The Thistlewolf Post #6: I, Zombie Endless Arrives

Good morning, everyone! It's time to introduce Voyage's first official Endless mode!

Foreword

I, Zombie is a really fun mode to play, and in this update we're adding I, Zombie Endless. Alongside the original's style, it also has plenty of distinctive content, so let's follow the update log and get to know it bit by bit…

Content Log

If you've cleared the "I, Zombie" level in story mode, you can buy the "I, Zombie" game cartridge in Snowbloom Palace:

Clear the first nine levels, and you can experience I, Zombie Endless.

I, Zombie Endless offers several different themes, so try to reach higher rounds! Along the way, I'd like to introduce two important tools…

The first is saving. In Endless mode, the game makes a save every round, so you can quit the game and come back to carry on playing. And because saving only happens at the start of a round, if you make a serious mistake during this round, you can quit the level and then reload the save, returning to the start of that round—you could call this save/load, or SL for short.

SL requires clicking through quite a few dialogs, and that's intentional. There's no doubt SL makes Endless easier, so if you want a challenge, you can also try playing without it!

Next up is the seed. When an Endless run finishes, the results screen shows you that run's seed.

A seed is a 12-character code made of uppercase letters and digits, excluding I and O—it determines what a run of IZE (I, Zombie Endless for short) is like.

And in the first round of Endless, you can click the seed button in the bottom-right corner and enter a seed to start a run with that particular seed. Whether you want to replay a run to see if you could have done better, or experience a run of IZE that someone else has had, seeds make it possible.

When you start a run with a seed, the bottom-right corner shows that run's seed. One thing to note: Endless runs started with a seed do not count toward your best round!

Here, let me share three seeds with everyone:

• MJZR-6LTS-GAPD: the seed from my very first test!
• GDGB-R073-2QDE: a fun seed I discovered in later testing!
• L8VG-41FA-1BZ8: a really satisfying seed!

To fit IZE, some zombie traits change a little in IZE.

The Hamster Zombie now has half its normal HP (the original game's Imp is the same way).

The Pine Zombie's path is now fixed as a down-up-down-up loop (unless it's placed in the fifth row, where it loops up-down-up-down)—after all, with a random path the pine would be nearly unusable. Besides, in I, Zombie the pine only dodges lethal attacks; otherwise its random retreats would make the results of using the pine unpredictable.

Also, I, Zombie level 8 gets one extra column, solving the problem where the level was hard to clear while carrying the "Collection Magnet."

Finally, we fixed a position error when only the I, Zombie cartridge was purchased, and fixed being able to buy the Chain Reaction cartridge after clearing Chain Reaction even without having unlocked the Plant Retreat.

Some Future Plans

The next plant has already reached a good level of completion! The boss has entered its final animation stage as well. I expect to ship a full release by the end of August.

Aside

Happy IZE! This should also be Voyage's first mode with real replayability (the earlier Chain Reaction Endless was clearly too un-"PVZ")!

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