We’re happy to announce a brand-new update is now live for Smack Studio.
Major changes:
- Character balance and moveset refresh: Every character on the roster has received improvements across the board. New moves, tweaked parameters, balancing, new animations, and sprite art.
- New animations: every character now has an entrance and victory animation. If none is defined, it will default to idle.
- Victory screen: bask in your glory with a brand-new victory screen.
- Game optimization: with a version upgrade to Unreal Engine, we’ve drastically improved performance for all users.
- New stages and art style: we’ve polished our stages and are bringing you five remastered versions in our new art style. There might be an additional hidden stage available to play if you can find it…
- Enhanced visuals: check out our new lighting engine and enable motion blur with the new “epic” visual setting.
- New soundtrack: enjoy music tracks tailor-made for Smack Studio by Garrett Williamson with additional tracks by Argofox. This includes optional music for both the character editor and training mode, plus a brand-new victory theme.
- Audio and sound: new in-game announcer (featuring the voice talents of Lunchbillion), improved music looping, and volume levels across the board.
- New menus and polish: enjoy a new stage select screen, new screen transitions, and a new adjustable character editor background.
- Controller profile improvements: we’ve allowed saved controller profiles to be universal, meaning additional controllers of the same kind will automatically match to an existing controller profile if it exists.
- Fighting game engine: short inactive frames added to ledge grab, and disallow midair jumps or air dodging back to players who get hit. Improves game balance.
- CPU AI: increased intelligence of computer-controlled fighters, allowing them to execute wavedashing and not grabbing the ledge as often.
- Bug fixes: super armor is now functional, portrait fixes for workshop characters, sound bug fixes, and a whole host of character editor bugs are fixed.
For the full details of the update, you can see the patch notes on Steam and in our Discord server.
Kickstarter Updates
We know our Kickstarter backers have been waiting patiently for updates, so here they are!
- Kickstarter characters: anyone who has backed us for the character tier has already been in contact with our team, and development on their characters is going smoothly. We have made significant progress and we can’t wait to reveal these new characters once they’re ready to show.
- Kickstarter stages: we’ve also been in contact with our stage-tier backers, selecting the stage theme and music choice.
- Backer rewards distributed: we’ve successfully sent out 55 Smack Studio T-shirts, 90 digital bundle kits, and 346 Steam keys to backers! Also, anyone who’s joined our Discord server has the backer role.
- Pending backer rewards: to qualifying backers, you can look forward to an exclusive shiny costume, custom pixel art illustration, and your name in the credits by the game’s 1.0 release.
- Stretch goals: we are pushing to include all of the stretch goals we’ve unlocked with your support. We’re on the way to setting up our 12-character base roster, custom color palettes, and custom soundtrack. However, we want to set expectations for the Challenge Mode. We still plan to include this for the 1.0 release, however it may be less than we had initially promised. Whether it’s 50, 25, or 10 stages, we want to make the challenge mode fun, and with our small team, we’d only want to deliver on what would meet our quality standards.
Again, we want to sincerely thank everyone for helping us with the Kickstarter. Not only have you helped us fund the Smack Studio project, but you have helped us reach new audiences by sharing it.
Workshop
Smack Studio’s Steam Workshop has over 250 different characters uploaded. We are absolutely blown away by the community’s activity and creation output. The quality of the characters has really impressed us as well. If you haven’t subscribed to Workshop items yet, you absolutely should, and give them a try.
Check out this curated list by backer, creator, and community member Erans: Erans’ Top 100 Favorites list. This is current as of this month, so check it out and give these fighters a try!
What’s Next
Now that the beta’s released, we’re that much closer to our full 1.0 launch. That being said, we still have a ways to go before we get there. We’re a small but mighty team, but have recently grown by a few new team members.
- sternum: the character creator who brought us Swagginshoof and other popular workshop fighters has finally joined the team to help us character moves and animations.
- ARK: creator of 10 popular workshop fighters, including Bandit, ARK has also joined the team to help with character moves and animations.
- Nohara: one of the earliest adopters of the character editor, Nohara has joined the team to help with characters moves, effects, properties, and roster balance.
- Joseph Lee: UI/UX & C++ programmer who has extensive Unreal Engine and Steamworks experience, helping us on the developer side.
- essielessie: after helping run the team’s booth at LVL Up Expo in Vegas last year, she brings her marketing knowledge and expertise to the team helping with social media and content.
We’re thrilled to have this new talent helping us! Here are some of the new updates we have planned, in order:
- More bug fixes: since we’re still in beta, we’ll be monitoring any new bugs that surface. A few known bugs are: controller compatibility issues, a few performance issues, odd CPU behavior, and a few character editor quirks.
- New features: we’re always looking for new features to add to give players more options. An example of this are giving characters taunts.
- New characters: In the coming weeks, we’ll be revealing some new characters that will be joining the roster. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on!
- New stages: we want to continue building out the stage roster, replacing the alpha stages with the fully-fleshed out new ones.
- “Easy Mode” character editor: players will find character creation even more accessible with an easy mode option for the character editor. The idea is to get a custom character up and running in 15 minutes or less.
- Custom color palettes: customizing costume colors for any character. Initial work has been done for this and is progressing.
- Online multiplayer with rollback netcode: online play is of the utmost importance for a game like Smack Studio, so we want to make sure we’re doing this right. Rollback netcode is in development, and soon we will be asking for beta testers to help us stress test rollback netcode. If you’re interested, join our Discord and make sure you’re paying attention to insider announcements.
- Challenge mode: a multi-stage challenge mode with unique scenarios players will have to complete. A proper single player mode for the game.
- Stage editor: a new tool where players can add their own stages to the game. In very early development.
Social Media Posts
We’re planning to ramp up our social media posts, so give us a follow on Twitter, subscribe on YouTube, and follow our brand-new TikTok profile.
As always, don’t forget to tag us with @smackstudio or use the #smackstudio hashtag whenever you share your creations or game moments.
Download And Start Playing Now
Our latest early access build is available now, so download it and let us know what you think! Thank you so much for playing Smack Studio.
