Hello everyone!

I apologize again for the lengthy delay between updates. As discussed in my previous post, it’s been a bit of a rough year due to some unexpected issues with a former collaborator. But now, thanks in large part to our new programmer, things are finally getting back on track.

Without further ado, here are the update notes for v1.3.1, which is currently accessible via the Beta option and will be set live to all players upon additional testing:

How to access Beta builds on Steam:

1. Right-click Z. Year One in your Steam Library
2. Select Properties
3. Select the Betas tab
4. Enable the "beta - Update beta branch" option from the drop-down menu

IMPORTANT: Beta builds may have serious bugs and can potentially cause issues with your unlocks/progress. While this is highly unlikely and we do everything we can to ensure that’s not an issue, please only enable beta builds at your own risk. That said, should your account get messed up, in most cases I can manually reset it and grant you whatever XP and booster packs you had previously (but not individual Variants).

New Feature: Timeout for AI

Some players have reported issues where the AI (the Survivor AI, in particular) basically poops itself and the game soft locks, requiring a reset. Fixing this is our TOP priority by far, but it’s been difficult to test because it doesn’t happen very often, at least not to us (I’ve played v1.0-1.3 for dozens of hours and it’s never happened to me once). And various fixes were deployed in the last couple of builds for this problem, but it seems we may not have zapped every possible instance of it.

In v1.3.1, the AI has been given an invisible timer of 90 seconds. If, for whatever reason, the AI hasn’t finished its turn within that time limit, the turn will automatically be ended. If the AI times out twice in a row, the player will automatically win the match.

While it’s not the greatest way to win, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to lose a match due to a bug and I sincerely apologize to anyone who has encountered this.

The timeout is just a temporary band-aid. We will continue to test for the cause of the AI issues, and some upcoming improvements to the overall AI may hopefully resolve these edge cases.

BETA PLAYERS: If you’re interested in helping us test via the v1.3.1 beta, please report any issues you have with the AI on this new build. Most reports seem to suggest that it may involve the Survivor AI and either locked doors and/or empty locations (so basically, not knowing what to do when they can’t search).

Also, as the timeout feature is untested, it may cause issues of its own. If the AI bugs out, things may not work as they should on the player’s next turn. Again, please let us know what you find.

New Feature: Master Volume Slider

You can now adjust the game’s master volume from the Options (click the gear icon or press TAB at any time).

Additional audio improvements are coming, including remixing the ambient sounds for a better balance.

Card text and tooltip changes for the following cards:

• Amie Lynn
• Henry
• Hope
• J-Nugz
• Lily
• Michele
• Pinky
• Prof. Imahara
• Vegas
• Whitney

I’m currently going through each and every card in the game and making text tweaks or improvements. This is mainly to clarify the functionality of certain abilities. If there’s any card that you feel isn’t clear about how it works, please let me know. If there are a lot of these submissions, I may create a single thread to compile all of them into.

While most cards will not be getting re-worked as part of the text updates, a few, such as Lily, will be getting a buff in a future update.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Overwatch would trigger on Fallen Traps
• Fixed a bug relating to Star’s signature weapon’s reload cost
• Fixed a bug where the spacebar would repeat the “Buy a card” function
• Fixed a bug that would not allow Whitney to use the Stealth Attack Tactic
• Fixed a bug where the Military Vests would not apply their reload discount perk
• Fixed a bug that allowed Hope to use her Pickpocket ability endlessly each turn
• Fixed a bug where Jordyn’s Drone B would negate a Fallen Trap on the wrong turn
• Fixed a bug where Jeani’s Guardian ability would not trigger when Vampy was in play
• Fixed a bug where Roamers generated by Onslaught would not be properly highlighted
• Fixed a bug where Hope’s Pickpocket would be erroneously displayed as a Stealth Attack
• Fixed a bug where the far left unit’s tooltip and an unbought Location Unit would blend together

Console Errors

The new programmer cleared out a ton of errors left behind by the previous programmer in the Z. engine. While this doesn’t really impact you directly, it does make your output logs less cluttered and easier to parse, which in turn will help us resolve any issues you submit in the future. So, yay!

Next Update

Just a friendly reminder that there is currently no set schedule for upcoming updates. We’re working every day but taking the time needed to ensure things are getting done right. The new programmer is already getting very familiar with the complex intricacies of the Z. engine (there’s over 200,000 lines of code!), and has found ways to fix or accomplish things that the previous programmer could not.

Whether you get two updates in a week or one in a month, I will keep you all in the loop on how things are progressing without too much time passing in-between.

Once the majority of the bugs are out of the way, we’ll be full steam ahead on the v2.0 features and improvements. You can see the roadmap for those here.

Anyway, it’s 3am and the night’s still young so I’m getting back to work! See you next time!

--Sebastian