Death Road to Canada News

Had some setbacks with our developer version testing, getting back into public testing branches now. Check out the new weapon locking by hitting Z or X on a weapon twice in SWAP MEET, this should let you order followers to use and keep whatever weapon you specify.

Below are patch notes of what we've added to testing branch so far, more content and other additions are coming.

INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT NOTE: The testing branch and the retail version use different save files! Testing Branch saves also get cleared out on occasion.

HOW TO INSTALL: Right click Death Road to Canada on Steam. Go to Properties. Go to Betas. Select Testbranch, no password necessary.




- Weapon locking, select a weapon twice to lock it. AI followers will use whatever weapon is locked, and they won't drop it. Hopefully
- Updated weapon locking so that if you lock an empty slot, they should treat it like it's a weapon and not replace it. This was added for characters with good unarmed skills or if you want a dog to not pick up anything

- Mysterious dog buffs

- Temporary STREET PUNCHER buddy testing added at start. It will pick one of the two new special rare characters
- Temporary weapon testing added to start, as the weapons aren't placed in-game yet

- New special characters: BRYU and SAGUTS, with some special behaviors for their unarmed abilities

- AI followers should now get out the same side of the car as the player

- Fix for a UI exploit that let you skip events

- Tweaks to some collision things
- Fairy Bat added

- Fixed a particle effects issue when smashing trees and bushes
- More particle fixes

- Character strength added to bow draw speed
- Fixed a bug with swapping a knocked bow with another
- Dirtier Yallmart floors, as a test to maybe make the world more filthy
- Reduced items spawning behind immovable objects

- This silverware is h-h-haunted or somethin
- New weapons added (but not placed in world yet): Dinnerware, rake, hoe, saw, blacksmith hammer, napalm launcher, land mines, bazooka, electric leaf blower and weed whacker, grenade launcher

- Changes to weapondef code
- Charge-based ranged weapons now use reload for shot time and cooldown for melee, like regular guns
- New code to make it so the game doesn't confuse Mechamountie for Mason
- Code optimizations
- Buffer overflow fix
- Many behind the scenes tweaks and memory leak fixes

Testing branches are coming back, for the upcoming new update! No patch notes yet, this is a test to make sure that nothing breaks. More content and features will be coming on Monday or Tuesday, along with more detailed notes.

The big thing to test now: AI weapon locking. You can now go into the swap menu for teammates and hit a button twice to lock their weapon. This will prevent them from switching away from or dropping that weapon.

There are some exceptions to them not switching their weapon, like if they quickly want to pick something up and switch back. This is also a work in progress, so there may be some things we need to change with feedback.

You can do this to a melee weapon, a gun, or even an empty slot. Locking an AI character's gun is also a quick way to make one person in your team shoot, instead of having the entire team shoot.

Let me know what you think of this new feature in the comments, and what you would like to see changed.

INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT NOTE: The testing branch and the retail version use different save files! Testing Branch saves also get cleared out on occasion.

HOW TO INSTALL: Right click Death Road to Canada on Steam. Go to Properties. Go to Betas. Select Testbranch, no password necessary.

New update coming soon. Two for the price of one! (price: free)

See the full recent update right here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/deathroad/announcements/detail/1698313364868010940
EDIT 11/4 12 PM PST

This update is now out on the main branch!

EDIT 11/3 1:53 PM PST

Doing some extra fixes! Now up for Mac/Linux/Windows.

EDIT 10/29

This mini-update was launched! We're now going to send it off to the porters for consoles and Android, and work on the iOS version.

We didn't get to do the extra content due to running out of testing time for it, but that will show up in the next update in 2-3 months.


INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT NOTE: The testing branch and the retail version use different save files! Testing Branch saves also get cleared out on occasion.

HOW TO INSTALL: Right click Death Road to Canada on Steam. Go to Properties. Go to Betas. Select Testbranch, no password necessary.




New Change 11/1 1:43 PM

- Dying in the Tutorial (or Zombotown if that was possible) will no longer delete one of your saves

New Changes 11/1 12:59 PM

- Fixed a bug where stacking charge-use weapons (like the healing spray) in the trunk from an equip slot could crash the game

- Fix for weirdness with equipped weapon slots when locked weapons were involved


New Changes 10/28

- Linux and Mac Support

- Moody will again sometimes murder the entire group, but he values his rocket launcher less now so he will do so rarely-ish

- 6 strength TSTC characters and up can now yank pay phones out and throw them


Older Changes

- The game now remembers who the leader was on the next mission. So if Player 2 was leader, they will retain leadership in the next mission.

- All players now will get to retain who they were controlling at the start of the next mission.

- When they're selecting a character to control, non-leader players can now choose to take over the characters of other players. The player swap indicator in the top right will have extra symbols to warn you that you're booting someone off their character.

- Non-leader players can now take over the leader's character. This will give them leadership. This gives a way to swap which player is leader, which was missing before.

- Fixed a bug where certain weapons would drop on death, when they weren't supposed to. This mostly affected weapons with charges, like the bow and arrow. Also Giga Mann's Blaster.

HUMERUS Update has launched, with several new major features. 4 player local co-op is now supported. Three new gameplay modes have been added, including Endless and OPP Mode, where you can start with whatever team of rare characters you want. There are additional features, tweaks, and fixes. Read below for a full list of changes.



EDIT 10/29

We made a mini-update with some additional changes. This includes making the game remember which player was playing what co-op characters, and a way for co-op players to swap characters or leadership.

EDIT 11/4

New mini-update out now, with additional fixes and tweaks!




New Changes 11/4

- Fixed a bug where stacking charge-use weapons (like the healing spray) in the trunk from an equip slot could crash the game

- Fix for weirdness with equipped weapon slots when locked weapons were involved

- Moody will again sometimes murder the entire group, but he values his rocket launcher less now so he will do so rarely-ish

- 6 strength TSTC characters and up can now yank pay phones out and throw them

- Dying in the Tutorial (or Zombotown if that was possible) will no longer delete one of your saves


New Changes 10/29

- The game now remembers who the leader was on the next mission. So if Player 2 was leader, they will retain leadership in the next mission.

- All players now will get to retain who they were controlling at the start of the next mission.

- When they're selecting a character to control, non-leader players can now choose to take over the characters of other players. The player swap indicator in the top right will have extra symbols to warn you that you're booting someone off their character.

- Non-leader players can now take over the leader's character. This will give them leadership. This gives a way to swap which player is leader, which was missing before.

- Fixed a bug where certain weapons would drop on death, when they weren't supposed to. This mostly affected weapons with charges, like the bow and arrow. Also Giga Mann's Blaster.

- Moody will again sometimes murder the entire group, but he values his rocket launcher less now so he will do so rarely-ish

- 6 strength TSTC characters and up can now yank pay phones out and throw them


Major Features

- The game now supports up to 4 players at a time!
- Joystick can now be unassigned from Player 1 and assigned to Player 2 instead

- 3 new gameplay modes added!
- Endless Mode in. Let me know how far you get!
- Over Powered Party Mode added. This lets you start in a special map that lets you recruit any rare character in the game
- Quick Death Mode added. It's Short Trip to Heck, but with the difficulty tripled

- Removed the "pick a new character" text event when the leader is killed. Now it works similarly to how joining in as a multiplayer buddy would work, meaning you should be able to choose a new character more seamlessly. This only takes one second to kick in

- In multiplayer, player-controlled characters will teleport to the leader's room after one second. This was done to drastically reduce the waiting time when the other players are inactive. This is turned off if the character is grabbed
- Event Picker Cursor splits into P1 through P4 cursors as players join, all can be used
- Players 2-4 now have more control over menu choices. Whoever picks first makes the choice
- If the leader dies and there is another player, the leadership will go to that player. Camera will swap over, they will get pause menu control, and the Leader crown will pop over their head

- OPP mode has a FORBIDDEN HUT that lets you recruit characters that may break the game. Have fun with that, but also NO REFUNDS
- Special ending wave tweaks for OPP. The ending fight takes about twice as long as in other modes. I may later also make the harder modes have a longer ending fight wave, such as in KEPA Mode
- Endless Mode shows your days in, instead of days left
- Endless Mode tracks your highest day reached in the game mode select screen

- The game will run a quick check to clear your control settings to make them compatible with the new 4-player changes.


Tweaks and Fixes

- The ability to press escape to quit a menu added to more menus, for now mostly the supply and weapon traders.

- Changed effect of camp2-zwatch for Sound Sleepers that have no loyalty
- Text adjustments in camp2-bwatch and camp3-trap for Sound Sleepers
- Weegee event now gives a different effect for the fire result if Fireproof
- Fix for the walking event with the yelling car, which would have a reveal error if you had an Oblivious character
- Car Detour event no longer nukes your gas if you're in a 0 gas consumption car

- Irritating Trademark Weapon is now a recharging Air Horn
- IRRITATION HORN has 20 charges for maximum cooling it

- Revamped recruit system on recruit-yes and recruit-replace, now most will give "pick more" with a full group and let you cancel the recruit.
- Exceptions to above: Familiar Face recruiting, which uses a different system that would have problems with this. Recruiting dogs by feeding them and recruiting rare camp recruits, which have food costs, so the game forces you as to not waste the food.
- Jerk recruiting uses the new system, but it probably shouldn't? Not sure.
- Changed two recruit1 events to no longer use the old "3 choices or leave behind system", as the new system makes this even more obsolete.

- Removed nodeathdrop from Rambeaux
- Buffed Ninja-countdown from 4-5 to 6-8
- Moody will no longer use his Rocket Launcher if he's controlled by the AI. I did NOT agree with this change, but did it grudgingly.




Updates after this and the upcoming small update will happen every 2-3 months or so. We're mostly going to add small things, like some events or characters each update. This should help keep the game fresh as we finally delve into a followup or sequel game. More news on this as we figure things out!




If you like the updates, tell your friends about the game and leave a Steam review. The success of this game has always been due to word of mouth from fans and streamers!

Leave feedback and suggestions here as a comment, or post to the discussion boards or join the Discord: https://discord.gg/J7HChAa

For frequent news, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook:
http://www.twitter.com/rocketcatgames
http://www.facebook.com/rocketcatgames

Resuming the Testing Branch after working on 4 player changes for awhile!

EDIT 10/21 7:49 PM PST: New build up, using the retail saves. We have some extra content we haven't put in yet, but we will launch that for a mini-update after this update launch. One of these things that will have to wait is new ways to allow other players to be the leader, below.

------

The big new thing is changing how choosing the Leader works, and adding new ways to allow other players to be the leader. This is to avoid constantly having Player 1 resume control when they die. There's still more work to do here.

Let us know how this works for you, and any other suggestions you have for improving the local multiplayer We'll be adding a little bit of new content to this after we finish the multiplayer changes, but mostly we really want to get this update out.

INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT NOTE: The testing branch and the retail version use different save files! Testing Branch saves also get cleared out on occasion, usually with new updates.

HOW TO INSTALL: Right click Death Road to Canada on Steam. Go to Properties. Go to Betas. Select Testbranch, no password necessary.




10/21 Build

- OPP Mode ending is now twice as long in the final wave
- OPP Mode has slightly more zombie waves than most modes in the ending
- Various checks put in to make sure the game doesn't emit smoke and explode in the final level for OPP Mode's higher than ever difficulty

- Final build up for Windows, using Retail saves for now (not Testbranch saves)


10/20 Build

- New modes fully implemented, with stat and streak tracking, ending lines, and so on
- The new modes are now locked, with unlock conditions like most other modes
- Endless Mode now tracks your highest day reached in the game mode select screen
- Some extra stuff for Endless


10/18 Build

- Linux and Mac builds now up

- The wait time between the leader dying and being able to pick a new character has been reduced to one second, from 3 seconds. Let me know if this feels too short

- Fix for the walking event with the yelling car, which would have a reveal error if you had an Oblivious character

- Car Detour event no longer nukes your gas if you're in a 0 gas consumption car

- The despair event where a high loyalty character leaves a note will no longer have that character take their weapons with them

- Unlock Town Blue Robot in testing branch now requires a confirmation to give you 99 ZP


10/13 Build

- Player controller characters will now warp to the leader's room if they're offscreen. This currently takes one second, but doesn't work if the player-controlled buddy is currently grabbed. Let us know if this is too exploitable. I'm considering increasing the time it takes, though I like this for making multiplayer have less pauses as you wait for characters to walk into the room.

- Removed the "pick a new character" text event if the leader is killed. Now it works similarly to how joining in as a multiplayer buddy would work, meaning you should be able to choose a new character more seamlessly.

- Event Picker Cursor splits into P1 through P4 cursors as players join, all can be used.
- Players 2-4 now have more control over menu choices. Whoever picks first makes the choice.

- If the leader dies and there is another player, the leadership will go to that player. Camera will swap over, they will get pause menu control, and the Leader crown will pop over their head.

- Moody will no longer use his Rocket Launcher if he's controlled by the AI. I did NOT agree with this change, but did it grudgingly.

- Endless Mode now shows what day you're on, instead of trying to show "days left".
- Changed Endless Mode driving screen to show how many days have passed, instead of what day you're on.

- The game will now run a check to see if your settings are incompatible with the new 4-player changes, then reset them if they are. There will be a pop-up on top of the screen to tell you this if it applies.


PREVIOUS CHANGES

- The game now supports 4 players at a time.

- Camera support for 4 players
- Joystick can now be unassigned from Player 1 and assigned to Player 2 instead.

- The ability to press escape to quit a menu added to more menus, for now mostly the supply and weapon traders.
- Menus that let you press escape to leave now have a special icon for the EXIT option: a backwards arrow

- Fixed a bug with OPP mode that occured if you started solo.

- Removed nodeathdrop from Rambeaux
- Changed .trademarkwep word to be more efficient

- Changed effect of camp2-zwatch for Sound Sleepers that have no loyalty
- Text adjustments in camp2-bwatch and camp3-trap for Sound Sleepers
- Weegee event now gives a different effect for the fire result if Fireproof

- 3 new gameplay modes added! All don't require any unlocking for now, and are labelled as BETA TEST instead of having a win counter.
- Endless Mode in. Let me know how far you get!
- Over Powered Party Mode added. This lets you start in a special map that lets you recruit any rare character in the game.
- Quick Death Mode added. It's Short Trip to Heck, but with the difficulty tripled.

- Branchname changed to HUMERUS

- Endless Mode difficulty scaling made slower, previous faster rate was for testing. The difficulty gain stays near the same for the first 50 days, and then slows down to roughly half. Let me know what you think of the new difficulty!

- Irritating Trademark Weapon is now a recharging Air Horn
- IRRITATION HORN has 20 charges for maximum cooling it

- OPP Mode now only lets you recruit 4 people
- OPP town no longer lets you back out at last moment if group is full
- Genie and Mechamountie now warn you that they're buggy
- G*rf, Gordon, Fairy Queen, Panda, George added to OPP town
- Mecha Mountie named properly in OPP

- News check disabled (unless we have something new to announce for August)

- Changed all the nodrops to the correct "1" instead of a weapon name. The old method still worked but was completely unnecessary.

- The 3 new modes put into Car Stats
- Endless Mode displays days in, instead of days left
- Temporary ending stubs for the new modes

- Revamped recruit system on recruit-yes and recruit-replace, now most will give "pick more" with a full group and let you cancel the recruit.
- Exceptions to above: Familiar Face recruiting, which uses a different system that would have problems with this. Recruiting dogs by feeding them and recruiting rare camp recruits, which have food costs, so the game forces you as to not waste the food.
- Jerk recruiting uses the new system, but it probably shouldn't? Not sure.
- Changed two recruit1 events to no longer use the old "3 choices or leave behind system", as the new system makes this even more obsolete.

- Buffed Ninja-countdown from 4-5 to 6-8
- Added a new-familiar-recruit word for forcing a familiar spawn