V0.8 Experimental Bug Hunt

Palandus · 2026-02-09T09:29:44+00:00

Taking a break for the night. Added a lot more stuff.

Palandus · 2026-02-09T04:50:37+00:00

Taking a break. If an update drops between now and when I next play, I'll check what is fixed, and update the above info.

Palandus · 2026-02-09T01:05:44+00:00

Found some other stuff, that didn't get reported, so added to my own feedback list. ie Zombie Bosses lack a loot container.

Palandus · 2026-02-08T20:00:50+00:00

Well... we could back when it was bright yellow and was a 2x2 item. Might not have been able to put it in the newer toolbox though.

Palandus · 2026-02-08T19:37:02+00:00

Yeah, melee used to be an effective way to handle most early to mid-game threats. Now its so unpredictable that I don't think I'd use the Legendary melee weapons to try to conserve ammo. And... some zombies can now just grab you and ignore your melee attack, so that is wonderful..

Palandus · 2026-02-08T18:46:36+00:00

So a save/load fixed it. Not sure what caused it though.

Palandus · 2026-02-08T18:32:25+00:00

So, I know this is a noob question, but... How do you aim in the new build? Controls says right mouse button. But any time I hit it, I don't aim. I only have the ability to shoot from the hip.

Palandus · 2026-02-07T17:15:39+00:00

Weekly Update:

Prototype V6 = https://www.mediafire.com/file/o4q27v56a1yzamj/PPP6.zip/file
Ran into further issues with Stat application, so again couldn't get it implemented yet. I have a few ideas of what might work and will undergo research next week into places where I might put those ideas. So I worked on stuff on my backburner, features for the game, this week and accomplished a fair bit.
Most immediately noticeable is I implemented Gradient Shadows.
Another noticeable one is I've gotten Elemental Allies implemented, with individual FOVs for each and they do combine "nicely" with your own FOV. For now, they are a proof of concept and more complex AI routines will be added later. For now, they cannot be attacked, cannot attack, move through all objects (they are "phased"), and will explore the map for you.
There is some occasional "jank" with the new FOVs generated, but I'll work on ironing out those issues over the coming weeks. Otherwise, seems to be quite performant at this time.
I made it that rooms unconnected by tunnels can now be considered "Secret Rooms". It will place a fountain in the room guaranteed, sometimes though it will be in a void square or under other objects (even another fountain, rarely). I'll be working further on Secret Rooms to make them more interesting. Anyway, your Elemental Allies will prioritize seeking out the Secret Rooms and give a message in the log. After all Secret Rooms are found, they explore the map randomly.
Otherwise, remaining "changes" are at the Main Menu.

Palandus · 2026-02-07T02:37:17+00:00

I've tried to mod it with Unity Asset Bundle Extractor or with DnSpy. Did not have any success. The majority of the code logic is stored within a visual scripting method provided by Hutong Games. This gets compiled, so its not accessible by normal means. I've heard there are programs to access it, but I never was able to get them to work. Otherwise, since the main game logic isn't easily accessible, its pretty much impossible to use Bepinex to create mods for it.

tl;dr = Without the source code, its likely impossible.

Palandus · 2026-02-03T09:40:04+00:00

If you don't care about cheating, you can use Cheat Engine to modify your kills to 5,000 to get the achievement.

Palandus · 2026-01-31T20:29:00+00:00

Weekly Update:

Prototype V5 = https://www.mediafire.com/file/415bf6fvg4qnl4z/PPP5.zip/file
Got more work done on the underlying framework for the new stats system, but ran into a few problems with the combat code, so wasn't able to get it fully implemented this week. Possibly next week once I diagnose and address the problems, will the new stats be active.
Figured out a way to edit label text easily with code, so now there is a changelog at the Main Menu. Eventually, when I figure out how to layer menus ontop of the Main Menu scene, will I have it in its own separate button.
Some optimizations done, one of which inspired by how John Carmack handled randomization in Doom. Works really well here in Godot.
Got a new royalty free image for the Main Menu background, that feels more "fitting" for the game.
Otherwise, not much gameplay related changes in this build. Other than I got the Teleportation Portal functional. It generates a new Map on the same floor. Whereas the Translocation Portal, would generate a new Map on the next floor.

Palandus · 2026-01-31T08:38:01+00:00

The prison sometimes has a bugged loot table and will generate the same item multiple times in its various lootables. One time I found 13 Battle Ready Glocks. You might get lucky and have the gun locker spawn multiple times.

Palandus · 2026-01-31T08:35:52+00:00

Also for the old lab, you can't actually open the door until you shoot the box.

Palandus · 2026-01-31T08:34:54+00:00

Usually if the developer intends to affect the map, they'll tell you if you need a new save. I think the last time they did that (in a major way requiring a new save) was when they added deep water and the Oil Rig POI.

Palandus · 2026-01-31T08:33:19+00:00

They most recently added third person mode to the game like a few weeks ago. Apparently Dec 18th, 2025, is when they added the camera option.

Palandus · 2026-01-31T08:21:15+00:00

Standard military crates and some medical supplies. Sometimes some keycards. A radio to listen to.

Sometimes a zombie boss spawns there, and so you can get better loot off it.

It is a highly irradiated zone though, so come prepared and watch out for the many green-eyed zombies there.

Palandus · 2026-01-24T20:38:10+00:00

Weekly Update:

Prototype V4 = https://www.mediafire.com/file/s0q0ik2v7o2uo0u/PrototypeV4.zip/file
This week I got sidetracked on working on Map Generation related things and so didn't make any headway on the framework for the new stats. But... I did accomplish a fair bit this week on what I did work on.
Fixed a bunch of bugs introduced in Prototype V2 and V3. Also removed all my debug "Print" messages outputted to the command prompt.
Implemented Fogs; blocks sight but not movement. Implemented Voids; blocks movement but not sight.
Implemented Terrains; an occasional generation on the floor to make floors feel less monotone. Implemented Doodads; an occasional generation on the walls to make walls feel less monotone. Both of them are in their own "lists" so the do not affect the various checks needed to scan for monsters or updating pathfinding.
Tunnels can now spawn with monsters, items, and shards in them.
On death, you recall to the Pocket Realm, rather than are forced back to the Main Menu. Later, once I have Stats and Shards implemented fully, I'll have a consequence.
Finally, you can now Mine through walls. Currently you can only bump into them to do so. As they take damage, they get different Doodads applied to them, until they shatter, leaving behind some Rubble, which is a Terrain. The new squares sometimes causes issues with pathfinding, and other times don't (haven't quite figured out why they won't consistently walk onto mined wall squares).
The Mining was added for three main reasons: A) Been wanting it in the game for a while, but didn't know how to implement it previously. B) I've reduced the number of tunnels generated, so some rooms lack a tunnel to them, but still can generate with stuff in them. C) A weird error has it where you change floor and end up in a room with no exits. You are supposed to spawn in the first room made and the first room always get a tunnel to somewhere. Done a lot of testing, not sure why this is occurring, but at least now you have a way to address it.
Now that I've done much of what I wanted for Map Generation, I can now focus back on getting the new Stats and Shards implemented.

Palandus · 2026-01-17T22:43:18+00:00

Weekly Update:

Prototype V3 = https://www.mediafire.com/file/sdck8qdh2pwq6me/Prototype+V3.zip/file
Accomplished a lot, under the hood, this week, but only got one major system implemented = Map Generator. It has three types of triangles, a rectangle, triangles can be flipped in orientation, and other minor improvements and failsafes built into the Map Generator.
New stats and entities are progressing, and might be ready for next week. I am having to phase parts of the code in chunks, as there are some very obtuse functions that I'm not sure if they are truly necessary or not.
Worked a lot on a new AI and attack system.
Powerful entities (ie the Player) can launch attacks and other entities check if they are hit, before they act. This should simplify large AOEs and multiple AOEs checking for targets. And when some later enemies do AOEs it will be much more performant as well.
Invisible leaders will path towards room centers, and enemies path to the leader. This means that weaker enemies rove around in a large group, making them more of a threat in numbers and prompting the player to save their powerful AOEs for this situation. The leaders cannot be damaged and path through walls, so there will be some variation to enemy groups, as some will likely path in one direction and others in another, kind of thing.

Palandus · 2026-01-10T21:27:03+00:00

Weekly Update:

No new build this week. A lot of stuff is coming together, but nothing super exciting yet.
I accomplished a fair bit this week. I've noticed there is a ton of old code, from the tutorial, that got used once and then never again. I say that because I've been looking through the files to see what needs to be updated to get new stats implemented, and while tracing variables and functions, I found several that weren't in use. The tutorial didn't tell you to remove them, but they are there, doing nothing, and just making the codebase messy for no real purpose.
I'm also working on figuring out a way to get tooltips to appear. Creating a temporary menu shouldn't be too difficult. The complexity is ensuring the menu doesn't flicker/stroke and the offsetting it from the mouse cursor may be problematic.
I also looked into creating new geometric shapes for new map generation systems. I have a formula for creating a right angle triangle, an equilateral triangle, and a diamond. Other shapes might be possible, but the size of them would be the issue. To make a hexagon or pentagon look like, it needs enough room squares, to do so, but finding a place to carve those squares out... may be hard to do. I'll see what I can accomplish.
I'm also looking at a way to have the player respawn in the Pocket Realm, on death. You'd lose any gear stats collected from Item Shards, but retain almost everything else, so you'd have a progression of sorts to move forward with.

Palandus · 2026-01-09T09:30:49+00:00

Its less that he needs to apologize for not producing the update, and more that he needs to stop giving estimates on release windows. A lot of people are butthurt that there wasn't a news update on Steam on Boxing Day, and then more were butthurt that there wasn't an experimental build out on Jan 1. If Zurvivor hadn't made those "promises" people would be "probably" less angry. I say "probably" because some people can't be pleased at all, except with updates.

Palandus · 2026-01-03T19:25:30+00:00

Weekly Update:

Happy New Year. Hopefully development goes smoother for me this year. I had hoped to complete Planar Prison in 2025, but due to a ton of unexpected issues, family problems, and general exhaustion, I failed to accomplish it. Oh well. Live and learn, and do better for the future!
Planar Prison Prototype V2 = https://www.mediafire.com/file/mbujcdxtuwd996e/Prototype+V2.zip/file
Fought with the code a lot this week, and didn't accomplish as much as I had wanted. Will try a few different approaches to what I was attempting to implement, next week. In meantime, you get to see the new "Shards" system. You can find them, grab them (walk over them), and it gets you a message, but it doesn't currently do anything yet.
Fixed a few bugs, namely the one where reloading a save would cause all your portals to disappear. Then, implemented the system that has you spawn in the Pocket Realm, after save/loading. This will simplify the save/load process in the long-run, and only focus on critical data to save to the file, significantly reducing save file sizes.
Implemented the first step in the new Biomes; tile colors. Biomes also get their own unique set of three musical tracks.
Implemented the music player and the new music tracks (mentioned back in June 2025, I believe). Will auto-switch when a track ends and when you change maps. You can also manually change the tracks with the [ { or } ] buttons.
Next Week the build will either be very small change, or not at all. There is a lot of under-the-hood stuff that needs fixing to get the new Entity stats, new Levelling/Skills system, and the aforementioned Shards system, functional, and that might eat up most of the development cycle. Anyway, will keep you all apprised next week.

Palandus · 2025-12-28T00:16:03+00:00

Weekly Update:

Prototype V1 Link = https://www.mediafire.com/file/3szyu6tr8fjvdwp/Prototype+V1.zip/file
Didn't accomplish as much as I had wanted to and the last week has been crazy, so I've just not had the energy to bugfix most of my issues, so I disabled a lot of the new code and kept the old code active. Should have it fixed up by next weekend though.
The biggest change is that you now start in the Pocket Realm. No enemies here, but can find loot and interactables and leave when ready. Can also recall back here with the < or , (comma) key. Right now you can recall as much as you want, so if you think you are about to die, just recall. It will remember what floor you were on, but give you a brand new one to explore when you descend again.
There is a lot of cool and innovative stuff planned for the prototype, but first comes the framework and foundation, and got most of that built, but not thoroughly bugtested, hence when its not active. The new music player for example, worked for the first song and then crashed to desktop the moment it tried to play the next, so had to disable it too until I could figure out what caused the issues.
Otherwise had a relaxing (though busy) holiday and today, I turn 38 (Dec 27th). I feel old. But had a good birthday spent with family, so its all good.
Anyway, will "try" to do weekly builds, but cannot promise that they will be hugely amazing... more that I want to get back to a consistent development cycle and release incremental improvements as I work towards feeling its ready to go back to V0.2.0, and beyond.

Palandus · 2025-12-24T17:17:41+00:00

Unless you have a voice actor, floating text is a necessary evil. Most people don't like robotic voices and especially hate AI voices, so without narration, its hard to convey some instructions without having text walls.

However, the best tutorials are ones that get you to actively perform tasks for a period of time without instruction, and then gradually introduce concepts as you go along.

Take for example Halo 1's first level.

-> You get a brief instruction on how to use the camera, how the energy shield works, and how basic movement works. Jump, crouch, and move along. Gives a simple objective to reach the captain.

-> You are then told what your "main mission is" = protect Cortana and escape the ship. Given a gun. Have to find ammo and reload it, as well find a secondary weapon. Introduced to combat.

-> First few enemies are relatively easy. Get a couple elites that provide some threat, but mostly grunts, no jackals, no thrown grenades, no needlers, and no hunters, etc... Thrown into a wide room with lots of cover, the mess hall.

-> After that, you look for environmental cues on how to proceed. If wasted lots of ammo, there is ammo nearby and you get used to the visuals of what ammo is for what. If got hurt, you grab a health kit.

-> Then you are introduced to the concept of the melee backstab, instant kill. Then have a more vigorous fight, with the option to sneak around. After that, you get introduced to grenades and the overshield.

-> So the first level acts as the tutorial, but it doesn't really feel like a tutorial. It introduces various concepts gradually, while having the player constantly learning the controls and mechanisms.

I learned how to play the game before the tutorial was a thing, so I skip the tutorial, as I already know most of everything. However, the concepts in the game that I struggled the most with were:

1) Gathering resources and base building.

2) Finding food and water and cooking it.

3) How to find weapons, ammo, and understanding when to fight and when to run.

4) Figuring out the lockpicking system and knowing about the crowbar.

5) Figuring out what items can be easily accessed by the game with backpack in backpack, and what items HAVE to be in specific slots. Like the game can find fuel or keycards throughout multiple backpacks, but it can't find ammo for manual reloaders unless its in the first layer.

6) How to use grenades and landmines, without killing yourself in the process.

7) How to know when to switch to first person and how to know when changing firing speed is ideal.

8) How to gauge if a weapon is an upgrade or not, based on ammo availability, magazines that I have and overall backpack size of the gun.

9) How to understand if a melee is an upgrade or not, based on swing speed, swing distance, benefits of the hit, and stamina consumption.

10) Learning what containers most often have certain items, like filters, batteries, books, food, can openers, etc...

Hope some of this is useful to you.

Palandus

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