August 2023 Update Report news - Nazi Zombies: Portable

Introduction

ModDB Specific Note: The project has had significant changes in development and direction since the post prior to this. There will not be another "mega-update" to fill the gaps, but check out the PSPHDC-23 Showcase we did to help ease you in.

This post is also available on GitHub Discussions.

I was very pleasantly surprised last week when I announced my Patreon in a GitHub Discussions thread. I had previously signed off of the project due to financial concerns, and had (mostly) committed to that sign-off, but I woke up that morning and decided "fuck it, post my Patreon" and was met with some nice contributions, which were able to allow me to spend the last week giving the project a fist-full of update content. I wanted this week to somewhat reflect the expectation for a the development period a little longer than that, to assert my worth to everyone.

In that time I made 74 commits (updates) total to all of the project components. Mostly bug fixes, but with quite a bit of polish, and a major re-write to a component as well.

Mystery Box Rewrite

The biggest contribution made was a re-write of the Mystery Box component. The Mystery Box was re-written to more accurately reflect the base of Call of Duty: World at War. The terms for movement, the way it moves, all of the timings, etc. were adjusted. Read more about it's changes here.

PlayStation Portable Memory Optimizations

Being a project on so many platforms, scale-ability is important. When it comes to scale, the most important component is memory consumption. Every texture loaded is now DXT1 compressed, including Quake MDL embedded textures. This means the size in RAM is halved, from eight bits per pixel (1 byte) to four. This along with a PSP-1000 specific optimization to limit texture resolution on-the-fly allowed for an increase in the "hunk" size -- the chunk of RAM where models and sounds are loaded and managed. This increase significantly prevents stuttering and allows maps of a larger capacity to run more effectively. Shpuld also made some contributions for vertex optimization on models, what a legend!

FTE (PC) Stopwatch for Speedruns

NZ:P has received interest from Call of Duty: Zombies Speedrunners as of recent, and to accommodate them, a built-in stopwatch was added to the HUD via a cvar to accurately detail game run-time. For ease of implementation it is FTE (PC) specific right now, though it is written in the TODO to implement this elsewhere eventually. It is controlled via "scr_serverstopwatch" in the development console, off by default.

Launch of Nintendo Switch Version on the Homebrew Store

The Nintendo Switch version of NZ:P is one of the more neglected, mostly for development environment inconvenience. Despite this, I had spent a couple days focusing on fixing a lot of it's UI and HUD issues to make it feel more in-line with over platforms. Once I was satisfied, I decided to try and draw more attention to it by launching it on the Switch Homebrew Store. You can read more about that here.

Misc. Bug Fix Bullet List

FTE (PC):

• Calling vid_reload will no longer cause the Skybox to unload. (Shpoike)
• Creating fog with the color values 0, 0, 0 (black) will no longer force a low density.
• The "Toggled" ADS Mode setting functionality has been restored.
• Returning from the Control Settings menu no longer always plants you in the Main Menu.

Nintendo Switch/PlayStation VITA:

• The camera is no longer below eye level.
• Many UI elements on PlayStation VITA now scale properly to the display
• Map Description text on Nintendo Switch no longer clips into the side of the Window.

Global:

• Grenades no longer have a 256 radius for damage.
• teddy_spawn entities that call misc/buy.wav will have their audio re-directed (compatibility).
• An entity that has targets will now no longer ignore .message and .killtarget if there is no standard target.
• Scoping in with a Sniper weapon will no longer result in extremely-low FOV.
• Using the Restart function will no longer crash on maps with a Mystery Box.
• The Mystery Box no longer leaks entities when set to spawn with a glow.
• The Mystery Box will no longer always spawn with a glow when it moves.
• Electric Traps no longer invoke Power-Ups when a Zombie dies in it.
• The Power-Up spawn rate was fixed to be a 4% chance instead of 2%

And more, and more, and more.. See you next month!

Thanks to my Patrons!

• K Z
• Benjamin Engelhardt
• Jackson Clayton
• Ryan Baldwin
• Rinse a Gateau Mandate
• Tyler Young
• LEXX
• botdog