Hi survivors,
today we are releasing our fourth playtest for “Deadly Days: Roadtrip”. It has been a bit over 3 months and a LOT has changed. More than we can fit into these notes. Thanks to everyone who participated in the previous playtest for your feedback. We are curious to hear what you think of the changes that we have implemented.
The most important thing first: Go to the store page and sign up for the playtest.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3026450/Deadly_Days_Roadtrip/
Enjoy the game and share your thoughts with us afterwards! There are two ways to do so:
- Using the feedback form built into the game.
- Directly via our Discord server in our new submission channel.
Reworked mission system
The whole mission system has been reworked. We now divide the map into "biomes". Each biome can have its own type of mission. Later we want to add more gameplay around this system (e.g. biome specific enemy types). In this process we also completeley redesigned the mission selection map:
We have also added a mechanic to add events between two days. For now, we added a merchant you can randomly find and buy some items to improve your build.
In the process, we also changed the way you get scrap: it now drops randomly on the maps, so you better pick it up.
We also added a more dangerous encounter in the middle of the road trip. You will notice it.
New content
We added two new enemy types (the jumper and the sneaky one). Jumper preview:
We also added two new items (Rubber Ball and Battery). Battery preview:
Strengthening of the infrastructure
A major focus for this new version was the refinement of the game's fundamentals and infrastructure.
We added full controller support to the game and improved performance. This allows the game to be played on Steamdeck.
We also added a new settings menu with full input mapping, but also accessibility options like a non-pixelated font and automatic use of powerups. Feel free to customize the game to your needs.
We also switched to DirectX11 for now, we had several issues with DirectX12. But if you are brave, you can optionally choose the unstable DirectX12 option. This might give you better graphics, but may crash occasionally. Give us a feedback if you dare to try it.
Visual overhaul
There was a strong initiative to rework the game visually as well. All the UI screens were redesigned, we added cool transition animations, etc.
We also added more variety to the map generation and ground textures to make the visual appearance more vivid. Another neat detail of many is the increasing wetness of the map when it rains.
Balancing
We have made several changes to the balance of the game. Overall, it should be harder now, but hopefully not too hard for new players. Please give us feedback about this!
Here is an incomplete list of balance changes:
- Normal enemies now attack faster and are generally more aggressive, don't get too close to them!
- Days are longer now, but the night becomes more and more dangerous (up to the point where the threat level increases every second)
- Complete overhaul of how fire and poison work. Poison for example weakens over time, but is stackable now:
- Player debuff speed when damaged
- Banana item explodes on bounce and is reduced by 1 bounce
- Boss health doubled
- Explosive powerup now scales with player level
- Epic weapons + throwables do more damage
- Barrels do -50% damage to player
- More fuel on maps, especially large maps
- Player speed increased slightly
- Some more invincibility frames after dash and opening airdrop
- Slower growth of max enemies, enemy speed and enemy health
- Easier to craft some recipes (requires lower rarities)
What else?
As mentioned at the beginning, we were only able to cover some of the changes and improvements in these notes. We have documented 835 changes in our Github since the last playtest.
That being said, we would like to point out the following:
- We want to offer a transparent insight into the development of 'Deadly Days: Roadtrip' through Open Decks. Your bug reports and suggestions for improvement will appear there and you can keep track of the tickets we are working on.
- We are hosting giveaways for the full version of the game with exciting challenges for the community. Feel free to drop by and take part!
- This playtest will probably be the last open playtest. If you are interested in continuing to help with the development, stay active on our Discord and we will reach out to you personally.
We also updated our trailer:
About the game:
Deadly Days: Roadtrip is an exciting action roguelite, that combines reverse bullet hell gameplay with strategic inventory management.
Start your road trip through the zombie apocalypse! Fight your way through, gain experience and collect items to assemble an epic inventory. Craft more effective weapons and find out what items you can combine to withstand the ever-increasing waves of zombies.
How to play:
Feel free to join our Discord and chat about Deadly Days: Roadtrip.
Have fun playing the game,
- Your Team Pixelsplit