PAX Aus, Games Made in NZ sale, & our upcoming demo 🚢 | September 2025

Ahoy mateys, welcome Below Deck!

Things are cooling off from Gamescom in Germany, and heating up for PAX! We’re just a few weeks away from our second business trip of the year, this time to Melbourne, Australia. Tep and I are rather relieved it's just “across the ditch” and not another epic 30 hour journey this time.

We are approaching the end of our CODE KickStart funded phase of development and now looking ahead to what’s next. Securing more investment is high on our list of priorities, but before that we’ll be aiming to make a great impression at PAX and promote our upcoming Steam demo. We’ve worked very hard over the past year and it’s time to share our efforts wider. There is no exact date set for the demo yet, but keep your eyes on our socials and upcoming newsletters for more info.

Yours piratically,

Ben

Exclusive look at our upcoming PAX booth (Spoiler alert!)

Look at this epic booth design… 👀

This is what to look out for if you happen to be in Melbourne and want to find us. Keep your eyes peeled for a pirate and a crab 😉

Polishing our demo

Thanks to our amazing playtesting community (join them here), we’re constantly refining our demo of Davy Jones’ Deckhand. It’s starting to feel really great, and we’re enjoying adding some extra layers of polish to the current gameplay loop before we expand the game with a new set of features.

This polish pass consists of things like bug fixing, balancing improvements, richer sound and music design, and lovely little touches like these dolphins that Tepene recently animated. We also plan on a few more quality of life improvements, and details such as bespoke artwork on all curse cards.

Steam post image(Keep your eyes peeled for DOLPHINS! Beautifully hand-animated by Tepene.)

🥝 Games Made in NZ - Steam event! 🥝

Did you know there is an annual Steam frontpage take-over by little old Aotearoa, New Zealand? Well now you do! It starts tomorrow. Our game will be featured in the upcoming games and strategy sections. Make sure you jump onto the page and check out some awesome Kiwi-made games. You might be surprised to learn what games are actually coming to you from New Zealand. Check out the games here.

Also, just for fun, we’ll be broadcasting our favourite Davy Jones’ Deckhand gameplay streams and videos on our Steam page for the duration of the event.

Celebrating the amazing work of Nik Scarr

We’ve been working with Nik for almost a year and wanted to take a moment to appreciate the outrageous suite of characters he has created for the game so far! (Tom is screwed.)

Join the crew!

Don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam, blackmail your friends and family to do the same, and help us market our pirate game!

If you'd like more regular updates and to chat with the team then please join our public Discord server, we'd love to have you join our growing community. You can also follow us on social media at the links below.

Wishlist now:

Davy Jones Deckhand Discord invite:

https://t.co/sBqCnmZi9T

Previous editions of 'Below Deck':

Can be found on our Itch Devlog.

Playtester sign ups:

Fill out this form to access the playtest

Until next time me hearties, yo ho!