Skillshot City News

This is the biggest version of Geneshift yet and plays like a whole new game! This new mode has all the usual features of a Battle Royale: orbital drops, looting, a shrinking circle of death, and last man standing. But there are a few unique twists on the BR genre too. The main one being that each round is only two minutes long!


Check out this brand new trailer showing off some of the cool new features in this mode, including orbital drops, looting and a sexy, orange, shrinking circle of death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaVP1udAiVk


In this Battle Royale each round only lasts two minutes. You spawn in the air, fly to a safe location, and begin looting for weapons, skills, health kits and more. The circle is constantly closing in, creating a sense of urgency and pushing you towards the big show-down in the centre.

Two minutes worked best in our testing. It gives you just enough time to loot, but not so much that you feel like you're in a walking simulator. The winner of each round gets +10 points (and +1 point per kill) and the first player to 50 points wins.




Another twist is that when you die you don't get kicked back into the menu lobby. How boring! Instead, you respawn as a zombie with only 30hp and a melee attack. If you actually manage to kill a remaining player, you will respawn as a human and be back in with a chance to win the round!

Being a zombie also makes you unaffected by the circle of death. This means you can loot for rare skills, chemicals, and cash in areas that are unsafe for humans to travel. You have something productive to do while the round is going on, and can set yourself up to do better in future rounds.




This mode completely changes Geneshift because of looting, and it actually makes the game FAR more accessible for new players. Geneshift has always had a complexity problem. With over 30 skills to read, new players were overwhelmed with too much choice and information.

This new looting system solves this by restricted access to items. You can only unlock a skill after you have discovered it, which means that you learn how to play the game GRADUALLY. This also gives a great sense of progression, where you get excited to discover a new item and see what new skill you've unlocked.


Another thing I love about this mode is that it's able to use the massive GTA2-like maps from the campaign. If you've only played the multiplayer, you'll really enjoy running around these massive new maps. The vehicles and chemicals play great on them and really give a big open-world, survival experience.

Talking of vehicles and chemicals, it's really interesting to see how they behave with these new BR mechanics. Vehicles are a great way to escape the circle if you get trapped while looting. They'll provide just enough speed and protection to get you to safety. Meanwhile, chemicals like Warp Field give you the ability to teleport to the single, central buy zone. This lets you spend your cash on ammo and prepare for the final showdown.




This is the mode that Geneshift shall be known for. It's so much easier for new players and streamers to get into the game without being overwhelmed. So now that this is out I'm officially shifting gears into 100% marketing mode. We're going to start having a lot of streams and players, and I couldn't be more excited! A big thanks to everyone who has helped develop this mode in the Discord. Now it's time to play!

Alright internet, you win. Geneshift is hopping on the BR bandwagon and I'm pumped!



The reason I'm making this mode is because of this gif, and this 5800 upvoted reddit post. I spent an afternoon chucking together this mock-up Battle Royale circle to see how it would play, then posted it on reddit. The response was overwhelmingly positive with hundreds of people saying I should make it and they'd buy it. So let's do it!


I'm still working out the details in the Discord and this Steam forum post. But here's what we have so far. The game will consist of multiple rounds. You get +1 point for a kill, +10 points for being the last man standing. First player to 100 points wins.


Each new round will start with you falling from the sky at a random location in the map. You'll be armed with nothing but your knife, and will have to loot for unlocks. You'll loot for ammo, weapons, health kits, cash, phasers, skills, vehicles, experience points and more. All the unlocks in the campaign basically. You run around, looking for the best weapons possible, and leveling up your mutant with skills and extra phase shifts.


Eventually you come across an enemy. You shoot, you kill. You come across another enemy, and this time you die. Unlike in PUBG, you actually get to respawn, but you'll come back as a zombie only capable of melee attacks. If you manage to kill a real human you get a second chance at life.


Each round will only last about 2 minutes, with the circle rapidly shrinking. We will be playing on the maps from the campaign, because they are bigger and have a lot more space to hide and explore. Imagine playing on a huge map like this. True GTA2 style!




One reason why I'm so keen to make this mode is because it's an opportunity to remake Geneshift's multiplayer in a far simpler way. I love me some Conquest mode but it is admittedly quite overwhelming. The buy menu, the skills menu, there's over 80 things you can unlock. New players and streamers get confused. This new mode however will remove the buy menu and the skill menu. You have to loot for items one by one, meaning you can learn as you go. This new mode should make a great first impression for new players, and hopefully will be fun to watch youtubers play as well.


Thought I'd quickly mention that Geneshift is currently 30% off. Now that the campaign is done and I'm adding all this new content I might bump the price up to $15 soon, so now would be a cheap time to grab the game.

Anyway I hope to get this new version out within a month, so stay tuned!

All hail our robot overlords! This is perhaps the biggest version of Geneshift ever released. Why? Because multiplayer just became playable! Fancy that.. making a game that you can actually PLAY. Crazy! Previously if you joined an empty server there was nothing to do except run around a bit and shoot at boring, dumb gangsters. There was no challenge, no objective, no game. But just like in real life, AI has come to save the day.

These new bots are designed to play just like real players. They'll drive cars, level skills, place chemicals, capture objectives, and even shit-talk you. They're smart, use teamwork, and will give you a real challenge. It honestly feels like playing a regular PvP game. Half the time you won't even notice you're playing against a cold, heartless, silicon-fearing robot. They play a hell of a lot better than your average human, that's for sure.




Bots replace the old gangsters, and are meant to act and play just like real players. You can configure how many of them will play in the server. As real humans join and leave the server, the bots will disappear and reappear to replace them. This way you can ensure there is always a perfectly full and balanced 10 player game running at all times.

Bots play like humans and also follow the exact same rules as humans. They earn cash in the same way that humans do, and must manage their money to save up for super weapons and chemicals. They deal and take the same amount of damage as real players, with no hidden modifiers.

They also do not cheat. They can't see through walls. They won't try to neturalize your chemicals unless they actually SAW you place the chemical. I've even simulated a hazy sort of memory that fades over time. I've really tried to make them play as similar to real humans as possible.




Bots adjust their level of difficulty to make for a fun game. The skill of a bot is mostly determined by reaction time and accuracy. Their accuracy will go up and down depending on how well their opponent is playing. They have a target K:D ratio that they want to maintain, and this ensures that every game is a fun, healthy challenge.

A brand new player to the game can fight the bots and they'll naturally go easy on him. A veteran can fight bots and they'll 720 Tony Hawk Pro Skater no-scope him as soon as things start getting too easy. In general when fighting against bots alone you should end up with a K:D ratio around 2:1 or so.

Keep in mind that even though your K:D vs bots is guaranteed to be good, you are still going to be challenged. You might be getting more kills, but your allied bots will play worse to compensate. You get to carry your team somewhat, but with great power comes great responsibility. You'll genuinely have to fight to beat the enemy team from capturing the objectives. And of course you'll still have to fight other players.




In other news, I've made a number of sexy graphical improvements this version. I've added atmospherics like light rays and floating bits of dust that give the game a real 3D effect. Firing guns is far more satisfying with sexy new particle effects, debris, blood and muzzle smoke. Bullets now glow and look extra chunky too.


I've also copied a bunch of features from the campaign across to the PvP modes. The kill combo system from the campaign now also applies when fighting against bots/humans and awards you a bit of extra cash for getting combo kills. Awesome points also occur in multiplayer now, and give you +50xp as well as +2 phasers for the rest of your life. You'll occassionally get a free hp/mana drop when killing enemies too. And also killing an enemy with a chemical now causes the same chemical explosion effect as seen in the campaign.


A beautiful side benefit of bots is that we can really playtest the game now. In our latest test build we discovered that Bionic Gas, Lasing Orb and Self Repair were OP af. So they have been nerfed with the power of a thousand keystrokes (or at least like.. 20). Self Repair now auto disables once you reach max health too. And a few more tweaks that I can't remember.




The only thing more fun to fight than these new smart bots is actual players. And now that this version is out I am officially switching gears into 100% marketing mode. The campaign is done, the PvP is finally playable, and it's time to spread the word.

So stay tuned over the next few weeks as I start emailing youtubers, posting memes on le reddit and finding other ways to get players into this game. If you want to invite your friends to play the free multiplayer in the demo, now would be a great time!

Have fun and please give me feedback here or in Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/geneshift

Well that took longer than expected. We've been in Early Access for over a year now, and I've only just completed reworking the singleplayer campaign. This version polishes the final 4 stages, updating them with all the cool improvements I've made over the past year. There are story rewrites too. The completion of the campaign marks a huge turning point in the development of Geneshift, as I'll be shifting focus back onto multiplayer and marketing after this. It also makes my self-diagnosed OCD happy that it took a nice, clean 10 versions to rework the campaign.




How will you know the new campaign is awesome? Because the game will constantly remind you whenever you do something cool. My favorite thing about this version (apart from the relief of finally finishing the campaign) are awesome points. Awesome points are awarded when you perform extra well during combo kills, and give you XP and a skill-point or a phaser.

This gif below shows them in action, as well as the new cash drop animation. Cash no longer drops on every single kill, but instead happens randomly about 30% of the time. This means you earn far less cash during the campaign, and really makes every kill and every dollar far more valuable and necessary to survive.




You now have the ability to buy skill points in the campaign for $2000 a pop. This, combined with the buffing of a bunch of skills, adds a lot of flavour to the game. You can also level skills all the way up to level 5 now, allowing for some fairly ridiculous skill combos. Awesome points also award skill-points too. With all of this, I've reworked a bunch of skill values (see the changelog below) to ensure that all skills are useful and the more points you invest into the skill, the better it becomes.




I have changed the permissions for demo users, allow them to now play in permanent and ranked servers. This is done for the benefit of paying players, as these servers will now become more populated. Permanent servers are one of Geneshift's most unique multiplayer features, and now we'll be able to enjoy them again!




To celebrate 1 year in Early Access and the completion of the campaign, I've created a new trailer showing off all the new features added so far. Check it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOV0gG9CXcE

Now that the campaign is done it's marketing time. I'm finally happy for gamers to see the game. So over the coming weeks expect to see more players in the servers. I'm going to be sending emails to relevant youtubers and try get some love from them. If you want to invite your friends to play the free multiplayer in the demo, now would be a great time!

Have fun and please give me feedback here or in Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/geneshift

GENERAL CHANGES

• Massively reworked the final 4 stages of the campaign.
  
• Community Credits now get +200 for buying the game and +50 for adding a reference.
  
• Demo users can now join Permanent matches and Ranked servers.
  
• You can now purchase skill points in the campaign for $2000 each.
  
• Reduced the cost of many campaign unlocks.
  
• Improved the graphical effects of collecting cash from guards.
  
• Long custscenes can now be skipped by pressing ESC in-game.
  
• Synergies have been removed from the campaign, allowing you to level straight up to level 5 with normal skill points.
  
• You no longer lose $200 whenever you die. Instead you gain $500 if you complete a stage without dying.
  
• Holding middle mouse now opens the skill rose and defaults to selecting instead of auto casting. It also pauses the campaign.
  

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

• Awesome Points now occur when you do something awesome, awarding +300xp and a phaser or a skill point.
  
• Guards now drop cash only 1/3rd of the time. Making cash a lot more rare and valuable.
  
• The kill combo system has slightly new multiplier values and a longer timer (4s instead of 3s).
  
• Guards occassionally drop health and mana, healing you for +50hp. This happens about 10% of the time.
  
• Mana no longer regenerates up to 20 mana in stealth.
  
• Barrier mana burn is now 2 mana/s instead of 3 mana/s.
  
• Guards now do about 50% more damage, though there is a smarter dynamic difficulty system in place.
  
• Playful guards now have 100hp instead of 50, but their damage is 50% less instead.
  
• Superweapons now only cost $5000 instead of $10000, but have half as much ammo in PvP modes.
  

SKILL CHANGES

• Force Field explosion damage now ranges from 60 to 40 instead of 60 to 20.
  
• Venom Shot has been flipped from levels 1 to 5.
  
• Venom Shot damage vs guards is now x4 instead of x3 (ensuring it
• does enough to kill).
  Venom Shot mana cost is now 15 instead of 20.
  
• Vampirism now restores mana against guards ranging from 2% to 6%.
  
• Phasic Bullets no longer needs Energize.
  
• Bullet Time now unlocks at level 0.
  
• Static Charges now unlocks at level 5.
  
• Self Repair mana cost is now 20 instead of 30.
  
• Radiate damage is now 35hp/s instead of 30hp/s.
  
• Radiate now does x1.5 damage vs guards.
  
• Blade Fury mana cost is now 25 instead of 20.
  
• Blade Fury can now be burst after 4s instead of after the full cooldown.
  
• Blade Fury has switched from levels 1 to 5.
  
• Blade Fury max damage no longer applies to guards or zombies.
  
• Plasma Ball has been flipped from levels 1 to 5.
  
• Plasma Ball mana cost is now 25 instead of 20.
  
• Plasma Ball now does x3 damage vs guards instead of x1.5.
  

BUG FIXES

• Massively improved the performance when you have a lot of idle vehicles in the map.
  
• AI now enters the correct vehicle when following you.
  
• Fixed a bug displaying the top cash earners in each campaign stage.
  

Fasten your seatbelts, we're about to enter Valve time. All the coolest moments in the campaign have been given a bit of slow motion just to make you feel extra badass. There is literally no point to this feature. Check it out in this gif below:




Talk about efficient gif usage! The animation above also shows off the new vehicle camera. Your vehicle is no longer fixed in the very centre of the screen. Instead, the camera will now shift forward slightly, allowing you to see further ahead and plan where you're going to turn next. This feature has been requested for a long time and really makes driving easier.


This is a pretty big addition, and something I've needed for a long time. There are now green barriers that block AI vision. They're effectively doors that enemy guards cannot see through. They will disable if you shoot or walk through them, but until then you are free to observe your enemy and plan your attack before the shit hits the fan. In the gif below you can see the guard walk past, and only after the door is disabled does he spot me.




Yet another map has been polished up with all the new features added over hte past 10 months. Residence, S04 starts off with a sexy slow motion vehicle sequence (as shown in the gif above), and has been polished from start to finish. Next version will focus entirely on the rest of the campaign, and finally finish up a years worth of work redoing the singleplayer.

Anyway that's all for this version. Have fun and please give me feedback here or in Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/geneshift