HyZ

HyZ Dev Log — From 0.6 to 0.13.1 HyZ is a zombie apocalypse overhaul for Hytale. It turns every night into a fight for survival, with smarter zombies, real stealth, infection and hordes that come for you.

Since 0.6 HyZ has gone through eight releases. The focus moved from "zombies exist" to "zombies hunt you". This log covers everything new, what it changes for players, and what server owners can configure.

TL;DR One file: HyZ now ships as a single HyZ-x.y.z.jar with the plugin and assets together. Zombie-only world: vanilla monsters, plus HyGuns skeletons and Trork, no longer spawn. Wildlife stays. Day and night spawning: more zombies by day (buff) and a lot more at night (mega buff), with all types mixed. Zombies feel physical: they swing at obstacles, with sounds that match the material, and they lay siege to your door. Stealth: crouching, bushes, noise from sprinting, sleeping and building, and blood trails. Pursuit AI: zombies remember you, track shooters, alert each other and no longer give up after a few blocks. Zombie pyramid: groups of zombies physically climb to reach players on high ground. Tougher infection: a real health and stamina cap, a stage-based red screen, and a pause in Creative mode. 0.7 — Identity & Impact Rebrand to HyZ The mod is now HyZ (Slayer:HyZ) and ships as HyZ-<version>.jar. Existing configs from the old ZombieApocalypsePlugin folder are imported automatically on first launch, so nothing is lost.

Nameplates Every zombie now shows a styled nameplate with its type and level, for example:

• Heavy Zombie • Lv 5 The level is the in-game day the zombie spawned on, so you can tell at a glance how dangerous it is. The format and names are fully configurable (NameplatesEnabled, NameplateFormat, NameplateNames).

Obstacle hits that feel real Zombies breaking doors or blocks now play a punch/swing animation: left swing, right swing, double swing or bite. Each hit plays the block's own material sound, so wood thuds, stone cracks and glass rattles. Damage uses Hytale's native block-health system. Cracks appear like when a player mines, and blocks heal back over time if the zombies stop. Balance Heavy Zombie: max health raised to 220. It is a real tank now. Common Zombie: max speed lowered to 5.5, so outrunning a lone walker is possible but not trivial. 0.8 — A World That Belongs to the Dead Zombie-only spawning HyZ filters the world spawn tables live: hostile vanilla monsters no longer spawn. Wildlife (animals and critters) is untouched. A cleanup pass removes hostile non-wildlife NPCs that slip in through other paths, such as structures or beacons. Structure spawns are configurable (KeepStructureMonsters, KeepRolePatterns). Day "buff" and night "mega buff" Spawn density now follows the clock:

Phase Default hours Density What spawns Day (buff) 05:00–19:00 ×1.5 Common + Heavy, mixed with wildlife Night (mega buff) 19:00–05:00 ×3 Common, Heavy, Runner and Frost Dead of night (peak) 23:00–03:00 ×5 All four types at max density Every biome gets matching spawn tables: sand in deserts, snow and ice in glacial zones, forest soil in Zone 3, and so on.

0.8.1 hotfix HyGuns skeleton spawns (AK47, Glock and USP skeletons, the burnt knight and others) are now blocked when HyGuns is installed. The Trork Warrior no longer appears. It came from a vanilla "near player" beacon that bypassed the world tables. Foxes and polar bears are technically "hostile" in vanilla, so they are explicitly treated as wildlife and stay in the world. 0.9 — Stealth & Perception This is the biggest gameplay shift: how you move now matters.

How zombies sense you Sense Rule Sight 120° cone in front of the zombie, needs line of sight Hearing Goes through walls, but ignores crouching players Touch Always, from any direction, only at 1.5 blocks (2 for Runners) Sneaking up behind a zombie while crouched now works.

Player noise Action Noise radius Sprinting 24 blocks Sleeping (snoring) 16 blocks Breaking a block 18 blocks Placing a block 14 blocks Crouching silent Noise uses the same system as gunshots: zombies within range walk to the source.

Hiding in bushes Crouch inside a bush, fern, bramble or reeds and you become undetectable. To keep it fair:

you can't hide while bleeding, or within 6 s of dealing or taking damage; you can't hide from zombies already chasing you nearby; attacking from a bush reveals you immediately. Blood trails Taking medium damage makes you bleed for 30 s. While bleeding:

your character gets a red tint and a blood-drop status icon; every 3 s your scent pulls zombies from up to 40 blocks away, even while crouched; you can't hide in bushes. Getting hurt is now a strategic problem, not only a health problem.

0.10 — Relentless Pursuit Zombies stop giving up Vanilla predators drop the chase after about 20 blocks. HyZ removes that leash during a chase, so running a few blocks no longer saves you.

Memory A zombie that loses you keeps tracking your last known position for 20 seconds, up to 64 blocks. It picks you up again as soon as it hears or sees you.

Eyes on the road Zombies walking toward a noise, a horde target or a blood trail notice players on the way: by hearing (10 blocks), sight (18 blocks, 120° cone) or touch. Walking past a zombie on its way to a gunshot is no longer free.

Shooter awareness (HyGuns) Zombies within 24 blocks of a gunshot know who fired. They go straight for the shooter and remember them, even if the shooter runs. Zombies farther away still investigate the sound.

Ally alert Hit a zombie, even with a projectile, and every idle zombie within 16 blocks joins the fight against you.

Infection penalty that actually works Before, the infection lowered max health. The health bar looked full after eating, so the penalty felt fake. Now the current value is hard-capped:

health is capped from 80% down to 30%; stamina is capped from 60% down to 15%. Eating or regenerating can't go past the cap, and you can see it on the bar.

0.11 — The Horde Thinks Together Mutual detection When a zombie spots you on its own, nearby zombies (16 blocks) join in. Alerts don't chain: a zombie that was alerted by another one doesn't pass it on, so a single sighting can't pull the whole map.

Zombie pyramid (first version) Pillars and rooftops are no longer automatically safe:

if you stand above a crowd of zombies and they get stuck at the base, they start climbing; reach grows with the crowd: 3 zombies reach 3 blocks, 5 reach 5, up to 8; a single zombie never climbs past its natural step, so a pillar still saves you from a straggler, but not from a mob. Infection visuals Stage 1: no screen effect. The red seen before came from bleeding, which now has no screen overlay. Stage 2: a light infection vignette. Stage 3: a strong vignette and a greenish skin tint. 0.12 — Siege Mode Door sieges Hiding inside a house used to be easy: zombies wandered off once you stepped away from the door. Now:

while you are within 24 blocks of the door, zombies keep returning to it and keep hitting it, even when they can't see you; zombies hunting you nearby are recruited into the siege; the siege ends when the door breaks, when you leave or die, or after 3 minutes; zombies now push right up against doors instead of stopping a few blocks short. Creative mode friendly In Creative, infection is paused: no progress, no debuffs, no cap and no screen effects. Zombie hits don't infect Creative players. Switch back to Survival and it resumes where it left off.

Bush hiding fix A zombie that had once targeted you used to block bush hiding forever. Now only zombies actively chasing you prevent it.

0.13 — Physical Climbing The zombie pyramid, rebuilt The first climbing version teleported zombies onto ledges, which looked bad. It has been rewritten from scratch:

climbing zombies get real upward velocity every tick, through the same physics as knockback. They collide with blocks and you see them scale the wall or crawl over the backs of the crowd; they play the model's own ClimbUp animation; you hear them scratching the wall, with the sound of the block's material; at the top they heave themselves onto the ledge with a landing sound, and the chase continues; a zombie that can't make it in time loses its grip and falls. Climb speed is configurable (ClimbSpeed, default 2.5 blocks/s).

0.13.1 — Heavies don't climb Heavy Zombies never climb. They are too heavy, and they already smash through walls. They still count toward the pile, acting as the base the others climb over. You can set this with ClimbExcludedRoles.

Infection face The facial-expression feature is now off by default (InfectionFaceEmote: false). Hytale only lets a server change a player's face through an emote, and the client forces third-person camera for every emote. That was too disruptive. Server owners who want the expressions can turn the option back on.

For server owners Every system can be configured in mods/Slayer_HyZ/:

File What it controls ZombieApocalypse.json Infection, nameplates, face option BlockBreaking.json Door and block breaking, hit animations, sieges Noise.json Gunshot noise and zombie attraction Scaling.json Day-based zombie scaling and specials Horde.json Horde timing and size Spawning.json Zombie-only filter, day and night density Stealth.json Movement noise, bushes, bleeding Pursuit.json Chase, memory, alerts, climbing Configs are migrated automatically between versions, so you don't need to delete anything when updating.

What's next In-game tuning of climbing, sieges and stealth ranges based on player feedback. More special zombie types. Performance work for large night hordes. Thanks for playing HyZ. Feedback and bug reports are welcome on the CurseForge page.