Tons going on at the moment, but something of a ‘in progress’ blog. So here’s some nuggets on what our various workers are up to for Build 38 and beyond.

• RJ has just released IWBUMS public beta build 38.3 – which remedies the incessant fly buzz around rotten body piles, adds some new of Turbo’s new sounds for TV/radio and corrects various issues around the new graves and in-game memorials. This follows on from last Tuesday’s 38.2 that added some new sandbox options, random selection on zed strength/toughness/cognition and some darkness and nutrition balance.

• Next up RJ is working alongside RingoD to improve the selection process for solo game map mods – and let you boot up with multiple map mods without players having to create their own combined map mod.

• The plan is for ChrisW’s cool work on the building floor render code (stopping rooftops and higher floors being hidden all the time) to get merged into the 38 IWBUMS this week too – although this is dependent on a few fixes getting in, alongside improved window-peeking and getting the system working with garage/awning roof structures that the game currently doesn’t consider as being part of buildings.

• The public Vehicles Tech Test has been getting Yuri love backstage for the past week or so, as he’s been hunting out memory leaks through profiles of different machines running the build. It’s been a tricky process, but it seems like we’ve finally got to the bottom of one of the issues that was hampering FPS – and as such we’ll hopefully be returning to more ‘fun’ updates on the cars themselves, and remedying the MP inventory difficulties, later in the week. Our thanks to EG and Nasko for their help in the performance bug hunt.

• The Vehicles Tech Test has been going so well that we’ll definitely be doing something similar with Anims when the time comes. MarkR’s got a pipeline toward that locked down now – building on the new model format he’s put in for us, tidying up the work we already had in the can with his technical cleverness, as well as creating a quick tool to aid creation of more complex animation states, implementing ‘layers’ which is like an extra dimension to the current animation system that would exponentially simplify all the remaining game logic stuff that still needs fixing up and tying together. [TLDR: There’s a hell of a lot of technical chat going on, the guy who writes the Mondoids doesn’t really understand it all, but there’s a real push on and we are going to owe MarkR more than a few beers.]

• We also have another bold Russian, also from the General Arcade stable, currently tasked with improving the PZ online experience. Stas’ current task is to improve how servers perform ‘SaveAll’ – and in turn hopefully address the terror of ‘black boxing’, frozen zeds and map stream pauses. His is a long term mission, it could take a while, but it’s great to have someone of his talents getting in amongst it all.

Hopefully more developments on all fronts next week, and clearly Mash’s next map expansion isn’t a million miles away – oh and we’re also back in touch with Zach Beever now he’s finished up his studies about polishing the PZ soundtrack, and maybe a few new tunes too. More on that when it happens.

This week’s Spiffo Speakeasy is Spiffo’s Bar, in a pic put up on Steam by Tasma. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too.