Update log
Full Zombies & Bullets update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Repeated intro
Hello, Joel here, the programmer from Muriki Studio! It’s been a while since our last update, but we’ve been hard at work on many features and improvements for both the final game and the current demo. Today, I’ll walk you through the main changes since the last update.
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Balance
If you played the demo months ago, give it another try! So much content has been added that your experience will be completely different!
Update List
Welcome Sergeant Erin!
In addition to Captain Jacob, you can now play as a new character: Sergeant Erin!
Currently, the selectable characters don't have gameplay differences (this may change in the future), but story dialogues will change according to each person's personality. For example, Captain Jacob is more experienced and disciplined, while Sergeant Erin is less experienced and more questioning, which opens up some interesting possibilities in how they handle story events.
Two-Player Co-op Mode
This was the most significant change we made, and it took quite a bit of work to both program and balance (hence the delay in the update), but here it is: a local two-player co-op mode! Although the co-op mode is local, you can also invite a friend to play online using Steam Remote Play Together.
The way we programmed this mode still allows for an increase in the number of players (maybe three or four-player multiplayer down the line?), but we are still debating the gameplay viability, as the game already gets chaotic (in a good way) with two players—just imagine it with even more! 😅
Interface Improvements
Weapon Wheels
The old weapon wheel took up the entire screen and was not ideal for two players. We have reimagined the weapon wheel to be more compact, allowing two players to use their own wheels independently. Even when playing solo, the weapon wheel behavior remains consistent.
Player Markers
When playing with two players in the middle of arenas packed with enemies and explosions, we noticed it was easy to lose track of your character's location. We've added colored markers at each player's position to mitigate this. These markers can be a circle, an arrow, both, or can even be disabled in the options menu.
Additionally, player colors can now be changed in the options menu, which will affect both your marker and your laser sight.
Game Rebalancing
In previous versions, the game suffered from a serious imbalance regarding difficulty and enemy density—some arenas had too few enemies while others had too many, and the game was still too easy on Normal difficulty. This insight didn't just come from us as developers, but from watching several gameplay videos of the Zombies & Bullets demo, where we realized the game was much easier and the action was slower than we intended.
Now, the game features a larger number of enemies and a much more frantic pace (especially in co-op). This also means the game is significantly harder, but this is intentional on our part, as the game was previously a bit too casual.
Furthermore, some issues in the enemy spawn logic had been temporarily fixed with "duct tape" solutions, making rebalancing harder than it should have been. Because of this, we decided to rewrite the entire enemy spawn system from scratch. You won't see a single enemy spawning over and over in the same spot anymore, for example.
Of course, this rebalancing is still subject to further changes, but we are very satisfied with the new gameplay rhythm, and we hope you enjoy it too!
Knives
Source