Hey there! As you know, we've been hard at work on local co-op play. Well, the time has just about come for us to release it into your grabby hands! Not stopping there, we have also revisited the core mechanic and changed how Skullcaps work in response to your valuable feedback. Today, I want to dig into how the co-op works. On Wednesday, I'll talk about what we've done to make the core mechanics more EXCITING! From the very beginning, we saw ourselves playing FranknJohn with a buddy. We all grew up wasting away summer holidays in front of a SNES with our friends, squirting water guns at zombies, hurling red shells and Shoryuken'ing each other in the face. It was a magic time. A time, that time itself has seemed to forgotten. We want to bring a bit of that magic back. We've been very conscious about avoiding a 'tacked on' feel, where perhaps one player has more authority or power than the other. In FNJ, both players are equal. With the change to Skullcaps (more on this in Wednesdays post), you can adopt play styles that compliment each other. You could play it safe and use range, get up close and personal, or a mixture of the two. You must really work together to overcome the games challenges. Here is a list of the current co-op mechanics and rule sets:

• A second player can drop into the game in the hub by pressing start
• Enemy health is scaled up (this may extend to damage/enemy count)
• Enemy aggro is distance based (may change to dmg based)
• If a player dies, the living player can cast Blood Sacrifice to resurrect them - at the cost of a 50% health transfer
• Marbles are shared
• Upgrades are shared
• Game camera follows the average position of both players, no split-screen
• You can use a combination of two controllers, or one controller & keyboard/mouse.

• Character selection screen - at the moment if you want to swap characters, you must swap controllers
• Co-op Skullcaps - heal/buff partner by headbutting them? Yes please!
• Mini-games - FranknFootie, FranknSumo, lot's of fun possibilities!

• Smash enemies with FranknJohn's weaponized head
  
• Experiment with 20 different Skullcaps that alter gameplay in many different ways
  
• Huge skill tree. Collect Dr. Harmin's mysterious ooze and use it to upgrade your body and mind
  
• Randomly generated environments. A new experience with each new life
  
• Local co-op - play with a friend!
  
• Battle through the first area two areas of the game, "The Garden of Denial" and "The Furnace of Anger"
  
• Perma-death, challenging enemies will test the sternest of players
  
• Glorious soundtrack by Ben Prunty (FTL/Gravity Ghost)
  
• Pills to temporally upgrade your stats
  
• Explore FrankJohn's underground hideout

• More areas - The Cistern of Depression and the final showdown with Dr. Harmin in the "The Lab of Isolation"
  
• More variety, challenges and secrets - We have lot's of fun stuff in store
  
• More Skullcaps - these are so much fun to make we want to keep making them forever
  
• More enemies - Each new area will have roughly the same amount of enemies currently available
  
• More bosses - Dr. Harmins most prized creations are being readied for battle
  
• More glorious soundtrack by Ben Prunty

• We have put a lot of effort into making sure FranknJohn is as bug free as possible, however the game is in Early Access so it is unavoidable. We will do our best to squish them as soon as they present their ugly heads.

• A game like this lives or dies on it's balance, so expect a lot of tweaking to occur throughout Early Access.

• OS: Ubuntu 12.04+
• Processor: Intel Core i3 or AMD equivalent or betterMemory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: Intel HD 4400 or Nvidia or AMD equivalent or better
• Storage: 525 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: SteamOS coming soon. few graphical problems currently

• Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD equivalent or betterMemory: 4 GB RAM
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: Dedicated graphics card recommended