We were live in Microsoft's E3 press conference for Xbox!



And yes, that is right, this means Deep Rock Galactic is now officially also coming in Game Preview as an "Xbox Play Anywhere" title for Xbox One & Windows 10 Store.

What does this mean for Deep Rock Galactic?

• The game is set to release in Steam Early Access on Steam & in Game Preview on Xbox One & Windows 10 store in early 2018
  
• Update 4 for Closed Alpha has been a bit delayed (due to the creation of the E3 reveal trailer), but it is almost ready.
  
• Closed Alpha is still running for the Steam platform.

The new Deep Rock Galactic landing page is now live! Check it out here
If you didn't see the reveal trailer in the E3 press conference, you can see it here. Enjoy :-)

We were live in Microsoft's E3 press conference for Xbox!



And yes, that is right, this means Deep Rock Galactic is now officially also coming in Game Preview as an "Xbox Play Anywhere" title for Xbox One & Windows 10 Store.

What does this mean for Deep Rock Galactic?

• The game is set to release in Steam Early Access on Steam & in Game Preview on Xbox One & Windows 10 store in early 2018
  
• Update 4 for Closed Alpha has been a bit delayed (due to the creation of the E3 reveal trailer), but it is almost ready.
  
• Closed Alpha is still running for the Steam platform.

The new Deep Rock Galactic landing page is now live! Check it out here
If you didn't see the reveal trailer in the E3 press conference, you can see it here. Enjoy :-)

We are sailing with new ships, on social media!
We now have dedicated pages for Deep Rock Galactic, go over and like and follow us!:
Facebook and Twitter.
Oh as well, we also have a new website, which is soon ready for you. Stay tuned!

Recently we have sent out our latest newsletter, which tells about our newest crew member - the Unreal Dev Grant and more. Head over to the newsletter here

We are sailing with new ships, on social media!
We now have dedicated pages for Deep Rock Galactic, go over and like and follow us!:
Facebook and Twitter.
Oh as well, we also have a new website, which is soon ready for you. Stay tuned!

Recently we have sent out our latest newsletter, which tells about our newest crew member - the Unreal Dev Grant and more. Head over to the newsletter here

This is Robert the Art Director, with another short update on just what’s going down on board the Ghost Ship these days. We’re hard at work on Update 4 for Deep Rock Galactic, which will mostly be about implementing first versions of a few big things the game is currently missing: A better menu flow, persistence and character upgrades, better ways to set up missions and customizing your character, as well as a place to hang out between missions (for now simply called The Space Rig). For Update 4, it’s our intention to have the first draft of these things in the game, getting it into your hands as quickly as possible so we can start collecting feedback and improve the designs.



At the center of Update 4 is the Space Rig - one of many small space stations in orbit around the planet Hoxxes, and owned by the interstellar mining corporation Deep Rock Galactic. Basically, it is where you players will team up before missions, customize your characters, and unlock upgrades and new weapons. It will also be a very handy place for us to start shedding more light on the setting the game takes place in, through news terminals and monitors, as well as hidden within the station itself. This first version will be light on the lore and graphics, but it is absolutely something we intend to put more work into later. Right now it’s VERY basic, but we artists are practically salivating at the thought of skinning that place at a later date. ːsteamhappyː



On the Space Rig will be many things, but to begin with it will primarily be about the first version of the Terminal - your one-stop place for joining or hosting games, as well as setting difficulty, rules, and other parameters for missions. For now, we still offer missions from a predefined list, but in time the missions will be fully randomly generated each time you play.

From the terminal, you’ll also be able to select which character you want to play, customize the basic loadout, as well as unlock upgrades and new items.



For Update 4, this will all only be a sort of “first taste” - a basic version, without a ton of content. Right now our focus remains on getting the underlying systems in place. Once that is mostly done, THEN we can really start filling them out and really get into the meat of making the game the most fun it can possibly be. It’s gonna be awesome. We can’t wait. And, as always, we couldn’t do it without you guys - your input, feedback, videos, all of that is immensely helpful and a fantastic motivator. Keep being awesome, all. ːsteamhappyː

This is Robert the Art Director, with another short update on just what’s going down on board the Ghost Ship these days. We’re hard at work on Update 4 for Deep Rock Galactic, which will mostly be about implementing first versions of a few big things the game is currently missing: A better menu flow, persistence and character upgrades, better ways to set up missions and customizing your character, as well as a place to hang out between missions (for now simply called The Space Rig). For Update 4, it’s our intention to have the first draft of these things in the game, getting it into your hands as quickly as possible so we can start collecting feedback and improve the designs.



At the center of Update 4 is the Space Rig - one of many small space stations in orbit around the planet Hoxxes, and owned by the interstellar mining corporation Deep Rock Galactic. Basically, it is where you players will team up before missions, customize your characters, and unlock upgrades and new weapons. It will also be a very handy place for us to start shedding more light on the setting the game takes place in, through news terminals and monitors, as well as hidden within the station itself. This first version will be light on the lore and graphics, but it is absolutely something we intend to put more work into later. Right now it’s VERY basic, but we artists are practically salivating at the thought of skinning that place at a later date. ːsteamhappyː



On the Space Rig will be many things, but to begin with it will primarily be about the first version of the Terminal - your one-stop place for joining or hosting games, as well as setting difficulty, rules, and other parameters for missions. For now, we still offer missions from a predefined list, but in time the missions will be fully randomly generated each time you play.

From the terminal, you’ll also be able to select which character you want to play, customize the basic loadout, as well as unlock upgrades and new items.



For Update 4, this will all only be a sort of “first taste” - a basic version, without a ton of content. Right now our focus remains on getting the underlying systems in place. Once that is mostly done, THEN we can really start filling them out and really get into the meat of making the game the most fun it can possibly be. It’s gonna be awesome. We can’t wait. And, as always, we couldn’t do it without you guys - your input, feedback, videos, all of that is immensely helpful and a fantastic motivator. Keep being awesome, all. ːsteamhappyː

For some bizarre reason, we managed to remove the beards in the previous release. It's hard to think of a worse fate for a dwarf! Beards should be central to this game., so we are talking about adding features, where players can customize their beards. Heck, maybe we'll even do procedurally generated beards some day!

Apart from getting the beards back, there are also many other improvements and fixes. You can see the list here:

• Probably our most requested feature, BEARDS are in!
  
• Dwarf outfits tweaked to match key art
  
• Updated icons for dwarves and gear
  
• New Status Effect and Affliction systems means we can make stuff like web slowing and fire burning effects more easily.
  
• The shooting spider now shoots a web that slows and impairs the vision of the player.
  
• Flamethrower can now light enemies and the environment on fire. (not to mention other dwarves)
  
• Improved enemy spawn systems means more dynamic enemy encounter and waves.
  
• Improved many particle effects across the game
  
• Added third person animations for heavy weapons and pistols.
  
• Several weapons have had their models and skins improved.
  
• Added angle indicator to tools that have angle restrictions.
  
• Improved map generation speed.
  
• A first, rough pass on the new Biome system is in. Each location will feel more unique already, though we are still only at an early stage of implementation.
  
• Grappling hook now has a cooldown between each use and a softer landing ...
  
• Improved zipline grabbing, holding E while falling will ensure you grab any zipline that comes close to you.
  
• New Flare system: you now hold up to 4 flares in your inventory, slowly regenerating over time as you use them.
  
• Improved Enemy Pathfinder. They can now properly avoid and walk on Non-Terrain entities.
  
• Cam shake and sound levels on drop sequence have been tweaked.
  
• Attenuations on sounds have been tweaked, making the game less loud.
  
• Lots of bug fixes and smaller tweaks
  
• Added Invert Mouse Wheel and ShowHelpButtons options. Invert mouse is also saved correctly.
  
• Fixed some weapons can shoot extra fast just after switching weapons
  
• First pass on controller support (only tested with Xbox 360 wired):
  There is currently no aim assist and no acceleration on turning or other fancy features.
  NOTICE! Only gameplay is supported at present! Menus cannot yet be navigated with a controller.

For some bizarre reason, we managed to remove the beards in the previous release. It's hard to think of a worse fate for a dwarf! Beards should be central to this game., so we are talking about adding features, where players can customize their beards. Heck, maybe we'll even do procedurally generated beards some day!

Apart from getting the beards back, there are also many other improvements and fixes. You can see the list here:

• Probably our most requested feature, BEARDS are in!
  
• Dwarf outfits tweaked to match key art
  
• Updated icons for dwarves and gear
  
• New Status Effect and Affliction systems means we can make stuff like web slowing and fire burning effects more easily.
  
• The shooting spider now shoots a web that slows and impairs the vision of the player.
  
• Flamethrower can now light enemies and the environment on fire. (not to mention other dwarves)
  
• Improved enemy spawn systems means more dynamic enemy encounter and waves.
  
• Improved many particle effects across the game
  
• Added third person animations for heavy weapons and pistols.
  
• Several weapons have had their models and skins improved.
  
• Added angle indicator to tools that have angle restrictions.
  
• Improved map generation speed.
  
• A first, rough pass on the new Biome system is in. Each location will feel more unique already, though we are still only at an early stage of implementation.
  
• Grappling hook now has a cooldown between each use and a softer landing ...
  
• Improved zipline grabbing, holding E while falling will ensure you grab any zipline that comes close to you.
  
• New Flare system: you now hold up to 4 flares in your inventory, slowly regenerating over time as you use them.
  
• Improved Enemy Pathfinder. They can now properly avoid and walk on Non-Terrain entities.
  
• Cam shake and sound levels on drop sequence have been tweaked.
  
• Attenuations on sounds have been tweaked, making the game less loud.
  
• Lots of bug fixes and smaller tweaks
  
• Added Invert Mouse Wheel and ShowHelpButtons options. Invert mouse is also saved correctly.
  
• Fixed some weapons can shoot extra fast just after switching weapons
  
• First pass on controller support (only tested with Xbox 360 wired):
  There is currently no aim assist and no acceleration on turning or other fancy features.
  NOTICE! Only gameplay is supported at present! Menus cannot yet be navigated with a controller.

It is time for a trip down memory lane and to take a look at the trailer for Deep Rock Galactic. (I know! ...memory lane is only 10 month long, but so much has happened that it feels much further away!).

Today I'm gonna show you a comparison between the first version of our trailer and the updated version of it. And why is this interesting, you may ask? Well first of all it shows how crazy fast this project has developed. Secondly it shows the game before and after we nailed - or I should maybe say, sort of haphazardly discovered - the high level art direction of the game. And last but not least, I’m doing this because I simply wanted to see the trailers running side by side :-) …. But first I will give you a little background about why we made the trailers.

The first trailer was created around one month after we got together and founded Ghost Ship Games. From the start we knew that we needed to get some funding in place, so we were heavily focusing on making a playable prototype and at the same time preparing a lot of material for the fundraising. The gameplay trailer was the single most important piece of promotional asset we could make. The purpose of it was to give potential investors confidence that we had a strong game concept and that we had the skills and experience to go through with the production of the game.

Our first prototype of the game used a fairly simple voxel based system to generate the caves - it looked a bit like Minecraft. We didn’t like it and we knew we wanted to get away from this look and create an artstyle that was stylish and unique without being too simplistic. Henrik, CTO at Ghost Ship, further developed the terrain tech and made it look more smooth. This system (or the 1st iteration of it) is what you see in the old trailer in the video.



The gameplay trailer worked and we secured funding from Capnova and received a government grant from DFI. We were happy and in business :-)

The updated trailer was made when we started attending our first couple of game conferences. The first conference was Steam Dev Days 2016 in Seattle. Here, we were attending to connect with Valve, so we could get our store page live on Steam and start the closed alpha. The second conference was Games Connection in Paris a couple of weeks later, where we went to meet with potential business partners.

Before these events, we had had an amazing breakthrough in the art direction. Henrik had made a system, that enabled us to generate debris and smaller objects like stalactites and crystals and turn them into a diggable and destructible material. When it got in the hands of Robert (our art director) magic happened and he created some amazing looking caves. Now we could see that the combination of a mesh based terrain combined with extended use of debris sets enabled us to create seemingly endless variations in the caves.
​


Since we felt that the game now looked so much better we decide to update the trailer. We didn’t really have any time to do a new trailer, so instead we just did a remake of the old one. And almost shot by shot, we recreated the trailer.

The updated trailer looked much better and helped us get a lot of attention from publishers and gamers - signing up for the Closed Alpha (and yes, we will release more keys soon!). It also played a big part in Coffee Stain noticing us and in the end, closing a publishing deal with us.
​
So if there is a lesson to be learned it is that a cool trailer can work wonders for your game and your company, so you better invest time in making a cool one!
Below is the video showing the two trailers running side by side. It is marvelous to see the giant leap we made in the art style between the two trailers and in so short time. To me, It is a testament of the magic and wonder of game development. Enjoy!

- Mikkel Martin Pedersen, Game Director

https://youtu.be/Azi6D-hNM2Y

It is time for a trip down memory lane and to take a look at the trailer for Deep Rock Galactic. (I know! ...memory lane is only 10 month long, but so much has happened that it feels much further away!).

Today I'm gonna show you a comparison between the first version of our trailer and the updated version of it. And why is this interesting, you may ask? Well first of all it shows how crazy fast this project has developed. Secondly it shows the game before and after we nailed - or I should maybe say, sort of haphazardly discovered - the high level art direction of the game. And last but not least, I’m doing this because I simply wanted to see the trailers running side by side :-) …. But first I will give you a little background about why we made the trailers.

The first trailer was created around one month after we got together and founded Ghost Ship Games. From the start we knew that we needed to get some funding in place, so we were heavily focusing on making a playable prototype and at the same time preparing a lot of material for the fundraising. The gameplay trailer was the single most important piece of promotional asset we could make. The purpose of it was to give potential investors confidence that we had a strong game concept and that we had the skills and experience to go through with the production of the game.

Our first prototype of the game used a fairly simple voxel based system to generate the caves - it looked a bit like Minecraft. We didn’t like it and we knew we wanted to get away from this look and create an artstyle that was stylish and unique without being too simplistic. Henrik, CTO at Ghost Ship, further developed the terrain tech and made it look more smooth. This system (or the 1st iteration of it) is what you see in the old trailer in the video.



The gameplay trailer worked and we secured funding from Capnova and received a government grant from DFI. We were happy and in business :-)

The updated trailer was made when we started attending our first couple of game conferences. The first conference was Steam Dev Days 2016 in Seattle. Here, we were attending to connect with Valve, so we could get our store page live on Steam and start the closed alpha. The second conference was Games Connection in Paris a couple of weeks later, where we went to meet with potential business partners.

Before these events, we had had an amazing breakthrough in the art direction. Henrik had made a system, that enabled us to generate debris and smaller objects like stalactites and crystals and turn them into a diggable and destructible material. When it got in the hands of Robert (our art director) magic happened and he created some amazing looking caves. Now we could see that the combination of a mesh based terrain combined with extended use of debris sets enabled us to create seemingly endless variations in the caves.
​


Since we felt that the game now looked so much better we decide to update the trailer. We didn’t really have any time to do a new trailer, so instead we just did a remake of the old one. And almost shot by shot, we recreated the trailer.

The updated trailer looked much better and helped us get a lot of attention from publishers and gamers - signing up for the Closed Alpha (and yes, we will release more keys soon!). It also played a big part in Coffee Stain noticing us and in the end, closing a publishing deal with us.
​
So if there is a lesson to be learned it is that a cool trailer can work wonders for your game and your company, so you better invest time in making a cool one!
Below is the video showing the two trailers running side by side. It is marvelous to see the giant leap we made in the art style between the two trailers and in so short time. To me, It is a testament of the magic and wonder of game development. Enjoy!

- Mikkel Martin Pedersen, Game Director

https://youtu.be/Azi6D-hNM2Y