We thought updating Oh Deer would take a week. Nine months later, we’d end up rebuilding our multiplayer hide-and-seek game from the ground up. Enjoy!
We share how fixing performance turned into rebuilding almost everything: the Hunter, the maps, the NPC deer, the multiplayer systems, and even a tiny animated screen on a TrailCam. Along the way, we learned better ways to make games and discovered how much we still had to learn.
The new Oh Deer brings:
- 10-player matches: one Hunter and up to nine player deer.
- 100 NPC deer to hide among.
- Reworked maps, improved visuals, and better performance.
- Upgraded TrailCams and deer abilities.
- A completely reworked night phase: survive 40 seconds while your friends hunt you as Wendigos.
Hiding among 100 NPC deer with up to nine player deer sounds like the crowd itself becomes the main mechanic, so I can see how a performance pass snowballed into reworking the deer too. Did the NPC deer behaviour have to change so player deer can genuinely blend in, or does the Hunter mostly spot players by how they react, like bolting when a TrailCam catches them? Also curious how the 40-second Wendigo night phase changed the pacing of a typical match.
