The Indie Stone

A small indie game team, currently working on Project Zomboid! --- @theindiestone.bsky.social

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

An updated list of our socials!
Website: https://t.co/EHcvq7UNVN
Reddit: https://t.co/6xVHzfVYVd
Discord: https://t.co/ZJDnkvUrNb
Bluesky: https://t.co/pe5rXxycjy

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

An updated list of our socials!
Website: https://t.co/EHcvq7UNVN
Reddit: https://t.co/6xVHzfVYVd
Discord: https://t.co/ZJDnkvUrNb
Bluesky: https://t.co/pe5rXxycjy

[Yicheng @ChrisYicheng]

Over the past six months, @LuozhuZhang and I have been deeply focused on researching agents within the Project Zomboid (by @theindiestone ) environment. Choosing this environment was no coincidence. After immersing ourselves in 500 hours of gameplay, we realized that PZ is more than just a game—it is an ideal environment for studying agents.

After 300 hours of exploration, we discovered that PZ's challenges and value for AGI research far exceeded our expectations.

Games have always been a testing ground for AGI research. From early Atari games to Go (as demonstrated by AlphaGo), StarCraft II (OpenAI Five, AlphaStar), and more recently Minecraft (MineDojo, Voyager [https://t.co/xDAoiVLGtS]), these games provide clear success metrics that allow research progress to be empirically validated and compared with human performance. However, PZ stands out due to its complex survival systems and highly realistic environmental interactions. Unlike open-ended sandbox worlds like Minecraft, PZ combines exploratory freedom with more complex and dynamic elements. For example, players must adapt strategies in real time, weighing whether to use noise to attract or avoid hordes of zombies. Additionally, PZ introduces emotional states, health metrics, injuries, seasonal changes, and realistic physical interactions, such as manually placing furniture, build shelters, collecting supplies, and the effects of item weight on movement efficiency. These multidimensional dynamics and realistic interactions bring PZ closer to the complexity of the physical world, setting higher demands on agents' perception and decision-making abilities.

In PZ, we have conducted exploratory experiments that include integrating Mixture of Experts (MoE) with HydraLoRA to enhance reasoning capabilities, generating synthetic data through self-play, recording inference paths with the "Trace" system, and implementing a "reasoning-action" loop via LLM+RL. Additionally, we have transformed PZ into a universal engine for agent research, enabling efficient testing and development for various reinforcement learning and reasoning tasks.

As @LuozhuZhang mentioned, our ultimate goal is to train an agent capable of outperforming 99% of human players—becoming a "PZ Master."
https://t.co/hzJwWVdD9u
We also aim to create a multi-agent evolutionary system where agents are randomly deployed across different regions of PZ, making autonomous decisions, collaborating, or competing in complex environments. Imagine live-streaming 20 agents rebuilding civilization in a post-apocalyptic world—how entertaining would that be?🤠

While the final form of AGI remains unknown, we believe our research within PZ can help us develop smarter agents and achieve breakthroughs in reasoning, multi-agent collaboration, dynamic learning mechanisms, and agent personality shaping. These explorations bring us one step closer to realizing the goal of general artificial intelligence.

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@Vineusio_MTG Tbh no, considering that in that *less* than a month's time we had 2 weeks of Xmas holidays in which we all tried to recuperate from the prior stresses.
We haven't forgotten AMD users, and are working on a fix. Please be patient.

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

Do you consider melted cheese on toast, dipped in maple syrup, a weird combination?

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

THE FOOD OF KINGS/QUEENS

[Duck @MrAtomicDuck]

The Zomboid community raised OVER £17,000 for @SpecialEffect! 🥳

Thank you to all of the fantastic content creators involved and to those of you that donated!

I'd also like to say a HUGE thank you to the team at @theindiestone who MATCHED your donations to raise this total! 🤯

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@r0wdey If anyone thinks they were unfairly banned they can make an appeal here: https://t.co/3amlBeRW5D

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

Your favourite international oil conglomerate:

[Duck @MrAtomicDuck]

Kicking off a HUGE fundraising campaign for @SpecialEffect that will run until January 5th! 📅

https://t.co/twxePBaENh

Your favourite Zomboid creators will be taking part, so keep an eye out, and help us do some good! 💪

Donate here ➡ https://t.co/QDeyZTM2i6

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

Merry Christmas from the Indie Stone! https://t.co/9YnsLPXmIt

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@Bigugandanchun1 @nowherenewyork It's in our plans for the future, but no current ETA :)

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

What's been YOUR favourite animal interaction in #ProjectZomboid's unstable Build 42 so far?

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@Bigugandanchun1 @nowherenewyork To clarify, there are other animals in the game (pigs, cows, chickens, etc), but not dogs or cats.

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

Build 42 UNSTABLE has arrived for #ProjectZomboid! Find out what's in it, what's coming soon, and how you can join in the testing here: https://t.co/WEcnGbxaIg

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

See Whatz Next in today's Thursdoid: https://t.co/s14p1N0ZVm

[𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒 🇧🇷 COMMS CLOSED @CaptainSpades_]

Jimmy and Sarge fishing in the Exclusion Zone
1993, Riverside, Knox County

GO PLAY PROJECT ZOMBOID NOW

Thank you for dropping this masterpiece of a game @theindiestone ✨️

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@HyperionActual Please visit our support forums for help, I can't really help over twitter :)

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

Are you the "Adam" in your PZ group?
https://t.co/cMqaACW8kZ

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@Capn_fantastic You have great taste in plushies and tablecloths ;)

[The Indie Stone @theindiestone]

@ThunderStreamer Great to see Spiffo's spreading across the land ;D And yes you can release them as a mod as long as there is no money or profit involved :)