Project Zomboid suffers new setback after robbery

The Indie Stone, the Newcastle studio developing browser-based survival game Project Zomboid, has suffered a further setback to development after burglars stole two laptops and a large portion of recent code from the flat where two of the developers live and work.

The code, said to represent the majority of work done since the last update, had not been backed up off site, meaning that the next update will experience a heavy delay.

It's the latest in a long-line of unfortunate events which has struck the studio, after a rash of piracy - in which the game's code was stolen direct from servers using bandwidth that the company had to pay for itself - and Paypal locking the game's purchasing account for 180 days with no real explanation.

Will Porter, script writer for Project Zomboid and games journalist, wrote about the incident on the game's official blog.

"I won't beat around the bush'" he writes. "The Indie Stone have just suffered a major set-back. The Newcastle flat where Lemmy and Binky live and work was burgled this evening, and so far the clearest things taken are two computers and Lemmy's credit card.

"Project Zomboid was regularly backed up from machine to machine, but rarely - sadly and infuriatingly - externally. We have lost an awful lot of work. Mash and Binky don't even know this has happened yet. "Chris (Lemmy) is quite distressed to be honest - we're still dealing with something that was discovered little over an hour ago. After his tweets on the subject we both agreed it'd be best if I wrote a blog here to calm fears. He clearly isn't able to currently. (It's also probably worth saying that there were no PZ player personal details etc. on the machines)."

The tweets in question have since been deleted, along with the account, but originally catalogued several abusive verbal assaults accusing the developers of both incompetence and criminality. Many customers have already paid for the game in advance at a discount rate, paying just £5 for all versions from Alpha to the final release code.

"This will clearly severely delay the next update, which was very near completion," continues Porter. "I personally only just finished my work on it today (one of the final things on the 'to-do' list) and had it ready for input tomorrow.

"Project Zomboid, however, will come back stronger."