My Death Road To Canada

This is just a writeup I did of my recent playthrough for Death Road To Canada, this super cool game I played on Steam. It's an Oregon Trail style game of choices and supplies . I've beaten it a bunch of times now, and just today on hard mode. I finally tried out a run on Familiar Faces mode, where it's all characters you have saved/created on your profile. It made for a neat cast that reeked of personality, and despite all the time I've beaten the game, no other story felt quite so fitting and full of character. I swear all of these events happened in the game by chance or by choice; I just add the flavor for why and the personality that came off of the characters' behaviors. Not a sexy story, btw, just kind of sweet but weird and funny.

Musky: the star of the story. A crotchety old man, "Musky" has been fighting his whole life like a modern day Popeye (complete with a manly jutting jaw). Musky's a stubborn and gruff old guy, but has a soft spot for others who don't push his buttons. If you don't make Musky mad, he's a friend for life. After passing out in his chair so many times, the man can sleep anywhere.

 Karim: the oblivious gun nerd in his late teens. Purple hair, glasses, and baggy coat. Collected guns more than he used them, and obvious social and hygene problems. Dies within the first few days when his social skills rile up some bandits.

Ivey: the "fun-runner." Ivey's a cute blonde young woman who ran for fun before running from zombies. A bleeding heart for charity runs, and keeping in shape just for something to do. She's unshakable optimistic, always in high spirits and striking up conversation with the others. After outrunning the zombies long enough, she jumps in Karim and Musky's car to join the trip. Unintentionally becomes something of a ninja when a raid on a farmhouse lands results in her wielding a sickle with shocking efficiency.

Sherill the dog: a small doberman that joins the party after alerting the team to her presence in a building. A happy and hyper little dog, she is somehow turned into a brawnier sheepdog by an experiment with cosmic rays. Shot down while running from bandits.

Kaiya: a sweet little girl who gets into places she shouldn't, which is how she eluded the zombies so long. Starts out with a mop and her wits, forcing the rest of the group to watch over her while she does a lot of the talking. By the end, she's a gun-toting kid with a handgun and wielding a human spine/skull as a club.

Mandy: a cocky car nut and former street racer. Big elaborate dreads, dark skinned, trench coat. She lives out of her car through the apocalypse until the team's car breaks down in front of her. She offers her pumped up muscle car and a sharpened screwdriver in exchange for the group's support getting to Canada.

Never married, few friends, Musky grew old and settled into yelling at his tv, waving at his neighbors, and quietly keeping up practice in barfights and his small apartment gym. When the zombies happen, Musky busts a few heads as needed but mostly stays locked in his apartment. He seemed content to stay there and fight until he died until he heard someone else in the complex. He found Karim, a spaz of a gun geek who had riled up a few zombies with his gunshots. Musky might have been content to let himself stay there and rot, but not somebody else (even if the kid was out of shape, antisocial, and obnoxious). Fortunately, Karim knows of someplace safe from the undead: Canada.

Musky gives Karim a pep talk about how dying to zombies is a wussy way to go, so they hop in Musky's old car and drive off with Karim's varied stash of guns. They raid the local Yall Mart and gas stations, Karim driving because Musky has a unique talent: sleeping. Whatever it is about Musky's sleeping disorder, he can stay up all night on watch and still chop up zombies the next day.

They find Ivey, an optimistic young jogger who's been outrunning the zombies rather than fighting without breaking a sweat. Musky flags her down when she's calmly outpacing a small swarm and she gladly joins the roadtrip.

It's shortly after that they're blocked off by bandits. They demand all their food and their car to let them pass, but the group knows they can't afford to spare anything. Karim decides to intimidate the bandits by stepping out of the car and shouting at them to "cool it!" The bandits immediately blow him away, and whether he intends it or not, it's the distraction the party needs. Musky tells Ivey to floor it, and they fly out of there in an exchange of gunfire to leave Karim's corpse behind.

Ivey tries to assure Musky there was nothing he could do, and that he'd want them to go on. Musky just picks through Karim's guns and dryly comments about how that's the way a man should die. He doesn't address the subject further.

The group finds Sherill shortly after, the dog barking at them from a nearby apartment. The group decides to save the innocent pup by shooting and chopping their way upstairs. They get banged up in the process, but get the dog out alive. The group had salvaged some medkits, but realize they don't know anything about medicine. "No better time to learn," Musky says, and pops it open to get to work. Nobody quiet notices a large spider approaching them... which Sherill casually eats.

The group stops off at a trading camp, and while the vendors themselves aren't that interesting, there's a lizard man by a giant machine that offers the party to expose someone to cosmic radiation for 5 food. Unsure what this means exactly, Musky and Ivey slowly nudge Sherill closer with their foot. For reasons unknown, the radiation wildly transforms her... into a sheep dog. She's also slightly stronger and faster for some reason.

It ultimately turns out to not be enough. An even deadlier group of bandits ambushes them, armed to the teeth. With no one to blow things out of proportion, they still don't want to part with their impressive supply of food. They take their chances and run for the car, but even the mutated Sherill can't make it as she's blasted away. Musky and Ivey speed away to leave another ally dead, only stopping when Musky's confident enough to try his hand at medicine again. Between treating all these bites and gunshot wounds, he's finally getting good at something besides fighting.

The pair raid a farmhouse, finding some salvageable food and a number of weaponized farming implements. Even with a growing stash of guns and ammo, Ivey ends up picking out a sickle that she'll use for the rest of the trip, cutting up zombies quickly and messily. Most of the gear's too heavy for Musky to use; he's strong, but he tires out quickly, so most of it will become the shoddy gear passed out to the rest of the party.

It's leaving the farmhouse that they find a stowaway. A young Kaiya pops out from the back seat as they drive off, asking where they're going. The kid had been hiding out in the barn and wielding a borderline harmless mop to fend off any strays that come after her. Despite her age, the girl knows her way around the area and is a sparkling conversationalist (she ends up constantly being given extra gear and food while visiting traders). The duo welcomes her aboard, eager for some company.

Kaiya proves almost useless in a fight for various obvious reasons. Musky begins taking her aside, teaching her to shoot and fight while still working on his own first-aid practice. He's become team medic by necessity. It's a few weeks into the trip when they are trapped in an abandoned house during a rain storm, and when the mysterious and gruff old man finally lets go. He goes on about his short service in the army and how he never stopped fighting to keep from thinking about the life he was wasting. He loses it over the death of Karim and the test of the dog, almost breaking down entirely. With the assurance of Kaiya and Ivey, he decides he's not going to lose anybody else. He goes back to training Kaiya in kicking ass.

The crew is loaded with food and guns, they have a medic and several fighters, and a charming face of the group who politely excuses their way past a few hostile checkpoints. They're missing one thing, and it becomes clear what that is when their car starts smoking. They pull over and try to figure what to do with it when they're approached by Mandy. The bad attitude of the street racer rubs Musky the wrong way, but she patches up the car enough to run for them. Seeing the need for her, she's invited along, but Mandy instead offers to use her old street-racing car instead. It sure beats their beat-up old ride.

The group's getting close to Canada. It's obvious by the incoming seas of zombies on the horizon that abruptly cut off. They stop at some traders where Musky trades some food for some extra weapons to go with the revolver he's been toting for most of the adventure. Kaiya vanishes for a bit, just to return with some extra ammo for the rifle and some discreet fitness training from the local talent. The group takes their extra food and ignores the rations, eating all they can for their last big day. Ivey and Kaiya share that they know that they'll make it to Canada at this point. Musky and Mandy finally agree on something; they can't wait to blow a hole through that zombie army.

The group confronts a final city full of zombies, darting through alleys and blasting their way through with the guns leftover from Karim's stash. Musky rips through them with an old machete until that snaps, switching to his new assault rifle and mowing down more while the others bash down those at his back. When Musky's runs empty, he passes off his gun to Kaiya or Mandy to reload while Ivey shreds the zombies with her sickle. When Ivey starts to get overwhelmed, Kaiya shows her courage and training as she grabs a dusty old skull with the spin attached and uses it as a war club. The rifle finally empty and Musky's revolver too slow for the job, they dip into their emergency reserves: Mandy fires up the chainsaw Musky bought for her and rushes right through the horde with everyone in tow. They finally reach a clearing where they can plow the car through and escape to the bridge to Canada.

Mandy decides there's no need for their car in this utopia: she dives out and crashes it into the last of the horde in their way. Musky has no rifle ammo and they're out of gas for the chainsaw, so he resorts to the old pitchfork and his revolver to lead the way. Kaiya still wielding her trusty spine, a handgun, and medical spray. They rush the border until the mounties on border patrol charge to their rescue. Their trained moose and beavers fight by their side as Musky empties their last shotgun on the advancing zombies. Their Mecha Mounty drops from above and obliterates them with lasers at the last second.

The Prime Minister appears to welcome the weary crew as official citizens. Kaiya and Ivey celebrate as they knew they would make it all along. Mandy acts cool about it like she's not impressed. Musky complains that it's too cold here and demands a new apartment from the Prime Minister.

The group settles in on their own terms. Mandy complains periodically about the place, never quite getting used to the local cuisine after living off fast food for so long.

Ivey's borderline zen nature and skill with a sickle inspires people, and eventually they come to her for advice. She ultimately opens a dojo for her own anti-zombie martial art.

Kaiya survived with what she considers her new family, but now that she's done running from zombies, she can start a normal life. She settles down, grows up, has kids... she's surprisingly boring, but just fine with that fact.

Musky... Musky starts flexing his old man guns to establish his toughness at the local bar. After hearing his story, nobody argues. With that settled, he goes back to his new apartment and waves his crew of neighbors over for some dinner. Same old life, but a lot more open.