Hello, roaders!
I'm pleased to introduce a new mechanic: HORDE! In this update, I've completely reworked road progression and rewards, added a new shotgun, and made a number of minor adjustments.
New Horde Mechanics
While progressing along a road, you'll now encounter hordes. These are special encounters that occur on every road. During a horde, zombies rush from all sides of the road, and you can't escape them. You must bravely take them down! After defeating the horde, you'll receive a generous reward. The player's spotlight radius and flashlight beam are halved during hordes, and the music volume increases proportionally to the number of remaining zombies to add suspense and fear. Boo!
Reward and Character Progression Changes
Each road now has only one crate, and the reward for completing the road is split between the horde and the crate. The number of resource drops has been increased, and road length has been reduced. Accordingly, the cost of crafting weapons and their maximum durability have been proportionally adjusted.
The maximum character level in the demo has been increased to 5.
The maximum shooting skill in the demo has been increased to 4.
A new shotgun, the Remington 870, has been added! It unlocks at character level 5 and shooting skill level 2. It's much more fun than the Winchester 1887 and Ithaca 37. Be sure to try it!
Other New Mechanics and Improvements
Weapon durability is now fully restored when picking up an enhancement on the road.
Character horizontal movement speed has been increased by 1.5x.
Character diagonal movement speed has been increased by 1.7x.
Pickup bonuses now spawn more frequently, but their duration has been slightly reduced.
The camera has been moved slightly forward along the character's movement path to shift the focus of the main action to the center of the screen.
Player-enemy collision has been removed. You can now run away from more dangerous enemies by running through other zombies, although you risk getting hit in the process.
Bonus pickups now appear in the center of a zombie's body when killed, rather than under their feet. This makes them easier to spot without moving the flashlight beam.
Difficulty (zombie spawn rate) has been increased in co-op; it was too easy.
The spotlight on other players in co-op has been disabled to reduce brightness and make it easier to identify your character. Allies are only highlighted when downed, making them easier to find and help.
UI & Quality of Life
An arrow has been added to the edge of the screen showing the distance and direction to the nearest crate or resource.
Added sound effects for resource and enhancement drops on the road.
Added sound effects for gaining experience and leveling up in the road debriefing window.
Added volume control for notification and interface sounds, allowing you to customize the new sounds to your liking.
If the only interaction in the character window is weapon upgrades, the warehouse tab now automatically opens when opening the character window.
Improved interaction with broken weapons: their durability is now displayed in red with a hint added; all buttons except "Disassemble" and "Put into warehouse" are hidden.
The weapon panel in the lower left of the screen has been updated: weapon durability has been added; weapon image size has been increased; the background has been changed to green for easier reading; the panel for inactive weapons has been made translucent to avoid obstruction.
After assembling a new weapon, the subtab for that weapon type now opens instead of just the warehouse tab.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that prevented the "Start Game" and "Join Game" buttons from working for old characters after creating a new character (until the game was restarted).
Fixed a bug where the listening point for all players in co-op was at the position of the last player to join.
Fixed a bug where the weapon quantity in the Warehouse subtab header didn't update when disassembling a weapon.
Fixed a bug where the cost of assembling a weapon from two components was incorrectly displayed in the Workshop.
Thank you for playing ZEROAD! Please share your thoughts and report any new issues you encounter.