January 2026 Devlog

A new year

Starting off strong with some new ideas and some big refactorings behind the scenes to make way for a better experience. I've expanded even further on my own testing framework, bringing total tests to over 600!

Guns

The weapons were pretty much completely overhauled. They now function with simulated bullet physics, supporting ricochet off surfaces and bullet drop. No wall penetration yet. If you're really unlucky you can accidentally shoot yourself!

Magazines can now be manually loaded, currently there aren't any special types of bullets, but in theory you could alternate between regular and tracer rounds.

Added shell case ejection effects and internal refactoring of the entire firing system.

New weapons:
MP5 Submachine Gun
M4A1 Rifle
M700 Sniper Rifle
Spaghelli M4 Shotgun

Melee:
Trench Knife
Crowbar (fixed)

Black Market

A shady dealer will appear every few hours at a random location on the map, using your phone you can navigate here and buy some highly illegal goods.

Before this, acquiring a weapon was extremely difficult. Now you only need cash and good timing.

Carriables rework

Carry slots are now fixed slots, which means you can reorder them however you want. The inventory UI got changed to accommodate this.

Improved tutorial questline

I added multiple new quests for new players, taking them through talking to NPCs, drinking water, buying things, farming, etc. This has already helped player retention a lot.

Feedback

There's a new panel always visible on the screen, pressing K brings up a form where you can give feedback on anything.

It's been really helpful so far with many players sending bug reports, since joining a discord server or posting a github issue isn't always that practical.

Skateboard physics rework

Vibe-coded the hell out of a new skateboard physics system, it should be a little less error prone, and feel better when going up ramps. It ALMOST lets you launch off things! It's far from perfect still, but should be much less glitchy now.

Follow & dragging players

You can now start following players, or start dragging them behind you forcefully. You can cancel by pressing crouch/jump. This feature is for an upcoming implementation of handcuffs.

Jail

In the past year if you got tazed by a cop NPC, you were teleported to the police station basement.
Now, you get put into a proper jail cell with a locked door. For now it's only 30 seconds, but this will be refined further on if you continue breaking the law.

Door break-in

Some doors can now be broken down by force, throwing the door off its hinges. There's not much of a raid culture yet, but maybe one can develop in the future. I want to have some kind of repair system, right now it just resets after a minute.

Property restoration self-serve

In the past if you lost an apartment or business to eviction for not paying rent, you had to contact me to get it restored.

You can now restore it yourself at the real estate agent, and browse through all your old properties.

Device Control panel new visuals

The Device Control Panel got a makeover, making it easier to see what connections go where. 

You can also click on other devices in green to go to their control panel, skipping the need of closing out and interacting with it in the world.

More tooltip info

More info is now available in tooltips, like crafting recipes and preparation methods.

Object hover panel hints

I added a framework for adding panels per hovered entity, only the farming pot has it and the usefulness is questionable, but it could be useful in the future.

Some other important fixes

- Water bottle properly refills at sinks
- Watering can now properly refills at spigots
- Interior designer material selection outline
- Police equipment now includes pistol, magazine, and hat
- Chat commands are now case-insensitive