Devlog - Hands, Halloween, and Everything In Between

New Hands

One of the most repeated pieces of feedback was that the hands looked plasticky. Not realistic enough. We heard it.

We reached out to Baran Yilmaz, a very talented 3D artist based in Istanbul, Türkiye. After some conversations and explaining what the game is and what we were going for, he created a new hand for Undead Chronicles.

The difference is significant. It changes the atmosphere of the game completely. You can check out his work here:

https://www.artstation.com/baranst

Halloween Demo

We are steadily moving toward a Halloween demo. This is not going to be a standard vertical slice. It is going to be a focused, deliberate snapshot of what this game actually is.

Here is what that means:

-Romero zombies. Slow, dumb, dangerous in numbers. No mutations. No special variants. No boss zombies. Just dead humans who are hungry.

-Pressure through surroundings, not UI. No waypoints. No yellow paint. No red outlines. No crosshair. The game trusts you to figure it out.

-Linear, handcrafted levels. Not a sandbox. Not open world. Every room was built with intent. This is not a game designed to make you play 40 hours. It is built to do one thing really well.

-Historical setting with real research behind it. 1920s Ottoman Istanbul.

-One bite equals death. No health bar to grind back up. No second chances.

-Stronger, more realistic gore. More disturbing.

-A compact indie game made with conviction.

The demo will be a preview of these design values in action.

What We Are Working On

A few things currently in progress:

-We are adding a new animation layer to the weapons. Our main character is a banking official, not a soldier. The handling should feel like it.

-We completed a round of VO recording. Implementation is ongoing.

-We are improving weapon recoil.

-A brand new weapon is in early production with an amazingly talented Brazilian 3D artist. More on that soon.

-We are working on new zombie types. Still Romero-style, but with different designs.

-A save system is being implemented this month.

-The demo level blockout is wrapping up. Optimization and set dressing are ongoing. Currently running at 80-100 FPS on an RX 7900 XTX in a standalone build, 4K native with TSR, no FSR involved yet. We are in a good place on performance and we wanted to address it early, not the night before launch.

-We are expanding the animation pool and editing existing animations for more variation.

-We are improving the death system and post process effects.

-We are working on hit reactions per body part.

-We are adding a zombie variant that moves slightly faster than usual, not running, just faster.

-We are building a skeletal decal system so you can visually see damage accumulate on zombies wherever you shoot them.

We are working every day. If you want to support us, share our Steam page with your zombie-loving friends, join our Discord, and like our posts and comment under on X.

We Will Bring Real Zombies Back