Hey there, fellow Death Drive passengers!
You might have seen some sneak peeks on our social media pages, but here's long overdue devlog update we've been too eager to share with you.
We've been working truly hard on Death Drive. (hint: almost 24/7 😉) And luckily that massive amount of work was not all about fixing those nasty bugs, but resulted in huge progress as well. So, welcome back to our devlog, survivors! 💪
Taverns!
There is a new place in settlements to relax a bit and free up your mind from all things survival, taverns! Possibly one of the best place still standing post apocalypse. Get drunk, fill up your stomach and listen in on all the latest rumors.
And that's not all, we also plan to include several minigames scattered around places like these... what's a tavern without card games and some wagering to keep it spicy?!
Town Hall
Quite often some of the more populated areas you find on your journey will have a special building dedicated to town's issues - a town hall.
While we're still working on some other concepts to add to town halls, we can still share more about 2 complete features for now - investing in settlements and announcement boards.
Investing In Settlements
Investing in settlements is one of the best options if you're looking for stability. With each month, you'll earn your share of revenue, a percentage of your total deposit. The percentage varies from one settlement to another and could also depend on various factors.
Announcement Board
Looking for a job? or perhaps some interesting stories surrounding the settlement. Announcement board contains all the important posts and job listings. Posts get updated monthly with both scripted and procedurally generated jobs and contracts.
You'll have to pay attention to the difficulty level before accepting new jobs, some jobs might cost you more than the reward offered. Besides job posts, you'll also find different notes from other survivors, some of which could be informational and useful, while others straight up insane coming from those who've had too much.
Contracts & Jobs
We've briefly mentioned about jobs and contracts previously and now with the announcement board ready, it's all finished from the ground up! We've also made it super easy to set up for the scripted jobs for that one time special rewards, and for procedural generation you can expect unlimited amount of jobs and contracts with different objectives. Everything from transporting goods between settlements to neutralizing bandit leaders.
Chained Enemies
Enemies that are chained together will trigger an encounter if one of them manages to get close to you and at the same time you'll be fighting the whole group. Likewise once you kill the whole group, all of the chained enemies will disappear in world view.
We wanted to portray that feeling of dread that surrounds zombie hordes in the game without triggering single encounters for each one of them and we think this was the best fitting option!
Weather System
Survival is the key element in Death Drive and we go even deeper with the new weather system. From clear skies to fog and heavy storms it's all unpredictable and affects your travel conditions accordingly.
During heavy storms you'll get a weather alert and unless you're already camping near the settlement you won't be able to set up the camp anywhere else. Just picture you're transporting goods to your destination, barely surviving and suddenly you end up in the middle of the horde and you hear that thunder. With the heavy storm adding up to that, your caravan breaks down!
Lucky for you, we've also added emergency repair kits that allows you to repair your caravan without setting up the camp and in much less time, so make sure you always have a few of them before embarking on long journeys.
Cooking Finalized
There are a total of 51 unique recipes to unlock and cook now! From home made energy drinks and spaghetti to Poor Man's Sushi and Ojakhuri. Each granting different character bonuses.
With over 89 new ingredients added, we've now completed all the planned content for your cooking needs.
More Progress!
We've finally managed to recreate all of our existing art assets with the new style, including human enemies and camp, so expect to see some fresh content from now on.
We've also added long format time tracking spanning to weeks and months as some of the content will have dependency on time.
And finally, we've created more variations of random NPCs that can be found in settlements and added over 20 different interactive and obstacle tiles!
Share Your Feedback And Ideas!
We'd really love to hear what you think ❤
Got any crazy good ideas that you'd want to see in Death Drive? Let us know!
Stay tuned for more!
We're trying to share smaller updates more frequently on our Twitter account, so make sure you follow us! And also, you're more than welcome to join our 👉 community on Discord 👈 and let us know what you think about Death Drive.
Stay safe!