The testing branch for the upcoming "O Update" has just gone up. Currently it's mostly checking if the new build works properly on Windows. The plan is that I will add more content to this about once every week or two, until the update is completely done, tested, and ready to go for everyone.
TO ACCESS THE TESTING BRANCH:
Right Click "Death Road to Canada" in your Steam Library
Go to Properties
Click on the Betas tab on the left of the Properties window
Click on the dropdown in the top right, and change the Beta Participation branch from "None" to "beta - TESTBRANCH"
I will be making more of these beta posts when major new things are added, though for minor additions and things like bugfixes, I will likely just post quick news to the Official Discord in the #deathroad-test-branch channel. If you want to communicate with us directly or want every bit of testing branch news, head there!
The theme of this update: An assortment of random content and events! I'll try to make new additions easy to test out. Once they're tested, I'll add more to the testing branch, until everything we're planning is in. As I said above, what we're currently testing is just "does this testing branch run?" as we get back into the groove of the update and testing branch process.
Current List of Changes:
WE'RE BACK
Fix for an all-buddies-dead join crash
Center the window after creation, to avoid some weirdness on older SDL versions
Better dead loot/weapon text updates in trunk screen when driving or in mission
Potential fix for character statmod icons/descriptions not displaying if mod ID over 31
Death Road to Canada 7 Year Anniversary + Update Coming!
I've been working on the next Death Road to Canada update, and also our upcoming First Person Swordfighting game, Dad by the Sword ( Wishlist it here! )
For the next update, I'm planning on focusing entirely on content. The current plan is also to get some Death Road community modders to add some content to the game, much like we did with Professor Sycamore in a previous update. For now, I'm focusing on getting new CYOA Events in the game this time, as I don't think I've added much in quite awhile now.
I'm also going to dive through the Suggestions section on the Discord. Quite awhile ago, one of the mods set up a bot in #deathroad-suggestions where people can propose ideas, and then vote on their favorite ideas. Check this out on the Official Rocketcat Discord!
As soon as we're ready to test the next update, I'll put it on the beta testing branch and make a post on how to access this! I'm hoping to get testing branch up some time in August, likely later in the month.
Thanks for all your support for Death Road, and I hope you enjoy the next update!
LIMITED TIME: Horse Mann Plushie!
Every once in a great while, we do some kind of limited merchandise for Death Road to Canada. This time, we have a Horse Mann plush you can buy! If this does well, we'll likely offer other characters.
Let me know what other characters you'd be interested in seeing in the future. Also, stay tuned for news on the next big content update!
Death Road to Canada NERVE Update
For the NERVE Update, I wanted to do two things we haven't been able to do but were on our radar for a long time. One is that we added a lot of character customization options, both default and unlockable! There's new hats, glasses, tops, bottoms, and more.
The other thing is a complete overhaul to how Weapon Selection works for your Follower AI Buddies. Before, they tried to go by a formula to determine what they picked up and used, based on their stats. Not only did this not work great, there was also a bug we recently discovered that made them love new weapons way too much compared to what they already had. This contributed to them dropping claymores for tennis rackets sometimes.
Now, Followers will pick up and use weapons based on an Official Tier List that compares groups of weapons with each other. I am going to post these below for reference, but mostly I think this should feel a lot better in-game even if you have no idea what the actual list is.
This list is slightly out of date with recent changes, but most should be accurate! Let me know what you think of this giant change after you get a chance to play it.
Also, Tnomey was buffed and the Halloween Event lasts much longer now!
Read on for full notes for all the changes!
Coming Up Next
We're working towards demos for Dad by the Sword, our upcoming first person swordfighting game. This will include a Public Demo some time early next year! Before then, I'm also planning on posting a long video explaining all the different facets of the combat for the game.
Another Death Road update is planned, but I'm not 100% sure what's going to be in it yet. The original plan was to do some kind of community update, where modmakers from the Discord all add some new content. I'm going to shoot for this, but I haven't done anything like it before, so we'll see how it goes!
Our Thanks
We are now over SIX YEARS OF UPDATES! It's your support and word of mouth that makes it happen. Keep recommending us to your friends!
If you want to stay in contact with us between updates, there's both the Twitter and Official Discord. Links to both of these and our Facebook page is in the game itself, but here's a couple handy links:
- Followers now use weapons according to tier lists assigned for each weapon! This is a big change, but it got through a large period of feedback in testing. Let me know if you'd like any changes here in future updates - Characters will vastly prefer higher tier weapons to lower tier weapons - If a character is presented with two melee weapons in the same tier, they will then use their stats like in the old system to judge what they pick up/use (they tend to greatly prefer fast weapons) - Special character weapons also tend to have a tier assigned, so they know how much to value their own stuff
- Halloween Event extended! It used to be just on Halloween Day itself. Now it will run from October 25 to November 1
- Tnomey can now be bought from up to 3 times per game, instead of a strict "1 Tnomey purchase per game" limit. This requires a Zombo Point unlock - Unomey is selling more stuff! There's the above upgrades for Tnomey, and now upgrades to get your Max ZP up to 75, then 99
- Character customization choices greatly expanded, all around!
New Character Customization Details
- New cosmetic choices for custom characters! New hats, tops, and bottoms - New beards/facial hair! - Adjustments to the male head with the really long chin, RIP - New glasses, including a heart shaped pair of glasses - New Unlockable Hats - Level 2 Hat Unlock now also unlocks new glasses!
Other Fixes/Minor Tweaks
- Bugfix for a very long standing mystery bug that made weapons on the ground more valuable than weapons in your hand! This could lead to bugs where you'd get stuck picking up a weapon forever
- News shut off for now to give that a break for a little bit - "firecrackers" capitalized to make it like all the other weapons
- Updated hats/shade texts for the unlock statues - Swapping should now skip dead buddies in more cases - Preventing a crash if swapping buddies when they're all dead
Modder Notes/Under the Hood Stuff
- Modders: Added .wielded_score so you can check how much a character values their current weapon - Under the Hood: Further iOS version work
Death Road to Canada Halloween Events and Major Update Soon!
The Death Road to Canada Halloween event has been extended this year! Usually it only takes place on Halloween itself, but now it will be available from October 25th to November 1st.
Behold these features:
Start the game with a Rare (Monster) Character, or a Chainsaw Hand. Or discard these choices for something goofy and have severe Halloween Regrets
The usual jerks and dinguses you find in game may be replaced with costumed Trick or Treaters
Throwable Jack-o-Lanterns! Rank S- in the Death Road to Canada Official Power Charts in the Throwable Produce Sub-Category
Shortly before the Halloween event, we're also going to launch our next Major Update, NERVE! We will post patch notes when this update is out, but here's a summary:
AI revamp for how followers prioritize weapons. Weapons are arranged by Tiers now, and followers won't drop a higher tier weapon for a lower one. That means no more having your characters drop a claymore for a tennis racket
New character customization options, and lots of them, both unlockable and standard
New buyable upgrades using Zombo Points, including a way to buff Tnomey so you can make Tnomey Trades three times per game instead of just once
I hope everyone likes this update! It focuses on a major rework we've been wanting to do for quite awhile now. We're also going to look into extending other Holiday Events in the future, as so far Halloween is probably the biggest one we have.
Of note: mobile and console updates for MANDIBLE have been bogged down by a problem in the chain of how we get the updates out. Steam is the easy platform to get updates out on, and then the rest rely on each other a bit. The plan is to get MANDIBLE + NERVE out at the same time, to catch players up on updates for consoles + mobile! Sorry about the delay, it's unusual for it to get this jammed.
Update News, and Death Road to Canada's 6 Year Anniversary!
6 Years of Death Road to Canada!
Today is the 6 year anniversary of the launch of Death Road to Canada! We're celebrating 6 years of updates, 6 years of The Last Bodybuilder grunting/flexing, and 6 years of your AI companions getting blown up by a propane tank that you hit with a baseball bat.
We have all the players of the game to thank for our success! This includes streamers that have played the game entirely because they loved the concept and gameplay. Death Road to Canada has always been sold by word of mouth, rather than the press or game industry in general. Despite this, the game has really thrived, and continues to do so!
Coming up, we have a new update as we continue quietly working on the next game in the series. This will be a more fantasy take on the Death Road, with pointier ear options, Zelda-inspired hacking and slashing, and ride-able attack chickens. We are currently trying to come up with a theme-appropriate and historically accurate replacement for the insult, "dingus". Maybe "dinguth", or just "Ye Olden Dingus".
Help Us Test the NERVE Update!
The next update we've been making for Death Road to Canada is the NERVE Update, which should hopefully prevent your AI companions from dropping that claymore for a tire iron or piece of rebar. We're sorting out weapons in arranged tiers, and your AI buddies will use that to determine what to use and pick up. Before we were using a formula, but this lets us do more distinctions by "player feel and preference" instead of trying to get the formula perfect.
This is a pretty big change to the game, so we need a lot testers and feedback on this before we can launch it! You can help us a lot by joining the Testing Branch. To get on testing branch:
1. Right Click Death Road to Canada in Steam Library 2. Go to Properties 3. Go to the Betas Tab 4. Pick Beta - Testbranch from the dropdown menu
This update will also add new cosmetic options for your custom characters, some of which you can see on the Testing Branch right now. Send us any requests that you come up with, and we'll sort through the suggestions to add some more options.
The best way to get feedback to us is either here, or posting on our official Discord. Links to this are on the Death Road title screen, or just click here: https://discord.gg/J7HChAa
We will be updating the testing branch more as we get feedback on how the changes feel. I will probably make separate posts for these after major changes pile up. No estimate for the next update, it's entirely based on how things go.
Mobile and other platform updates are going a little slow right now due to some problems we've been wrestling with, but are still planned. I'll also post news about these coming up, on Discord/Twitter/Facebook. If NERVE goes really fast, it's possible that it gets rolled into the last update for mobile/etc and they come out at the same time.
And before I forget, here's an image of the current weapon tiers for the NERVE update. This is how the AI sees the value of each weapon, with G at the top and F at the bottom. They will try to ditch lower tiers for higher tiers, and if they have two melee weapons in the same tier, they will use the strength/fitness formula from before as a tiebreaker. Some of these are slightly out of date now, but the general tier placement is still correct:
*P tier means they'll do absolutely prioritize using the weapon, but won't pick it up by themselves. *? means the AI doesn't even try to use it.
Death Road to Canada MANDIBLE Update
The MANDIBLE update adds new locations, weapons, and special characters to the game, along with a new major feature that lets you very quickly change what character you're controlling! Now you can assign buttons your keyboard or controller to quickly swap your player controlled character in your team, without pausing. There's also a slew of other new tweaks and additions, including new zombie heads and buffs to old locations.
Read on for full notes for all the changes!
Coming Up Next
Cannibal Crossing 1.0 Launch is coming next week! I'll do another cross-promo post when that happens. We're also continuing work on new projects, more news on those when they're closer to show off. The closest is definitely Dad by the Sword, starring MY DAD.
Death Road to Canada updates will continue. I'll probably keep doing these until I run out of letters to name updates after! We didn't quite get further modding support to work for this update, but we're going to give it at least one more shot in a future update. Worst case, we'll do it from the ground up in another game.
I'd also like to do a little something for the 6 year anniversary of Death Road to Canada in July. I'm not quite sure what yet!
Our Thanks
This game and its nearly SIX YEARS OF UPDATES is mostly thanks to the continued, super long lasting support of all our fans. Keep recommending us to your friends, family, press, streamers, whoever you'd like!
If you want to stay in contact with us between updates, there's both the Twitter and Official Discord. Links to both of these and our Facebook page is in the game itself, but here's a couple handy links:
EDIT 4/28 - 7:40 PM PST: I forgot to mention in the patch notes that you can now counter the universally hated "Merciless Bandits" Event by simply eating the bandits.
Major System Changes
- You can now assign buttons to quickly swap to the previous/next character in your group, without having to pause the game! This is a big change, that should hopefully add some extra flexibility to your zombie plans
- Duffle Bag added. This will show up in Trader Camps where you don't have a car, or in new indoor-only trader camps where you don't have access to your car. Interacting with this will let you access your "Trunk"!
- Cleaned up the Zombie Head code, and added 12 new zombie heads
- Zombotown's Info Shack now includes a section to give credit to Death Road to Canada mod makers that contribute to the game (More to come!)
- New hairstyles for random and custom characters!
New Locations
Rare Trading Camp: Final Hospital Added
- Cleaning Lady rare special character was moved here, with buffs! - Multiple +vitality, all-u-can eat - Cheap group healing - Source of medical training until you run out of food - The Golden Scalpel, and more
Rare Trading Camp: Mechanical Fortress
- Tool Shop where you can buy gas powered or electric tools, including the new jackhammers! - Special feature for Electric Tool Shop where the first purchase gets DOUBLE CHARGED - Used Car Lot, pick from 3 random cars. This includes cars you usually can't just find when on foot. - Expert Garage, where you could get full repairs or even get ALL CAR MODS at once! - Tool School for as much mechanical training as your food supply can handle - ROBO SHACK with two new and powerful robot special characters, designed by Professor Sycamore!
Graveyard
- Has two variations! One has a recruit, and the other has a guarantee of a random but nice ranged weapon
Public Park
- Has multiple variations and random bits! - You can find things like a recruit, new car, magazine, gas, and tools at random
New Characters and Weapons
- Jack Hamm added to the trader camp recruit pool. He's a construction worker with an electric jackhammer that recharges over time.
- Punch Bot, from the Mechanical Fortress rare trading camp. A robot carefully designed for the perfect punching experience. Has a general strong uppercut, then two charge-based punching moves that hit in a big AOE. One of these moves also has a button-hold charging up component to it!
- Speed Bot, also from the Mechanical Fortress. A robot designed for the perfect speedy experience. Has a charge-based move that makes it speed forward quickly, a recharging nailgun that fires faster the longer you continuously shoot it, and a slot open for equipped weapon use.
- Obama added, probably
- New Fireworks vendor added to the general trader rotation! She sells 4 new fireworks weapon types, all great for distracting zombies
- Jackhammers added, in both electric and gas variants. A slower but stronger chainsaw, with a lot of knockback
- Firecrackers added, they distract zombies as they pop and the final explosion will do damage and knockdown - Mount Dingus added, "the crappiest firework". Emits colored smoke that distracts zombies for a good amount of time, but doesn't do anything COOL - Roman Candle added, shoots multiple fireworks that knocks zombies down and distracts - KO BOOMER added, an overstuffed Roman Candle. Banned in most countries pre-apocalypse. You should probably drop it and run after awhile
Previous Location Tweaks
Starting Location "Quiet Factory Tweaks"
- Two guaranteed drops of 20-30 gas - The worst Executive Office loot drops for the "execweapon" roll have been combined into one, reducing the possible options from 4 to 3. This means instead of getting "an extra golf club", you'll get that plus a grenade and medical - Same as above, but for the "execsupply" roll. This means you'l never get 5-20 bullets alone, instead you'll get that in addition to a grenade and a 50% chance for 20-30 extra gas
General Tweaks
- Factories will usually contain 6 different gas cans, with 15-25 gas each (90-150 gas total), hopefully making them a strong pick for refueling your car/chainsaw - Factories also get the execweapon and execsupply changes that the Quiet Factory got, except the "chance of extra golf club" now has a 50% chance of being replaced by an Uzi with 30-50 bullets. This was formerly a 10% chance
- All standalone house and apartment locations, including the starting options for looting a House or Apartment, now give one extra commonranged drop. This means a guaranteed pistol, shotgun, or cowboy rifle with ammo, with a tiny chance of Uzi or AK47
Weapon Tweaks
- Ultramop power nerf, 1.2 -> 0.8 - Ultramop knockback buff, 1.5 -> 2 - Ultramop Cleave buff, 1 -> 4 extra hits - Debutante Umbrella power buff, 0.8 -> 1 - The best weapon, the Tire Iron, changed so that the AI don't favor it as much
Other Fixes/Minor Tweaks
- Fixed the Grain, Scratch, etc effects - Fixed an error with Broomy spawning, and it starts lying down - Changed traderarcade-fire's exit message if you avoided fire damage - Fixed incorrect numbering for the survival preptrader - Fixed camera not properly following new leader in a different map when switching characters
- Magazine chance removed from farm locations, as this just bugged out if you got a rescue event on top of this. - Farm tractors can now be looted for gas
- Weapondef conflict fix - Mysterious Past + Martial Artist no longer gives points in shooting
Modder Notes/Under the Hood Stuff
- Added warning case for accessing a NULL thing - Added pwn sound effect - MANDIBLE.df added to decks.df - Changed tnomey-spawn to support indoor and outdoor spawning - Removed cleaning lady's cleaner-test event from recruitdecks - CAR_BUS added as a stub - New word for generating a parked car but without the usual extra gas or tire iron, see the Park locations for implementation of this
Halloween Update! Plus News on Upcoming Giant Update
Here's a quick surprise update! It will add an event that will take place every Halloween from now on, or at least whenever your system clock is set to 10/31. This is a multiple choice event, make sure to CHOOSE WISELY! [flashing text]
We're hard at work on the MANDIBLE Update, where we're hoping to add greater mod support to the game. Some other things you can expect so far:
- Two new buttons added to the game! These will let you quickly swap between the next or previous character in your party, without pausing the game. This is a big change, and may open up new strategies with the finer control. - New locations and rare trading camps - A new way to access the car trunk in trading camps, if you don't have your car with you - Tweaks and rebalancing to some old locations that weren't really worth going to before, such as Factories
You can actually help test some of this update RIGHT NOW! To do so, right click on Death Road to Canada in your Steam Library, go to Properties, then Betas, and opt into "beta - TESTBRANCH"! You'll be able to check out some new location changes, and the Quick Character Change buttons!
Once we get to the part of the update where we're experimenting with mod support, we will start officially making posts on Steam about the testing branches. Until then, you can see testing branch updates and news on the Official Discord. There's a handy link to that in the game's title screen.
Thanks for all the support so far! Enjoy all the Halloween cameo characters, though really you should just pick the Chainsaw Hand option.
Death Road to Canada LIVER Update - Mac Build
Possible fix for Mac builds for Death Road to Canada's LIVER update is now up!
Let me know if there's any problems as a reply to this announcement, or on the Discord
Death Road to Canada LIVER Update!
The LIVER Update has a bunch of new special characters, including finally, FINALLY having a reference to your favorite anime. It also features a bunch of new random character and custom character cosmetic parts, two new locations including a new Special Trading Camp, a supersoldier dog trained by the government, the Golden Pistol and Lil' Dawg, a new Perk and Trait, and more!
Read below for full details.
Coming Up Next
We're working on a bunch of new games, including getting very close to the 1.0 Launch of Cannibal Crossing. We will launch news on these to the revamped News Box in Death Road as they come out. After Cannibal Crossing, we have some games in development that are similar to Death Road in terms of managing a group of people with story events, including a direct followup to Death Road (a prequel in MEDIEVAL TIMES).
We are also doing one last big Death Road update, before we finally move to smaller updates. This will be the M update, with our goals for this including better mod support! We'll see what exact shape this takes as we get into it, but in any case it will also include content not related to modding so that all platforms get benefit from the update. We do not have an exact timeline for the M update, but will post some news on it in a few months!
Official Discord and Thanks
The best way to send feedback and interact with us is now our Official Rocketcat Discord. This has been around for awhile now, but I'm finally linking to it in Death Road itself. You can also find this link on the title screen, under the News Box. I'm in there a lot, and so are other fans of Death Road and our other games. I hope to see you there!
Other good ways to send feedback and suggestions are by replying to this announcement, or to my Twitter: https://twitter.com/rocketcatgames
As always, thanks for all the support! If you like the game and its updates, please rate it highly and tell your friends/jerks you know about it. This game has thrived due to word of mouth, and that has let us continue making large updates for a very long time now.
LIVER Update: FULL LIST OF CHANGES
Major Changes
- 6 new recruitable playable Special Characters! Technically 10 Special Characters, if you count each JoJo reference as two characters (I do). See more info below in the Special Characters section
- Added a News Box to the title screen, as the old news method seemed too jarring. We will use this mostly to announce either major update changes or announce future games we launch. You can turn this off in the News Options if you want, it remains off until another update happens
- New Perk: Pyromaniac. You get a Blowtorch that regenerates between missions, and immunity to fire. You can pair this with Phoenix to retain fireproofing after your first death, or combine it with Specialist to sacrifice all weapon slots to upgrade your Blowtorch to a Napalm Launcher! Have fun
- New Trait: Fast Learner. Start with low skills, but gain double points to Shooting, Medical, and Mechanical skill every time you get a respective skillup for one of these. This effect stops at 4 in each skill, and if you get a skillup at 3, you'll still shoot straight to skill 5
- MORE UNLOCKABLE HATS added, with conditions for unlocking them - Added more hair and head options, and new skin color options. The weirdest ones are not used by the random character generator, but you can use them in the Custom Character maker and as Familiar Characters
- New Rare Location: MILITARY DEPOT. Lots of zombies, lots of explosives - New Rare Trader
- New Arcade Machine added to the Arcade Rare Trader Camp - New Weapon: Golden Axe - New Weapon: Heavy Golden Axe
- New Rare Trading Camp: PREPPER PARADISE - New Weapon: LIL' DAWG - New Weapon: Golden Pistol - New Weapon: Survival Knife - Trader that sells higher ammo versions of the Bazooka, Grenade Launcher, and Napalm Thrower - BIG DAWG is now sold in PREPPER PARADISE, for a cheaper price - Healing Spray XL with 10 charges instead of 3 - New Event: Turret Thief
Special Characters
- 4 anime reference characters that temporarily summon 4 other anime reference characters. [sfx: The JoJo theme of your choice] - Summoned Stamps have infinite energy, they simply don't get tired. They also do not bleed, so an injured or dead Stamp will not attract zombies - Having a Stamp User in your team can lead to finding more Stamp Users in Road Events. The more you have on your team, the faster you find the next Stamp User, though you can still find all of them (eventually) with just one Stamp User in the team - Made a special character that is far bigger than previously thought possible, dwarfing the Mecha Mountie in size
- BROOMY, who gets a very special attribute that may be hard to figure out at first
- DELTA, the supersoldier/dog, who is a dog/supersoldier trained by the US GOVERNMENT to have enhanced combat potential and super-accuracy with firearms - DELTA is capable of getting +3 over the normal maximum for the Shooting skill - DELTA has two carrying slots, DOUBLE that of a normal dog. No one knows how or why
Tweaks and Fixes
- Giant buff for Sacrificial Altars. In exchange for losing 2 health, a surviving character now gets Strength, Fitness, AND Shooting instead of just a chance for one of those. If someone dies to the altar, in addition to the previous loot table, it will also give the entire rest of the team a point in strength, fitness, or shooting at random
- CIVILIZED NERF: Only gives 1 point in medical and 1 point of mechanical now. Still gives the extremely overpowered combo of good personality stats, though
- GNOMEY REVAMP (blaring siren) - Gnomey no longer gets maxed medical, a MASSIVE NERF - Gnomey now summons temporary allies at a high chance whenever he hits a zombie, a MASSIVE BUFF - Gnomey has a small chance to summon many things at once - Gnomey has a chance to summon the Punch Quest guy, who stays for the entire mission - Punch Quest gauntlets shoot punch energy - Secret method for getting 2 Punch Quest gauntlets that can be equipped by anyone
- Fireman (Rare Trader Camp Recruit) buffs - Fireman now takes 15 food to recruit instead of 10 - Fireman gets a recharging Napalm Launcher like a Pyromaniac + Specialist does, at around level 2 recharge. Their napalm launcher has 20 max capacity instead of 25 - Fireman gets a max slot capacity of 2, down from 3, but a lot better than the 1 you'd get with Pyromaniac + Specialist
- Superdogs can now bark without dropping their weapon
- Shotgun Seller now sells Double Barreled Shotgun instead of BIG DAWG - Rambeux Knife buffed from 1 to 0.7 cooldown
- The Road Pause Menu now lists the speed of your car
- Temporary characters now drop their weapons when they disappear - Blowtorch and Napalm Thrower are now both unbreakable - Hekatarius event can now give fireproofing to solo survivors
- Pukeyballs are buffed, due to OVERWHELMING demand. They stack higher now - All temporary summons are now set at MAXIMUM AGGRESSION SETTINGS. This includes Pukeyballs, chickens, robots, and Stamps
