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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Everything here is available to download now... so update, explore and destroy!
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 :)
All of this is live now so update Smith and Winston! steamfacepalm
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
Another quick update with some bug fixes and a new BETA area for your feedback.
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:
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
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.
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.
"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:
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?
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:
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