Death Road to Canada News

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!

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.

Get one here before time runs out: https://www.makeship.com/products/horse-mann-plush

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!

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!

[h2]Coming Up Next[/h2]

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!

[h2]Our Thanks[/h2]

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:

Official Rocketcat Discord
https://twitter.com/rocketcatgames

[h2]Nerve Update: FULL LIST OF CHANGES[/h2]

[h3]Major System Changes[/h3]

- 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!

[h3]New Character Customization Details[/h3]

- 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!

[h3]Other Fixes/Minor Tweaks[/h3]

- 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

[h3]Modder Notes/Under the Hood Stuff[/h3]

- Modders: Added .wielded_score so you can check how much a character values their current weapon
- Under the Hood: Further iOS version work

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.

[h2]6 Years of Death Road to Canada![/h2]

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".



[h2]Help Us Test the NERVE Update![/h2]

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.