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