SWAPMEAT's going to Steam Next Fest! Demo now available!
Welcome to the SWAPMEAT public demo! We've been publicly playtesting SWAPMEAT for nearly two years, and we're excited to share a slice of the game in a non-alpha state for the first time. For us here at One More Game, we'd consider this a graduation from alpha into beta. We're still actively working on the game and receiving feedback, but this is a reasonable representation of a slice of what to expect once we begin Early Access.
For this public demo, players will have access to a subset of what will be available during Early Access. Here's what we're shipping today:
You might only have access to the first Solar System, but why not try to defeat it on Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare mode? We have it on good authority that it's quite challenging to defeat on Nightmare mode when you're only able to progress to Employee Rank 10.
This demo will remain available throughout Early Access and beyond. Our Alpha-Driven Development process means the demo will continue to be updated alongside the full game as long as SWAPMEAT is in active development. If you purchase the full version of SWAPMEAT, your progress from the demo will be carried over into your purchase. Farm to your heart's content and earn those higher-tier resources by playing on higher difficulty levels. This will be the last time we intend to wipe progress.
Thank you to all of our testers who have helped us get here. We truly could not have done it without you.
Gameplay
Visuals & Animation
UI / UX
Audio
Bug Fixes
Known Issues
For this public demo, players will have access to a subset of what will be available during Early Access. Here's what we're shipping today:
- The Tutorial and Solar System 1 (Act 1) – After a short tutorial, you'll traverse three planets containing a number of random events, a mini-boss, and the final boss of the first act.
- Level up to Employee Rank 10
- Unlock all 9 different weapon platforms
- Unlock and configure the 9 different weapon upgrade grids up until Employee Rank 10
- Fight over 30 unique enemies with three different tiers of difficulty
You might only have access to the first Solar System, but why not try to defeat it on Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare mode? We have it on good authority that it's quite challenging to defeat on Nightmare mode when you're only able to progress to Employee Rank 10.
This demo will remain available throughout Early Access and beyond. Our Alpha-Driven Development process means the demo will continue to be updated alongside the full game as long as SWAPMEAT is in active development. If you purchase the full version of SWAPMEAT, your progress from the demo will be carried over into your purchase. Farm to your heart's content and earn those higher-tier resources by playing on higher difficulty levels. This will be the last time we intend to wipe progress.
Thank you to all of our testers who have helped us get here. We truly could not have done it without you.
Gameplay
- Added support for "out of combat" tracking. Researcher legs now move faster when out of combat. More to come on this.
- Your ranged weapon that is not currently active will automatically reload after a short period of time.
Visuals & Animation
- Matched weapon upgrade art and icons to the upgrade picks.
- Hooked up escape rocket to end of payload event.
- Polished Hunter Intro and Frank Defeated cutscenes.
- Added custom models to tier 2 and tier 3 enemies.
- Polished the Mode Select intro and added animated sharks to the scene.
- Updated all the key cutscenes and systems. Still WIP, but more of the story is being told with more refined content than just rough blocking.
- Spot polishing some alien enemy animations, adding more impactful staggers and filling in some gaps.
- Added a new "thanks for playing" from Carl at the end of the demo to thank players for checking it out and to share links for wishlisting and social media.
UI / UX
- Added subtitles for all cutscenes.
- Text copy editorial pass on all subtitles in the game to match the spoken lines.
- New hunter threat meter located under the compass.
- New rewards treatment for directives.
- Updated Hunter Detection System Upgrade description text and image for more clarity on how the system works. (Related: We disabled the older explainer video that is out of date.)
- Upgrade grid visuals have been altered slightly to improve readability.
Audio
- Lots of work on the VO systems in preparation for final recording down the line.
- Game mix and default settings refinements and balancing.
- SFX passes on key cutscenes.
- Fixed some audio corruption bugs.
- New music track for the Hunters when they get enraged.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed bugs where wrong VFX, SFX, and damage types were applied to elemental variants of Wasp Spit, Meat Missile, Landmines, and Grenadier Bomb.
- Fixed a bug where wishlist text would no longer go offscreen when running in non-English languages.
Known Issues
- Playing in native Linux mode on Steam Deck is not yet supported.
- No significant performance tuning has been done yet. If you are graphics bound, you can try lowering the quality settings in the Esc menu via Options → Video, but systems with more constrained hardware may struggle.
- Not all input buttons and keys have icons in the UI yet. Text descriptions (e.g., "J" or "Button West") will show up for things that do not yet have an icon in the input glyph map.
- When observing other players, some UI bits such as the reload HUD don't show accurate information for the observed player.
- All cutscenes and voiceover dialogue are WIP (and most lines aren't in at all yet).