We've wanted to make more visual and engaging content for some time to help keep you in the loop. We hope this makes it easier to get your Deathground fill! We're switching it up to do monthly public DevLogs to replace written and sometimes lengthy updates.
DevGround Episode 1 is here, hit play and enjoy catching up with Deathground's development in less than 5 minutes!
For any of our Kickstarter backers, don't forget to read the latest update here for the announcement!
Until next time…
We hope you liked this new style of content as a way to digest updates faster and easier. This is only the start, let us know what you'd like to see more of.
As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord or watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok. Don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter too. And if you’re an Alpha-pledged Kickstarter backer, keep an eye out for your next Mission Briefing coming soon!
The holiday season is quickly approaching! Thanks to every single one of you who's been following the game with interest, sharing it with friends and leaving such positive comments or interesting gameplay suggestions on here, our Discord and across socials. We hugely appreciate it all and it's incredibly motivating and exciting to see - it's not long now until we can share more and more!
It's been a rollercoaster of a year in the industry and for our game and studio but we've overcome lots of tough challenges and done everything we can to get the game in the best shape it's been. Especially in this latter part of 2024 with launching the first major rounds of Kickstarter Backer Testing and thanks to our talented and dedicated team working around the clock. I hope this is evident in our most recent and frequent Steam updates and it all builds a great foundation for next year!
We're looking forward to getting more and more gamers in on the action with Beta testing and potential wider testing so do let us know if you'd be interested in that. Here's a little teaser of what's to come...
But until then, whichever way you choose to spend the festive season, we hope you have an amazing time and wish you a Happy New Year.
Thanks everyone, until next year!
December 2024 - We've Entered the Testground
Private Alpha Playtesting
You may have already picked up that some of our Kickstarter backer tiers included private Alpha Early Access playtesting as a reward. Recently, they’ve been busy helping us playtest Deathground’s Mission Command and Bunker maps! This means we’ve been busy fixing and patching bugs they’ve helped us find along the way, on top of continuing to polish and improve the performance, gameplay and visuals. Getting the game, even in this Alpha form, into hands beyond our own has been a tremendous milestone for us and we’re truly grateful for the feedback so far!
We’ll be continuing to polish as we head towards Beta, leading up to launch. But until the wider community can get their hands on these initial maps too, here’s a quick update on just a handful of things we’ve been working on here.
Setting the Tone
Weather and lighting updates have helped set the menacing tone of Deathground outside and darkened the mood in our Mission Command map. You’ll have a torch, of course, but maybe a flash of lightning will help you find your way through the darkness…
Wish you were here?
Levelling out the Playing Field
There may be more places to take cover from the rain inside the facility, but you’ll still have to sneak past lurking dinosaurs in closer proximity. We’ve been improving the level design to help you navigate your way through and around this map, without compromising that sense of urgency to survive.
From feeling free and out in the open…
…to Hide and No Sneak
Of course, it'll be all fun and games watching your teammates run away screaming. Then again, when it's you being chased, take a cheeky peek over your shoulder just after sliding into a vent (in perhaps the coolest way possible) to check how close you were to being dinner.
Are they still following me?!
Devices and Electrical Chaos
We’ve been improving how the primary items work and feel in-game too. Tracking a Compy with the Motion Detector might be fun - but sneaking around Raptors whilst attempting to escape by hacking terminals can be stressful, to say the least!
Gotcha, Compy.
The Hacking Device in action!
Until next time…
We’ll be heading into Alpha Early Access Phase 2 this month where Alpha-pledge Kickstarter backers will move on to playtesting the next map - The Geothermal facility’s Powerplant!
As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord or watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok. Don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter too. And if you’re an Alpha-pledged Kickstarter backer, keep an eye out for your next Mission Briefing coming soon!
After telling you about adding the 4th player slot in a recent update, we’re stoked to say that our new medic character, Dr Choi, is now fully playable and an option in-game. Our artist has finessed the model’s clothing and hair and she’s been fully textured, skinned and rigged with full animations by our animator, Beate.
Calling Dr Choi!
Player down? No problem.
WIPs of the Medic coming to life recently.
But whose blood is on that ID card…?
A little lore drop for you, Dr Choi is a brilliant biological researcher turned highly capable field medic. And because of her background, we’re naturally adding a Med-kit to the primary items options! …Wait, options?
Character Design Update
After considering a lot of community feedback about not wanting to be restricted by a set aesthetic and ability for our playable characters, we’ve opted to open things up a bit more for you.
Our 4 playable characters with their lore-specific items.
We want to give more power to the player. So, instead of being bound by a character class, you will now be able to mix and match your preferred character and a primary loadout item. Then in-game, while you won’t be able to carry more than one primary item, you will be able to drop ‘n’ swap your current primary item out if you discover another one in the map.
Primary Items Update
Here’s a quick summary of our starting four:
Motion Detector The Scout’s go-to sneaky handheld device that allows the player to track the location of dinosaurs lurking nearby. Perfect for the rogue-type folk who need to be in the know.
Hacking Device A handheld device of the Engineer's design that allows the player to 'Hack' some objects within the environment, unlocking or activating them. Just be careful, you don't want to set off any unwanted alarms in the process!
Tranquiliser Rifle The high calibre rifle has now become a tranquiliser gun for gameplay balancing purposes. Still, with limited ammo, it can be fired at dinosaurs to temporarily send them to sleep. If you’re the sharpshooter of the group, the Survivalist’s item is for you.
Med-kit A reusable Med-kit which allows the player to heal themselves or other players. Who needs a medic?! Most likely, all of us…
Let us know in the comments if you have any suggestions for future items!
Until next time...
Trust the Engineer to hack open the door where the raptor was waiting. Silly Advik…
As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord or watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok. Don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter too. And if you’re an Alpha-pledged Kickstarter backer, make sure to check out the latest update posted last week!
Remember that WIP teaser we showed you last month, of a Compy feeling threatened? The one where they jumped up and started attacking the player at the face and neck out of self-defence? Well, here it is fully rendered and in first-person!
Despite their adorable size and fluffy feathers, getting up close and personal with the Compy, or any dinosaur for that matter, is a bad choice!
Animation Updates
As well as the dinosaurs, our lead Animator, Beate has also been creating and hooking up player movement animations such as the slide mechanic. Pretty perfect for part of your dramatic escape, sliding into cover areas like vents or drop-down spaces. We hope you enjoy sliding your way in and out of danger!
Player slide animation WIP
Dash and slide under natural cover in the jungle or dramatically enter a building, your choice!
Internal monologue while testing the slide mechanic
Kickstarter Backers
A reminder to our Kickstarter backers who have pledged for the private Alpha access reward, please check your updates! You'll soon be getting your hands on a 'pre-alpha' build, playtesting missions and mechanics to help us refine Deathground. Starting with the Mission Command map!
Once we've collated feedback and iterated the levels, it'll be onto Beta testing and beyond. This may or may not include more public playtests. So, keep an eye out for that if you'd be interested!
Until next time...
Although we’re maintaining beast mode for Alpha testing, we will still aim to keep you updated on our progress throughout. Even if it’s a light, bitesize update like this one. Please stay patient with us, we’re a small team now with plenty to work on. Thanks for your ongoing support!
As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord. And don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter and TikTok too.
Happy National Video Game Day, everyone! Ready for a bitesize update on Deathground's dinosaurs?
Compy Progress
Thank you to everyone who joined our roundtable discussion in Discord last month, to talk about Compy attacking behaviours. Our animator, Beate, loved reading through all of your ideas and has been busy working on these agile terrors. Check out our cheeky, chompy Compy, with a look at their agile pouncing. As if to go in for a bite at, what would be, ankle and calf height!
Jump, bite, disengage, repeat!
A lot of our community on Discord gave us the impression that, when attacked by a Compy, gamers would want to feel that rush of sudden overwhelm. How could a creature so small, deal so much anxiety?! Especially when these little creatures are targeting soft areas of the human body, like the eyes and face. They might look cute, but we'll say it again, don't try and pet them!
If not friend, why friend-shaped?
Raptor SFX Updates
In-game, it’s really important to us that you feel immersed in a tense environment both visually and audibly. With the raptors being the main dinosaur that’ll come up against, our Audio Director has been enjoying giving these personalities some monstrous flavour. Here’s a little tease of what they sound like right now.
Raptor SFX: Sniff, curious, call, roar, attack, pain and death.
What do you think? Watch it again and this time, try closing your eyes when you listen. Imagine you’re in a dark hiding spot and can’t see where the raptor is, but you hear it call out to fellow raptors!
For those who already liked the sound of the Raptor before, don’t worry, we’ll still be using that audio work. We’re going to utilise the previous sound versions for the juvenile raptors instead.
Deathground’s juvenile and adult Utahraptor, side by side. "Hey Pop, I'm hungry!"
Graham has been busy building high-quality construction kits for all character and environmental sounds that you’ll hear in Deathground. To give you a better chance of reacting before things get too hairy, he’s building the soundscape in a way that’ll help inform you what is happening around you, particularly with the dinosaurs' behaviour.
“No doubt, you’ll get very familiar with our dinosaur tones over time. We need to use an efficient pool of SFX assets for different actions and movements to make sure each dinosaur has a unique tone. So, as soon as you hear something coming, whether that’s by it's breath or the weight of a footstep, you’ll start to recognise which species is approaching.” - Graham, Audio Director.
For any nervous players, feel free to start studying the raptor now!
Q: What mammals and/or birds do you think helped create the raptor SFX?
Multiplayer Playtesting!
Internally, we've been enjoying playtesting multiplayer with 4 players now that we've got our 4th player slot added. We're looking forward to seeing what you and your squads get up to in the future!
Advik and Donald patiently waiting in the elevator for Dakota to join them. Always such a graceful landing.
Until next time...
We know you’ve been patiently waiting for Deathground to release or asking for the release date. We will be starting Alpha playtesting soon with our Kickstarter backers, after this period we’ll have a better idea of the roadmap ahead. Thank you for sticking with us!
As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord. And don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter and TikTok too.
What’s this, an additional mysterious character? That’s right, we’ve added a 4th player slot and character to Deathground!
4th Player Slot Added!
Adding a 4th player slot was the final stretch goal of our Kickstarter campaign but we didn’t reach that funding mark. After talking to our backers and reflecting on our own development ambitions, we felt it would add a lot of value to the game. After some base implementation and testing, it felt possible!
New character? Who dis
We always knew that we wanted to add it in at some point, perhaps in a post-launch update. Perhaps…now?!
Due to the various development hurdles we've endured and overcome (i.e. the loss of publisher support, downsizing to a small team), we had to frustratingly rebuild some elements during that descope period too. But we took that window of opportunity to factor in additional mechanics. Such as the extra player slot! We feel it'll add a lot to the game as well as be a gift to players for your ongoing support and for the delays. Before, we hardly had any breathing room to explore further ideas or take on external feedback. Now, with full creative control back in our court and a small dedicated team, it's quicker to produce gameplay and content.
It’s a good achievement for our reduced team and it’s a sign of things to come as we can start playing around with ideas from the community and see what sticks! It’s also great news for the 4th friend in your gaming circle who didn’t make the cut when you told them it was a 1-3 player game.
Technically speaking, adding a 4th player slot isn't extremely complex, but everything that comes along with it is costly. A new character model, balancing 4 players during gameplay, increasing pick-up items and objectives, lore, audio, matchmaking and UI, etc., adds up in time and effort.
Nothing says “learn from my mistakes” more than a blood-soaked ID card...
Thanks for your support during this challenging dev timeline. If you're a Kickstarter backer, please go to the latest Kickstarter update for details on testing. While there may be opportunities for the wider community to help us with playtesting, we will be honouring our Kickstarter backers who pledged for private Alpha/Beta testing access first. We shall let you know if we need more hands on deck!
We really appreciate your continued support, comments and sharing of the game during this time. Please keep it up and we hope that the additional player slot, character and gameplay possibilities are already getting you excited!
TL;DR Now, you’ll be able to play and attempt to survive in Deathground together as a group of 4 rather than just 3, if you want!
One more cryptic lore-drop for the road…
Until next time...
We’ll be introducing the mysterious 4th playable character in another update soon! As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord. And don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter and TikTok too.
You may have seen a lot of Deathground’s dinosaurs during development. Are you ready to see them brought to life?
Time for a showcase
Introducing the dinosaurs of Deathground. Please put your claws together and welcome to the soon-to-be bloody stage, the Compy, the Raptor, the Allosaurus and the T-Rex. These are the monstrous menaces that you'll be up against in Deathground! Turn up your volume and hit play.
Q: Do you have a favourite dinosaur? If you could give our Animator and Audio Designer any feedback, what would it be? Let us know in the comments!
We've been working on emphasising the dinosaur behaviour animations and audio, amongst the AI refinements, and wanted to show you how they’re looking. Especially, as we haven’t shown much of the Allo yet!
We know what you might be thinking, “It’s so bright, they’ll see me coming?!” While it might be daytime in this animation showcase, remember, it’ll be much darker in-game. Imagine hiding in the jungle, trying to stay out of sight while one of these creatures patrols past. How close would you dare yourself to get? Whilst you'll find plenty of jungle and exterior areas to explore, many areas of the map will be based inside and abandoned, forcing you to get face-to-face in tighter and sometimes labyrinth-feeling spaces.
Side note: Being Planet Earth fans, we set up a secret jungle cam to catch these predators roaming around. We weren't disappointed!
Until next time...
You might have noticed that we’ve been sharing a few snippets of gameplay on TikTok recently. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a live stream of Deathground. There were just some encounters (at poor Joe’s expense) from in-house playtesting that we couldn’t resist sharing. If you fancy watching a Bottle Throw Fail or GET. IN. THE. VENT hysteria until the next update, be our guest! Sorry, Joe.
You can also join us and the rest of the community over on Discord. And don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter too.
June 2024 - Raptor Reactions
We’ve spotted some FAQs out in the community wilds. So, we thought we’d give you an update on how our dinos have been developing recently and give further insight into the future of Deathground.
Only feasts get caught face-to-face…
Updated Animations
Generally, there’s been a lot of progress in all areas of Deathground since we dropped the gameplay teaser trailer. But as we put our raptors at the forefront, we’ve been cleaning up their animations the most. We’ve been busy creating a range of new ones for different behaviours and tricky situations you might find yourself in. Our animator has recently been focusing on reactive behaviours. From hearing sounds they might be sensitive to i.e. an obnoxiously loud alarm, to curiously sniffing the air for a nearby scent. Take a look.
Delicious prey or a dangerous predator? *Sniff, sniff*
Loud alarms can irritate and disorientate the raptors.
Whether they’re hunting or being hunted themselves, what other behaviours would you love to see, building the most immersive feeling in gameplay?
Community Questions
Q: Is this the final colour palette for Deathground’s dinos? A: Aside from polish and optimisations to come, the art side of our dinosaurs is d o n e. It's one of those areas where we could keep working on it. Future iterations may follow, but for us, the gameplay elements are top priority now. Please note that a lot of the teaser images shown have had additional lighting to showcase them; however, with the actual lighting in-game, you're not going to see much of their colourings really. You will have a sense of their size in the shadows or of course if you're chaotic enough to shine a torch directly at them! Shouldn’t you be running the other way?! Naturally, we're not going to be able to appease everyone's taste but we hope most of you like what you see.
Q: Will we be able to toggle the feathers off of the dinos? A: We understand the topic causes quite a debate! That said, while it might not be an option from day one, we still want to accommodate toggleable feathers. At the moment, the Compy and UtahRaptor will default to having feathers, and the T-Rex and Allosaurus will Default to having scales.
Q: When will the next update be? A: We appreciate many of you have been asking for more progress updates. Our Community Manager has recently returned from Maternity Leave and will be helping us get more updates rolling again. That means more behind-the-scenes on here, Kickstarter and our social media.
Q: Is there any Beta testing going on for this game? A: As Deathground started as a Kickstarter campaign, we will be reaching out to our Kickstarter backers (who have pledged for pre-release access rewards) to help us with Alpha/Beta playtesting in the coming months. If you’re a backer, please check out the latest Kickstarter update for the updated roadmap!
Q: When is this game coming out?! A: Once we’ve worked through the Alpha/Beta testing period this year, we’ll be in a better position to tell you when our release window is leaning towards. Until then, watch this space for monthly updates and sneak peeks on what we’re working on.
In case you missed some of our latest sneak peek posts, check out our Utahraptor searching for their missing egg and the human who stole it. Plus coming across a Compy within the vents.
Until next time...
Thank you for your extended patience with us while we continue developing and massive thanks to our Discord server MODS for their additional support during our Community Manager’s time away too!
Got any more questions about how our dinos look and behave? Hit us up in the comments or join us and the rest of the community over on Discord. (Don’t forget, you can also find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter and TikTok.)
Hello all, we hope you’re doing well and having a fantastic year so far! As always, thank you for your continued support and activity.
Red alert!
Ringing alarms and red lights are a constant reminder of the danger of the Deathground, but what lurks within their glow? We've just released this teaser clip if you haven’t already seen it. Check it on socials or enjoy it below:
Production updates
We’ve seen a lot of questions and comments on the game here that we’d like to address and hopefully bring you more up to speed on the recent developments of Deathground.
Previously, we’ve alluded to external and difficult challenges that have impacted our team, project and studio as a whole over the last year and more. Whilst the original timeline was extended to accommodate the increased game scope and team size with publisher support, these challenges have affected the timeline further as well as our communication and transparency. Whilst this included COVID-19 (as many studios experienced), changing team members and the war in Ukraine with valued team members’ lives being greatly disrupted, the largest factor was that we unfortunately parted ways with our publisher a while ago and this means the funding, marketing and support we once had is no longer available.
As you may imagine, there’s a lot of intricacies and behind-the-scenes business to conduct and conclude when a publishing partnership comes to an end and determining the path forward with development. Additionally, there's only so much we can detail here.
It’s not all doom and gloom
Due to the state of the games industry, development stories like ours are not uncommon today and we aren’t the only ones affected by significant layoffs, cancelled projects and global events. Many other studios would have (and indeed have) cancelled projects or even shut their doors when faced with similar circumstances and challenges. We have, however, done everything possible to support the core team and project and continue full development of Deathground.
Whilst we've downsized a bit and thus we’re a smaller team size again, we hope our commitment to the game is evident in all of the fun gameplay and cinematic content you’ve seen over the last year, including the trailer, all marketing updates and social content produced in-house. We’ve put the bulk of resources into developing the game itself as we must emphasise this as a priority, but we always want to be as transparent and engaging as we can on the marketing side too.
Despite these obstacles, we want to again highlight our commitment to the project and our team continues to work diligently towards the end goal of delivering an exciting and dread-filled dino-experience that captivates our community, namely you!
We’d like to ease any concerns with a dinosaur-based analogy: when the Kickstarter was launched, the team was much smaller, like a Compsongathus, little and scrappy. Even though there was much to build and learn, we were still capable even with our smaller scale, and we believe our early demo speaks to that.
With publisher support, we were able to expand the team and scope and we quickly became a Tyrannosaurus Rex with formidable size and strength (plus the little arms, don’t forget the little arms). We were able to make big moves, and an immense amount of work, from gameplay and AI systems to art and animations were built during this time. This was, however, at the cost of being slower, with less room to manoeuvre, and not being able to share as much as we would have liked.
Now, we’re a smaller team again, it’s also to our advantage and we have the chance to become more like the Raptor, where we can be highly agile and nimble but still with strong claws and predatory skills. Essentially we can work faster and with creative and marketing freedom at this scale but with the added benefit of development progress and experience from before.
In all shapes and sizes!
We’ve shown many work-in-progress images of the dinosaurs you can expect to encounter while surviving the Deathground, but we’d like to show you some more updated versions.
Utah Raptors, often referred to as just "Raptors," are experienced predators that will hunt and stalk you throughout the Deathground. While they may lack the experience and size of their adult counterparts, Juvenile Utah Raptors are still a threat to fear.
Compsognathus, often referred to as "Compy," are much smaller and slightly skittish. They usually occupy crawl spaces such as vents, making them a threat when hiding within these small spaces.
Allosaurus, often referred to as 'Allo,' are formidable carnivore predators. Their size, brute strength, powerful jaws, and predatory nature make them imposing figures.
The Tyrannosaurus-Rex, often referred to as 'T.Rex,' is the true king of the jungle and the largest dinosaur players can encounter in Deathground.
We’re still making many adjustments to get these dinos ready for their debut, and so, as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! We're also looking at the feasibility of including a toggle option for feathers as we know there's a split of opinions, but there will be more news on this in future updates.
Prototype access update
If you’re a backer and you missed the recent Kickstarter updates, we opened up access to our demo build and sent out keys so this is a quick reminder to please read the updates and check your messages to redeem your key.
Thanks for reading. More updates are on the way!
Ultimately, if you’re still here reading this update, you should know that it’s the support and passion from all of our community that has kept us going during these times.
We’re fully aware of the anticipation surrounding the game, the announcement of release dates, and more. We’re working as hard as we possibly can to realise our vision and deliver you further updates and of course, in time the game itself.
