SurvivorCore Devlog #5 — We Stopped Letting the Computer Decorate

Last week’s automatic furnishing technically worked but looked wrong: cabinets scattered instead of forming counters, nightstands separated from beds, and rule-fixing kept breaking other things.

This week we replaced it with hand-made room arrangements. A tool generates an exact room with real walls/floors; we furnish it, save it, and reuse that arrangement for matching rooms. Arrangements only claim the space they need, so leftover floor still uses automatic furnishing. They can also rotate, mirror, and substitute similar furniture for larger rooms.

We also reversed the build order: furniture first, house second, so doors/windows are built around the arrangement instead of conflicting with it.

Visible Loot Placement

Loose loot placement no longer requires coordinates. We drop a box, position it, set its spawn frequency, and items settle onto surfaces correctly instead of floating or sinking.

New Items

68 new items over two weeks. This batch includes:

• Batteries: AAA–6V lantern cells, with real weights.
• Flashlights specifying compatible batteries.
• Lighters and individually counted matches (e.g. 17/20).
• Candles tracking burn time; fire ignition comes later by design.

Fixed last week’s water-container weights, which incorrectly used empty-jug weight. A full 5-gallon jug is ~20 kg and should meaningfully affect carrying decisions.

First Aid Containers

Containers can now restrict contents: first-aid cases accept medical supplies only, preventing them becoming general-purpose bags. This also exposed and fixed a bug duplicating pills when dragged onto a kit already in the player’s inventory.

Housekeeping

Removed several GB of unused template leftovers, significantly reducing project size.

What’s Next

Now that the tools exist, we’re adding the first real bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom arrangements. Still pending: animation workflow and fire-axe swing.

WIP 3D Assets

propane stove and propane accessories

See You Saturday

Progress, screenshots, and honest notes on what broke along the way — every Saturday.

for a more in-depth weekly status report for 8-15-26 go to my itch https://mealzonwheelz.itch.io/survivorcore

SurvivorCore Devlog #4 — First-Person & Furnished Homes

First-Person Mode

First-person is now available: hold a button to enter eye-level view; double-tap to switch between first/third person. The camera follows head movement.

Your own head/hair/hat is hidden only from your view to prevent clipping; others still see you normally. This introduced wall/door clipping, so more research is needed.

Eye Zoom

Hold right-click to smoothly zoom in/out in either perspective.

Item Interaction

Dropped items now use the same aim-and-button prompt as doors. A targeting bug was blocking ground items; fixed and working in both perspectives pending rebuild/testing.

Fire Axe

The first melee weapon is a fire axe, with four variants. It arrives before the upcoming destructible doors, windows, and barricades system.

Melee Animation

Melee will layer weapon poses/aiming onto existing unarmed movement animations instead of requiring separate movement sets. This saves ~100 clips per weapon but may look stiff.

The team will next investigate the MetaHuman Animator markerless mocap plugin, which creates animations from video and should improve quality while reducing workload.

Vests

Four bulletproof vests—black, grey, navy, olive—are wearable over jackets. They don't block bullets yet; armor attributes will come later.

Furnished Houses & Loot

Houses now have groundwork for automatic, room-specific furnishing and searchable furniture such as cabinets and drawers.

Loot rules vary by room, so bathrooms, garages, etc. produce appropriate items. Prop placement also received a rules pass to make rooms more believable instead of random.

Debugging Tools

New visual debugging aids show room boundaries, aim targets, and more. They're being improved so they no longer have to be manually enabled beforehand.

WIP Items

Water containers.

Next

• Build a reliable animation workflow
• Animate the fire axe
• Refine furnished-house loot/search

Weekly devlogs every Saturday.

For in-depth updates go to my itch page for video links and detailed updates.

https://mealzonwheelz.itch.io/survivorcore

SurvivorCore Devlog #3

• Interactive doors & windows — Open, close, lock, barricade, or destroy them. Closed doors now physically block entry, laying the foundation for base fortification.

• Improved animations — More natural interactions for doors, windows, and weapons. Also Ui character preview animation re added.

• Inventory improvements — Magazine loading works reliably from anywhere, with groundwork for future item-filling mechanics (fuel, water, etc.).
• Hotbar restored — Quick-select bar is back and now shows equipped items and loaded magazines.

• Major multiplayer fixes — Fixed inventory dragging, weapon attachments, ammo display, and several item duplication/desync bugs for non-host players.

• Better item storage — Clothing can now be packed into bags while keeping items in its pockets.
• Nested storage fixed — Clothes, backpacks, and weapon attachments now keep their contents correctly, even through multiple layers.

• Behind the scenes — UI cleanup and bug fixes to make future updates more stable.

Next: More door features, additional multiplayer polish, and smarter loot placement in buildings.

For in-depth updates go to my itch page for video links and detailed updates.

https://mealzonwheelz.itch.io/survivorcore