September 2023 Update Report news - Nazi Zombies: Portable

Introduction

This post is also available on GitHub Discussions.

Apologies for this report being a few days late, as I announced on my [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/CypressImplex) I wasn't feeling too great and had not been able to do much of anything. Regardless, September was still a big month for the project on a lot of fronts, namely VITA/NX, PSP, and the general game core. This post will summarize and give a list of highlights of the month.

116 commits across the board this month! Woo!

Wunderwaffe DG-2 Rewrite

Something people will immediately notice is, thanks to blubs, the Wunderwaffe DG-2 now has a much more accurate system for arching, and now caters to special AI types (crawlers, dogs). It also has a nice visual upgrade with a new sparkle effect and a fixed lightning effect.

PlayStation VITA and Nintendo Switch Port "Finalization"

The biggest change this month was a finalization of the VITA/Switch version of NZ:P. This doesn't mean the game is *actually* finished, but now these builds are on the same standard as all of the others, and will no longer fall behind. You can read a lot of the specifics here!

New Map: "Temple" from LEXX

I've collaborated with LEXX to bring the Call of Duty: Black Ops (Nintendo DS) map TEMPLE to NZ:P, with new secrets and a nicely refined visual style.

Bouncing Betty Fixes

The Bouncing Betty equipment had a full pass of adjustments, including re-timings for sounds, the removal of self-inflicted damage, a more intense explosion effect, etc. It also fixes a backwards compatibility bug with pricing on older maps, so no more free Betties in those cases!

AI/Crawler Tweaks

Not the pathfinding revamp everyone is looking for (yet!) but AI health systems got a nice revamp, particularly fixing a bug with their health calculations in the later rounds and also fixing the viability of explosive weapons. Tons of testing was done to ensure grenades remain as viable as you'd expect during gameplay, and the same goes for the Ray Gun, Panzerschreck, etc.!

Weapon Speed Nerfs

Taking out and putting away a weapon now has a set animation duration applied, making it take longer/shorter to switch between weapons, bringing difficulty even closer to matching that of Call of Duty: World at War!

MORE PlayStation Portable Optimizations

Thanks primarily to shpuld (I did a bit too though, and helped with brainstorming :p) the PlayStation Portable builds of the game are now even faster, and more memory efficient. This means less stuttering during gameplay, and a much higher FPS on average (the new target being 30). This is thanks to various changes such as improved pathfinding efficency, tweaks to how static (single-frame) meshes are rendered, no longer counting various detail geometry as entity polygons, etc. He plans to do a write-up soon, I'll update this post when that goes live!

Misc. Bug Fix/Small Addition Bullet List

FTE (PC):

• Fix reloading while scoped with Sniper Rifles

dQuakePlus (PSP):

• Fix reloading a map eventually causing a crash
• Fix 16-bit lightmap loading with `-lm_2`
• Moved back to internal sound processing (fixes purple screen bug)

Global:

• Fix various light effects not being fullbright
• Fix Pack-A-Punch not displaying weapon names
• Stop calling remove() for entities that need to persist on restart
• Fix Deadshot targeting dead zombies when snapping to heads
• Fix Muzzleflash offsets for most weapons
• Ray Gun now fires from barrel position
• Re-time Pack-A-Punch, grenade throwing, meleeing, etc.
• Fixed multiple players being able to get the Wunderwaffe DG-2 from the Mystery Box
• Fix purchasing items while holding the Flamethrower
• Fix aiming down the sights after Pack-A-Punching
• Removed movespeed penalty when purchasing items
• Increased Perk-A-Cola volume from 50% to 80%

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

Thanks to my Patrons!

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