Morning Post #1: I, Zombie Arrives

Editor's note: the original PDF of this issue was lost. The text below was reconstructed from archived page screenshots and the original figures.

Content Log

Let's start with the headline feature of this beta: I, Zombie mode!

Though it keeps a low profile, Voyage has DIY support. Yet the classic I, Zombie mode from the original game never appeared in Voyage itself. Creative players managed to recreate I, Zombie inside DIY through indirect means, which was genuinely surprising! Still, that approach was not elegant and had plenty of problems in practice. So: it was time to add a real I, Zombie mode to the game!

To try I, Zombie in the new beta, just open the world map and type IZ. There is only one level for now, but you are free to build your own IZ puzzle levels in this beta!

As a reference, the IZ mode level file is levels/level98323.json, which demonstrates most of the IZ architecture. More detailed documentation will follow. A friendlier DIY experience is also planned for future betas.

Next, we fixed two small issues:

• GHTR-000000DA Dragging a seed packet on the seed selection screen could preview the wrong card
• GHTR-000000DB Using "last loadout" in a particular order could leave seed packets in an abnormal state

By the way, the chessboard tiles received a very subtle art touch-up to make them read more clearly.

What Else We Did

Not everything from this period landed in the beta release — we also worked on some other fun things. The highlight: the Sands boss!

The Sands boss fight will revolve around the Apple Clock — both as the reason for the battle and throughout the fight itself. The boss design came from a proposal by Rongying, a creator who has done a great deal of art for Voyage and part of the early text-rendering work. The art design was done by Rongying personally — here is a small peek at this brand-new boss…

Next up: seed packet visual effects! In the new boss fight, the boss interacts with seed packets. We put together the temporary effects below during this period. In the actual game these effects are animated: the left one glints with reflections, and the right one slowly flows.

Beyond that, here is a grab bag of design brainstorms (naturally, whether any of these appear in the game — and what they would look like if they did — is completely undecided). Let's look at a few:

Odds and Ends

I really must thank a friend, player, and translator: M0niku.

I do not have much experience running a Discord server, and ads kept popping up there, along with plenty of organizational problems. Huge thanks to M0niku for helping me manage the Discord server and reorganizing the channels in a much better way! Beyond that, I also want to thank M0niku for the enormous amount of translation work — both the translations M0niku did personally and all the coordination around them. Thank you so much!

Because the server blew up, the translation platform has stalled once again. I will therefore migrate the translation work to Paratranz, which requires some file format conversion and assorted odds and ends. I will finish this as soon as I can.

And now, let's enjoy Paratranz's drawing of Hygro Plantago!

That's it for this week's Morning Post — see you next week!