Deathground News

[h3]Introducing Dr Alena Choi[/h3]
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.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube] 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?

[h3]Character Design Update[/h3]
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.

[h3]Primary Items Update[/h3]
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!

[h3]Until next time...[/h3]
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!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200770/Deathground/

[h3]Attack to Kill[/h3]
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!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
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!

[h3]Animation Updates[/h3]
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!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Internal monologue while testing the slide mechanic

[h3]Kickstarter Backers[/h3]
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!

[h3]Until next time...[/h3]
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.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200770/Deathground/

[h3]Happy National Video Game Day, everyone! Ready for a bitesize update on Deathground's dinosaurs?[/h3]

[h3]Compy Progress[/h3]
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!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]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?

[h3]Raptor SFX Updates[/h3]
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.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]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?

[h3]Multiplayer Playtesting![/h3]
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.

[h3]Until next time...[/h3]
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.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200770/Deathground/

[h3]What’s this, an additional mysterious character? That’s right, we’ve added a 4th player slot and character to Deathground![/h3]

[h3]4th Player Slot Added![/h3]
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…

[h3]Until next time...[/h3]
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.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200770/Deathground/

[h3]You may have seen a lot of Deathground’s dinosaurs during development. Are you ready to see them brought to life?[/h3]

[h3]Time for a showcase[/h3]
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.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
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!

[h3]Until next time...[/h3]
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.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200770/Deathground/