Davy Jones’ Deckhand demo post-mortem🏴☠️ | 'Below Deck' May 2026
Davy Jones Deckhand · published
Ahoy crew, welcome below deck!
My lovely wife shared this image with me a few days ago as I was wrapping up the final touches on a huge funding application, the last huge task in a huge month of deadlines and crunch. It was a good hint. I was getting right towards the far edge of "Strain", productivity starting to decline. When I hit submit, suddenly my throat hurt. I'm off sick now.
So I'm taking it a little easy this week. I do still want to update you all on how things have been going with the demo launch.
Thanks for being here!
Ben
Demo launch post-mortem
Key demo stats:
- Players: 320+
- Median playtime: 43 minutes (1hr 43m average)
- Wishlists gained: 700+
- ANZ Indie Showcase: Watch the VOD
- Play the demo here
Weapon stats
The saber seemed to be the most consistent winner. Broken Mop was chosen less and seemed to also be the toughest to win with. The Broken Mop can be a great time if you can get a good infinite loop and healing engine going!
Wins/loss ratio for each voyage attempt number
Who beat the massive crab during their tutorial voyage (Attempt 1)!?! Apparently there were three of you!
Most lethal enemies
The Giant Enemy Crab wins for murdering the most players overall. But the winner for most player kills per fight (mean per event) goes to Thessaly the Sea Witch.
Crab stats
How many crabs did you collectively butcher, and how many times did they kill you back? It's 1,100 kills to the players and just 255 to team crab. Looks like you ratioed them pretty hard.
Favourite card pick
Find the Gap was your favourite card to pick. This was not a big surprise as there has been a lot of feedback about how overpowered that card is. This has been noted and will be addressed in updates. We are hoping that the mid-voyage card upgrades and a better rarity system will help to balance issues like this in future updates.
Wishlist milestone: Thanks for 2,000!
We blew past the 2,000 wishlists milestone during the Deckbuilders Fest and are on track for 2,500 in June. It has certainly not been easy getting here but it feels like things are picking up a little momentum. We're now at about 10% of our minimum launch wishlist target, so I still need you to tell your grandmas to smash that wishlist button and convert on launch day. Please and thank you!
What next?
Davy Jones' Deckhand will be in the Frosty Games Fest Steam sale in June, but not the showcase this year. We'll also be in Strategems later this month, and we're currently in the Steam Ocean Fest which you can check out now.
We're working on:
- Demo patch with quick wins based on early feedback
- Seeded RNG improvements
- Currency/mid-voyage merchants
Until next time me hearties, yo ho!
Ben and the Cass Bay Games Team
Wishlist now on Steam
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