Deep Rock Galactic News

[h2]Hello Miners,
[/h2]
In space, there are no smells. But if there were, you’d smell that harvest season is in the air. That’s why Management has approved the budget for the Oktoberfest 2023 celebrations aboard the Space Rig! These festivities start next week on September 14th (13:00 CET), and they’ll run until October 3rd (13:00 CET).

We hope all employees of Deep Rock Galactic will take part in this non-contractually-mandatory (but strongly encouraged) work event. Here’s the reveal trailer, with more details down below!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Brand New Lederhosen[/h3]
Make room in your wardrobe for the stunning new Lederhosen outfit! These bad boys are made of high-quality Glyphid leather, and they are not washable. Complete the ‘Hunt for Lederhosen’ Assignment, and these darling dungarees are yours forever – along with the hats from previous years’ Oktoberfest celebrations.


[h3]A Big Meaty Hat[/h3]
The brains down in R&D’s Couture Division have cooked up the meatiest piece of headgear we’ve ever seen. You can unlock the Sausagebucket hat through the 'Oktoberfest Celebration' Assignment, which also grants some credits, crafting materials, Matrix Cores, and brewing ingredients. If this hat makes your scalp smell of smoked meat for more than four hours after wearing, report to the Medical Bay immediately.


[h3]Special Seasonal Beer[/h3]
Due to popular demand, Best Wurst Beer is back on tap for a limited time. Served with a delicious dipping sausage, it’s the highest-protein beer on the menu. Heck, it’s practically a square meal in a mug! Speaking of mugs, we’re running low on those, so don’t expect anyone to wash them between rounds.


[h3]Longbeard Freight Whiffs It Once Again[/h3]
We’ve run into some issues getting all the Oktoberfest supplies delivered. This time, we specifically requested that Longbeard Freight send a pilot with a service record free of DUIs, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Those numbskulls have fumbled the load once again, and now we’ve got thousands of Best Wurst Beer mugs scattered throughout the caves of Hoxxes.

We need your help to save Oktoberfest. If you can recover a mug during your mission, Management has agreed to grant you a doubled mission Performance Point bonus in exchange.


[h3]Delightful Ambiance on Space Rig 17[/h3]
Last but not least, we’re decking out the Space Rig to fit the festivities. You can look forward to colorful fabric bunting, kickable hay bales and inflatable sausages (which do not belong in the Launch Bay), and even some real sunflowers. We’ll also be piping in some authentic biergarten chitter-chatter as ambient noise at the Abyss Bar, to make you feel less alone while you drink.

There’s a lot to look forward to! We can’t wait to hear those dwarven yodels echoing through the caves of Hoxxes. Rock and Stone, and yodelay-hee-hoo!


[h3]Deep Rock Galactic is getting physical[/h3]
Also, a quick side announcement: we’re happy to share that Deep Rock Galactic is getting its first physical release! The PS5 Special Edition is under production now, thanks to our friends at Skybound. We expect it’ll be available for purchase in Q4 of this year. If you're interested in picking up a copy, you can find your nearest local retailer here.



Okay, that’s it. Rock and Stone again.

With Love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew


Note: Many clever miners have proposed renaming this event ‘Rocktoberfest.’ This is a good idea. But Management already ordered the merch with ‘Oktoberfest’ printed on it, and they’re not going to pay for all that stuff twice.

[h3]Hello Miners,[/h3]

Another round of fixes! this time for stuck enemies, things landing in places they shouldn't and preparing for some upcoming events.


With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

[h3] — PATCH NOTES —[/h3]
- Hid debug lines on specific corruptor attacks
- Fixed a bug that caused enemies to sometimes become stuck after spawning
- The amount of corruptors Plague puddles is now limited to a maximum of 30 active in a level.
- Fixed a bug that caused the meteor warning sound to not be played for clients
- Fixed a bug that caused ‘A Journeys End’ soundtrack to not be played on some systems
- Fixed a bug that caused liquid morkite wells and machine events to sometimes spawn too close, blocking the well access
- Fixed a bug that caused rock cracking pods to land inside each other
- Fixed a bug that caused hacking pods to land too close to other entities and colliding with them
- Prepared for upcoming events

Important note: All the work on Deep Rock Galactic: The Board Game is done externally by MOOD Publishing and the designer, Ole Steiness, with us from Ghost Ship Games supporting as IP stakeholders and playtesters. Here at GSG, we're still hard at work developing more Deep Rock content for Steam and other platforms. More on that soon. :)

[h2]Hello Miners,[/h2]

When the board game adaptation of Deep Rock Galactic shipped, it was in the biggest possible box that MOOD Publishing could find. There just wasn’t a box big enough for all the ideas they wanted to include.

"The box for the original Deep Rock Galactic board game is the absolute biggest box we could get,” says Jonas Springborg, Art Director at MOOD Publishing. “The factory we worked with, their machines couldn't do a bigger one, so they would have had to hand-fold every single box. So we were literally out of space for stuff to include in the base game."

Now, the team’s back with two big expansion packs for Deep Rock Galactic: The Board Game, to bring in all the ideas that couldn’t fit in the first box.

The Kickstarter launch for this project is just around the corner -- but before that kicks off, here’s a quick look at what’s coming in these new expansions.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Completing the original vision for the board game[/h3]
This new Kickstarter focuses on two separate expansions to the original Deep Rock Galactic board game: the Space Rig pack and the Biome pack. Both draw from familiar elements from the computer game, further adapting the Deep Rock Galactic experience for the territory of tabletop gaming.

Both these new expansions are standalone – you don’t need one to enjoy the other, but they of course also work in combination. You do, however, need the base board game to use these expansions. Rasmus Berggreen, Executive Producer at MOOD Publishing, says that these expansions complete the initial wishlist for what the team wanted to include when they first set out to adapt DRG into a board game.

“We'd talked about putting all these additions in one single expansion, but we figured this allows players to pick which part of the game they want to expand,” he says. “Maybe some people only wanted new biomes and creatures, maybe others really just wanted new mission mechanics and modifiers."


[h3]The Space Rig Expansion
[/h3]
Most Deep Rock Galactic fans know the Space Rig as a social space: it’s where chipper little Lloyd (the Bartender Bot) pours up frothy pints, and where you hit the Abyss Bar dance floor to shake away recent mining-related traumas. But since plastic minifigures can’t dance, the MOOD team had to rethink the Space Rig for the tabletop version.

For the board game, the Space Rig Expansion brings more layers of game mechanics to the experience. The expansion focuses on giving new depth to equipment upgrades and more complexity in each mining mission, as well as a small overlay board for each player's character.

Here are the highlights (including stretch goal content):

• Introducing Assignments: Like a Deep Dive, but better. Level up and invest in your dwarf with overclocks and upgrades that carry over across a 4-mission campaign. Tackle the Assignment over the course of a few weekends, or slam out the whole run in a single night of heavy-duty gaming.
  
• Side objectives from Management: You’ve been tasked with a bit of overtime work. Collect extra minerals to unlock upgrades – but at your own risk. Greedy dwarves might soon find the caves to be their tombs.
  
• 9 new “Mutation” mission modifiers: Difficult terrain, low oxygen cave systems, extra speedy bugs and other such perils add a new twist to each and every game.
  
• 2 new mission types: Mission Control’s cleared you for some tougher assignments. On-site Refining and Escort Duty missions make their way to the board game, complete with new miniatures for pumpjacks and our dear beloved drilldozer, Doretta.
  
• Beer: Mining is thirsty work. New Beer Cards give a buff to the whole team before each mission, thanks to Lloyd’s delicious draughts.
  

The Space Rig Expansion is about bringing more variables into play, to make each mission more complex and more memorable. Plus, it adds some light RPG elements that the team wanted to see from the start.

"We wanted people to feel like they were part of a journey, and to get attached to their character in the game,” says Rasmus. “We had so many ideas from the video game that we wanted to put in the board game, but we really just ran out of room in the box. It’s exciting that we can now give all these other ideas their own release.”


Playtesting the new content. Pictured are Mikkel Pedersen, Game Director at GSG (outer left), Jonas Springborg, Art Director at MOOD Publishing (center left), Søren Lundgaard, CEO of GSG (center right) and Ole Steiness, Lead Game Designer for DRG: The Board Game (outer right).


[h3]The Biome Expansion
[/h3]
A big part of the Deep Rock Galactic experience is the distinct biomes beneath the surface of Hoxxes IV, and all the different plants and animals that can murder you. The Biome Expansion brings some of those treacherous territories to the tabletop, each one with their own unique dangers.

Here’s what’s inside this one (including stretch goal content):

• 4 new biomes: Magma Core, Glacial Strata, Fungus Bogs and Azure Weald are now open for mining operations. Each comes with its own set of printed tiles, and a new range of dangers unique to each biome.
  
• Exciting new ways to die: Get caught in a scalding blast of lava from a volcanic vent, frozen solid by a bursting Cryo Bulb, or poisoned by the noxious spores in the Fungus Bogs. Each biome comes with exclusive miniatures for these new environmental hazards.
  
• 6 new creatures: Down in the caves, you’ll now have to contend with grisly threats like the Q’Ronar Shellback, the Naetocyte Breeder, the Stingtail, and an all-new creature in the Deep Rock Universe: the hard-headed, bulldozer-like Rammer.
  
• The mighty Dreadnought: The original boss fight makes its way to the board game. This massive Dreadnought is the game’s biggest minifigure yet (with a footprint filling three game tiles), and comes with its own deck of action cards to ensure it’s an unpredictable threat each time you hunt it.
  

While the Space Rig pack focuses on new meta-level game mechanics, the Biome Expansion is all about enriching the feel of each cave, and how you move and fight through each mission.

"There are new strategic and tactical considerations when you go into each biome, which brings out some richness to the world,” says Ole Steiness, Lead Designer on Deep Rock Galactic: The Board Game. “We’re excited about the new creatures, especially the Rammer, as it’s the first one that’s entirely exclusive to the board game’s universe.”


The Fungus Bogs is one of the four new biomes included in this expansion. The noxious green game tiles are fortunately not scratch 'n sniff.


[h3]MOOD’s been humbled by fans' response so far
[/h3]
As the original board game ships out around the world to its Kickstarter backers, the MOOD team is extremely proud to keep the momentum going with these expansions.

“We’ve been really humbled by the support for this project so far. It’s been a long journey, and it’s great to keep adding more exciting stuff to this world,” says Kasper Mouritzen, Producer at MOOD Publishing. “It’s also been great to design these expansions with the feedback we’ve gotten from the first edition. We’ve been listening for things we can improve, so we’ve also focused on things like improving and iterating on the rulebook, making it easier for new players to get started with the game.”

Kasper didn’t want to say whether there are more expansions coming. For now, he says, the team is just excited to see more of the Deep Rock Galactic universe making its way to the tabletop, and the feedback they’ve heard from players.

“We’re really proud of this one, and especially with the reviews of the game we’ve gotten so far. It feels good knowing that people who came to this from the Deep Rock Galactic computer game can see the universe they already enjoy, but can experience it from a whole new direction as a board game.”


[h3]What's next on the road ahead?
[/h3]
The Kickstarter for these expansion packs is launching very soon -- we'll announce the exact date in a week or two. Stay tuned!

If you want to be among the first to back that Kickstarter, or catch the latest updates as these two projects make their way into the world, just head to the link below:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120302834/deep-rock-galactic-space-rig-and-biome-expansions
And, yes, the original base game for Deep Rock Galactic: The Board Game will also be available in the Kickstarter in a bundle with the new expansions.

Thanks for reading – and as always, Rock and Stone!

With Love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew

[h3]Hello Miners,[/h3]

Turns out the Corruptor caused late-joining dwarves to see minerals and terrain that were no more - It is now back to only corrupting Hoxxes.

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

[h3]--- PATCH NOTES ---[/h3]
- Fixed a bug that caused minerals and carved terrain to become desynced between host and late- joining clients, if the corruptor was present in the level.
- Fixed a bug where the Stingtail would sometimes fling players way too high
- Fixed a bug that caused the season countdown timer to be visible if the game is offline/lost connection to the backend

[h3]Hello Miners,[/h3]

Mission Control has been made aware of a short-circuit in the Drop Pod targeting computer, and it seems that some dwarves were using this glitch to clock out a little early. R&D has since fixed the problem, so all dwarves can enjoy the long walk home at the end of each shift.

Besides that, several issues have been fixed with the summer event and fixing a bug that gave double mission payouts in certain situations. Mission Control is not made of credits...

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

[h3]--- PATCH NOTES ---[/h3]
- Fixed a crash that happened when leaving/disbanding team mid-steel drum concert
- Reduced the size of the terrain scanner model of the Pool Float
- Removed the extra pool float icon in the mission end screen
- Added eyebrows inside the industrial visor headwear
- Fixed a bug that caused the Shark hat to get the wrong material in some cases
- Fixed the Shark hat's teeth so they now don’t clip through all the eyebrows - and when they do it looks better
- Fixed French translation of the ‘launch bay/Baie de lancement’ text in the memorial hall.
- Re-fixed bug that made platform-sealed holes register as generated rooms, causing drops to land in unintended places and in some cases trigger the Escape Pod failsafe position.
- Fixed a bug that caused mission resources and XP to be granted double (stacking on top of the 2X Pool Float bonus) in some cases