Zombie AI & Horde Stability
What’s New
The entire enemy AI system is now stable and scalable.
Fixed frozen zombies, walking-in-place bugs, and idle corpses standing upright.
Zombies now chase properly, die facing the correct direction, and return to the pool cleanly when reused.
Pathfinding is fully synchronized, and zombies now recalculate paths correctly during pooling.
Performance Boosts
Added A.I. LOD tiers depending on distance to player.
Offscreen zombies disable physics to reduce CPU usage.
Created a cluster (hive-mind) system - one zombie leads, and nearby zombies follow its path.
Result: 400–600 zombies on screen with 70–100 FPS on mid-range hardware.
The horde finally feels real - swarming, fluid, aggressive, and scalable.
New Special Enemy: The ZCommander
A dangerous elite enemy that:
Summons additional zombies during combat
Heals nearby allies with new visual FX
Keeps safe distance like a ranged unit
Drops XP and lingers as a corpse
He now has:
Healing beams & pulse FX
Knockback & hit reactions
Full directional animation set
Proper corpses (no instant disappearance!)
This is the first special infected - more are coming.
Weapons & Combat Systems
Multiple weapons were polished and expanded:
Weapon | Status |
|---|---|
Orbiting Cleaver | Fixed spacing, synced cooldowns, full upgrade scaling |
Boomerang Axe | Clean return logic & damage scaling |
Reverse Shotgun | Updated cone spread system |
Radial Burst | Balance pass & animation cleanup |
NEW – Laser Beam | Continuous ray weapon with real-time sweeping + VFX |
Laser Beam - Brand New System
Rotates and sweeps automatically
Line-based raycast damage
Start/end VFX fully implemented
Beam ticks damage over time
Compatible with upgrade system
Beam can now dissolve zombies on death using a new shader!
World Building
The entire first major world is built and playable.
Navigational issues across fences, water, and buildings have been solved.
Water now has its own tilemap and correctly blocks zombies.
Spawners only use valid walkable tiles now - no more spawning inside walls or lakes.
The world finally feels complete - performance-ready and fully walkable.
Safehouse + Meta Progression
A fully working skill tree system is now in the game - replacing the old upgrade list UI.
✔ Now Working:
Safehouse loading & saving
Skill tree UI with nodes, connectors & progress lines
New stat upgrades:
Move Speed
Damage
HP Regen
Max HP
Armor
Credits & tier system
Real-time stat updates that affect runs immediately
Your meta run progression is now persistent - XP and upgrades finally matter.
What's next? Much more passive upgrades and eventually active upgrades like ricocheting bullets, exploding bullets, NPC assistance! The current 5 upgrades? This is the beginning; the code works and possibilities are endless now. :)
Editor / Engine Fixes
Fixed a massive Unity freeze caused by thousands of tile colliders on trees.
Removed all trigger colliders from decorative tilemaps - editor now loads within seconds.
Scenes no longer hang for 10+ minutes.
Build speed, scene swapping, and play mode now work instantly.
This unlocked development speed - and made world-building possible again.
What’s Coming Next
Physics optimization for large hordes
Swarm pressure/fear system
Boss encounters & extraction gameplay
More special infected types
Weapon FX + sound polish
Friendly survivors & events
TL;DR
✔ First large map fully playable
✔ Zombie AI optimized for hundreds of enemies
✔ Special enemy type ZCommander implemented
✔ Laser beam weapon fully integrated and functional
✔ Safehouse meta progression now working end-to-end
✔ Major Unity editor freeze completely fixed
Contagion Protocol officially feels like a real game now - the foundation is solid.
From here, it’s all content, polish, and gameplay depth.
💬 Let me know what you want to see next - bosses, new weapons, or more infected types?
Thanks for following the development - wishlist & follow to support indie dev progress! 🙏