Screencheat preview

The Indie Megabooth was easily one of the busiest places at PAX Prime 2014, traversing the small booths proved to be difficult, but getting your hands on one of the many indie games being pumped out wasn’t so, and a lot of happy screams seemed to be coming from the Screencheat booth.

Screencheat takes the tried and true tradition of “screen cheating” and actually makes it “legal” and “necessary”. I understand the last quotes on “necessary” wasn’t “necessary” but it just felt “right”.

In Screencheat every opponent is invisible and the only way to find and then kill them is to see where they’re at from their screen. It’s actually quite a simple and brilliant setup. To the lot of fun and creative weapon, my favorites being the candelabra and the wooden sword while galloping on a horsehead with a stick. Each map in Screencheat is riddled with landmarks and colored levels to help you hunt down and locate your target. I talked with one of the developers and he confirmed this was no mistake, every landmark was meticulously chosen and placed to help your navigation, making memorizing each map advantageous.

My only complaint about Screencheat is it’s lack of local multiplayer. Lacking content in which the game is greatly influenced by seems very strange, and it didn’t sound like Samurai Punk were really planning on bringing the option to the game. As much as I love online multiplayer, Screencheat isn’t a game I would think of playing for fun against anonymous opponents.

Screencheat is fast, easy to get into, and lots of fun, but with the lack of local play and console support, I fear this creative shooter will be swept by the wayside. Here’s to hoping this game makes it to an upcoming game night.

*UPDATE*

It was brought to my attention that there is local multiplayer support, but while talking to one of the developers he had a discussion about lack of said support. I don’t know why it’s written into my notes but it’s not correct, during the beta and with its release Screencheat will have local multiplayer support on PC. I think the discussion was regarding console support and lack of PC in my living room, but he was still saying I had the option to play online.

If you want to hear more about Screencheat and day 2 of PAX Prime 2014 listen to our podcast, Nerd Farmcast Episode 25.