Deadly Days: Roadtrip is an action roguelike developed by Pixelsplit and published by Sidekick Publishing. Your goal is to travel across the country to escape a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately, your bus is low on fuel, and you must scavenge for supplies. Battle your way through the zombies and get the supplies you need. Decide whether it’s better to stay and fight or run away quickly. Prepare well, as there’s a boss at the end you must defeat.
Gameplay is easy to learn, as auto-attacking means you only need to focus on movement. A variety of weapons helps you find your preferred playstyle, and gradual upgrades make you stronger. It would help to have a tutorial towards the beginning to let players know what they can do. Weapons don’t seem properly balanced, as two one-handed weapons tend to be more effective. It’s a good roguelike with potential, but it could use some improvements.
The premise is simple: scavenge resources while staying alive against increasingly powerful zombies. You have a few ranged and melee weapons available, but you must find them across the map. Despite the variety of equipment available to you, you can only use two one-handed weapons or one two-handed weapon. Survive as long as you can or reach the boss and defeat them. If you fail, you can upgrade your character to strengthen them for a better future run.
It’s easy to play since you mainly auto-attack, allowing you to focus solely on exploration. Objects with a sack icon can be searched for fuel, parts, or equipment. You never know what you get from your search, forcing you to explore most of the map. This raises the pressure since zombies gradually grow in number and power the longer you stay. However, there may be valuable equipment around the map, forcing you to weigh a quick escape against a treasure hunt.
Debating whether you should stay or go is a tense but fun decision to make. There’s pros and cons to both decisions, but you must choose quickly. You must flee eventually, but the temptation to strengthen your arsenal is strong, especially because there aren’t many chances to upgrade. Making the most out of what you find and surviving is thrilling, especially when you find combinations that work.
However, there is no tutorial that tells you what to do or what to look out for. This makes it hard to figure out important concepts, such as weapon upgrades or utilizing item boosts. While you can figure this out on your own, it’s mostly by accident. Having some assistance early on to point out these basics is vital, or players might never learn you can merge weapons.
Weapon balance is also lacking; two-handed weapons are inefficient since dual-wielding gives you more attack power. Two-handed weapons are also more difficult to upgrade since they are harder to come by. In comparison, one-handed weapons are easier to find and are strengthened easily. Every weapon works well, but it feels like there’s little reason to take a shotgun when dual pistols work better.
Deadly Days: Roadtrip is fun to play as you weigh the benefits of staying with an ever-growing zombie horde. Surviving based on what you find forces you to experiment with different combinations. A tutorial would be helpful, and some weapon balancing would go a long way. The game has a good foundation, and it’s exciting to see what new features make the experience better.
Victor reviewed Deadly Days: Roadtrip on PC with a provided review copy.
