Hey it's been a.... while!
The last post here was in 2023, which was a while ago, Here's what happened!
I was pretty busy with University and generally had a lot going on
The original version of the game was started in college and didn't have much of a plan or direction which meant a lot of bad code and features stacking on top of each other, that it ended up being a really big mess...
So at the start of this year I decided to start again from the beginning with an actual plan and goals, This version
Is a lot more organized, documented and focussed and a lot easier for me (and importantly, other people) to look at and work on without worrying if it'll break some other thing
I'm generally bad at art and if you look at some older blog posts there was a lot of badly made 3D backgrounds and stuff that had no place, This is more focussed on gameplay and has a more basic 2D style
With that out of the way, let's look at the new version!
More Basic Visual Style
It (hopefully) looks a lot more cleaner and focussed, If you look at some old blog posts you'll see how much better it is...
The art is still a massive work in progress but it looks a lot nicer!
Here's everything implemented so far in this new version:
Clicking Zombies, Get Resources to buy stuff, level up, the basics!
Recruiting Survivors to help kill these zombies for you!
A Skill Tree for Upgrading Survivors (and more)
Mini Games, More on that later!
Daily Rewards for Opening the Game!
Survivor Abilities
A cool new thing in this version is survivor abilities, to help make each survivor feel different some of them have some unique effects one example is the Gambler!
As you can see, The gambler has a very fitting ability and can give buffs (or debuffs) at random!
Mini Games
Here's a (very early) example of one of the mini games, Farming!
After all, The survivors you've recruited throughout gameplay need to eat something!
This is a pretty basic mini-game!
Buy seeds!
Plant crops!
Wait for them to grow (They grow even when the games closed!)
Harvest the crops!
Sell them for more resources!
Buy new plots to plant even more!
We also have the Camp, Which grows resources while you are away so you have a little boost when you start playing!
Skill Tree
The skill tree is a way to level up the survivors and make them stronger, You can boost there attack, critical rate (the chance a survivor does double damage) and how often they attack!
There's also other upgrades for stuff like clicking to make your clicks stronger!
What I'm Working On
I have a lot planned, but here's what's next up!
Restarting (name in progress) - A classic clicker game mechanic of starting all over again, but with some bonuses, Currently it will also unlock some new fancy (gambling) mechanics. Gambling with your in game resources of course, The game is still fully free with no microtransactions or anything!
Achievements - Alongside Steam Achievements there will also be an in depth in game achievement system to showcase how far you've come and what you still need to do!
Cards - I talked about this before in the old version of the game (i think...) You'll be offered some cards to pick from with different effects, You can only choose one!
So... Game when??
I'm currently on my last year of uni (yay!) so my focus is 50 50 split between my uni work and The Idle Undead, After I'm done I'll have time to fully focus on the game!
The plan is to release a small demo sometime next year (2026) with a glimpse into the gameplay, that'll end at a certain point (like a level cap...) so I can receive feedback and work on bug fixes and stuff from the demo.
I plan to try and get the game out late 2026 but of course this can change, I plan to do some frequent content updates for a little while after launch to provide new content after which I will focus on new projects. Although, if there's enough interest I will continue development after on the side!
I'd heavily suggest following some of my social accounts to get updates!
Twitter Instagram
This is less relevant, but I plan on doing some The Idle Undead themed Twitch streams soon but this is less solely game dev focussed, so it might not be as interesting