Ahoy Captains!

We've just received the information that the keys rescue mission was successful and we're just unpacking the package!

Steam keys for the demonstration version of the game will be sent out to all awaiting crab fishermen in just a moment and from now on will periodically be shipped at least once every 24 hours.

Have a great time crab fishing and don't forget to share your thoughts and feedback on the official Deadliest Catch: The Game server or in the comments :)

~Local Coast Guard



And just as a reminder - you can find the campaign project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playway/deadliest-catch-the-game

And for more details and the fresh news, join our Discord server: https://discordapp.com/invite/zwTX9Mb

Thanks for all your support, brave fishermen!

Ahoy brave Captains!

The long-awaited day is finally here - Today we launch our Kickstarter Campaign for Deadliest Catch: The Game! Starting at 18:00 CEST, you can help us develop the game that we as devs can be proud of and most importantly - that you all will be able to enjoy for long hours! :)

As we told you last time, there are many rewards you can choose from. The sooner you decide to pledge, the better for you - our Early Crab option is the cheapest way to get hold of the demo version right now (we will send it to you within 24 hours!), the full version upon the release and some additional cool stuff too! And if you’re really into Deadliest Catch, in the first 72 hours you can get the Pioneer pledge - a collector’s edition at a great price. There are also some exclusive, limited rewards like The Legend of The Bering Sea, that will allow you to really leave a mark on the final version of the game - and one that everyone can see too! So be quick, before other captains snatch that title for themselves!

In any case, you will do us a great favor if you share the info about the campaign with your friends and folks - especially if you share the love for the Deadliest Catch series with them!

For a reminder - you can find the campaign project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playway/deadliest-catch-the-game

And for more details and the fresh news, join our Discord server: https://discordapp.com/invite/zwTX9Mb

Thanks for all your support guys and gals! :) You are just great!

After long preparations, upgrades, reprogramming and bug-fixing, we can finally answer the returning question about the Kickstarter Campaign launch :) We are starting on September 16th 2019 - you can find the campaign preview here: KICKSTARTER
Don’t forget to hit the notification button, so you won’t miss all the great early-bird (or in our case - early crab) deals! Don’t hesitate to share the good news with your friends and other DC fans!

As we promised, the main goal of the campaign will be implementing the crew management mechanics in its basic form. When you’ll hire crewmen, you’ll be able to assign them to a chosen task on deck - for example setting the pots or sorting the caught crabs. As they’ll keep performing the given tasks, they’ll get better at their job, doing it faster and more efficient. Additionally, when crewmen will be free for the moment, they’ll perform secondary actions, like preparing the bait or repairing the equipment.

We have some additional features planned from the start, so they make place in the stretch-goal list. Among them, you can find improvement of the crew management mechanics (f.e. the crewmen will get tired as they work on deck) or equipment upgrades. We’ve also included one of the big features that you've often asked about - the multiplayer mode! :)

As for the campaign rewards, we’ve prepared multiple options for you. From getting a copy of the game at a better price, through access to beta-tests and digital posters, to exclusive rewards like placing hidden objects in the game or naming a captain after you - we’ve got you covered. In any case, look out for the limited early-bird (or in our case, the Early-Crab and the Pioneer) rewards, cause you’ll be able to get a sweet deal out of them.

If you haven’t done it yet, it’s high time to join our Discord community - https://discord.gg/zwTX9Mb. On the server, you can find all the fresh info, talk to the devs and share experiences with our ever-growing, crab-fishing family. :)
Talking about Discord- we have to say HUGE THANKS to the devoted pre-alpha testers that helped us with finding and fixing bugs as well as all the community members, that showed their support, suggestions and ideas - we won’t be able to create Deadliest Catch: The Game without you!

We hope you are as excited as we are and can’t wait to share our work with you all! :)

We are overjoyed to tell you, that our crabbing Discord community has just reached 1000 members! It’s so great that you help us make this game an awesome experience for us all :) Of course, we are far from saying the final words - let’s see how long will it take us to reach 2000… or 3000…

Anyway - if you need more of a reason to join us, we are currently holding a giveaway of pre-alpha testing version of the game. The contest will be live until tomorrow (August the 1st), 10:00 UTC - so don’t waste time!
You can find our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/zwTX9Mb

Until next time!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/838630/Deadliest_Catch_The_Game/

Here is a brief report from our Deadliest Catch: The Game design progress. ;) Last week we made an update to the project, mostly containing some visual improvements. We did some work on the water, weather effects and particles, along with some minor bug fixes. We are still reworking the whole game code, so it will take some time before we’ll have some BIG-BIG kind of news, but for now, we’d like to share a few screenshots made by the members of our community - Serous313 and Ailish.

You are more than welcome to join our crab-catching, Bering-Sea sailing family and try your luck in giveaways for a chance of pre-alpha keys. Meet us on Discord: https://discord.gg/zwTX9Mb

And here are the promised screenshots. :) Until next time!










https://store.steampowered.com/app/838630/Deadliest_Catch_The_Game/

We get back to you with a small update on our situation. As you may know, we are in the middle of pre-alpha tests done by you, fellow gamers. :) We had over 400 participants in the first group and there are over 750 people on our Discord server already! We have to say, that we are really moved by so many words of your support, compliments on our work with the project so far, your feedback and bug reports. You are a tremendous help to us and you provide a great motivation boost to push the production forward!

As we told you, we are currently focusing on reworking the game - mostly rewriting and optimizing the code, polishing graphics and so on. We are also gathering your suggestions and ideas so our designers can make the best use of them and shape the game in the way we’ll all enjoy the most. At this moment it’s hard to tell, how much time we’ll need to have it all covered, but we want to make this project top notch!

So what can you do now? For sure, if you haven’t done it yet, join our Discord server - you can find the link here: https://discord.gg/zwTX9Mb. You can still take part in the pre-alpha tests, even if you missed the main sign-up. We will be doing small giveaways every now and then (the first is actually done already), so stay tuned and focused!

We’d also like to share with you a few screenshots from the game made by a few of our testers - Sereous313, Inferno_Dragon, NastyTasja and Jonis99 - so you can see how the game looks like now:











See you soon, brave Captains!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/838630/Deadliest_Catch_The_Game/

Dear DC fans!

As you may well know, we have faced some technical issues with launching the Kickstarter campaign. Those additional days of waiting for approval allowed us to take a deep breath and run closed beta-test with a group of gamers. During those, we learned that there is still a lot to improve in the demo of our Alaskan waters adventures.

Because we take your feedback very seriously and we want to make this game as good as we possibly can, we came to a difficult decision - to postpone the campaign until we’ll be sure that it'll meet your expectations. After all, with the Deadliest Catch show, we have a lot to live up to!
We realise, that a lot of you can hardly wait that long and want to help us and support the development as soon as possible. We're extremely grateful for that! That’s why we decided to start a wider closed beta-tests and invite all of you, the early supporters to join them.

Everyone who joins our Discord Server ( https://discord.gg/zwTX9Mb ) and sends a message on the #beta-testing channel, we’ll send a Steam key for the current, early alpha demo of the game. We’ll close the enrollment on Monday, June the 17th (counting as 23:59 UTC).

We hope that with your support we can make the game we will all be proud of!

UPDATE:
Hello DC fans!
Due to the technical issues with the Kickstarter, we have to postpone the launch of the campaign. It should be resolved in a few working days - we'll state the exact date (day and hour) as soon as will get the information from Kickstarter.
We're sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience!




Today we come back to you with the long-promised information about the Deadliest Catch: The Game Kickstarter Campaign. As we’ve told you in the last announcement, we have decided to go on Kickstarter, in order to gather funds for additional in-game features - foremost the crew management, that you strongly rooted for. It took us some time to prepare for the campaign and estimate what can we actually do with additional funds and within the time we have for finishing the project.

That being said, we can announce, that the Kickstarter Campaign will launch on June 7th 2019. You can see the campaign page (be aware it’s still in development!) here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matthewwieckowski/677960236?ref=4x6ovi&token=1e198c3f. Don’t forget to check the notification icon on top!



As we promised, the main goal of the campaign will be implementing the crew management mechanics in its basic form. When you’ll hire a crewman, you’ll be able to assign him to a chosen task on deck - for example setting the pots or sorting the caught crabs. As he’ll keep performing the given task, he’ll get better at his job, doing it faster and more efficient. Additionally, when the crewman will be free for the moment, he’ll perform secondary actions, like preparing the bait or repairing the equipment.

We have some additional features planned from the start, so they make a place in the stretch-goal list. Among them you can find improvement of the crew management mechanics (f.e. the crewmen will get tired as they work on deck) or equipment upgrades. We’ve also included one of the big features that you were oftenly asking about - the multiplayer mode! :)



As for the campaign rewards, we’ve prepared multiple options for you. From getting copy of the game at a better price, through access to beta-tests and digital posters, to exclusive rewards like placing hidden objects in the game or naming a captain after you - we’ve got you covered. In any case, look out for the limited early-bird (or in our case, the early-crab) rewards, cause you’ll be able to get a sweet deal out of them.

We hope that you are as hyped for this campaign as we are - please share the good news with your friends and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them here! :)

Today we’d like to talk about the topic, that has been repeatedly appearing in comments and discussions on the Steam page and social media. The element of the game, that is clearly very important and crucial for you - the crew.

To be honest, when we started working on a game, we decided to go with gameplay mechanics in the All-in-One system. While playing the game, you’ll have to do every task by yourself and accurate simulation of all those activities will be the core gameplay. One of the key arguments for this approach was the budget. Implementing the crew requires a lot of additional work for our team - programming, creating models and textures, animating, etc. That means more time and more costs needed for finishing the game.

So, when we first saw comments about the lack of crew mechanics, we were reluctant to switch our focus, knowing that we might not be able to deliver that big of a feature. But we are gamers ourselves, and what we want the most is to bring you joy and great experience. And you really convinced us that this game needs the crew, so we’ll do our best to implement it. But - we can’t do it without your help.

We decided, that the best solution will be going with Deadliest Catch: The Game on Kickstarter - and making implementation of the crew the main goal of the campaign. That way, with your help, we can gather funds necessary for the production and create the game you are all waiting for! We have a lot of ideas of the stretch goals too - many of those appearing in the comments or discussions.

We hope that together we'll be able to make this game just the way you’d hope - truly bringing your favorite TV series to your PCs and letting you feel like fishing on the Bering Sea by yourselves. Surely with your support we can do it!

At this moment we plan to start the Kickstarter Campaign around half of the April - soon we’ll come back to you with more details. Let us know what do you think about that!

After the first two issues of our devlogs, you should know all the basics of your F/V and equipment on board. This time we’d like to move to the most important part of the titular Deadliest Catch - the catch itself! In other words, the precious crabs that you’ll try to fish out of hazardous waters of the Bering Sea. Though many of you, devoted fans of the Discovery Channel series, have a great knowledge of crabs living in Alaskan waters, we’d like to sum-up some facts and share with you how we implemented that information in our game.



Right now we’d like to focus on one of the crab’s species that are caught by the fisherman in the TV series - the red king crabs (Paralithodes camtschaticus). The first thing you’ll need to know about them is that they are rather big creatures. The fully grown males can have up to 11 inches/28 cm in length of the carapace (the shell covering the back) and leg span as big as 5 foots/150 cm. With five pairs of legs and huge claws, you’d better be careful when handling them!



The second important fact is that not all crabs are suitable for sale! It is allowed to catch only the male crabs that are old enough. That’s why all the crabs trapped in the pots go directly to the sorting table, where you’ll have to decide, which crabs will go to your holding tank (and will be later sold in Dutch Harbor), and which will need to be tossed back into the water. So how can you check your catch?

The first thing to consider is the crab’s sex. Looking from the above, both males and females looks quite alike. However, when you’ll look at their abdomens, you can see a so-called abdominal flap. The male specimens have a narrow flap, while the female’s flap is wide - it covers most of the underside of the abdomen (that’s because female crabs carry their eggs under the flap). The other thing that helps to distinguish males from females is their size, as the males are usually bigger. The crab’s size is used to judge the age of the crabs as well. Crabs suitable for sale have to be at least 6,5 inch/17 cm in carapace length.



Inspecting the crabs in our game is quite simple. First, you’ll need to pick up one of the caught crabs and turn it around. Observing the crab’s abdominal will tell you about the specimen’s sex and further inspection will show, whether the crab is big enough. That information will appear in your GUI. It’s not necessary to wait for the result of the inspection - after a while, you can judge in a glimpse of an eye which crab should go under the deck and which will be tossed overboard. But be careful! If you try to sell a crab, that shouldn’t go on the market, you’ll have to pay a fine.

It’s important to control the amount of the crabs that you hold in your tank as well. The weight of the crabs will burden your F/V and if the tank gets too crowded, it’ll cause the crabs to die. And dead crab in your tank may cause other surrounding crabs to die quicker (that so-called “dead loss” will bring you no income of course). So if you fill your tank faster than you expected, it may be advised to return to the dock even in the middle of the season.

So that’s a little factsheet about the red king crabs. Let us know if there is some information that you are most interested in reading next time :) See you soon!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/838630/Deadliest_Catch_The_Game/