GUNPOINT

Beta Testing Steam Workshop And Gunpoint’s New Engine

Update: whether you join the beta or not, you may get a Gunpoint update that wants to install some standard installery stuff: a particular vintage of DirectX, VC++, OpenAL. The new engine needs to make sure these are all there, and they can only be turned on globally, so everyone gets ’em. Won’t interfere with anything, but it will fix the no-music issue some might have had with the new beta.

Short version

We’re nearly ready to release an update for Gunpoint that’ll add Steam Workshop support to let you share your custom levels, and hopefully fix any remaining technical issues people are having with the old build.

Before we send it out to everyone, it’d be helpful if you guys could give it a try and see if you encounter any issues. Here’s how:

1. Right click Gunpoint in your Steam menu and click Properties.
2. Go to the Betas tab, and under ‘Enter access code’ type: workshopbeta
3. You should now be able to choose the Steam Workshop Beta from the list there.
4. Click close, and Gunpoint should update. Might take a second before the download starts.
5. While you wait, join this Steam group.

You need to be a member of that group for Steam Workshop to work in this beta, but it won’t be necessary once the update goes public.

If it fixes anything or breaks anything for you, or just to tell us how it works out, post in this thread!

More info

This version of Gunpoint has been converted by Abstraction Games into their own engine. Previously it was made by me in Game Maker 8, a very old framework that still has a few compatibility issues with some modern machines, and doesn’t support Steam Workshop, Mac or Linux.

This first update will be the Windows version, with Steam Workshop support. If that all works, they’ll start work on the Mac and Linux versions next. Here are the tentative patch notes:

– New engine. Should run faster for everyone and resolve a few compatibility issues, including that charmingly satirical one where it would pretend to run really slowly on really fast machines.
– Steam Workshop support for sharing user-made levels. Yes, we listened to the 1,779 post petition you guys confusingly started some time after we’d already announced we would do it.
– Option to turn off swearing. Up to you whether this makes “Grow a ####ing #### and shove it up your ###” kid-safe.
– Reconfigurable keyboard controls. To be honest, this is late is partly because one of the people who asked was such a jerk about it that I lost my eagerness to get it done.
– Vertical sync option. I didn’t know we needed this, but the folks at Abstraction added it and now the animation is at least 23% more beautiful.
– Level editor. The level editor has been in there since launch, but some people still ask for one so I’m just going to keep announcing I’ve added it until everyone knows it’s there.
– You can now place multiple elevators in a level without it crashing. That’s more than I could do when I was making the game, so I expect your levels to be at least twice as good as mine.

As ever, no ETA on Mac or Linux versions – you never really know with these things until they’re basically done.

Cheers!