Protocol Z

Today i have finished up the game for release, I added in some of the last buildables and ironed out the bugs i was facing such as the pause menu not keeping the mouse visible and the zombie making the game lag a lot, I also added a gas station so that one day i can add in drivable vehicles as well. This is it.. The final devlog. Thanks for following along even if its been a rough ride, I hope to do something else like this another day :)

I have no idea what happened but a week ago i done a huge devlog with half the time i had here, i cannot completely remember what i did but i will try and condense it and say here

• Upgraded the buildables system to include screws and raspberrys and have better optimisations added in
• Made the game playable at about 30fps of web browser by making the game detect if it is running on web and adjust settings accordingly (shadows and render scale)
• Created wall buildable, Floor, Campfire, Growable raspberry bush, bed, table.
• Optimised the multiplayer system for the Enemy to try and combat lag
• done some more backend stuff
  I am sorry i couldnt go into detail as i need to do chores but next devlog will be the release and ship!

in this week long devlog I have added alot of new content to the building system and improved on the enemy AI. I added a new screw item and a screw 3d model so now the building system has more variety with resources, I also created a loot spawner that randomly spawns rocks, food, screws, water and raspberry seeds at intervals so players have a random variety of things they can loot. I then added floor and wall buildables (both built and unbuilt versions) to the building mechanic along with a table blueprint that requires 8 screws to build and sync across multiplayer.

On top of that I implemented a growth system using a script so now the raspberry bush actually grows over time from a seed state to a full plant instead of just being a static object.

I also done some optimisation on the enemy AI side of things, I fixed the damage cooldown so zombies cant rapid fire damage you, added death tracking so dead enemies dont keep running around and causing issues, improved the look-at logic so enemies look at you when chasing and look towards their waypoint when wandering. I also prevented animation changes from happening over and over again every frame which was wasting performance, so the AI is alot more polished now.

Today I have added a rain system and revamped the building system. The rain system uses a timer and a GPU particles node, When the timer runs out (random value) it sets another random time for how long the rain should last. I am going to implement this into multiplayer when I get time. I also extended the building mechanics to support many new things such as a table, a campfire and a raspberry bush which is the only one fully added, it requires you to pick up a raspberry seed and when you have one in your inventory you can place a raspberry bush it doesn’t do anything but I am going to make it so that it actually grows and you can pick raspberrys and their seeds from it. I also done some optimisation on the enemy side of things and fixed the spawner as it was causing massive frame drops now the game sits at 60fps the whole time. I made It so that the spawner is limited to 5 zombies and when one dies it takes a spawned zombies count down one so that another one can spawn when the timer is up. I also added a cool shader to make the game have a retro look (cover up my bad modelling) and I added a glass material shader and even a simple water with foam with a dam and a few creeks

Today i have optimised the AI system as when there was multiple instances it would halt the game to a standstill. I made it so that instead of using the physicsproess it uses a timer that every 0.5 seconds it updates the go to location instead of it running every frame causing low fps. I also added in a thrist and hunger system so when yu run it takes thrist away and hunger just slowly goes away you have water and muesli bars so far but i will add more

I have created a multiplayer spawner to synchronise zombie spawning for all players, it uses a function that is called when a timer runs out and it instantiates a zombie using the base code that I implemented for the trees spawning logs, I also added in a tree falling and being hit animation with particles (leaves and bark) I made the axe swing as well as making the tree have sounds when hit and falling. I also added in some 3d model building that I made for a past project for flavourtime but deleted the project so I added them to give the game some character. My next steps are going to be optimising the enemy as when a few of them are running the game comes to a standstill. The image shows a zombie that has just spawned in using the new spawner

Here i am displaying everything that i have added so far in this game please watch the video to get an understanding

• log cabin building good
• multiplayer syncronisation polished
  -AI zombie with animated body made it blender it uses pathfinding and groups to detect the player if it doesnt it just wanders to random locations
• simple main menu is implemented but didnt show it
• Day and night cycle
• Weather using GpuParticles

Implemented multiplayer, building a cabin, cutting down trees, .simple inventory system, axe, rocks, logs, and a simple start screen where you add in an IP address to join to the host. It all uses the Godot inbuilt multiplayer and most of it either syncs using @rpc or multiplayersyncroniser nodes. In my next devlog I will show a video of the game working and about the AI system I will inplement