March Update! Dead State v.1.0.0.280 Changelog
14. March - Corgipede

Woo, the update is finally here! As promised, this is a content-heavy patch with some popularly requested features. Let’s talk about the big highlights first, then we’ll get the rest of the details down below.

Added Iron Man mode! A true test of survival! All saves are disabled except for a daily autosave and a resume point when you quit the game. Whatever happens, happened. No take-backs.
See our design notes below the changelog about separating Iron Man mode from difficulty settings and player infection.
Added new undead type: crawlers! Seems some people got pretty messed up before they turned. These mangled dead dudes and ladies have a nasty Trip Attack, so keep one eye on the ground at all times.
Added movement and activity to the Shelter! Everyone in the Shelter now moves around to different locations when assigned to work. If you forget where to look for someone, remember to check the Shelter summary screen with the ‘H’ hotkey or double-check the job board.
Added custom portrait editor! You can now create your own unique portrait by selecting hair color, hair style, eye color, facial hair, tattoo, and more. We’ve also added a couple nifty features we felt were missing from the typical portrait creator: loading a previous portrait to work from, and undoing changes you’ve made.
Added looting of KO’ed characters! Want to knock somebody down, steal their stuff, and leave them for the undead to finish off? Now you can!
Changes to Parisa!:
Added new discussion topic options in Shelter
Added new dialogue
Added new character perk choice
See our design notes below the changelog about the changes to Parisa’s storyline.
Changed noise-activated spawn behavior. Adjusted likelihood of spawning an undead at different noise levels, and undead spawns from noise become more likely over time.
Balanced the distribution of items required for upgrades.
Added five new levels.
Improved grenade and molotov code.
Added Fortify skill on Riot Shield. Now you can end your turn early for a +10 AC boost to your defence.
Fixed several combat AI related exploits. Enemies will now chase you around corners and through doors, and combat will no longer end if line of sight is broken temporarily.
Improved undead mobbing behavior, added a mob bonus to undead grapple attack when in groups.
Fixed human AI to make KO’ed enemies the lowest priority target for humans.
Fixed an issue where humans-turned-undead did not drop weapons.
Fixed an issue where Doug sometimes disappeared for a while before waking up.
Fixed an issue with Shelter inventory ignoring maximum weight.
Fixed a bug that allowed characters to equip stacks of items from Shelter inventory.
Fixed exploit to bring dead characters back to life in combat.
Fixed an issue where Survival bonus was lost on area map when travelling from a map other than the shelter.
Fixed a bug with Unity perk.
Fixed cases of recruiting dead allies again.
Fixed cases of being unable to attack neutral NPCs.
Added appropriate SFX to car gates and roll-down doors.
Fixed issue where Chemist perk cancelled Unity perk.
Fixed some bugs related to Team Effort and Unity.
Fixed issue where Pumped and Aimed status were not applied if the job carried over into the next day.
Improved some maps.
Adjusted nailgun stats.


So Iron Man Mode is here, yay! However, it’s different than what we originally had planned. We’ve decided to split up Iron Man, Hardcore difficulty, and Player Infection rather than have the latter two be grouped into Iron Man’. You can see all three of these options when you start a new game now, although Hardcore and Player Infection aren’t implemented yet and will be in a future update. The reason we decided to separate these into three options on a new game was that we wanted to allow players to choose their own experience. Hardcore and Player Infection require a ton more internal testing before we release them into the wild, thus why they’re not in the current patch. Furthermore, we are planning a pretty big balance pass and AI adjustments for a future Patch, so the way Hardcore difficulty works will be greatly influenced by those changes. In the meantime, we hope you’ll start up a new Iron Man mode and challenge your skills!

We added in a bit more resolution for Parisa's storyline - which was never intended to be an ending - plus some more zesty character development. If you'd like to know more about this particular aspect of the game, here's a link to where it lives on the forums (and beware, it contains SPOILERS!): Parisa's Storyline Design Notes

Alright, that covers it - let us know how you like the update!