After Christmas I like to sit at my computer, barely able to touch the keyboard due to my distended belly, barely able to see the screen because of my beer goggles, and upload a new patch to Smith and Winston.
Well there was this bug report and from that there was a bit of testing and a bit of crashing and soul searching.
When entering the end of level portal some idiot had written some code that deleted the entire world and then tried to delete bits of it again causing the game to crash.
Behold a new build has been born.
Have fun, Merry Christmas and a Happy new year!
dazza.
[ 2019-12-26 16:25:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Whether you're planning to go out and scare your neighbours, let off a bazillion Diwali fireworks or follow the ancient Celtic harvest traditions and sculpt a turnip in to a truly terrifying object (honestly, don't click that link if turnips scare you) we've got some all hallows' eve fun for you!
Behold! free in game helmets that are themed in a silly way and make no sense in the strange shattered ring world that is Smith and Winston! Why are we not charging for these tiny easy to build and add to the game items you ask? Because we are not douche bags we reply in a spooky voice .
So scary ....
Have fun and whatever you are celebrating we hope you have a great time.
Dazza & Charlie
PS: The new helmets are already in your Collectables menu, you don't need to find them in the game.
[ 2019-10-28 17:01:04 CET ] [ Original post ]
If you played the game and the whole screen was blurry or even wibbly-wobbly like the fire on the right... or if the plants weren't gently swaying like young optimistic teens at a school disco pontificating on whether Britney really did want to be hit one more time then we've got news for you!
It was a cunning plan to remind you that you were playing with OpenGL on an NVidia card. Now that's done we've fixed the bug, I mean wibble.
We also patched a few particles that were naughty and won't be allowed out to play again.
Have fun Exploring and Destroying.
[ 2019-08-29 13:04:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Obviously we totally know what we're doing and nothing went wrong at all in the Steam back end and we didn't have to open a support query and have a massive panic at all... no siree.
Have fun, we hope you like our weird sense of humour and don't forget to use the buddy mode in coop to play with your friends and family... it's hilarious.
Thanks to everyone that gave feed back, reported bugs and said nice things. Every little thing was massive to us and spurred us on through some tough times.
Explore and Destroy
Dazza and Charlie.
[ 2019-08-27 19:53:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've set the release date for Smith and Winston. It's been a very very long road to get here. Thanks to everyone that has given feed back and encouragement. It really has helped. We have of course created a little trailer: https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=A26srWhEuOI&feature=share So long and thanks for all the fish.
[ 2019-08-16 15:56:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
We discovered a pretty weird and quite delightful bug in macOS builds using Metal as the renderer yesterday. It happens on all builds (Windows, Linux and macOS) with all renderers (OpenGL, DX11 and DX12) but Metal looked the best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ZZcvWBR3M
If you remember the old days with four color CGA graphics adapters then this is pretty nostalgic :)
For the technically inquisitive: This happened when the engine only gave the shaders 7 lights instead of the mandatory eight and only happened on very rare occasions. So the eighth light in the scene has some other random settings for it's position, color, brightness etc.
We also fixed a bug where we rendered very expensive particle systems when they were offscreen... so yeah, this will help people who were dropping frame rates a little.
Have fun exploring and destroying and we hope your summer holidays are going great.
dazza.
[ 2019-08-08 14:27:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Jupiter Hadley (twitter: @Jupiter_Hadley) made an great little montage video showing Develop 2019 including a little clip of Smith and Winston. I thought you'd like to see it. Lots of interesting games in there that might grab your attention. We uploaded the final Smith and Winston beta a few days ago. The game is now complete and we'll be "releasing" it pretty soon. We're working on a new trailer video and fixing any issues that players being to our attention. If you want to wishlist us or even write a review we'd be very grateful. It all helps :) https://youtu.be/BLR12WGXiNo Have fun Exploring and Destroying, dazza
[ 2019-08-03 15:48:50 CET ] [ Original post ]
Like a fine wine or soft cheese Smith and Winston makes us dizzy and smells like feet! But you want to know why it's not finished yet?
This is a picture of the VOIDs home. He's a tidy fellow really but he's been stealing all those monoliths for some reason and plugging them in!
We are very close to finishing. We're planning on releasing the complete game early next week but still marking it as beta. Then after a few weeks of final testing tweaking and poking we'll release it to the world so it can stink up everyones refrigerators.
We got delayed by Develop conference in Brighton. We were one of ten games that got chosen from nearly two hundred applicants. It was great fun but quite tiring for two old farts like me and Charlie. Because develop is for industry people we got a lot of crazy feedback but also some really valuable comments on things like the camera and controls that we really wanted to fix. We met up with loads of people we'd seen at EGX-Rezzed and people I worked with over 20 years ago on PSX games and wow that was weird! I wish I had more time to drink and chat but we were working... sort of.
Develop Stand
Here is a picture of our stand and yes we did print out little pictures of Smith and Winston and glue them to our monitor :) There is nothing in life that can't be made just a little bit more silly.
Brighton
This is a picture of Brighton, on the south coast of England. It a lovely old Victorian seaside town. There are quite a few game developers based there. It's only about an hours train ride from London. As with all seaside towns there are a lot of gulls and the big ones attack! Charlie had a whole sandwich taken from his hands while sitting on the beach! Finally, thanks for sticking with us. We'll get the release ready for next week and you should see Steam happily updating and slowing down your Netfix stream. EXPLORE AND DESTROY! dazza.
[ 2019-07-26 16:13:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are pretty chuffed to announce that Smith and Winston has been selected for the Indie Game Showcase at Develop: Brighton 2019 here in the UK.
Develop is an industry event where developers from all over Europe get together and talk shop. We're very surprised and quite elated that Smith and Winston is one of the 10 games that has been selected by an expert panel. We didn't even have to bribe them with cake! The nine other game are all amazing and well worth a look if you are looking for great indie games to play.
https://www.developconference.com/whats-on/indie-showcase
Charlie and I will both be there running a stand so if you happen to be a developer in Europe... come and Explore and Destroy!
dazza
[ 2019-06-18 10:24:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Everything here is available to download now... so update, explore and destroy!
New levels to explore
Spynall Tapp Where the demons dwell if you can find the secret door at least.
Asteroid Youve made it to the surface of the Asteroid. The space ship that the VOID used to gather the monoliths to unleash his power its a bit weird on the giant cube.
These are the final two levels before you enter the Asteroid to face the VOID itself.
Escape from the teacher
Listen, we all know that you hate training levels. But we also know that some people need them. So weve added a get out quick door at the beginning. So if you are super l337 hard core haX0r twin stick aficionado then you dont need to sit through it.
Its certain flowers that give you coins.
We got an interesting bug report that sometime you picked up a power cube but it didnt appear in the HUD. After some digging we realised that it wasnt clear that some flowers give you a coin. So now when you get a power cube an icon appears to let you know its a power cube youve collected and not a coin.
Power Cubes
Speaking of power cubes. You collect them to repair shippy, well at least thats what she tells you at the beginning of the game. Well now they are needed to power the spinning portal doors. After feedback from EGX we realised that people were just powering through the levels and not taking the time to smell the roses and explore a little. There is a lot to find in all the levels so this is a little hint to chill a bit, destroy a bit more and dig for some POWER! The number of power cubes needed is written at the top of the door because the aliens that inhabit this shattered ring world are all highly organised and probably have a spreadsheet about these sorts of things.
Sarcastic Shippy
When you jumped to a new level Shippy told you some useful information about how many enemies youd killed, how many power cubes you got and all that stuff. Well that was far too nice of Shippy so now she tells you sometimes useful information and sometimes sarcastic information.
Bug Fixes and tweaks.
Screen SHAKE Shenanigans!
- Screen shake is worked out for each co-op player independently so now, just as you were making that difficult boost across a gap, your coop partner cant throw a grenade making the whole screen shake.
- If the screen was shaking because, say, a large block was moving, and you threw a grenade well all hell broke loose and the screen shook like a wet dog. Thats fixed now.
- If youve turned off the screen shake then maybe give it another go.
- Better physics on low end machines
- Physics uses more cores if youve got them
- Up debris in options > game > debris
Faster loading and rendering
Weve sped up the loading of levels a tiny bit by being a bit more clever or less dumb. We no longer build the same model thousands of times per level and just do it once. Thank you for recognising my genius. Have fun exploring and destroying. dazza
[ 2019-05-23 15:04:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Save the coop
Weve turned on save games for coop. So now you can officially continue a coop game youve been playing with your buddy.
Coop rebirth
If one of the coop player runs out of lives they will be given a free life with a full shield if you can get to the next level. Were prototyping an in-level recovery mechanism where a pick up can recover the lost player. Were not sure if the pickup should come from killing, destruction or just add it to the extra life pickup. Any ideas?
Buddy Mode
We think this is a big one. In buddy mode player 2 can never be killed and if they fall off of the level they get respawned. We wanted a way to play Smith and Winston with our young kids. Hopefully youll find it useful. Its part of our design mantra of always making the player feel powerful. There are some really interesting tactics that you can use in buddy mode with your kids or less-gamer-like friends and its fun and thats all that really matters in life.
Oh coop partner, wherefore art thou!
You can turn on a little icon that appears when your coop partner goes offscreen. Yeah the levels can get quite confusing after blowing them to pieces and spinning around for a few minutes :)
Language update
Weve updated all the German, French and Spanish strings in the game with google-translated strings that match the English. They got out of sync with the EGX Rezzed build. Sorry.
No more clever, adjust the slider
We tried to be clever and add a dynamic debris load balancing system and it didnt work. The code tried to monitor how long the CPU took to calculate all the debris physics and adjust the amount of debris on screen in a super clever way. Well it turns out it was bloody rubbish! So now there is a slider in options > game that you can slide up or down to increase and decrease the amound of debris. Its stupid, but it works.
Shippy
Weve added some more sarcastic shippy comments through out the levels because shes funny and we like adding sarcastic messages when we get a few minutes. Have fun exploring and destroying.
[ 2019-04-18 13:59:28 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've releaed a new update to Smith and Winston, so while it's downloading behind your back why not read this and be amazed :)
Shattering
For a long time weve had the world blowing up in to tiny voxels. This has been very satisfying for everyone. Weve made it even more satisfying now by creating big chunks of floor and walls from the world when you blow it up.
Tree Collapse
Cutting the bottom out of a tree is one of the first things that players do. When it doesn't fall a lot of players feel cheated. So now the tree will fall down shattering in to bits in the process. This is oh.. so... good :)
Head over Heels for Coop.
We recently showed Smith and Winston at EGX Rezzed in London. Coop mode went down a complete storm. "Best Game of the Show", "So satisfying" were just two of the many comments we got from all different types of gamers and we're still beaming from hearing all the kind words. Coop mode isn't complete and there are still a few issues but it's so much fun we want everyone to join in with a friend and blow some stuff up. One notable ommision is that we haven't got save games working and when a player dies there is no way to revive them just yet but fixes for those are coming soon. Dig in.
Better Debris
One of the challenges with Smith and Winston is managing all the tiny cubes that fly around. They are relatively expensive to draw (for what they are) and they are very expensive to do the collision for but oh they are so satisfying. So in this update we've added a more flexible system where if they are getting too expensive we remove them from the scene more quickly keeping the framerate up for all players and allowing players with monster machines to get even more debris! This is especially useful in coop where people seem to spend most of their time mining out the floor from under their 'coop partner' :)
Mining freeze
At the EGX rezzed show we learned that a lot of users were just using the mining laser to shoot everything, the world and the enemies. This is cool but when someone said "I don't think you should give the player a shotgun from the beginning!" we realised that we'd got the mining laser all wrong. So for mining the laser hasn't changed at all but now it freezes enemies it hits for a second or so giving the player time to change weapon. Give it a go and see what you think.
Quicker level restores
With all this new destruction we started to notice that when the player died and we have to revert the level back to it's original state it was taking too long. This has been even more optimized now so it doesn't get in the way of your fun.
New title page and new intro movie
No one likes a long boring intro movie but we've made one just to annoy you even more. Trust me it's very short, gives you an insight in to Shippy and why she's a little mad and hopefully as we finish up the single player mode you'll enjoy her more as a character. We're working really hard to making her a richer and more rewarding part of the game. We changed the title page just because it so cool to see Shippy in space!
Thanks to all our supporters
Lastly but definitely not leastly we'd like to say thanks to all that have bought the game and supported us. We are just two guys making a game. It's completely self funded, we don't have a wealthy backer or publisher and sometimes we need to take on contract work to pay the bills. It's really frustrating but that's life. Once again, thanks for your patience and kindness.
Tweaks
A lot of small things that players have asked for:
- Disable ALT-F4 from killing the game.
- Better controller detection and actions when unplugged/plugged in
- Correct controller names in the HUD
- Enemy shots are more controlled, sometimes they fired at weird angles which sucked
- Turn on/off Depth of Field (video menu)
- Turn on/off Shadows (video menu)
- Turn on/off Bloom (video menu)
- Enable/Disable screen saver kicking in (video menu)
[ 2019-04-10 13:05:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
All of this is live now so update Smith and Winston! steamfacepalm
Story and Arcade Merged
If youve been following along youll know that originally there were two game modes: Story and Arcade. With the introduction of the shield (see below) and thus the removal of one shot death these two modes seems a waste of time. So they are merged. The downside of this is that everyones saves games are now invalid so, unfortunately, everyone has been kicked back to boot camp and has to start the mission again. The good news is that the mission is much clearer, much more balanced and starts a lot easier because of the shield.
Introductory Offer
Lets be honest no one really likes a cut scene but they are sometimes necessary. We found that people were asking questions like:
- Who are Smith and Winston?
- Am I playing as Smith or Winston?
- Why is shippy such an asshat?
- Is shippy the ship?
- How many potatoes are there is each voxel?
Training
The cut scene plops you in to a little training area now where you can learn the controls. Weve removed most of the introduction Shippy Beacons from the start of the game now. A lot of players just ignored them and Shippys voice was just too annoying
Calm down Shippy!
Weve re-synthesized Shippy so shes FAR less annoying to the players ears, especially when wearing headphones. So if youve turned down the shippy volume you may want to turn it back up for a bit.
Shiela Sha-poo-pee Shields
Weve added a shield. This means you can take three hits before losing a life. This makes a huge difference to the game. Its amazing. We said wed never do it but in the end, the players were correct, the game is better with a shield.
Bossing the Boss around
Based on the feedback we got about the Chopper Boss weve moved him to be the first boss that you see. Its a better boss, it plays better than bunker boss and this gives us a chance to revisit the Bunker Boss and make him better.
New Levels
Weve added three new levels to the game each with distinct eeriness, distinct enemies and one of them is based on my personal addiction to Paprika Pringles.. but its probably not clear which.
Anyway, thats it for now. Were going to get a build ready for EGX Rezzed in London 4th-6th of April, 2019. If youre around be sure to drop by and say hi. Have fun exploring and destroying and thanks for all your help. be seeing you dazza.
[ 2019-03-06 15:55:52 CET ] [ Original post ]
After quite a lot of feedback from players we're prototyping a shield in the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP9q7huXdnc This is part of a bit of a reorganisation of the game. We're merging "story" and arcade mode in to one to make a better game. Originally story mode was essentially the same as arcade mode except when you ran out of lives you could continue from the beginning of the level you just died on and your score was reset. Even while typing this I can hear what a complete mess of an idea that sounds like steamfacepalm When you make a game you often get lost in ideas, pause, look at the idea and realise it's been through some sort of transporter accident and it needs to be humanely killed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIiNbDVQMRE So now we're planning
- one mode of play (and coop of course)
- a shield with three slots (so the fourth hit kills you).
- shield pickups that recharges one of the three slots
- less life pick ups (to give the shield pickup some value)
Let us know what you think. The artwork and sound effects are all prototypes. Do you like the idea, hate the idea, think we're idiots, wonder where all the potatoes hide at night?
[ 2019-02-27 15:15:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Another quick update with some bug fixes and a new BETA area for your feedback.
Hollow Holo
We hear you and agree we're really not happy with the way we use Shippy to teach the player how to play Smith and Winston. It's boring and annoying. Training areas in games are always hard tbh so we're having another go at it. As part of a brand new intro sequence the player will be sent, by shippy, to a holodeck training area to learn the buttons and get a feel for controlling Smith and Winston before getting stuck in.
The shippy text is all provisional and untranslated and we've not added Shippy's patented rudeness or voice yet What do you think? Is it a better way to introduce the game? Please give feed back in the discussion area steamhappy More feedback on the Chopper boss is very much appreciated as well steamfacepalm
After this the player will see a little cut scene explaining how the ship crashes and then they are straight in to playing the "second" level "Sunshine and Showers"
Bug Fixes
Toilet Sound If you happened to die in a bit of the game with reverb turned on (echoy sound effects etc.) then you were stuck playing the rest of the game like you were in a toilet. Should be fixed now. White.... so white Some textures didn't render correctly in OpenGL on any platform. This was because we were blending two texture together one of which didn't exist... yeah, that's fixed now as well... oops.
Less chatter, more batter
That's it, have a great weekend, Explore and Destroy and if you've got a bit of spare time jump in the discussion area of Steam or itch and tell us what you think of the holodeck, chopper boss or anything else about the game. be seeing you dazza.
[ 2019-02-22 14:58:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've released a new update to Smith and Wintston! This is mainly a metric ton of tweaks to the first half of the game to make it more balanced and more fun to play. Thanks to everyone that gave us feedback and helped make the game even better.
Features:
- Added in the Chopper boss. This is the middle boss in the game. Hes pretty epic (testable via the new BETA TEST menu)
- Added a BETA TEST menu so player can test specific features of the game and give us feedback without destroying their Arcade Save games. Well be adding things to this menu and asking for feedback a lot we think.
- Added a button for twitter and facebook in the title screen
- Tweaking/Balancing of lives and ammo based on player feedback and streamer videos
- Added disabled story and coop buttons to the main menu so players know they will be there activated at some point :)
- After the player dies in a level specific enemies dont restore so it becomes slightly easier to finish the level. The cost to the player is that they will get a slightly lower score because there are less enemies to kill.
Engine Changes:
- Upgraded BGFX rendering code. At least 10% faster on all platforms.
- Added Metal rendering engine for macOS (8x faster than OpenGL)
- Added OpenGL rendering engine for Windows
- macOS and Windows can select the rendering engine to use in Options > Video
Bug Fixes:
- Fix for some of the trophies not being present
- Skip cutscene text is now correct for controller, KB/Mouse users.
- Ping Game Boy helmet renamed to the correct Pink Game Boi
- Chopper based enemies can now be hit by grenades
- Mining Laser now shoots from closer to the player so that when right up against the wall it actually hits it. This makes running through the caves and mines a lot easier.
- In some levels the player plows through snow or mud, after they died this stopped working, this is fixed.
- Some GameObject (enemies, pickups etc) were not restoring after player death
- long german and spanish phrases should now in to text boxes
- custom in game cursors appear in front of the shippy text.
[ 2019-02-17 16:21:29 CET ] [ Original post ]
Another patch, this one has bug fixes and a few features. Nearly everything here has been reported by players so a big thanks to everyone that helped. We're getting close to releasing new levels soon as well steammocking
NewFeatures:
- Camera shake can be adjusted in Options > Game > CameraShake
- Controller rumble can be adjusted in Options > Game >Rumble
- Added three custom mouse cursors for KB/Mouse players, see Options > Controls >Mouse.
- Added a languages menu on Option where you can select the temporary translations for Spanish, German and French or the defaultEnglish.
Tweaks to thegame:
- Added a glow to in game switches to make them a bit moreobvious.
- Added a flashing light to Shippy beacons so you can ignore them even more:)
- Lava wasps now get killed by the exploding Lavaeggs.
- Spiders can be killed withgrenades.
- Dashing makes you invulnerable to explosions as well as bullets (while you are blue). So you can dash throughspiders.
- Some more sound design done in the Swamp of theReanimated.
- Added in more collectable helmets ( they have all now been placed in the game though some of them are on levels not yetreleased).
- Balanced pick up and weapon distribution e.g all main levels should have at least 2 lives inthem.
- Added some more air pick ups, the number of these dropped off quite quickly as you progressed through the levels, there should now be a few more to test yourdexterity.
- Small voxel changes to the levels, e.g. fixing voxels that the player was getting caught upon.
- Fixed lighting issues in Swamp of the Reanimated. Happened when the player went back through some of theportals.
- Made some of the hidden portals a little easier tospot.
- Labyrinth secret level is now a lot more forgiving and a wrong portal returns you to the same part of the level rather than the previous bit. Also the portal to the level exit has been differentiated from the otherones.
BugFixes:
- more robust loading of corrupt savegames.
- no longer hide the cursor when playing with a Controller. This leads to annoying issues for users when like to use the mouse to tweak options with the mouse but play the game with aController.
- When using the menus, pressing back selects the menu youve just come from to make menu navigation moreclear.
- Menu sliders now scale better for small resolutions(1024x768).
- When setting a controller action to use the B/Circle button (which is also menu back) set the option but do not go back to the previousmenu.
- KB/Mouse shooting is now more accurate, the players gun now faces the mouse position not theplayer.
- Fix for PSX controller Circle not appearing in Shippy dialogboxes
- Linux, using a non-English locale no longer stops levels loading and doesnt create corrupt userprefs files (thanks Stephan)
KnownIssues:
- long german and spanish phrases dont fit in to textboxes.
- custom in game cursors appear behind the shippytext.
[ 2019-01-22 13:46:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we released a 4.3MB patch to Smith and Winston fixing a few small issues that have been reported by players and one we noticed in a Twitchsteam.
Hot low endaction
On lower end machines players are having to turn down the amount of debris. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. So weve tweaked the physics a bit to get some more juice from your CPU and get some more debris on screen at 60fps.
Keeping yourhead!
Because we are idiots we didnt think about heads properly. So if you collected one of the hidden Collectable heads in the game you could never switch back to a standard Smith or Winston head. Well now youcan.
More text or space forit
Some of the shippy text when youre at the crash site didnt fit in the little shippy box. We know no one is going to read this text but we really want you to be able to ignore all of it properly, in its entirety withaplomb.
No deadflying!
When you were lying flat on your back, shot, wondering why you even started exploring this cursed ring world of DOOM you could press the boost button and fly up. This wasnt very useful to you and in many ways it was quite funny but NO STOP IT. youre dead;)
No moreequality
If you pressed the equals key (=) you seemed to randomly warp around the level even to places that you cant get to normally. We use this debug feature to quickly test new areas of the level and you were never supposed to have such powers because we just cant trust any of you naughty people can we? Look out for this feature accidentally being re-enabled because we are idiots;).
No more HOME
Another oversight was that pressing the HOME key brought up a very useful debug window with loads of wibbly buttons and sliders and gizmos and yeah, were idiots, thats not for you. Even I dont know what most of those buttonsdid.
Glyphs?
A glyph is a fancy word for one of the letters in a font. We cleaned up the glyphs that represent the controller buttons for PSX and XBox controllers so they are lesspoopy. Happy Exploring andDestroying dazza
[ 2019-01-14 11:38:12 CET ] [ Original post ]
Earlier than promised (by only a day) we've released the second update to Smith and Winston. Of course we're really excited to hear what you guys think of the new levels including another secret level! Can you find it?
Get lost in the ancient underground temples but watch out for the killer space slugs. They take a lot of hits to kill.
Get up high and survey the landscape, jumping to the left of me, enemies to the right and here I am stuck in the middle with... is that a weapon power up down there!
When you've spent the evening shooting, plundering and exploring why not take a trip to the Chalk and Flowers level. The sun is setting, the birds are chirping and the blossoms are blossoming. There's loot to be plundered here but it's not where you expect.
Of course this release comes with a hosts of bug fixes including a lovely crash bug that we've been hunting for a few years, an AI bug where they just jumped off the world for no reason and a sound bug where enemies would explode forever deafening everyone for one hundred miles. Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and gave feedback on here, Reddit and itch.io.
If you don't feel like buying the game then follow us on itch for more updates, Wishlist Smith and Winston on here or just check back here for info.
There will be more news about steam soon. If you buy the game on itch.io, we'll give you a Steam key when the game releases on Steam. We did intend to release on Steam this week but we've run in to a bug with Achievements and we don't want to release a buggy annoying game to you.
Explore and Destroy.
[ 2018-12-05 20:55:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
"How are we doing with the next update due on the 6th of December" I hear you ask, well I'm glad you asked because it's going really well. Update #2 is going great and we're on track to deliver it a few days early! We promised it for the 6th of December on itch.io but we'll probably upload it on the fourth. With this update you really get in to the core of the combat, every level but Chalk and Flowers has got some really challenging and time consuming to design combat. It's great fun, a little bit challenging but not too much, you're still in the first half of the game after all. The new levels are enigmatically called Bridge over Nothing, This Seems 'Nice', Deep Down Again, Back to the Daylight and "Chalk and Flowers". As ever you can buy Smith and Winston on itch.io or wishlist us on Steam. If you buy the game on itch.io we'll give you a Steam key on our Steam launch! Here are some pictures whet your appetite:
Bridge over Nothing
This Seems 'Nice'
Deep Down Again
Back to the Daylight
Chalk and Flowers
[ 2018-11-16 16:00:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
You can get Smith and Winston on itch.io NOW and you'll get a steam key when we release on Steam. We are amazingly happy to release Update #1 to everyone! It's been two weeks of hard work, over 50 bug fixes, three new levels and a metric tonne of tweaking and balancing. Thanks for all the feedback from the initial release. Smith and Winston is now EVEN better. So what is in the update?
BUNKER BOSS
You meet this guy right at the end of this update. He's a recurring enemy, he lives in a bunker that belches out fumes and he protects himself with enemy spawners and massive cannons. Do you think you've got what it takes to beat him?
SWAMP OF THE REANIMATED
So who would have though that near a damp, dinghy womble infested swamp there would a maze of lava caverns hiding a few secrets? Games designers, that's who. Everyone loves a lava section and if you don't... well you might not even find it.
CANDY
It's not all dark and dingy in the shattered ring world future of dooooom. Candy is so colourful it might make you sick... after Halloween I think we can all relate to that... even us brits who have inexplicably started to dress as ghouls for one day of the year! Why oh why is Smithy sitting in that strange hole though...
MAZE
Leave the dark and enter the light after the maze. This place must have been lovely before... well before it all went wrong.
COLLECTABLE HELMETS
THAT'S IT UNTIL THE NEXT UPDATE
We're, of course, very proud of what we're releasing to all you lucky people today. To be honest though it's so much better for all the feedback you've given us. From tweaking the controls to huge holes in the level design you've been fantastic partners in the making of Smith and Winston. The next update is scheduled for the 6th of December, more levels, more destruction and more fun. Thanks... now go forth... EXPLORE AND DESTROY
[ 2018-11-02 15:35:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
You can get the first-access version of Smith and Winston on itchio here. Once the game is on Steam you'll be able to ask for a key.
We're working hard on the next release for Smith and Winston. With the initial release we promised an "Update #1" on November the 2nd and we're on track to deliver.
The next release includes levels called Swamp of the Reanimated, Deep, Bunker Boss and Candy. Hardcore gamers amongst you may be able to tell one of those levels is a boss level!
As well as working toward Update #1 we're also looking far forward to Update #4 which will include Coop game play.
Coop is already great fun just because you can throw a grenade and destroy the floor your partner is standing on, watch them fall to their doom and the proclaim it was an accident!
Coop includes a special buddy mode.In buddy mode player 2 can't die from being shot. So you can hand the second half broken, sticky, mutant controller to your kid or younger brother and play the game with them. It's great fun and what gaming is all about as far as we're concerned. Of course you can still accidentally destroy the floor out from beneath them... for science or brotherly love :)
It should also be obvious that there are a lot of parents that will be playing as buddy to their far more capable child!
As well as adding these new levels for everyone to play we've fixed a number of bugs. Thanks to everyone who reported bugs via email, twitter, itch.io, reddit and to our faces in meat space. Here are a few other little feature requests that will be in this update:
- Change weapon with the mouse wheel
- Reset controller settings and keyboard settings to default
- Pause menu has an option to return to game (you don't have to press escape or 'start' again)
- Grave markers no longer pop up some text or appear floating in the middle of nowhere if you die by falling off the world
- Cleaner font for the menus
- Better glyphs for the controller icons (X, Square etc)
- Option to turn off or lower the volume of shippy, poor shippy, so annoying.
- High score table!
- LAVA, well there is a level with lava, every game needs a lava level.
[ 2018-10-26 12:55:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
🎮 Full Controller Support
- Smith and Winston Linux Depot [157.89 M]
Taking on the role of Smith or Winston, two hapless mercenaries, you explore a newly discovered shattered ring world and uncover the secrets of the natives and the impending doom of the star system. Only you can save the system from the evil that awaits... or not.
Hand built
The world needs more hand crafted games. We love procedurally generated games but there is nothing like a level designed by a human for a human.Exploration
There are many strange places to explore in Smith and Winston along with secrets and puzzles to discover and items to collect. You'll need a sharp eye to spot some of them and a bit of dexterity to reach others. But there's plenty to discover.Challenging twin stick combat
There's no health bars and with limited lives dodging is as important as shooting. Don't worry we've given you the tools to survive. From guns and power ups, grenades and missile launchers, to being able to sculpt the terrain to your advantage. How you defeat enemies is up to you.Free Flowing Movement
Smith and Winston come with some cool toys, a jump pack boost for going up and a dash for going fast. Great for dodging bullets but even better for reaching new areas. Combine these for bigger and further jumps. Dash, boost, dash can get you a long way but a clever use of the terrain and our in game physics can get you higher and further.Voxels
We love 'em. In a voxel world the player can destroy nearly everything and you have the equipment to do just that. From mining lasers to dig out secrets to grenades that blast holes in everything. Use these tactically or just to make a hole and laugh as you adversary falls helplessly to their doom.Camera
Smith and Winston is a full 3D game and to take advantage of that we added in a few things. A rotatable 360° camera lets you see what you want and 3 angles of tilt, fancy a more cinematic perspective, just drop the camera angle.Collectibles
Collect and swap your heads there a lot to find and finding them all won’t be easy and with our Steam release we'll be adding Steam achievements and cards too.- OS: Ubuntu 14.04
- Processor: Intel i3Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD
- Storage: 300 MB available space
- OS: Ubuntu 18.04
- Processor: Intel i7
- Graphics: Nvidia 1050GTX
- Storage: 300 MB available space