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Name | Smith and Winston | |
Developer | Execution Unit Ltd | |
Publisher | Execution Unit Ltd | | |
Tags | Indie Singleplayer Co-op | | |
Release | 2019-01-08 | |
Steam | € £ $ / % |
News | 22 |
Controls | Keyboard Mouse Full Controller Support |
Players online |  n/a  |
Steam Rating | Positive |
Steam store |  https://store.steampowered.com/app/942250  |
SteamSpy |
Peak CCU Yesterday | |
Owners |  0 .. 20,000 +/-   |
Players - Since release |   +/- |
Players - Last 2 weeks |   +/- |
Average playtime (forever) | 0 |
Average playtime (last 2 weeks) | 0 |
Median playtime (forever) | 0 |
Median playtime (last 2 weeks) | 0 |
Public Linux depots | Smith and Winston Linux Depot [157.89 M]
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LINUX STREAMERS (0)
Boxing day bug smashing bonanza |
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.
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[ 2019-12-26 17:25:46 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Halloweeeeen Sale and Helmets |
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.
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[ 2019-10-28 18:01:04 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Wibble - (update 1.0.1) |
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.
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[ 2019-08-29 15:04:10 CET ] [ Original post ] |
We made it... just. Release Day! |
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.
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[ 2019-08-27 21:53:12 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Release Date Set: 27th of August |
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.
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[ 2019-08-16 17:56:49 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Just one more thing... |
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.
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[ 2019-08-08 16:27:00 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Develop Indie Showcase 2019: Video |
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
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[ 2019-08-03 17:48:50 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Develop Indie Showcase 2019 |
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
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[ 2019-06-18 12:24:59 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Update #10 - Power Cubes, Shippy, New Levels, More Debris and much more! |
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
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[ 2019-05-23 17:04:36 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Update #6 - New Levels, Shield is Live and a Rejig. |
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?
So when you start a new game you get to see a little 30 second intro sequence which helps to set the scene a little.
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.
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[ 2019-03-06 16:55:52 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Prototyping a shield... whadda ya think? |
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)
Finally I can get the spread pickup!
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?
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[ 2019-02-27 16:15:31 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Patch 2 to Update #3 available today. |
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.
Happy Exploring andDestroying
dazza
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[ 2019-01-22 14:46:31 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Small Patch to Update #3 |
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
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[ 2019-01-14 12:38:12 CET ] [ Original post ] |
Getting Close to Update #1 |
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.
Thanks for reading, thanks for playing and remember to buy now because the price is gonna go up to $7.99 once Update #1 is out!
have a great week
dazza
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[ 2018-10-26 14:55:17 CET ] [ Original post ] |