Devlog #8 - Shared Abilities, New Content & More

We're back with another devlog and this time it's special since we're also celebrating another year of working on Death Drive! 🥳 You might have been wondering what we were up to and we'll try to share all our recent progress without spoiling too much.

Shared Abilities

Shared abilities are a variety of talents that can be used by any member of the squad. These abilities can be acquired using ability points.

Your ability points

will accumulate with leveling up.

Throughout the game, you will come across different tasks and situations where these abilities will be crucial. While some abilities will help you solve various problems, others will enhance your overall performance.

We've made huge progress already and fully completed all planned abilities that include:

Demolition

Demolition ability helps you use explosives that you can utilize for demolishing objects like doors, thin walls and other weak structures.

What are you going to do when the only thing stopping you from getting to that sweet stash of loot is a thin wall?

That's right! Grab some dynamite and make sure you've got the ability leveled up high enough not to blow yourself up along with that wall.

Lockpicking

Lockpicking ability helps you access closed premises and unlock doors, boxes and objects of different types. However, you must also have enough lockpicking kits.

Life in the apocalypse would be a lot easier if certain things weren't locked up. But with zombies running wild, you can't blame people for going an extra mile for some security; though mastering the lockpicking ability and finding usable kits will allow you to get rid of those locks for good.

After proving your lockpicking skills in this quick and fun minigame that's all about reaction time, the loot is all yours!

Hacking

Hacking ability helps you crack codes to extract valuable data from devices, gain access codes and deactivate various systems.

For better or worse, the electricity is still flowing in some parts of the world and that also means there are going to be challenges requiring the smarts. More specifically hacking your way around systems that block you otherwise.

Acrobatics

Acrobatics ability helps you access areas that are out of reach, climb the walls, jump over large ground gaps and crawl through narrow passages.

No you're not going to be using acrobatics on stage to entertain survivors or distract zombies, but then again, who knows... But, the full-on war that broke out after the infection took over left many places in ruins. Some places that used to be connected with staircases are now just large gaps and rumbles barely holding together. Spending your ability points in acrobatics is a wise choice if you're planning to tackle such challenges.

Hunting & Fishing

Hunting and fishing ability helps you acquire food to survive in the tough times. You will need special Hunting and Fishing equipment to be able to use this ability. Keep in mind that this activity can also be time consuming.

When you're out of your comfort zone away from the settlements, surviving gets a little harder. Luckily, you'll sometimes come across infection free wildlife and with the right tools and practice you'll soon unlock the inner predator in you.

Unlike other abilities though, hunting and fishing takes toll on your sanity and a good few hours to invest, so make sure you're well prepared for the activity!

Deep Search

Deep Search ability helps you look through piles of junk and busy locations to find valuable items. You will need special Deep Search equipment to use this ability. Keep in mind that this activity can also be time consuming.

It's not always easy to look for useful items to aid you in survival. Sometimes it takes an extra pair of good gloves and a right shovel to dig through the junk before you get to the treasure and that's when the "Deep Search" ability comes in really handy.

Similar to hunting & fishing, this ability affects your sanity and is time consuming.

Defusal 101

Traps are everywhere. Defusal 101 ability enables you to disarm them.

The world in Death Drive just got a lot more dangerous. We've introduced a new threat - TRAPS! And that means we've also added defusal kits and new ability specializing in disarming these traps.

...AND MORE!

There are also some shared abilities that help with your squad's overall performance, increasing walking speed, allowing you to carry more weight and many more that we aren't going to spoil! 🤐

Blast

We've previously shared some information regarding minigames in Taverns. Originally one of those games was planned to be Blackjack, but we kept coming up with new interesting twists and ideas. Finally, all that brainstorming resulted in something fresh and exciting - Blast! A game with just the right dose of skill and luck, and here's a sneak peek:

Your goal is to accumulate cards with total value higher than that of your opponent. There’s 3 types of actions for your each turn: Hit - draw a card from the deck, Power - use one of your 3 Power cards, Stand - end the drawing on your side. You can only use power cards on the last 5 cards that are displayed on the board. The game is over if there are no more cards in the deck, both players get a Blast card (blasts 3 random cards from your current cards and you can no longer draw) or Stand. The player with higher total score wins the game.

There's also permanent progression by unlocking new power cards!

Auto Service & Special Caravan Upgrades

Some settlements will now feature auto service shop where you can get all the latest upgrades for your caravan. We've shared some information regarding the customization before, but we also wanted to include a new type of permanent upgrades that wouldn't alter the stats depending on the other parts. For this we added Special Upgrades.

More Progress

In other news, we're getting closer than ever to the feature complete stage and we're fully transitioning to focusing on solely new content.

And finally we've got some good news for quicksave fans! 💪 We've fully completed our saving/loading system that supports auto-saving, quicksaves and manual saves. So you can save all you want without any restrictions as long as you're not in combat and there are no enemies close by.

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!