Build 42

[Jack Flintlock™]

Okay, so I actually missed the drop of B42 by 24 hours (which I didn't expect to happen until like a week from now). So I dove into it today for a few hours after reading some complaint posts about changes that have been made, and here are my thoughts as someone who has played PZ for over a decade:

I love the existence of the basements. Such a great added feature, imo.

Glammed-up map locations - Wonderful. I love them.

Lighting - So much better than B41 (even the tiny changes, like a light indicator on wall light switches, or seeing the glow of light though curtains at night and seeing light reflected on the character's back when they're by an open door).

Dragging corpses... Just, YES (though there's some animation flickering when changing direction).

Wringing out wet clothing (nice to no longer need a mod for this) is a great addition.

Door animations - So nice (though some don't animate, maybe just due to the 'not-fully-baked' nature of the Beta).

UI - Not bad. Improved a little, though still clunky.

Options menus have had a small makeover and they're not bad either.

Exertion - Took a moment to take this one in, especially since I'm a 'crowbar all the time' guy, though I can see it being fine with maybe some tweaking in the sandbox.

New Moodles - They seem okay to me. Much nicer looking than the old ones, and far easier to differentiate, imo (stylistic choices aside, the new 'bleeding/wounded' moodle seems a bit odd to me).

All of the new variations in literature/videos - A small thing, but helps a ton with immersion.

I'm not a gunplay guy in this game (like NEVER), so I haven't messed with the new aiming system yet.

The gameplay itself feels pretty smooth, though could probably use a little more TLC as time goes by.

One note in particular: I am a gamepad player (I'm old and so are my hands, and they HATE keyboard/mouse only games these days), but I used to be able to scroll the map with the controller and it seems I'm unable to do that anymore (maybe this got missed in the last run through before dropping B42?).


All in all, I like the direction the game is headed in and can't wait to see things get fleshed out for this build.