[ 2018-11-18 00:53:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

For one time only, Demons with Shotguns is $0.99 during the Steam Summer sale of 2018! There will never be a time again that the game will be this cheap.

[ 2018-06-21 17:01:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Many people were experience the dreaded Unity "Black Screen" bug when launching the game. To fix this from happening, I decided to enable the Unity Resolution Selector by default, which will prevent the black screen from occurring.

[ 2017-07-22 13:38:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Many people were experience the dreaded Unity "Black Screen" bug when launching the game. To fix this from happening, I decided to enable the Unity Resolution Selector by default, which will prevent the black screen from occurring.

[ 2017-07-22 13:38:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Holy SHIT! We have an update!!! You know me. I wont stop. Cant stop. The Demon demanded another round of polish and tweaks, so I did. I bashed my keyboard until the following things were completed: -Updated game to latest version of Unity and dependent frameworks (you probably dont care about this) -Players can now shoot when they are snared via the Crown of Thorns tarot card -Tarot card pickup sprite has been made larger to stand out more -Holy water grenades now bounce off of shields -Secret passages in the Cemetery arenas are more visually distinctive -Dashing has a slightly longer cooldown time -Dashing into another player will push them -The Possessed tarot card will now cause you to auto fire but will not cause you to be pushed back -Game winning score is now MORE DRAMATIC -Volume dials have been added to the pause menu -Tarot card descriptions have been added to the tarot card selection menu screen -End of Times Hardcore mode now features friendly fire. Good luck >:) -Fire particles have been improved (I think!) -New shield equip/holster animations -More sound effects and feedback throughout However, outside of game breaking bugs, this will represent the last major update to the game. I know, the four of you that care are heartbroken, but we all must move on.

[ 2017-06-28 22:17:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Holy SHIT! We have an update!!! You know me. I won’t stop. Can’t stop. The Demon demanded another round of polish and tweaks, so I did. I bashed my keyboard until the following things were completed: -Updated game to latest version of Unity and dependent frameworks (you probably don’t care about this) -Players can now shoot when they are snared via the Crown of Thorns tarot card -Tarot card pickup sprite has been made larger to stand out more -Holy water grenades now bounce off of shields -Secret passages in the Cemetery arenas are more visually distinctive -Dashing has a slightly longer cooldown time -Dashing into another player will push them -The Possessed tarot card will now cause you to auto fire but will not cause you to be pushed back -Game winning score is now MORE DRAMATIC -Volume dials have been added to the pause menu -Tarot card descriptions have been added to the tarot card selection menu screen -End of Times Hardcore mode now features friendly fire. Good luck >:) -Fire particles have been improved (I think!) -New shield equip/holster animations -More sound effects and feedback throughout However, outside of game breaking bugs, this will represent the last major update to the game. I know, the four of you that care are heartbroken, but we all must move on.

[ 2017-06-28 22:17:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demons with Shotguns is 75% off for the annual Steam Winter Sale!

[ 2016-12-22 18:18:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demons with Shotguns is 75% off for the annual Steam Winter Sale!

[ 2016-12-22 18:18:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone. Trading cards, badges, emoticons and profile backgrounds for Demons with Shotguns are now live. Enjoy!

[ 2016-10-12 19:58:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone. Trading cards, badges, emoticons and profile backgrounds for Demons with Shotguns are now live. Enjoy!

[ 2016-10-12 19:58:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

The great Steam Summer Sale of the year 2,000 and 16 is upon us! Whats a better way to spend this Summer of love then to blast your friends in the face with a shotgun? Enjoy Demons with Shotguns at a deep discount of 66% off.

[ 2016-06-23 17:01:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

The great Steam Summer Sale of the year 2,000 and 16 is upon us! What’s a better way to spend this Summer of love then to blast your friends in the face with a shotgun? Enjoy Demons with Shotguns at a deep discount of 66% off.

[ 2016-06-23 17:01:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

This build includes a bug fix that was causing players to be inadvertently stunned upon successfully shield bashing another shielded player. Also, shield bashing a shielded player will no longer kill them, but instead just break apart their shield.

[ 2016-05-13 01:43:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

This build includes a bug fix that was causing players to be inadvertently stunned upon successfully shield bashing another shielded player. Also, shield bashing a shielded player will no longer kill them, but instead just break apart their shield.

[ 2016-05-13 01:43:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

After nearly a year, Demons with Shotguns moves out of Early Access. Once again, thank you who have contributed feedback during this time. With the release build, the End of Times game mode is now complete and the final boss battle is included. The release build also includes a slew of bug and performance fixes and various improvements throughout. Here is a list of notable changes in no particular order.

Summary of Changes

• End of Times boss battle added.
• Acceleration of Speed Boost tarot card tweaked, to make it feel less slippery and give player more control.
• Fixed enemies falling through tiles when using Hell portals.
• Fixed enemy projectiles killing other enemies unintentionally.
• Cleaned up tile map artifacts.
• Polished up menus.
• Removed Unity launcher dialog box.
• Removed Unity splash screen.
• Added Camera Shake On/Off option.
• Added Fullscreen On/Off option. When not in fullscreen mode, the game will use the middle resolution of the monitor. To set it to a more specific resolution, hold down the Alt key while launching the game to show the dialog box and change the screen resolution.
• Added option to turn off EoT HUD.
• Added sound effect for when player throws a holy water grenade
• Explosion blast properly checks if nearby objects are exposed, and whether they should receive damage from explosion.
• Framerate has been unlocked and will be set to match the refresh rate of the monitor.
• Bug fix with EoT player respawn, which are now staggered out and each player is on their own timer.
• Tweaks to camera shake effect.
• Polish to death slowdown effect, including grayscaling the game slightly.
• Tweaks and fixes to how audio responds to slowdown effects.
• Bug fixes with player stunned state when a shield bash attack is missed.
• Film degrade effect when players are out of lives in EoT.
• EoT Hardcore mode requires more souls for earning a 1UP.
• EoT player respawn bug fixes.
• Better handling of player - enemy collision and pushback of player.
• Fixed pause menu bug.
• Added default controller layout scheme to pause menu.
• Stone lamps break apart on explosion.
• Achievement bug fixes.
• Full controller support to launch the game, no mouse or keyboard is needed.

[ 2016-04-25 15:09:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

After nearly a year, Demons with Shotguns moves out of Early Access. Once again, thank you who have contributed feedback during this time. With the release build, the End of Times game mode is now complete and the final boss battle is included. The release build also includes a slew of bug and performance fixes and various improvements throughout. Here is a list of notable changes in no particular order.

Summary of Changes

• End of Times boss battle added.
• Acceleration of Speed Boost tarot card tweaked, to make it feel less slippery and give player more control.
• Fixed enemies falling through tiles when using Hell portals.
• Fixed enemy projectiles killing other enemies unintentionally.
• Cleaned up tile map artifacts.
• Polished up menus.
• Removed Unity launcher dialog box.
• Removed Unity splash screen.
• Added Camera Shake On/Off option.
• Added Fullscreen On/Off option. When not in fullscreen mode, the game will use the middle resolution of the monitor. To set it to a more specific resolution, hold down the Alt key while launching the game to show the dialog box and change the screen resolution.
• Added option to turn off EoT HUD.
• Added sound effect for when player throws a holy water grenade
• Explosion blast properly checks if nearby objects are exposed, and whether they should receive damage from explosion.
• Framerate has been unlocked and will be set to match the refresh rate of the monitor.
• Bug fix with EoT player respawn, which are now staggered out and each player is on their own timer.
• Tweaks to camera shake effect.
• Polish to death slowdown effect, including grayscaling the game slightly.
• Tweaks and fixes to how audio responds to slowdown effects.
• Bug fixes with player stunned state when a shield bash attack is missed.
• Film degrade effect when players are out of lives in EoT.
• EoT Hardcore mode requires more souls for earning a 1UP.
• EoT player respawn bug fixes.
• Better handling of player - enemy collision and pushback of player.
• Fixed pause menu bug.
• Added default controller layout scheme to pause menu.
• Stone lamps break apart on explosion.
• Achievement bug fixes.
• Full controller support to launch the game, no mouse or keyboard is needed.

[ 2016-04-25 15:09:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm happy to announce that Demons with Shotguns will leave Early Access April 25! Most notably, the release build will include the final boss fight for the End of Times game mode, along with a slew of polishes and enhancement throughout I've been making in preparation for the release. Get ready for the final battle!
Thank you all that have provided feedback during the Early Access period and helped balance and improve the game. Enjoy the new release trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJW5SxOGGXY

[ 2016-03-15 01:00:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm happy to announce that Demons with Shotguns will leave Early Access April 25! Most notably, the release build will include the final boss fight for the End of Times game mode, along with a slew of polishes and enhancement throughout I've been making in preparation for the release. Get ready for the final battle!
Thank you all that have provided feedback during the Early Access period and helped balance and improve the game. Enjoy the new release trailer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJW5SxOGGXY

[ 2016-03-15 01:00:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

In an earlier update, I talked about the End of Times boss battle, showing off the current design and implementation. As I continued to develop it, I quickly came to realize the boss battle was falling into all of the bad boss battle tropes. Things like inverting spatial control by having the boss attack from behind, suddenly introducing all new game rules and being overly bullet spongy. Mainly though, the boss battle wasn't testing all of the skills and mechanics the player spent all this time learning and mastering. That's why I decided to scrap the original idea completely and come up with something new. The boss battle is now being designed to almost feel like a bot Versus match. The boss will attack, and most importantly defend itself, in the same ways that the player can. This is forcing the player to really master his shotgun & melee attacks, shield blocking and quick movement to avoid attacks. Here is some new concept art for the new boss. The Devil takes many forms!
And here's a sneak peak of what he looks like in-game.
All new boss artwork credit goes to Mike Stanton

[ 2016-02-20 14:03:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

In an earlier update, I talked about the End of Times boss battle, showing off the current design and implementation. As I continued to develop it, I quickly came to realize the boss battle was falling into all of the bad boss battle tropes. Things like inverting spatial control by having the boss attack from behind, suddenly introducing all new game rules and being overly bullet spongy. Mainly though, the boss battle wasn't testing all of the skills and mechanics the player spent all this time learning and mastering. That's why I decided to scrap the original idea completely and come up with something new. The boss battle is now being designed to almost feel like a bot Versus match. The boss will attack, and most importantly defend itself, in the same ways that the player can. This is forcing the player to really master his shotgun & melee attacks, shield blocking and quick movement to avoid attacks. Here is some new concept art for the new boss. The Devil takes many forms!
And here's a sneak peak of what he looks like in-game.
All new boss artwork credit goes to Mike Stanton

[ 2016-02-20 14:03:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

A potential issue with two player spawn points was discovered in one of the Church arenas, which deserved a quick hot fix patch to address. This build also includes changes made to the number of ammo pickups, and their placement, throughout all arenas. Larger arenas will now only have two shotgun ammo pickups, with large majority of the smaller arenas only having one; all arenas will continue to only have one holy water pickup available. Finally, all Hell arenas now feature rock formations in the surrounding background and foreground tiles, visually breaking up the former solid red.

[ 2016-02-07 22:03:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

I heard you guys like achievements and leaderboards? Well now you have them! With this build, you can now start unlocking the 16 available achievements. Top score leaderboards for each of the End of Times arenas have also been added. There are achievements for completing each End of Times arena. If you’ve previously completed one, simply start a new game in them and you should be rewarded the achievement without having to complete it again. At The Gates is the one caveat which you’ll need to complete again to earn the achievement due to technical reasons surrounding the fact that the final boss battle has yet to be released. I apologize for that! The build also includes miscellaneous bug fixes, as always. Besides any potential critical bug fixes, this will most likely be the last build before we release the boss battle. So hang tight and keep us posted with your feedback and bugs on the forums!

[ 2016-02-05 19:39:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time to give a development check-in, yeah? Work for the epic End of Times boss battle is fully underway!
This is just a glimpse into what's in store for the boss battle, but as you can see it involves a giant bad guy with big swords. We've actually decided to animate the boss a bit differently then all the other sprites in the game, which were done via frame animation (think a flipbook of still images played back really fast to give the illusion of movement). For the boss, we decided to do skeleton animation, using the excellent Spine software. Given the large size of the boss, this allows us to create new animations without having to pixel them by hand, which is extremely labor intensive. Instead, we can rig together all of the limbs of the boss and create animations by moving each limb (connected together via a skeleton of bones), frame by frame. Here's an attack animation being created in Spine.
The boss battle is going to take some time to develop and get something worthy of being pushed out to everyone, so bare with us as we go quiet for a few weeks! As always, please let us know of any bugs you may come across in the forums and we'll prioritize them. Same goes for any type of feedback on the current build.

[ 2016-01-23 14:34:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

A hot fix was pushed out to address a bug with End of Times not ending properly once all players were dead and out of lives.

[ 2016-01-10 15:03:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

This build includes changes to End of Times based on feedback, as well as major performance improvements by changing the rendering mode of lights.

Performance

Previous builds used per-pixel lighting for all in-game lights. While this provided the best lighting quality, it also provided the worst performance. Even on my machine with a 970 GTX, I frequently was experiencing frame rate dips into the 30s when many lights were present in the scene. Thus, all lights have been changed to vertex rendering mode, which drastically increases lighting performance (by reducing draw calls) at the cost of reducing lighting quality, which I feel most people won’t even notice. I strongly feel maintaining 60 FPS is a much higher priority in a twitch based game like this.

End of Times

• With the exception of the Hellhound and Bloody Mary, the player will no longer be instantly killed upon touching an enemy. Instead, they’ll be pushed back slightly
• Rocket Nomed now walks, albeit slowly
• Rocket Nomed health has been slightly reduced
• Nomed jumping animation has been improved
• The time from when an enemy portal appears and when a enemy actually spawns has been increased
• Better difficulty select menu

General

• Various improvements and bug fixes to multiple arena layouts
• Souls will stay within arena space better
• Removed Golden Cross object from Church arenas
• Added last, missing announcer voice overs

[ 2016-01-09 16:32:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy Holidays, you filthy animals! This build includes a lot of polish throughout and a whole new mechanic in End of Times: the ability to earn a 1UP by capturing enemy souls! When enemies are killed, they release a soul. Players can now collect them and return them to the Devil Head statue to be captured. Players can hold multiple souls at once. Capture 5 enemy souls, and earn a 1UP! When playing cooperatively with a friend, capturing 5 souls will earn you both a 1UP. Be warned, however! When you die, any captured souls will be lost and your chance of earning a 1UP will be reset.

Versus

• Versus game modes now use a new end of match summary window that’s similar to End of Times.
• Improved soul capturing effect in Capture the Soul game mode.

End of Times

• Nomed roaming behavior has been improved.
• Added small time delay between sub-wave spawnings.
• Bloody Mary is pushed back upon being hit with a projectile.
• Film grain degrade effect has been fixed; will now degrade at an appropriate time.

Tarot Cards

• Improved Angelic behavior. Provided jump boost has been decreased, allowing for much greater control and accuracy.

General

• Added bullet ricochet sound effect for when bullets ricochet off of shields.
• Player spawns have been improved. Players will now face other upon spawning. Selection of spawn points is also improved for better placement.
• Improved rain effects in Cemetery arenas.

[ 2015-12-12 19:59:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fellow Minions! I wanted to give an update on the progress of the enemy AI in the End of Times game mode. This is more of a technical oriented post, but I think many of you will finding it interesting. With the foundation of End of Times fully in place, I can start working on improving the enemy AI. To start, I'll be working on improving the pathfinding on enemies so that they can travel to a particular spot in a arena, rather then roam randomly. Currently, all enemy AI have a simple "bump and switch" algorithm defining how they move. What this means is, an enemy will roam in a particular direction until they detect a collision, or a ledge, in which case they'll simply turn around. While this is serviceable, and many arena shooters use this type of enemy AI, I'd like the player to face off against smarter, more worthy adversaries! To allow enemies to traverse a arena more fully (no more be containing to a single area/platform), I started to build a network of nodes throughout the arena. These nodes will tell enemies where they can go, and they even serve as jump pads, telling an enemy that they can jump and how high they need to jump.
Ignore the red numbers, those are enemy spawn points and not related to pathfinding. Instead we're interested in the yellow dots and lines connecting them. Currently, the lines don't do serve any purpose (they will soon, more on that later!). At this iteration, whenever an enemy collides with one of the yellow dots (our Nodes), it will tell the enemy three things, the speed at which they can continue to travel at (each node has a left speed and right speed value), and a value to let the enemy know they should jump, and by how much can they jump. At this point, the enemy doesn't have any goals or desires to travel to any particular node in the arena, they are still roaming somewhat aimlessly, but now the enemy can just jump around to other platforms and be steered in a particular direction. This is good a start! But we can do better. What if we want the enemy to travel to a particular node or object within the arena, say hunt our player? One way of achieving that is by simply telling the enemy which direction the goal is relative to themselves (is the object to my left, or right?). Thankfully, we can easily calculate that using vector dot product formula. Depending on the angle of the dot product, we'll know if the object is the left, or right, telling the enemy AI which direction to travel in.
In the GIF above, the enemy starts to travel towards the direction of the player once he has spawned, only to be treated to a buck shot. Poor Nomed. He had it coming though. All done! We have our enemy hunting a particular goal in a arena, using nodes to steer them in the right direction. Well, not quite. There's still two things we need to consider at this point. What if there are multiple objects the enemy could care about? How do we select which one is most desirable? And second, right now, there's nothing telling the enemy which path is best to travel. There's still no real pathfinding going on. Let's address the first issue, determining which object is most desirable to head towards. What if we could have our nodes rate their current desirability, based on several variables such as is if the player or a particular game object near by, and allow enemies select the most desirable node to travel to?
And that's exactly what I did! In the above GIF, the large yellow circles for each node is the area in which a node will check to see if there is any particular object they care about is near by (right now, just the player). The number within the circles is the nodes current desirability rating. Each nodes as a default desirability of 100. Once a player comes within range of the node, it will add 300 to it, for a total desirability rating of 400. When the player leaves the node area, it'll go back to 100. The enemy can now search through all the nodes and determine which one has the highest desirability rating, and thus is the most desirable to travel to. This lays a nice foundation to give enemies a system to more smartly traverse the arena and achieve a particular goal. We still haven't addressed our pathfinding requirement. At this point, enemies don't follow a particular path to a node, per say. They are still just moving left or right until a node tell them to jump (actually, they'll only jump if their current target node is above them), or their target node changes desirability and heads in that general direction. This does work well, but there are some edge cases where this breaks and a more robust system is need (in the GIF above, if the most desirable node is in the platforms above only reached by portals, the enemy doesn't know how to get there properly yet). More astute readers are probably screaming "A*! A*! A*!". That's probably going to be the next step in the system. So this is the current state of the enemy AI in Demons with Shotguns. The short term goal is to have smarter, more worthy enemies to face off against. The long term goal, possibly introducing bots into the Versus game modes. We'll see how things develop!

[ 2015-11-24 14:11:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.2.5 Now Available This build contains significant changes to the End of Times enemy wave controller logic. Originally the wave controller was defined by hand designed wave definition files, but now the controller is completely randomized, with specific logic to make the randomization “smart”. This system will continually be tuned and balanced. This build also introduce two more End of Times arenas, with arena unlocking progression; note the final arena (planned boss battle) is not yet complete and thus not unlockable at this point. Summary of changes (EoT = End of Times, Vs = Versus, G = General):

• EoT: Hell and Church End of Time arenas
• EoT: Arena unlocking; Watertower Terror now needs to be unlocked, along with the other arenas
• EoT: Save/Load system for arena unlocking progression, including Steam Cloud Save
• EoT: Randomized enemy wave controller
• EoT: Improved Nomed attack sound effects
• EoT: Improved Hellhound AI
• EoT: Number of player lives in End of Times is displayed above each player head
• Vs: Player respawn time now customizable via the Match Settings menu; for design reasons 2 seconds is the lowest possible setting
• EoT/Vs: Adjusted Sands of Time tarot card; time doesn’t slow down as much as previously
• EoT/Vs: Adjusted Possessed tarot card; doesn’t auto fire, but instead just increases fire rate
• EoT/Vs: Bug fix with holy water grenades colliding with lantern/lamp wires
• EoT/Vs: Bug fix with cages, lanterns, lamps and hanging rocks to break with collision with any layer
• G: Other miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
• G: Redesigned menu system, with improved usability; can now easily hold down button to scroll through multiple selections

[ 2015-11-20 15:16:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

This build includes two very small but important changes. Bug fix with how player gibs are setup; they explode is much more natural fashion.
Made Hell arena backgrounds darker to increase readability of foreground players and objects.

[ 2015-10-31 02:08:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy Halloween everyone! 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.

[ 2015-10-28 15:26:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

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).

[ 2015-10-07 22:16:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

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.

[ 2015-09-30 16:58:38 CET ] [ Original post ]