Devlog

Joining the world. You no longer drop straight into the outpost. Joining opens on black, in a quiet room of your own, far from everyone else, so nobody walks into you or presses anything while you load.

• First, who made it: Tasty Meow Mix (Nunnie), and the version you're on.
• Then a short note before you go in: what kind of game this is (horror, violence and gore, sudden loud sounds, very dark on purpose), the motion-sickness warning (being grabbed, executed or dragged moves your view), that this is an early alpha where stats, gear and everything else can still change, and what the world sends to our server. I UNDERSTAND to carry on.
• Then the language. English for now; more later.
• New players go straight to training. Everyone else lands in the outpost.

The raid terminal. The placeholder button is gone. A screen on the outpost wall shows everyone in the world and what they're doing: ready, not ready, in training, still loading in, out on the run, down, dead, or made it home.

• READY UP. When everyone in the outpost is ready, a five-second count starts and the run begins. Un-ready to stop it.
• START RAID goes now with whoever's ready. Only the instance master can start before everyone is ready. Anyone who isn't ready stays home.
• JOIN RAID appears while a run is on and the road's still open.
• The run's status as it goes: time left, how many are out, down and dead, whether the power's on, and whether the road is still open.
• The buttons wait until your connection to the outpost network is up, a few seconds after joining, so nobody gets left behind by readying too early.

Spectate. Pick someone who's out on the run, press SPECTATE, and the big screen above the terminal shows what they see. The feed cuts out if they die, get out, or the run ends.

Black screens, typed.

• Heading out: while the raid loads around you, the screen types out the run number, the map, the time on the clock, the size of your team, and the job (fuel the generator, which exits need what).
• If you don't make it: how you died (executed by Hollowface, executed by the Xenosaurid, bled out while down, or killed outright), the run, how long you lasted, and a reminder that your secure slot came home.Spoiler · click to reveal

Loot that moves around. Riverside has hundreds of new crate spots: supply crates, med cases in the medical rooms, toolboxes in the workshops, two to six per room depending on its size. Each raid uses about a quarter of them, so the crates are somewhere different every run.

Secure cases. Fourteen spots for military hard cases, in offices, storage rooms and labs on both floors. Four to six turn up each raid. They're always locked, need a lockpick, and roll noticeably better loot, so there's a lucky find to be had even before the power's on.

Allow Untrusted URLs. The world needs VRChat's Allow Untrusted URLs setting to load its data. Placards in the outpost and the training wing show exactly where it is, step by step, with screenshots.

About & data. A board in the outpost explains what the world sends to our server, why, how long it's kept and how to have it deleted. It also has the credits, plus buttons for our VRChat group and Discord.

New animations, made for this world.

• Husks each pick their own idle and walk: a hunched sway, a twitch, a limp, a lurch or a shamble. They chase in a way that suits their temperament (stumbling shamblers, frantic runners) and play at slightly different speeds, so a crowd never moves in step.
• Lurchers visibly lunge. Husks stagger when you hit them, and a grab plays out in full: the grab, the hold, the bite, the release.
• Hollowface sneaks low while it's following you and skitters when it runs.Spoiler · click to reveal
• The Xenosaurid has its own crawl: a slow stalk, and a scuttle when it chases.Spoiler · click to reveal
• Its execution is one long, deliberate move. It grabs you, lifts you off the floor and holds you at its claw, and a strike ends it.Spoiler · click to reveal

The bloater. The first new kind of husk: a huge, bloated body.

• It takes more than twice the punishment of a normal husk (150 health against 60) and hits much harder.
• It breaks bones more often and staggers less when you hit it.
• It reaches a little further and grabs more often, and getting free takes more stabs.
• It's slow, and it never sprints. It's usually a shambler, sometimes a jogger or a lurcher.
• About one husk in seven is a bloater, and it drops loot more often.

Lockpicking, reworked.

• The needle sweeps round the dial in a loop, and the target zone appears just ahead of it: half a second after you start, and again after each pin you set.
• Only pressing outside the zone fails. Each pin you set makes the next zone narrower, down to a minimum.
• A cheap lockpick replaces the screwdriver for picking locks. The screwdriver is now a more valuable item to sell or salvage.
• The One Less Pin skill now actually removes a pin.

Pouring fuel. The target zone now drifts around the gauge as you pour. Spilling at the edge of the zone makes noise and pauses the pour for everyone, so steady hands matter.

Prying takes a little longer: about 8 seconds.

Every interaction has its own look. Prying, the grab struggle, timed medicine and food (with the item's icon on the bar), the desktop throw charge, and the progress rings for the shutter, the hatch crank and searching containers all have proper art now.

Treating people.

• Using a medical item slows you down while you work.
• The person you're treating sees "X IS USING Y ON YOU".
• Treatments use the healer's skills, not the patient's.

Achievements v2.

• Every achievement has five tiers, with a title for each tier.
• The goals go much higher.
• There's a slimmer progress bar and a spot for each category's icon.
• The page has its own art.

Gear screen. Bigger pocket, backpack and secure slots with bigger text, and the backpack is laid out as a 4 x 3 grid. The body diagram is smaller, with your stats underneath.

Skills. Two dozen upgrades that said "coming soon" now work, along with two new passives: the Mechanic's faster exits and the Guard's reduced damage taken. Sterile, Locksmith and Executioner have been reworked to fit the new interactions.

The outpost and training.

• The quest boards are wall screens you open.
• The workbench has its own screens.
• The training wing has a step for the boards and fixed exit triggers.
• The training dummy can be dragged again.
• Dragging a downed teammate waits about a second between turns.
• The trader, stash and board screens no longer stay highlighted or show through walls.

Settings. The toggles no longer overlap, and every gear-screen tab sits in one tidy row.

Desktop: a throw meter shows how hard you're about to throw.

Riverside General is open. The bigger hospital we promised last time is here, and it's the raid now: the lobby, the Emergency Department, the cafeteria, imaging, labs, the loading dock and the ambulance bay on the ground floor, and a whole second floor on top: ICU, inpatient wards, maternity, offices and more, joined by four stairwells. Monsters follow you into every room now, even behind the narrow doors. The building only exists while a raid is running, so the outpost runs lighter.

Two apexes. When the power comes on, one of two wakes up: Hollowface, or the 3 m Xenosaurid. Both start slower than you, get angrier and faster the longer they're out, and calm down a lot when they down someone.

Staying with the power on pays. Once the generator is running, your time out earns three times the XP. Entering a powered secure room and opening a hazard crate give XP. Picks and pries pay more. Secure rooms now turn up on both floors. Levelling overall is a little gentler.

A new skill tree.

• Six categories: Endurance, Vitality, Mind, Handling, Medicine and Fieldcraft.
• Most upgrades have five ranks (I to V), each rank costing a little more, and a maxed card wears a gold V.
• New upgrades: more health, more sanity, a calmer lockpick needle, fewer broken picks, faster medicine and revives, and Rescue Drag to haul a downed teammate at nearly a walk.
• The Medic revives twice as fast, and a fully trained one revives in about half a second.
• Your old skill points come back to you to spend on the new tree.

Medicine takes time. A bar fills while you work: bandage 4 s, splint 6 s, painkillers 2.5 s, medkit 7 s, surgical kit 15 s, syringe 5 s. Walking is fine; running cancels it.

Readable trader and workbench. Every item has its icon, its full name and what it does, plus its price, value and weight. The workbench shows each material as an icon with how many you have and need. Crafting takes two seconds, and the item goes to your stash.

Your own trader and stash screens. A row of screens along the trader's counter and by the stash lockers. Use one and the panel comes up there, just for you.

Wrist hologram (VR). Look at the back of your hand and a hologram pops up. It shows your body part by part (bleeding parts pulse, broken ones are outlined), your health, sanity and weight, and anything currently affecting you.

Exits

• Walk into an open exit to leave. There's no button to find.
• The hatch needs its key. It takes 10 seconds to grind open, loudly, and shuts itself a minute later.
• The loading dock shutter takes 40 seconds to rise.
• Drag a downed teammate into an exit to get them out.

A new training hub. Five wings off a central hub, with an OUTPOST door to leave whenever you like.

Smaller and sharper. The world download is about half the size it was, and menus are crisper in VR.

Quality of life

• A heartbeat volume slider.
• A comfort setting for being turned while you're dragged.
• Avatar height is limited to 1.40-1.90 m so everyone fits the monsters and doors.
• Body parts are spelled out in full: LEFT ARM, not L.ARM.
• Desktop: hold the click to charge a throw; take items out and they hover in front of you.
• A crowbar now goes properly into the gap of whatever you're prying.

Fixes

• Cabinets, lockers and fridges are lootable again, with their yellow marks.
• Curved stools and other furniture no longer trap you.
• Glass cabinet doors stay open.
• The lockpick catches presses that land a moment late.
• Bleeding slows right down while you stand still.

A first raid map. An early, rough version of an abandoned hospital, used for internal testing. The building starts the raid already occupied, with husks spread through its rooms.

Husks feel like they belong there.

• Their feet match the ground now. No more gliding: they shamble, and they speed up properly when they chase.
• New voices: groans, snarls and the odd low, wet gurgle. They're much quieter and much rarer than before, and they fade out over a room or two.
• Every so often one wanders into a room near your team, somewhere you can't see. Clearing a floor doesn't make it safe forever.

Bottles break. Set a bottle down gently and it's fine. Throw it hard and it might smash: louder, and it's gone.

Searching takes longer for the good stuff. Common junk turns up in under a second. A legendary find takes about five.

The road is the emergency exit. It's open the whole raid, but you leave with only what fits in your pockets: no backpack, and no more than 6 kg. Getting the power on is still how you leave with a haul.

Cleaner HUD. Your quickslots and status bar no longer show what your loot is worth, just counts, weight and your health. Prices still show in the gear screen and at the trader.

No jumping. You can't jump any more anywhere in the world.

Sharper menus in VR. Menus and panels are much crisper up close and at a distance.

Tutorial additions

• A step to put your weapon away and swap a different one onto your hip.
• Floor arrows guide you to the next room and around the outpost tour.
• The dark corner actually drains your sanity until you switch your light on.

Fixes

• Cabinet and fridge doors swing out the front instead of through the cabinet.
• Desktop players can patch up teammates: hold the bandage, splint or syringe, look at them and click.
• Clicking the light on your chest in VR no longer opens the gear screen by mistake.
• The LIGHT slot toggles your light again (desktop L and VR).
• A bandage in your secure slot no longer confuses the tutorial.
• Standing at an exit's panel counts as being in the exit.
• The lockpick dial has its proper look back.

Containers open for real. Crates lift their lids, cabinets and lockers swing their doors, drawers slide out. Each container opens once per raid, and once it's been searched it stays open. No re-rolling loot by closing it.

Locks have character.

• Some locks can only be picked, some are jammed and need a crowbar, and some take either.
• Picking: catch the needle in the zone. A miss is loud and can snap your pick.
• Prying: slow, loud and sure. The lid strains, then bangs open.
• Get hit, swing your weapon, walk off or lose your crowbar mid-job and the work breaks off.
• Lockers are mostly locked, and roll slightly better loot for it.
• Cardboard boxes and shelves are never locked.

Easier to spot loot. Every container you can search has a stripe of yellow stencil paint on it.

Sound. Containers and doors creak, rattle and bang, and everyone nearby hears it. Prying sounds like wood or metal depending on what you're prying. A new LOCKS & CONTAINERS volume slider is in the settings.

The full tutorial. Training is now six chapters: basics, survival, power and exits, teamwork, an outpost tour, and a report card at the end. Pick any chapter from the chapter wall, skip a step you're stuck on, and leave whenever you like.

Melee on desktop. Your weapon rides on your hip: press Q to draw it, click to swing, Q to put it away.

Crafting. The workbench has two modes:

• CRAFT builds gear from materials in your stash and pockets.
• SALVAGE breaks gear down into materials.

Raw materials stack now, up to 6 to a slot.

Raids are dark. No more ambient glow: without power, the only light is what you bring. Flashlights come in tiers with their own beam range, width, brightness and flicker.

Getting hurt shows. As your health drops, the edges of your view drain of colour and light.

VR feels physical.

• Raise food, drink and pills to your mouth to use them.
• Hold gear against your body to put it on.
• Pour fuel by tipping the can at the generator's inlet.
• Throw junk to pull husks away from you.
• Draw your melee weapon from your right hip with an empty hand. Your swing speed decides whether it's a hit.
• Treat a teammate by touching them with a bandage, splint or medkit.
• Revive a downed teammate by stabbing them with a syringe. They get back up at half health with an adrenaline kick.
• Grab a downed teammate and drag them to safety.
• Point at an item and pocket it, or double-click for shortcuts.

All 69 items have proper icons.

New here? You start with training. First-time players arrive in a short training wing beside the outpost. Floating panels walk you through the basics one at a time:

• moving around, your pockets and wearing gear;
• searching, picking locks and prying crates open;
• hitting things, patching yourself up and the secure slot;
• getting out alive.

Each panel waits for you to actually do it before the next one lights up. You can skip it, and you can come back any time from the settings.

Controls in the settings. The settings tab now lists the desktop and VR controls.

Fixes

• Husk voices now follow the sound-effects volume like the rest of the game.

Loot is rarer and means more. Raids were paying out far too much, and "legendary" finds turned up in almost every other run. Top-tier loot is now properly rare, and crates are mostly scrap. The good stuff sits in secure containers, registers and lockers.

Weight matters now. Your base carry limit is lower, and bags mostly add room rather than strength. Heavy armour and a full bag will slow you down, and the vent's weight limit becomes a real choice mid-game.

Greed pays. Gold bars and toolboxes are worth a lot more, enough to justify carrying one with both hands.

The fence takes a cut. Valuables sell for 80% of their worth now. To make up for it, the trader's clothing, bags and tools are about a quarter cheaper, so losing your kit stings without wiping you out.

Syringes are easier to get. They're more common in med cabinets, and the trader stocks them once you've done First Aid.

Quest boards. The deploy room has four boards, one for each group that posts work, and the fourth only once you’ve earned it. Each has a stand-in where its contact will stand.

• 41 quests to start with: chains of story quests, co-op jobs and a few big milestones that pay skill and class points.
• Take up to 5 at a time. Locked and finished ones are hidden unless you ask to see them.
• Raid progress only counts once you get out. Die and you lose that run's progress.
• Kills are shared with teammates close by.

Daily contracts. Three of the groups each post one smaller job a day, sized to your level. Contracts don't take a quest slot. New ones go up at midnight UTC, and one you're partway through stays until it's done.

Turning in items. Quests that want items have a TURN IN ITEMS button. It lists what you've got on you and in your stash, and you pick exactly what to hand over.

Tracking. Track up to three quests to keep them in view: top left on desktop, and on your wrist in VR. Progress on a tracked quest pops up as it happens, with a reminder that it only counts once you're out.

After the run. The outpost screen now tells you what quest progress you banked (or lost), and whether anything is ready to claim.

Patch each other up. Medical items work on teammates now. Look at a hurt teammate within arm's reach and use a bandage, splint, painkillers or a medkit, and it goes to them. If you don't need it yourself, it goes to whoever close by does. Nothing is wasted: if they didn't need it, you keep it.

Husks don't all move the same any more. Every husk rolls a temperament when it wakes up, plus a bit of random speed:

• Shamblers (the most common) walk straight at you. Slow, but they don't stop.
• Stalkers jog after you.
• Runners sprint once they've seen you, nearly as fast as you can run.
• Lurchers shuffle along, then lunge for a second.

You can't assume the next one is slow any more.

Monster parts. Killed husks now drop things: mostly rotten meat, sometimes a husk sample. They're worth little to the trader, but certain people out there want them badly. More on that soon.

Selling at the trader. The trader terminal has a BUY / SELL switch. You can sell materials, parts, meds, food and gear from your pockets or your stash.

• Prices depend on what the item is (scrap and monster parts sell best, tools and weapons worst) and on how rare it is.
• The trader will never pay you more than a fraction of what they'd charge you for the same thing.
• Keys and fuel aren't for sale, and valuables still go through Quick Sell.

Settings tab. Master, music and sound-effects volume, plus toggles for the VR wrist display and for the menu following you.

• Ambience and husk sounds sit on the sound-effects slider on purpose. They're half the tension, and we don't want them turned off separately.
• Your settings save with your profile.

Fixes

• On desktop, the gear screen in follow mode can be unfollowed again. It now only re-centres when you look well away, so you can aim at its buttons.

Raid XP is banked. Everything you earn during a run (time out there, searching, kills, picked and pried locks, fuel poured, getting the power on, revives, and the haul you bring home) is held until the run ends. Escape and you keep all of it; don't make it out and you keep half.

New XP sources: husk kills, lockpicking, prying, pouring fuel and the site powering on.

The skill tree is in.

• Skill points: one per survivor level, spent on a wide shared tree in six groups: Endurance, Vitality, Mind, Packing, Stealth and Handiwork. Each group has small nodes, bigger notables, and one keystone with a real downside.
• Classes: pick one between raids: Medic, Scout, Mechanic or Guard. Each has a small passive and its own branch.
• Class points: come much more slowly than skill points and buy class-branch nodes. You can take another class's nodes at double cost, and they work in every class.
• Respec is free at low levels and cheap after that while we're in alpha.
• Some nodes and all class abilities are marked COMING SOON.

Levelling is now a long haul. Your progress carries over from here, so survivor levels take a long time: level 20 is a serious achievement and level 50 is a lifetime.

Pocket items vs. held items. Only tools, weapons, lights, meds, food and heavy loads like fuel go in your hands now. Everything else (valuables, materials, gear, keys) goes straight into your pockets or backpack the moment you grab it. If you're full, it stays where it was.

Dedicated slots.

• MELEE: knife or crowbar on your hip ring.
• LIGHT: a flashlight clipped to your head on desktop (it points where you look; L toggles it) or to your chest in VR (grab it off to aim it).
• One item per slot. Swap by dragging a new one onto the slot.

VR gear screen gesture: raise your empty left hand beside your head and pull the trigger, like keying a radio. It replaces the both-grips squeeze, which kept fighting two-handed carrying.

Wrist display (VR): look at the back of your left hand to see your health, sanity and weight, plus BLEEDING or FRACTURE when it matters.

Item details: click any item in the gear screen to see what it does (what it restores, its armour, its melee stats) and a short description.

Floor loot: a sparse handful of loose items now lies around the garage each run (on desks, shelves and floors), not just in crates.

Locked containers and doors. Lockers, med cabinets, registers and the secure cases are sometimes locked, and locked ones hold more loot. The vault, the quartermaster's armory and several offices have locked doors.

• Pick it with a screwdriver: a needle sweeps a dial and you hit it in the zone three times in a row. Each hit gets harder. Miss and it rattles (husks hear that), you might snap your screwdriver, and you're out; try again.
• Pry it with a crowbar: hold it to the crack and it wedges in and grinds away for a few seconds. It's guaranteed, it's slow, and it's loud. Anything nearby will come to see. When it gives, the crowbar hangs there for a moment so you can grab it back.

The crowbar is also a heavy melee weapon, and the trader stocks it.

Secure slot. One slot that survives death, bailing out or disconnecting. Choose what goes in it carefully.

Insurance is gone. It made losing too painless.

Melee charge indicator. An empty knife icon fills while your strike recharges, holds for a second when it's full, then fades.

Drag and drop. Grab an item in the gear screen and it floats under your pointer. Drop it on a pocket, a backpack cell, the secure slot or a gear slot. Drag it off the menu (or onto the red strip) to drop it. A backpack with things in it can't be moved.

The garage got furnished. There's real art on every container, furniture in about 60 rooms, clutter and wrecks in the lanes, a proper diesel generator, and fuel risers.

Husk audio redone: proper groans and snarls, and the attack sting is gone.

Sanity replaces hunger and thirst. Eating every five minutes was upkeep, not horror.

• Sanity drains slowly the whole time you're out: faster in the dark, alone, or with husks close by. Seeing a teammate go down hits hard.
• Food, smokes, a drink and getting the power on bring some back.
• Low sanity brings whispers, sounds that aren't there, stamina trouble, and eventually things that aren't really husks.
• There's no passive recovery. The medbay and the mess hall are where you put yourself back together.

The trader is open.

• Money is persistent.
• Quick Sell turns every valuable you carry or stash into cash.
• Only bottom-tier gear is for sale, some of it level-gated; rarer kit has to be found, earned or crafted.
• The trader sits in their own room in the outpost.

Gear screen tabs: GEAR, SKILLS, ACHIEVEMENTS and SETTINGS (the last ones filled in later).

Screen effects: a dark vignette and a slight warp as your sanity slips.

Husks. Killable, shambling fodder that wanders the decks, notices you by sight and sound, chases, and claws at a body part (with a chance to bleed or break something). They come back in numbers that scale with your team. They have a real model and animations now.

The knife is your starter weapon.

• Desktop: Q draws it, click stabs.
• VR: grab it from the ring at your hip, and the whole blade is the hitbox.
• Strikes: one per second at most, and damage depends on how long you waited since the last one, so spamming barely scratches them.

Real item models for the things you handle most: knife, fuel can, meds, food, keys.

New outpost: a bunker dug into a hillside, with tunnels, a yard, a medbay, a mess hall, a gear room and a trader room.

Safehouses: claim one of eight private rooms off the hall. Knock, let people in, or keep it private.

The new raid loop. 1. Find fuel cylinders. 2. Fill them at fuel points. 3. Haul them back and pour them into the generator: hold the cylinder over it and it tips and pours on its own. 4. Once there's enough fuel, the site powers on. Sealed rooms open, lights come back, and the better exits come online.

Exits:

• Dock: raise the shutter.
• Vent: tight, so there's a weight limit.
• Hatch: needs this run's hatch key.
• Road: opens late.

Dropped items show as tinted silhouettes, coloured by rarity.

Alpha 0.5.1

• Test shortcuts for running through the loop quickly.

New raid map: a four-deck parking garage, with a different layout on each deck and around 150 searchable containers.

Loot never runs dry: containers roll their contents when someone first opens them, so there's always something to find.

Alpha 0.4.1

• Fixed see-through ramps and stairs and doubled stairwell walls.
• Steadier garage ambience in place of the pulsing drone.

Searchable containers: crates, lockers, registers, fridges and med cabinets, searched item by item.

60 item types across five rarities, from common scrap to legendary finds.

Downed, not dead: you go down first, and a teammate with a syringe can bring you back before you bleed out.

Survivor level and record: XP, a level, and your lifetime runs, extractions, deaths, revives and best haul.

Sound pass across the board.

The outpost: a home base you deploy from and extract back to.

Your body: head, thorax, stomach, arms and legs each take damage. Bleeding, fractures, bandages, splints, painkillers and the medbay.

Stamina, weight and noise:

• Sprinting costs stamina.
• Carrying too much slows you.
• Everything you do makes noise.

Persistent raids: join a run in progress, extract on your own, and lockouts once you're done.

Gear: head, chest, arms, legs and back slots, a paper-doll gear screen, and backpacks of different sizes.

Your stash persists between sessions.

• The first extraction loop on a grey-box map: go in, grab what you can, get out.
• A 4-slot inventory with a terminal-style hotbar.
• Flashlights, and a facility that's actually dark.
• A first prototype monster that patrols, spots you and chases.
• The first real map: a dead shopping mall.