This new build is a big one, packing in three new enemy types for End of Times.
Introducing the Hellhound, dog of war for the Nephilim army with a keen sense of smell, able to track and hunt the player and take them down with a vicious pounce.
Axe Demon, a hulking soldier with the ability to lunge a giant, deadly axe.
Glut, a demon swelled with flammable gas, ready to burst at a moment's notice.
What’s next on deck for the game? With all planned enemy types now implemented, we will begin working on the final boss battle. Once that’s completed, we’ll move on to designing the rest of the End of Times arenas, and developing the unlock progression system. Of course, we’ll be sprinkling in bug fixes, polishes and improvements throughout as we further playtest and get feedback.
It’s exciting times for Demons with Shotguns as we’re closing in on being 100% feature complete for the game, then we enter a strict feature lock down phase and begin final polish and QA before the full release!
Of course, we’re still listening to feedback and will address any major concerns as they come up, so please give us feedback in the discussion forums.
Build 0.2.1 Now Available
This build introduces a new enemy type, Rocket Nomed.
Rocket Nomed doesn't move, but wields a devastating rocket launcher. This enemy is confined to Watertower Terror at the moment.
This build also includes the following changes:
Reduced Nomed box collider size
Reduced Bloody Mary attack speed
Displaying damage amount in stats window, instead of number of deaths
Bug fix with subsequent soul energy spawns causing high velocity
Nomeds now jump!
Improved player respawning in End of Times to check for nearby enemies, and attempt to spawn in a safe area (if possible).
Build 0.1.3 - Singleplayer End of Times Mode Now Available
End of Times
I’m happy to introduce the singleplayer game mode for Demons with Shotguns, End of Times. This game mode is a enemy wave mode where 1 - 2 players must fend off wave after wave of the Nephilim army to unlock each arena to face off against a Nephilim boss to prevent the end of times!
This game mode should be considered pre-alpha right now. The content being included in the initial release is very light, with only two arenas and two enemy types to face off against; more arenas and enemies are being worked on for future builds. Being early access, I wanted to make the game mode available to you now so you can provide feedback on the early mechanics and gameplay.
End of Times currently has two difficulty settings, Normal (default) and Hardcore (can be enabled in the Options menu). These settings change how enemies are spawned, more specifically how many will spawn at a time, making the game much more challenging. Please play both and let me know what you think of them.
The current plan for End of Times is to have a total of seven enemy types, including a final boss battle, across several arenas with unlock progression.
Versus
Versus matches are now much more customizable, allowing you specify the following match options:
Specific tarot cards can now be turned on/off (not applicable to Last Soul Standing)
Shields can be turned on/off
Ammo spawn time can be adjusted
Tarot card spawn time can be adjusted (not applicable to Last Soul Standing)
As a result, tarot card effects are now more easily stacked. Try mixing and matching different tarot card combinations for some very interesting and fanatic gameplay. My personal favorite is the Satan’s Spawn and Possessed combination.
Pending any additional, major feedback, the Versus game modes are closing in on being complete now. This will allow me to focus on the End of Times game mode.
Of course, this build also includes miscellaneous bug fixes and tweaks done throughout.
Dev Log - Online Multiplayer? Sort of, Yes
If you've been following development of Demons with Shotguns, then you know my stance on online multiplayer. However, Nvidia has recently released a beta version of their GeForce Experience which now includes GameStream Co-op, a feature that lets another PC user stream the gameplay remotely over the Internet. That user can than take over the main controls or act as a second controller for same-screen multiplayer.
PC World has a good article on this feature, but to summarize the requirements:
To use GameStream Co-op, the host PC needs an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 or higher desktop graphics card or a Non-Optimus GeForce GTX 660M laptop card (with Optimus support coming later), a Core i3-2100 or higher CPU, at least 4 GB of RAM, and an 802.11 a/g router with at least 7 Mbps of upstream bandwidth. The guest PC has all the same system requirements minus the graphics card, and needs 7 Mbps of downstream bandwidth. After receiving an invite from the host, the guest can launch the stream using a Google Chrome extension.
I'll be testing this out with Demons with Shotguns very soon, but I'd love to know how the feature works out for everyone else as well. If you meet the requirements listed by Nvidia, please give the GameStream Co-op feature a go with Demons with Shotguns and let us know how it works out!
Dev Log - Singleplayer Update #2
Hey all!
I just wanted to drop in and give a quick update on the singleplayer game mode, currently titled End of Times. As mentioned in my previous dev log update, we scrapped the idea to do a mini-campaign, but started prototyping a enemy horde mode. Development is progressing well and I'd like to have a build available to you everyone showcasing a single level for feedback very soon.
The basic premise of End of Times is that the Nephilim have come back to trigger another end of times event, unleashing their devilish and ghastly army upon the world. So of course, it's up to you (and up to one other local friend) to fend off their waves and progress through each arena to finally square off with one of the Nephilim and drive them back from once they came!
Here's a screenshot of the first level, which again I hope to have available soon for feedback.
We have a handful of different enemies in mind for you fight. You've already met the Nomed and the Bloodhound. Here is a Bloodymary, ghosts of women forced to birth Nomeds.
Build 0.1.2 Now Available
Build 0.1.2 is now available! This build contains miscellaneous bug fixes and minor polishes throughout.
-In Thy Image clones properly interact with environment pieces, such a CTS capture points
-Blood splatter effect being ignored on hanging rocks in Hell
-Roman numerals to indicate LSS round number
-Better feedback on LSS end of round window
-Additional sound effects added, including new sound effect on melee attack
-Other various bug fixes
Dev Log - Singleplayer Update #1
As previously mentioned, we started working on a singleplayer campaign mode for Demons with Shotguns. We put together a basic prototype to exercise the game's current mechanics against this type of gameplay. The more we playtested, we came to realize two things.
But first I want to state that Demons with Shotguns has been, and always will be, a competitive local multiplayer game first and foremost. Since the very beginning, everything about the game has been designed to deliver an experience that resembles 90s arena shooters, and we truly feel the game exceeds in delivering that experience as it currently stands.
That said, we found the current mechanics didn’t transfer well to a traditional campaign experience, at least not as they are now. As we expanded the prototype level, it became more obvious the experience was a bit shallow and more depth would have to be added to achieve a experience worth pursuing, and something you’d actually enjoy playing!
Which brings us to our second conclusion. The scope of a traditional campaign would require much more development time then MindShaft Games can afford right now. We can’t succumb to feature creep, which is all too infamous in destroying games, and even studios. One of the hardest things to do in game development is recognizing when something simply isn't fun, and/or can seriously drive the development off course to inevitable doom, and to decide to simply cut it out.
As a result, we've ultimately decided to no longer pursue a traditional campaign. However, we aren’t cutting singleplayer completely just yet! We’ve already started prototyping an enemy horde mode where 1 - 2 players fight to fend off wave after wave of enemies in a single arena space; yes, I’ll make the comparison to TowerFall’s quest mode myself because it’s now clearly obvious why that type of gameplay works so well in a arena platformer. Prototyping will continue and we’ll see how that evolves!
Build 0.1.1 Now Available
Minions of Hell!
Firstly, thank you to everyone that’s picked up the game so far and been sharing the great feedback and comments. Everyone really seems to be having a blast with the game! We’ve been working hard since the release to prepare the first update to the game, which is now live. We’ve packed a lot of stuff into this one!
Summary of changes
King of the Soul & Team King of the Soul game modes
Score text different color for each player
Runtime binnable controls
In Thy Image tarot card
Gluttonous tarot card
Projectile different color for Satan’s Spawn
New player death animation
Suicide stat tracking
Match Settings menu to configure score limit, time limit and turn on/off tarot cards
Option to turn on/off gamepad vibration
Left analog stick not as sensitive in menus
Misc. menu changes and polish
Performance improvements in the Church arenas
Bug fixes
The two biggest additions are the King of the Soul game mode and new tarot cards.
King of the Soul is where you fight to maintain control of the single soul, earning a point for every 5 straight seconds you have control. First player to 10 points wins. Of course, there’s the Team version of this mode as well. This game has a great “cat and mouse” chase like dynamic to it and we’re eager to know what you think of it.
We’ve also added two new tarot cards, Gluttonous, in which the controls of your opponents are reversed and In Thy Image, where 3 clones are spawned that mimic your control and you can use to do your bidding.
There’s a bunch of tweaks and other additions based on the feedback we received, such as a new Match Settings menu that’ll allow you to fine tune the settings of your match, ability to turn off gamepad vibration and now you can completely rebind your keyboard and gamepad button mappings.
We did decide to remove the ability to have two players share the same keyboard. This was a very experimental feature and it turned out that it was very difficult to perform a lot of the game’s key movements with just one hand (shotgun jumping, for one example). So moving forward, only one person can be at the keyboard. All other players must be using a supported gamepad.
Oh, and I heard you guys want singleplayer? Well we’ve been actively prototyping a lot of ideas and we finally came up with a design that we really like and development is fully underway. We’re really excited to share what we have planned and hope to have some gameplay to show in the coming weeks.
To hold you over till we can talk about singleplayer more fully, here’s the Nomed, foot soldier of the Nephilim army, and the common enemy you’ll be facing off against.
and they brought their pets
If you want to get the absolute latest updates on the game, be sure to follow me and Kyle on Twitter where we post regular updates.
It’s finally here! Demons with Shotguns is available on Steam today!
While the game is being released through Early Access, the game is very polished and all current 7 competitive local multiplayer game modes are feature complete. If you were ever a fan of the fast paced, twitch style shooting action of 90s arena shooters such as Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, I think you’re going to love Demons with Shotguns.
Please note however that the game’s singleplayer component isn’t available yet, which is still in early development, but we’re hoping to have something ready for community feedback soon. Thus keep that in mind when deciding to purchase! If you’re not into competitive local multiplayer games, you won’t hurt our feelings if you decide to wait for the singleplayer to become available :)
So besides the singleplayer campaign, what’s on deck? What can you expect to be added in the coming months?
More competitive game modes
More tarot cards
More death animations
More achievements and stats
More playable characters
Secret, unlockable characters
Customizable controls
Continuous polish, balance changes and tweaks
Of course, your feedback is going to improve the game and help us decide what to balance, polish and change. We hope everyone enjoys the game. Please direct your feedback to the General Discussions forum here on Steam. There’s a forum dedicated for bugs and technical support as well.
Finally, be sure to check out the game’s killer soundtrack from VHS Glitch on Bandcamp.
