Screw Drivers News

Dear Screw Drivers Community,

Allow me to briefly introduce myself: Dieter here, CEO and founder of Headup. I rarely get involved with communications, so reaching out to you, the players, is somewhat new to me - hoping to strike the right tone. 😊

The reason I’m writing today is to share some happy news and give you some insight into our - well, actually, your - numbers for the game. I know it’s not common practice to do this, but I feel it might be interesting for some of you.

First, I’m thrilled to share that Screw Drivers has hit an outstanding milestone this week, thanks to all of you. The game has shattered expectations, with over half a million (yes, 500,000+) Steam users claiming it, leaving us absolutely speechless.


Here’s a breakdown of some key numbers as of this moment:

• 500,000 free licenses claimed (meaning players have added it to their library)
  
• Over 315,000 unique users have played the game so far
  
• It currently has an 87% positive user rating from about 2,500 reviews
  
• And what makes us most proud: The community has created and shared almost 13,000 (!) Workshop items for the game, ranging from cars and planes to really unique machinery. This is what we always dreamed of when we started the project - giving you the tools and watching the players go wild and create amazing things!

On behalf of both the studio and the publishing team, I want to express our deepest gratitude for joining us on this journey and dedicating your time and love to the game. We know you have countless other entertainment options competing for your time, so believe me when I say how much we appreciate the time you’ve spent with us.

On the flip side, I’d also like to share some information about the game’s financials. So far, we’ve prefunded all development and marketing efforts, by offering only a supporter pack. To be transparent, about 3,000 players have supported us with a purchase, translating to roughly 1% of all players (or 0.6% of all licenses claimed). While we’re incredibly thankful for every supporter (sending our biggest hugs), as you can see, this is not a sustainable level of income to support ongoing development in the long term. We consciously chose this route in the beginning, and the numbers and feedback have validated the relevance of the game to you and to us.

Our vision is to establish Screw Drivers as a growing and free sandbox for all engineers, drivers, and creators in the future. We don’t want to rely on FOMO-driven purchases or artificial paywalls. What I’m trying to say is: We’re on a quest to find the fairest and most honest free-to-play monetization model that will allow the game’s development to thrive without taking away the fun or opportunities from the community.

So what’s the plan? We will keep the game free. Period. Quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, more localizations, game modes, you name it. Instead of creating barriers, we want to offer more sophisticated experiences to players who want to dive deeper. While I can’t (and don’t want to 😊) reveal the exact roadmap yet, we’ll be introducing theme-based DLC packs at reasonable prices, allowing for the creation of more advanced or themed vehicles. This way, you will still be able to enjoy the game for free, but there will be an optional, additional layer for the most dedicated creators.

We’re committed to being as transparent, honest, and approachable as possible and look forward to continuing this journey with our most valuable asset - you, the players, and the time you invest in the game!

Sincerely,
Dieter
CEO/Founder, Headup


TL;DR: HALF A MILLION O_O! Thank you, thank you, thank you!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1279510/Screw_Drivers/

Happy Thursday, friends!

And what a Thursday it is! Just in case you didn't know yet: it's (the highly official) “Damage Model and Car Classes” Thursday today. And we're celebrating this with a new update for Screw Drivers!

Namely with the update V0.3.13.1, which is also called the “Damage Model and Car Classes” Update. for this we completely updated the damage model, and added a new UI to visualize the health of the vehicle. There are now also 37 new car classes, you can drive against the ghost of your personal best, and much more.

See for yourself:

[h3]Full changelog of v0.3.10.12[/h3]


Damage Model

We completely updated the damage model, and at the same time we added a new UI to visualize the health of the vehicle.

There are five things which changed in the way vehicles take damage:

• Before, the amount of damage taken increased when the vehicle was heavier. So a vehicle weighing 1000kg did take double the amount of damage when crashing compared to a 500kg vehicle. This is now changed, so the weight of the own vehicle doesn’t affect the amount of damage taken.
  
• Before, the amount of damage taken was linear to the velocity when crashing. Now, the amount of damage scales with the square of the velocity when crashing. This means, at lower speeds you will now take less damage than before, and when crashing with higher speeds vehicles now take more damage.
  
• Before, the damage has been propagated through the vehicle evenly. Now the damage is propagated more towards the upper parts of a vehicle, and a little less to the parts at the bottom. This is not realistic, but it helps to protect the wheels of vehicles. It also means, that you can how build some chassis construction towards the top of your vehicle to make it more resistant against crashes.
  
• If you lose engines your car will also lose power. The powertrain is not recalculated to correctly adjust the power curve, but depending on the power of the broken engine, your vehicle will lose an according percentage of total power. You can also see this in the new damage UI whenever an engine breaks apart.
  
• If you lose mechanical building blocks like gears, axles, wheels or engines, your top speed will be reduced slightly. You can also see this in the new damage UI as soon as you lose some mechanical building blocks.

On top of the top speed and power reduction, you can now also see the amount of downforce your vehicle has, and the amount of wheels that are still intact. And in the middle you can see the total damage your vehicle has taken.



New car classes

We completely overdid it, and we replaced the old car classes ranging from F to S+ with 37 new car classes. The old car classes tried to estimate, how fast a car is overall. Since that’s insanely difficult and didn’t work out that well, we now created the new car classes which categorize all vehicles according to three aspects:

• Acceleration
  
• Downforce
  
• Weight and Tip-Over

This separates all vehicles according to these three stats. There are four areas of accelerations, three areas of downforce and three differentiating vehicles by their weight and tip-over value. This makes 36 car classes. And to get to 37, we created a new car class specifically for propeller vehicles. So if your vehicle has any downforce and it has a rotatable hinge joint, it will be considered a propeller vehicle. This should help to differentiate prop cars from other cars and gives them a special leaderboard.

We will let you play around with the car classes yourself, and let us know what you think!



Drive against the ghost of your personal best

That’s right, the game now stores your personal best laps for each challenge. When you drive a challenge a second time, you can enable and disable the ghosts you wanna drive against. These are the bronze, silver and gold medals as well as your personal best and your personal best in your current car class.




Major Changes

• We added a lot of big signs to most challenges. They should help to make it more visible and more clear where the track is going and where sharp curves are ahead.
  
• New calculation of acceleration statistic (again). Now the game only looks at the power curve between 0 and 100 km/h and calculates a weighted area of the curve. This weighted area makes acceleration in lower speeds more important than acceleration values of higher speeds close to 100km/h.
  
• Added new optional challenge: Pepper Sprint

Minor Changes

• Added two entries to the general settings, where you can invert the mouse movement for the camera in driving mode.
  
• When you try to add a creative mode car or a workshop vehicle to your garage in career, the game now shows you how much money you are missing, in case you don’t have enough money to buy all the missing parts right now.
  
• We reduced the details resolution of the terrain, which reduces the amount of polygons being rendered.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug which allowed you to instantly teleport to the finish line in acceleration challenges or in A-to-B challenges.
  
• Fixed tech tree unlock condition of the worm gear. Now it can be unlocked on the Double 8 challenge or the Rock and Drift challenge.
  
• The center of mass indicator isn’t tilted anymore.
  
• In the combustion engine tutorial, the red outline wasn’t showing to indicate the removal of the small electric engine. This should now be fixed.
  
• Fixed a bug where the center of mass of all rigidbodies was calculated wrongly when repairing the vehicle.
  
• When pressing the 'X' button on the controller in the building editor, the context menu of the garage opened and closed without being visible. This is now fixed.
  
• Fixed the calculation of the tip-over value, which sometimes was higher than it actually is when using multiple rigidbodies in one vehicle.
  
• Fixed a bug where the turbo and the big combustion engine weren’t unlockable anymore in the giant bridge challenge, since I screwed up something there accidentally. Should work again now.
  
• We fixed the destructable objects which weren’t working correctly: Barrel, small fence and the lantern.

Drive safe, friends!
Marc and Simon / Creactstudios


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1279510/Screw_Drivers/

Greetings, drivers and tinkerers!

Since Razer officially announced and released a variety of Sensa HD Haptics peripherals to the market whilst RazerCon a minute ago and announced a number of supporting games as well, we are finally able to talk about it:

Screw Drivers will be one of the early games in 2024 supporting Sensa HD Haptics feedback through Razer's HD Haptic gaming cushion Razer Freyja and the brand-new wireless flagship headset Razer Kraken V4 Pro!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3curTeOi6E

So, if you literally want to feel the various engine speeds, crashes that break down your vehicle, or different surfaces like smooth asphalt or rough gravel, you'll have the chance to do so! Screw Drivers will also support the Chroma RGB lighting ecosystem to further expand the game even further beyond the limits of your monitor.

We are big fans of strengthening the immersion of video games and making it possible to experience games with as many senses as possible! We will soon provide you with more information about the Sensa HD Haptics support. Promise!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and talk to you again really soon!
Creactstudios


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1279510/Screw_Drivers/

Greetings everyone,

Every day, we see new, unique creations shared in the Steam Workshop, and we are always stunned by how creative people can be. In Show and Tell, we are taking a deeper look at some of the great creations and the people behind those creations!

In this first episode of Show and Tell, we are looking at a vehicle that is not about being on the road but more to be in the sky. How is that possible? We don’t know, but let’s see what Spectre, the creator of ‘Fancy Plane’ has to say.



How long have you been playing Screw Drivers?
At the time of writing, I had a combined total of around 200 hours in the game, but at the time of creating Fancy Plane 1.0, I had only 18 hours.

How did you find out about the game, and what made you decide to play the game?
I saw Scrapman's first video on the Screw Drivers Demo and got so inspired I stopped watching halfway through to play the game.

What can you tell us about your vehicle?
I know it is among the first flying machines created in this game (1.0). I've been working hard on improving flight stability and multiplayer support. Otherwise, it is just a very simple plane. I know there are better ones out there, but I'm proud of being one of the first to introduce propellers to the masses.

How did you come up with the name of the vehicle?
I've never been good at naming things. I just named it what it was; I think it looks fancy :D

How long did it take to create it, and do you know how many pieces there are?
It's been a couple of months since I originally built the first version, but I remember it took about 3 hours. Version 2.1 states it has 303 parts.

Did you create it for a specific challenge, or why did you decide to create it?
I only built it to see if I could. Prior to building it, I had not seen any flying machines in screwdrivers; I wasn't even on Discord. I figured the spoiler parts were simple enough to create a propeller with, and I was right!

If you could choose a new feature to add to the game, what would it be?
Stunts. Those were fun in the demo to get loads of money.

Do you have any tips for a new player or someone who wants to get better at building vehicles?
Other people's creations can be a huge learning experience. Don't forget that you can duplicate other people’s creations and tear them apart in the editor to see how they work.

Do you have any favorite vehicle from the Workshop that you use or take inspiration from?
Of course, the "Bluey-7 Helicopter" by Operator Snow. He personally showed me how to add a custom thumbnail to my creation (His helicopter was the first ever to have one), and I don't think my plane would be the 10th most subscribed vehicle in the workshop without him.

Comments from the Developers: “I am impressed with how you figured out how to build a propeller system yourself without even looking at other flying vehicles. Even if we did not yet implement anything supporting such flying machines, the player of Screw Drivers is getting more and more expert in building better and better airplanes and other crazy stuff. I think we are both really looking forward diving into the topic of airplanes in Screw Drivers ourselves.” - Marc/Tudl

“I love how you just went ahead and tried to build a propeller powered plane without knowing if it's possible. That's pretty much how I like to approach building stuff on my own as well when trying something new. And I think this is where creations are made, that exceed what the game was meant to be and which also inspire me as a developer about what is currently possible in the game, and what we might add to the game in the future as well.” - Simon/SapphireHD6970


Do you want to try out the plane? Subscribe to it in the Steam Workshop! Fancy Plane 2.1

Welcome to Steam's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest!

This time the Steam community celebrates games about vehicles - you know, things that you use to physically locomote from point A to point B, mostly with motors and wheels. And what can we say - that clearly applies to Screw Drivers!

And that's why Screw Drivers will be part of the festival until 23 September - just like many hundreds of other games. Have a look HERE on the event page of the festival!

In keeping with this, we have released a new, small update (V0.3.12.2) that removes minor issues out of the Screw Drivers world that crept into the game with our Quality of Life / Major Update last Friday:

• Fixed unlock conditions in the tech tree for all new gears. Now the correct part types should be displayed
  
• Smoothed terrain in some areas, where it had sharp edges that caused some cars to collide with
  
• Removed the secret and new SD coins on the prototype map again, since they yet have to have a purpose

We will of course continue to keep both eyes and ears on you - our community - and are super grateful for your feedback!

Drive safe, friends!
Marc and Simon / Creactstudios


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1279510/Screw_Drivers/