The Anatomy of a Weapon - Nick talks about Screencheat weapon design
Much like the rest of Screencheat, the weapon design was nailed down in a hurry during the 48 hour Global Game Jam. We developed the Blunderbuss as the peak in terms of weapon power, and that laid the foundations for the rules of weapon development as the project moved forward. Those simple rules that helped to define the gameplay of Screencheat were:
One hit kills
The more powerful the weapon, the more visible you become
Intentional action is greater than accidental action
These rules set the tone for our first four weapons, the Blunderbuss was your typical wide spread gun, the grenade launcher was super bouncy and effective, the revolver rifle required precision and patience, and the Candelabra was ridiculous and fun. We had plans for another four weapons before launch, yet after a few prototypes we realised that we were missing something. Screencheat is meant to be silly, yet with the exception of the Candelabra, we had pretty standard powerhouse weapons. That is when we decided that the weapons should reflect the spirit of the game.
So I ditched the double barrel and cannon which I had already drafted, and started to focus on making weapons that were more akin to the candelabra. The first one of these was the Chefolet, which was just released in the content drop this week. Originally I wanted to put a spin on the flak cannon from Unreal Tournament, but I couldn’t figure out a way to incorporate the random bouncing elements in a way that was fun for our game. After much testing, Justin came up with the idea of having a single bouncing object, rather than multiple projectiles, which gives both the attacker and the evader more control over the situation.
Do I charge the weapon fully and try to shoot down a tight corridor, exposing myself fully due to a gigantic glowing orb? Do I try and ricochet a medium charge around a corner, taking out an opponent who I know is hunting me down? It opened up a whole world of interesting strategies, and after some tweaking I started on the final design. I don’t know why, but the idea of a car engine as a supercharged weapon was appealing to me, and after throwing around car manufacturer names and Chef Boyardee puns around the office, the Chefolet was born. It cemented our new direction: silly weapons for a silly game that still offers deep and rewarding mechanics.
We hope that you guys enjoy the new weapons we have in store for you. We’re sure there will be some raised eyebrows come PAX Prime time! -
Nick
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Content Drop #1 Is Live - Changelog Is Here!
Hello Screencheaters! It has been amazing to see so many people playing the game, sharing their thoughts and feedback with us, and a special thanks to everyone who has shared their exploits online. After two weeks of Screencheat mayhem, we’re finally ready to unleash out first content drop for you all to test.
Content Drop #1 adds a new map called Helix. Dubbed by Nick as a “forgotten temple in the sky where death is always around the corner,” this map features multiple levels, air vents that shoot you too the roof, and a tonne of interesting movement options. The colour scheme is wildly different from the previous maps, so you will need to concentrate more on your surroundings. Here’s a pro tip - quickly learn which side of the map is pristine, and which side is in ruins, it will help you find your prey a lot faster.
We’ve also added a new weapon into the mix! The Chefolet is a modified car engine that shoots a kinetic ball of energy. Hold down the shoot button to charge the weapon - the longer you charge it the faster it becomes, and the longer it will bounce from wall to wall. The tradeoff is that it becomes very easy for people to notice a gigantic glowing orb of death, and they have a chance to take you out before you fire. We’re extremely excited to hear what you guys think of this wonderfully weird, yet deadly creation.
Finally, we’ve added a new gameplay mode for you all to experience. One Shot is essentially a hardcore mode where players only get one shot, so they have to make it count. Once everyone has fired their shot, or 15 seconds have elapsed (whichever comes first), everyone automatically reloads and it begins again. This forces you to be more strategic, spam less, and creates some really tense moments.
Samurai Punk has managed to cram some other cool features into this update, including a new Brutal Announcer, along with some extra jibber-jabber for the previous announcer pack. They have also fixed up a number of niggling issues that many of you pointed out, and updated a few things to the game should play a little nicer for all.
The update is now live, so just start the game on Steam and you will be good to go. The changelog is below, but as always we will be hanging around the community hub to answer questions and take your feedback! - Steve
Changelog - Build 0.0.11 (18/08/14)
Awesome Features
New Map - Helix! The forgotten temple in the sky where death is always around the corner.
New Gamemode - One Shot. The hardcore mode, or true Deathmatch, of Screencheat. You only get one shot, so make it count. Once everyone has fired or 15 seconds have elapsed, you get a new shot. Great for ramping up the intensity
New Weapon - Chefolet. Hold down the shoot button to charge this beauty. The longer you charge, the larger, faster and longer living the bouncing ball of death will be.
New Announcer - Brutal Announcer added. Go to the game settings to pick your favourite or leave them randomising.
Extra Announcements - Both announcers now have additional jibber jabber.
Cool Little Tweaks
Game start now keeps you informed when waiting for players
Game over player listing is now ordered by score. Bragging rights should be easier to note.
Notification in the lobby chat when a new player joins (even if they don’t have an active profile)
Functionality Fixes
Players should no longer be able to escape garden.
Lobbies in the lobby browser no longer show a “join” button when they are full.
Death camera will no longer go through walls and outside the map
No longer possible to get stuck against the wall in the wind tunnels.
Forced OpenGL on Windows. This should avoid issues with alt tabbing under DirectX 9 until a fixed version of the engine we use is released. Let us know if this causes issues for you, and we’ll give you another workaround.
GUI changes everywhere. Our GUI guy included a giant list 30 items long, but I’ll spare you the details. Here’s some of the new things you can interact with.
Added Terrain Detail setting in Graphics Settings
Adds Announcer volume to audio settings
Added “Enter” to select profiles
Convention mode- press back to invert look (mostly for our benefit at conventions, but if you’re playing at a party this one might help you out.
Minor Tweaks
Museum cleaned up a little.
Garden lower path modified to make it feel less maze like.
Upper walkways on Garden hills should now be less camp-able.
Fix black defocus background sometimes covering pause menu in-game
From Jam To Game - Screencheat's Humble Beginnings
Hello Screencheaters! What a crazy few weeks it has been. From the minute the beta was released publicly, we have been overwhelmed by the amount of support you guys have shown for the game. It’s great to see people playing what we’ve been working on for the better part of this year, and we can’t wait to show you guys what we have got in store for the full release with our first content drop next week.
Screencheat has been an interesting project. What began as a Global Game Jam experiment in January is now a much bigger thing, and we thought it would be interesting to share the story of Samurai Punk, and our invisible shooter’s humble beginnings.
The foundations of Samurai Punk began during the Global Game Jam in 2013 when myself and Winston Tang teamed up with Hadleigh Barton-Ancliffe and Emile Pascoe. We produced a little game called Samurai XX, which went on to inspire the name of our studio. Winston, Hadleigh and I worked with a number of team members throughout 2013, usually on jam projects, while we finished our final year of university. Winston and I started planning to launch Samurai Punk once we finished our degrees.
When Global Game Jam 2014 was coming up, we knew we wanted to enter. We formed a fantastic team, featuring our previous members Winston, Hadleigh and myself, and we added Justin Whitfort into the mix. Then we were presented with the horrifying theme - we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
For those who don’t know, the Global Game Jam pits teams together across the world with the task of creating a game in just 48 hours from scratch. The objective is to deliver a game that is functional, fun, and somehow fits into the theme presented to everyone when the clock begins. It’s hard enough to pull it off at the best of times, but with such a perplexing theme, we were a little worried!
After milling around the ideas of our favourite local cooperative games, we wanted to come up with a concept where players would communicate information to one another. We had the framework up and running, but we got stuck when we realised that players wouldn’t bother communicating seeing they could just screencheat. That's when it dawned on us - why not just make that the entire mechanic. After another hour or so of discussion we had the idea locked down to a super simple shooter, with strong level design to back it up. We had the game playable in around 8 hours and smashed out the rest of the game well before the 48 hours were up so we had plenty of time to mess around with other ideas.
The first gameplay footage from the GGJ! Play it here!
After finishing up the jam, we were overwhelmed by the response we got from the other jammers. Then to our surprise, a month later we received multiple awards, including the Community Choice award for best game. It was around that time that we started hearing rumbling that our friends at Surprise Attack Games were interested in helping us take the game further. After a huge scramble to formalise the company and release our mobile game simultaneously, Samurai Punk signed with Surprise Attack Games to get Screencheat out to the world. By early March Justin and I had begun working full time on the project, beginning the overhaul from jam game to something fully realised.
As you can see, Screencheat has undergone a transformation from a small idea into something much larger. Taking a look at the earlier footage from the Game Jam version to the amazing Let’s Play videos we’ve been seeing online, is a constant reminder that iteration on a great foundation can really build out your project.
I hope this post has been eye opening to the history of Screencheat. I’ll be back next week with another development post, and of course, the first content drop for everyone in the beta! - Nick
Community Update #1 - More Codes, Stress Test Weekend
Hello Screencheaters! Those of you who checked in yesterday will know that we ran out of codes, but I'm happy to report that we just received a fresh new batch from Valve this morning. We've sent out a huge number to those who signed up and were patiently waiting, and we will resume sending out new codes every 4-8 hours for those who continue to sign up. Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding as we worked to get things running smoothly again.
Samurai Punk are working on a patch this weekend, which should roll out early next week. To help these guys out, it would be great if we could get as many of you playing online as possible to stress test our servers, giving the guys a chance to get some last-minute optimisation ready before we roll out the first patch. So let's all pull together and have a huge weekend of screencheating online!
Hope to see a bunch of you online during the weekend, and we'll be back next week with a blog update and hopefully a game patch! - Steve
Screencheat Beta Keys Exhausted - On Hold For 24 Hours
First of all, we're overwhelmed with the response that you guys have shown Screencheat since the public beta went live on Monday. In just three days we've issued over 35,000 beta codes, and we've had a blast playing with all of you online.
With such an overwhelming response, we're sorry to say that we are temporarily out of beta codes. We have requested a further 100,000 keys from Valve, and we expect that they will be delivered in the next 24 hours (in time for the weekend :)).
All of those who have signed up and are awaiting keys - please be patient. We know that you are itching to get into the game, and we promise that the moment we are granted our next batch of keys, you will be first on the list.
For those helpful folks in the community who may have some spare keys (we sent everyone 4 codes to share with their friends), it would be great if you could offer it up to those who are waiting in this discussion.
Thanks again for all of the support, and keep the great ideas coming into the hub! Together, we're going to make Screencheat a ridiculously fun shooter for everyone! - Steve
Screencheat Beta Is Live! Check Your Inbox For Codes
Welcome future Screencheaters! We're excited to announced that the Screencheat beta has officially launched, meaning those of you who signed up to this lovely site should have a Steam code arriving in your inbox very soon (don't forget to check your spam folder!).
The Screencheat beta is a very small slice of what the final release will hold. It's important to us that everyone gets a chance to see the spirit of the game, but we want to have enough content in store so when the final game arrives in October, there are a few surprises left. Below are the features, along with important dates for the beta period:
Features
Two maps - Museum and Garden
Two game modes - My First Deathmatch and Hillcampers
Four weapons
4-player splitscreen local and online multiplayer
A series of custom rag dolls
Tonnes of fun for all!
Important Dates
August 4 - Beta starts
August 18 - Content Drop #1 - A new game mode, weapon and map
September 3 - Beta ends, those who pre-order can keep playing
September 15 -Content Drop #2 - A new game mode, weapon and map
Now for some important discussion links. Screencheat has been running great on our machines, but unleashing the beta into the wild will no doubt bring across some weird and wonderful bugs. Any issues can be reported in The Bugs discussion. Please provide us as much feedback as possible: your system specs, the operating system you are using, what you were doing at the time etc. Even better if you could provide us screenshots or videos!
We have already had a few community members throw out some interesting ideas when it comes to game modes, and while we have the first release of Screencheat locked down, we always appreciate fun ideas. So if you want to share a game mode, level, or weapon concept, throw it into the mix over here.
We hope you enjoy the Screencheat beta, and we can't wait to hear all of your feedback. See you in the Garden. - Steve
Play with the devs this week!
What a week it has been for Screencheat! The coverage has been flowing in, and more and more of you have been signing up to the community hub! It's great to see such a huge interest in the game, and those who have pre-ordered have already said some really nice things about the game!
The folks over at Rock, Paper Shotgun were kind enough to make a post, as were the Kotaku AU. Perhaps the most surprising thing was that Donnie "TehButcher" Bishop has returned to Twitter, vowing a comeback to the competitive gaming scene.
The cool cats at Gamespot played an hour of the game on their Multiple Players stream yesterday. Check it out here.
Now for the fun stuff, some play sessions with the developers! We've noticed a number of people have been wanting to play online, but because the beta hasn't been released to the public yet, are struggling to find servers. So for the next few nights, Nick and Justin from Samurai Punk, along with myself, will be hosting some games so everyone can have some fun! Here's the timetable.
Wednesday, 30th of July - 7:00PM PST - 8:00PM PST
Thursday, 31st of July - 7:00PM PST - 8:00PM PST
Friday, 1st of August - 7:00PM - 8:00PM PST
Some of you may know that we're all based in Australia, so we're going to be hosting some online sessions for Aussie gamers also!
Wednesday, 30th of July - 7:00PM AEST - 8:00PM AEST
Thursday, 31st of July - 7:00PM AEST - 8:00PM AEST
Friday, 1st of August - 7:00PM AEST - 8:00PM AEST
Once again, thanks so much for all of the support thus far. Tell your friends, families, enemies and pets to sign up for the beta, and stay tuned for some chances to contribute to the future of the game! - Steve
Pre-order now to get instant access
Hello everyone!
So it seems that those who pre-order the game now get immediate access. This was never our intention, and is a temporary oversight. Unfortunately they have closed for the day, so there is nothing we can do to change this.
So, if you have pre-ordered the game you can start playing now. Please keep in mind that we are still in the process of stress testing and making minor changes before the free beta opens up on August 4. Basically there could be bugs and the servers may go down without notice.
PLEASE DO NOT POST VIDEO FOOTAGE OF THE GAME UNTIL 9:00AM PST ON MONDAY, JULY 28!
We want to ensure that the game is running smoothly before we allow videos to go live. We always love to support Let's Players and their creations (we even host them on our official sites and actively promote them), but please understand that we did not intend for people to begin playing the game just yet.
If you have any questions, just post a discussion on our community hub and we'll get back to you.
