounds for different ‘reeling in’ speeds.”

MAP EXPANSION

We are at a key point in the map expansion in that the work of our various mappers has been merged together, and our test team are roaming its wilds to provide playability and design feedback. They are patrolling its highways and by-ways, and feeding back on anything that seems amiss on a broader scale.

We’re not at the point at which we can do full-on testing (there’s still a lot to do, to be polished, and have signs erected and whatnot) but we are at the point where we can go on a fun road trip.

SOUND STUFF

Formosa are up to quite a lot at the moment. A big part of their work is in improvements to the music escalation system, which we’ll go into detail about next time, but suffice to say that action music won’t carry on for as long as it does post-zed-escape in B42.

We are also in the final stages of organising a recording session in which we’ll be having some real life actors (in Hollywood! In America!) to puff, pant and make ‘I am hurt’ noises that’ll make our survivors feel that little bit more real.

New SFX have also, meanwhile, been delivered for pigs, piglets, chickens, breaking furniture, the emergency broadcast, cork pops and much else besides.

A lot of chickens have also been attacked with hammers.

(We will improve visuals on this sort of attack too, so you’re not whacking air)

SURVIVAL FUN

The Blair Algol furnace has also been burning bright recently, alongside his farming revamp work that we’ve discussed in former blogs. So here’s a general show of the new camping items that’ll be found in places like the game’s different camp supply shops come B42.

• Seen here are matchboxes, insect repellent, tackle boxes, New duffel bags, compasses, magnesium strikers and a fire-starting block.
• New Literature Titles and Names, so it’s not all generic non-titled books. (These will still act as consumables rather than items for now, however)
• New Food, drink, snack names and a new eating animation.
• New police duffle bag
• An example of how to use the compass
• Campsite scene showing an array of new survival gear items for the casual camper and general survivalist
• New tent function, which no longer requires RMB and now places and gets picked up like a normal decor/furniture object
• New tent storage feature associated with the above change

LOVELY LITTLE ANIMALS

LOVELY LITTLE DEAD ANIMAL

:’(

FINALLY

Just to underline, we’re still not at a point at which a 42 unstable release is (at all) imminent. There’s still loads to do with our primary advancements to engine, online multiplayer, crafting and whatnot.

We see people thinking it’s about to land in comments sometimes, so if you see that too then please direct them here. Thanks everyone.

A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games industry gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here. Today’s fish is trout a la creme. Enjoy your meal.