Happy 10 Year Anniversary for Death Road to Canada! We launched the game July 21st, 2016. This marks 10 years of active updates, with more coming! Thanks for everyone for all your support for this DECADE of Death Road. As always, if you like what we're doing, tell your friends about Death Road, and tell them to wishlist and apply for the playtest of Space Dingus.
Also, we're extremely close to Overwhelmingly Positive again! If you haven't left a review, please consider doing so.
Here is a message to the community about this update and the upcoming UVULA update, from Sycamore: Hi everybody, Sycamore here again. I hope everybody's well! TRACHEA has been quite the task, but is filled with lots of neat little features and reworks for you to enjoy.
As time goes on I'd like to give every trait or perk the opportunity to be good or at least useable, so let me know which ones you think are bad.
This is heavily CYOA orientated update, with lots of event based additions and changes. I hope you enjoy it!
Off to work on UVULA...did somebody say "muskets"?
Lots of love,
Sycamore
Read on for Playtest news about the upcoming game, future update plans for Death Road, and a full list of changes for this update!
Space Dingus Playtesting
Originally for Space Dingus, we were going to have a really simple playtest, more of a "does this run? does the online multiplayer work?" sort of alpha. We decided to go for a bigger playtest of a vertical slice of the game. A cycle of the new mission table, picking missions, going back to the ship, and repeating as the difficulty increases.
Now we've been testing and polishing that, and we're almost ready to enter larger playtesting. Here's a quick video of some recent footage:
Make sure to wishlist Space Dingus, and sign up for the Playtest! Both are in this link, on its Steam Page:
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3545200/Space_Dingus/"]
Upcoming Update: UVULA, and Future Plans
The next update will be the UVULA update. The plans are lots of new special characters, 3 new weapon classes with new quirks, new location types with new art, new events, and more! Here is a preview of one of the new locations:
For future update plans, I have gotten approval from Madgarden to go up to the letter Z. Counting on my fingers and doing the A B C song, that's at least 6 more giant updates, about 1.5 to 2 years worth. After that, I don't know. After 11 or 12 years of updates, maybe it's finally time for a sequel? I really feel like we could do a lot with a new game engine that isn't over 12 years old as of today.
Full List of Changes for TRACHEA Update
EDIT JULY 22: Turned console off, it was accidentally on after the beta testing
Rare characters
The Stug: A quiet rally driver who modifies your car over time!
Mobster: A charming dink who can lay down walls of bullet hell!
Swiss Guard: Protects your team and has a halberd combo to master!
Crash Dummy: Really loves being bitten, I promise
Blacksmith: Gungineer Brainiac who makes firearms and ammo!
First Mate: Leap at enemies with a giant anchor! Hit mid-air for powerful AoE!
New Personality Archetypes
This is a big one! We haven't done new Personality checks in quite a long time
These are similar to the old ANGRYSTRONG and CALMSHOT checks
AGILE: HIGH FITNESS, HIGH ATTITUDE! HYPERACTIVE! Quick reactions, quite athletic!
TINKER: HIGH MECHANICAL, HIGH WITS! Engineer your way out of things...sometimes!
Each archetype has 8 new interactions with events, for 16 in total! Many old events are affected
Check the library for more details on the archetypes
New Locations
Forge rare location! Has some new buildings in it. Who could be residing here?
Martial Arts shop, a new city shop location. Some new weapons and upgrades for martial characters! Longbows can also spawn there! Irregularly, but it can happen.
Harbor! Find the masterkey and "masterkey"...great place to find souped-up cars!
New Weapons
Added new weapon class: Flails
Flails have high cooldowns and can be clunky but they have scaling strength-based damage and can be useful even when tired.
Three flails added to the game
Tonfa & Quarterstaff! Great for early-mid game
Kama! A powerful throwable!
Wakizashi: breakable but deadly!
Mortar: a gas based grenade launcher! Exotic
Added heat ray
Added freeze ray
Reworks and Adjustments
LOOT GRAVITY WELL: High WITS followers will now pull loot towards them, like some sort of vacuum or magnet
The radius of this effect scales with WITS
The loot pull effect requires clear line of sight to work
The loot requires you to be relatively safe, it won't work with too many zombies nearby
This can be turned off or adjusted in Zombo Town, in the new Accessibility Options
Anime Fan rework: if you have a paranoid, irritating or oblivious character in the party, they can extend the countdown to disaster!
Friend Of Dog rework: now always has permanently friendly dog companion in missions
Trademark Weapon rework - now always gives a sturdy machete if no other weapon is available. Levels 2 & 3 now give +1 STR and FIT, respectively!
DINK now gets a Megaphone as their trademark weapon!
Sound Sleeper rework: now gives 3 to 6 loyalty at random, and gain a random stat-up whenever you dodge the TIRED trait
Gas siphon rate now scales with mechanical skill
The car now indicates how many people are or should be inside of it
Anime Bandits now have two counters for angry-strong and bandit chars
Improved look and balance of abandoned warehouse
Debutante Tweaks
Debutante umbrella now completely counters the walking rain event
Debutante now starts with the civilized character personality setup, which her description already alludes to
Phoenixes can now access the pyro counter for pyro bandits; Pyromaniacs can still access it as usual
Characters with 8 or more medical can now Fortify other characters, providing them with temporary HP that goes over their usual maximum
Text Events
Pyromaniac bandits! Beware the bonfire!
Cop bandits!
THE MECHA BANDIT (ALL YOUR LOOT IS BELONG TO US)
The Mystery Box
Added 5 new despair events for recently added characters: Ember, Johannes, Admiral, Pewter, Clock King
Gameplay Mode Changes
Horror Mode and Mutation EX now play Lost Hope theme
Other New Content
Accessibility options added to Zombo Town! See the Giant Eagle
Added new tilesets for reworked cities
Added ambience for storms, applies to all modes except Horrors and Extreme Weather
Added new torsos and legs (unisex)
Improved look and balance of abandoned warehouse
New book available in Zombo Town, outlines personality stats and what they do/mean
Tweaks and Bugfixes
Adjusted the appearance of storms
Big fix for buildings sometimes not generating in cities
Fixed typo in YER MONEY OR YOR LIFE
Fixed clock king bug
Adjusted size of sycacity1 to prevent blockages
Lots of small bugfixes
Containers in the railyard glow properly now!
(Hopefully) fixed performance issues relating to the train location on certain devices
Fixed some fluff pixels around the weapons spritesheet
Expanded some old cities slightly to prevent inaccessible buildings
Added hint for chess master event to suggest even high wits chars can't beat it
Fixed bomber zombie text bug
Fixed issue where dog van dogs get fixated on floor loot
Fixed issue where anime fans could fix themselves
Fixed some internal weapon string issues
Fixed old bug where car armour did not upgrade properly in some events
Fixed issues relating to Admiral flare gun ammo and firing
Fixed issue pertaining to craftsman and save scumming
Fixed issue where banks could be heisted with stolen cutlery
Fixed a bug where Puppy and Kitty could grow up despite being stone cold dead
Fixed a bug where umbrellas were not counted properly
Fixed bug where temporary playable rat characters did not properly contribute their loot to the trunk
Fixed bug where goat could be milked infinitely
Added protections to Magus' fade bolt to prevent other chars using it
Fixed issue with new female leg sprites
Fixed issue where freeze'd zombs could unfreeze themselves
Sgt. Oates now clears his cyoa correctly
