Dev Diaries: Kick that Chest Open!

Happy Monday! Here is a full roundup of everything we've been building and polishing across the board:

Weapons & Combat

•  The Chakram:  Redesigned into a throwable boomerang that pierces zombies outbound and inbound. Holds internal durability and can't be re-thrown until returned. Visuals updated to spin facing the camera.

• New Gear: Added Throwing Knives (crafted in batches of 10 from two knives) and a Two-Handed Axe (Scrap Axe + Stick).

• Combat Polish: Base kicks now deal minor direct damage. Throwables are now visible in hand before throwing.

Spawning, Navigation & Physics

• Dynamic Zombie Spawns: Added multiple zombie variants, each with game-phase-dependent spawn rates.

• Pathfinding Fix: Resolved an issue where visual fog was treated as a solid wall by the navigation system, preventing zombies from moving through doorways.

• Kick Open Chests: Chests are now kicked open to drop loot. Kickable objects (chests/barrels) now only deal damage while airborne, fixing passive ground damage issues.

• Loot Drops: Defeating zombies now carries a configurable chance to drop loot on death.

Visuals, UI & Audio Polish

• Visual FX: Added animated burning particle loops to ignited zombies. Fixed sprite offsets for non-DragonBones zombies, split puddle zombie forms into toggled objects, and resolved viewmodel clipping during kicks via Update When Offscreen.

• UX & Menus: Low-health vignette now triggers at 50% health instead of 75%. Menus (Shop and Hub run prompts) freeze gameplay and grab gamepad focus properly. Resolved hotbar item highlight conflicts.

• QoL Improvements: Expanded the hotbar to 9 slots with D-pad quick-swapping on slot 9, added a skippable launch splash screen, and added full volume controls to the options menu.