Shark Attack Deathmatch 2 is now avalible on Steam early access

We are excited to announce that Shark Attack Deathmatch 2 is now Available on Steam Early Access. Please support us and visit our store page below.

Shark Attack Deathmatch 2 - Store Page

Shark Attack Deathmatch 2 captures the thrill of underwater multi-player mayhem.

Players hunt each other down in various scenarios and game modes with the constant threat of terrifying sharks joining in on the bloodshed,.This heart pounding experience will have you constantly on the edge of your seat.

Brutal Multiplayer Combat
Multi-player combat in Shark Attack Deathmatch 2 is intense. Up to 8 Online Players battle it out against each other with the added threat of terrifying sharks joining in on the mayhem.

Single Player Survival Challenge
Survival is a single player experience where players take on a constant onslaught of some of the most terrifying beasts in the ocean. Every encounter you survive could have you climbing the global leaderboard for prestige and world domination.

Breathtaking Seascapes and Levels
The combat zones are breathtaking and each offer a unique experience. Whether it be hunting down the Ragged Tooth Sharks in The Boneyard, Surviving brutal attacks in the flooded New York City map in Tsunami or fighting amongst the carnage of Wrecks and Reefs. New maps will be released constantly during the early access process.

Character Customization
Players have complete control of all their gear. Personalize Wetsuits, flippers, goggles, tanks, snorkels and more. Create your own signature look that other players recognise and will soon grow to fear.

Terrifying Sharks and Creatures
Jump straight into the action and take on a variety of terrifying sharks. Great Whites, Ragged-Tooth's, Bull Sharks and Black Tip Reef Sharks when provoked will hunt you down and become your worst nightmare.

Tons of Game Modes Planned - Play as the Shark
We are still in early access but we have a fantastic roadmap of exciting game modes. Included in this is a shark game mode where players will have the opportunity to play as one of these terrifying beasts and rip on-line players to shreds.

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Categories: Early Access , Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam , Unity

Building Terror

Over the last few weeks we have posted on individual aspects of the Sharks like the AI, Damage or the procedurally generated Animations. When we set out to do this next gen version we really wanted to raise the bar on the last version, not only just to blow peoples expectations Out of the water ( brilliant pun )but also to really push ourselves and see what we could achieve. We close this week off with Shark Attack Deathmatch in such a awesome state. The sum off all these small individual parts really came together this week and we were able to see how special it is turning out...special and terrifying!

A really cool feature that was added to the sharks behaviour this week is the "side bite". As the sharks swim past you they will twist their head to the side and snap at the player to try rip out a chunk of flesh. The addition of this behaviour really builds up the jump scare factor, even when side bites miss seeing the teeth and hearing the rush of water lets you know how close you were from being torn apart, it leaves you with a unsettling feeling.

On top of the Rag Doll system we have in place for the sharks death, Ed whipped up a great dissolve effect that removes dead sharks from the map elegantly ( before we would just make them vanish instantly). Its a small touch but really adds to the polish.

This week i started on the first official map, all the screen shots you would have seen before have been from our test map (these were mostly test assets that were thrown together to test functionality or are assets from the first game). I will share more details of the new map next week and cant wait to start showing off more screens and videos. The map should take around 2 weeks or so to wrap up.

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Categories: Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam , Xbox 360

Great White death!

This week we carried on from where we left off last week with the new shark damage system, we implemented it for all the sharks in the game. The sharks now also visually react to a players shot by slashing there body back and forth, blood also seeps out of the sharks wounds for a short while making it easier for the player to know they have made a successful hit. We also made it that if a shark bites a player the players blood is visually shown around the sharks mouth this also allows other players to see that the shark made a successful attack on the player.

The above screenshot shows a dead Great White lying on the ocean floor, this is another new feature we added this week. The sharks now have their own "ragdoll" system which allows them to drift slowly to the ground on their death and correctly land on uneven surfaces, it looks great and is a huge upgrade on the old Xbox 360 version where they didn't animate at all on death, just floated for a few seconds and disappeared. The screenshot also shown the new player gloves Neil added.

We also managed to add a great new visual effect this week called Sub Surface Scattering, which allows sunlight to penetrate the surface of a translucent objects.

In this screenshot you can see the players flippers without the effect. The sun is behind the diver which is why the legs and flippers are dark.

This screenshot has the effect turned on, you can see what a massive difference it makes, it definitely adds to the realism. We have also implemented it for the Turtle and the Yellow Moray Eel.
 

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Finding Nemo

Even though its a small blog update update this week we made massive progress

The actual Great White Shark attacks are in and they look/sound pretty dam disturbing.
We really wanted to capture the horror of an attack, after watching tons of youtube videos of great whites biting things and taking some cue's from great slasher movies we very proud of how its turned out. Next week we wrap up the other species.

Along with the attacks we also managed to also get a great new damage system up and going.
Damage on sharks will be location specific so if you shoot it in the face you will see the tear up around the nose, a shoot to the gills will slice them up horrible.. This is a big improvement over the first shark attack where we only had 3 damage points (and they were random).

It doesn't end there (Like i said it was a big week), we added 7 types of reef fish  into the test level, got them all rigged up skinned and textured including a little clown fish so when you are not getting Murdered by sharks or shot up by your friends you could be finding Nemo.

That's it for this week, we have a Beerfest to go to!. Next week will be a big one as we start moving into crunch phase.

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Categories: Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Unity , Xbox 360

Great Whites Ver 3.0

We close off this week with some big milestones under our belt. Our animation system is back up to speed with all the issues we were having with it all but gone and its much quicker to get new creatures into the game now. The sharks animations will be procedurally generated and take into account movements made in the environments ( so when sharp turns are made the tail reacts appropriately).

After rigging up the Tiger Sand Shark (Ragger Tooth) and with the new animation system we were completely blown away, its incredible to watch as it eerily moves through the test scene. We also tested out a new Shader for the shark skin and the results are also amazing. With the bar being raised on the Tiger Shark it led us into a rather annoying problem....the great whites we had done in the beginning of this next gen upgrade were good and we loved them but next to the Ragger Tooth they were not great ( pun intended). So i ended up reworking them completely (model, texture, skinning and rigging). Despite having tons of reference photos its extremely difficult to capture the balance between a fast agile shark and one which looks intimidating and scary in the game. I think i went through about 5 revisions before we nailed it completely. Its was a frustrating process and one we did not plan for, but man oh man does it look awesome now and i am so glad we did it.

Next week the biting morph targets will be added as well as the effects around when a attack takes place. We have some really cool ideas on how we can push the suspense and horror elements during shark encounters, i cant wait to see/hear how it turns out.

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Categories: Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam , Xbox 360 , ZBrush

10 Ways to Skin a Shark

This week ended up being an extremely frustrating one, we made progress, but it was more like baby steps as opposed to the big leaps and strides we made throughout August .Every Monday morning Ed and I have a quick stand up meeting and plan out the weeks tasks get them down on a white board and use that to update our project tracking system in more detail (we use Pivotal Tracker). It might seem a bit overkill to for 2 guys to be using a tracking system but we have found that it keeps us motivated as we close off tasks, helps us get a better idea of the mountain of work we need to get through and is also a great place to track our bugs.

Ed had hoped to wrap up the Great White Shark Attacks this week but unfortunately we decided to move that out to next week. A major reason for this is that we need relook at our animation system.
It currently looks absolutely amazing but its very difficult to setup so making tweaks and adding new sharks means a lot of rework/work.We got some great idea's around and should allow us to surpass the old system.

I spent a large portion of the week setting up Bones and Skin Weights for the Tiger Sand Shark.
Turns out there are more ways to skin a shark than i thought, After watching some great tutorials i am a lot more comfortable with a technique called weight painting and weight blending. It really is powerful and now i am able to get great fleshy rolls and smooth bends around bones/joints that i wasn't quite nailing before.

So what did we manage to get done this week. We managed to optimise the lighting system we have in place and get it running back over the 100 FPS mark with no loss in visual quality. We got the Green Sea Turtles in this week along with our Leopard Eel. Both look incredible and add so much life to the scene. We also managed to knock off some annoying bugs and get the game back to a stable build.

Next we plough ahead with the new animation system, wrap up the shark attacks and add the Sand Tiger Shark to the game.

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Categories: Games , Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam , Xbox 360 , ZBrush

The Hunt

Another week done and dusted and the game is another step closer to its release. Shark Attack Deathmatch has now moved into a very dangerous development phase.Its at the stage of the project where things really start coming together. Every time you fire up the game to test a new feature or small tweak you end up staying on a little bit longer than you should, you end up swimming around really taking in everything in and taking stock as to how incredible the game is looking. Its a good problem to have.

This problem was pushed into overdrive with Great White Sharks with our new Hunt AI being added into the test level. Its incredibly difficult to breath life into digital creatures, they not only have move and animate realistically in their environment ( that's a given) but in order for it to really be believable and create the Awe/Horror moments there needs to be a sense that these creatures are thinking and reacting to to you and the world they are in .We really want our Sharks/Shark AI to raise the bar and capture the incredible beauty and the sheer terror that sharks can induce.

The devil is really in the detail and its something we pride ourselves on. The Sharks have animated gills that flex and relax as they move.The upper and lower jaws unhinge and the gums peel back over the jaw to expose bared teeth during bites. We even have sucker fish that latch onto the sharks.

Next week Shark development continues and we going to get stuck into a 1 week a polish and a performance pass. We still have a few months to go but its always good to fix annoying issues that have been floating around, and make sure the game is running optimally.

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Categories: Games , Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Clever Sneaky Sharks

Its incredible to see how many improvements we are making over the first version of Shark Attack Deathmatch and this is not just limited to visuals and animations.

Eds primary focus for this week was building a better Base AI Navigation system. This will drive the behaviour for all sharks, fish and other creatures, a major challenge with this is ensuring that underwater life moves through the seascape believably. With most FPS games enemy movement is primarily 2d (forward and backwards, left and right). With SAD there is the extra dimension of creatures being able to swim up and down ( creatures need to glide through the water at varying angles). Another aspect to consider is that sharks generally always move forward and have a limited space to turn around, this really throws a spanner in the works when you are wanting them to explore underwater wreckages, coral reefs, caves and not get stuck or move unrealistically.

Ed has managed to come with a incredibly slick solution which is not only fast but will also allow us to expand on it massively and create unscripted cinematic experiences that should blow peoples expectations away.Work on this will continue next week as new behaviours and the actual attack mechanics are added and tied in with animations.

I spent a large portion of this week, tying up loose ends on SFX , adjusting of animations and textures and building Great White Gibbs ( bits of dead sharks) and doing final polish on the Manta Ray. Another aspect which i spent a lot of time looking into was our new foliage system. I still have to adjust many of the plants/seaweeds that we currently have in the game to work with the new system ( next weeks task) . Plants will now sway gently in the ocean currents, some of the longer plants will now be effected by the players as they swim through them or near them ( bend and sway as if touched and slow movement down). The tests so far look incredible and will give so much life to the environment, we cant wait to show you guys.

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Weapons for the Beta are now Complete

We have reached a pretty big development milestone, Our weapons and pick-ups are complete!
For the last few weeks a primary area of our focus has been on getting a whole bunch of new weapons into the game. In the first Shark Attack Deathmatch we only had 3 weapons (the spear gun, a knife and a flash bangs. There were no specific animations for shooting and reloads were simply dropping the gun out off screen and bringing them back up with a new spear. Things have changed massively.

For this next gen version we really wanted to stretch ourselves. Each weapon has specific animations for reloads and secondary animations when shots are fired. A major challenge was making sure that the new weapons we created would still feel like they belong underwater and could functionally work. Another challenge was making sure that each weapon sounded great and again we needed it to sound believable (sound like it was fired underwater). Another huge area of focus was on some pretty insane effects, bullets and spears cut through the water leaving trails or distort the water. God-Rays burst from explosions, shake cameras, light up player goggles and send out a massive water ripple knocking players back. It looks awesome!

This is the weapon list for the first Beta

• Diving Hunting Knife
• Spear gun
• Rapid Fire Spear gun
• Under Water Grenade Launcher (kind of like a shotgun)
• Trigger Explosives
• Flash Bangs

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Categories: Games , Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Explosive Week

We picked up from where we left off from last week and continued pushing ahead with the weapons and pick ups. Ed is raising the bar with some awesome effects on the Flash bangs and Trigger Grenades, I hate to use puns but its really going to blow peoples minds when they see it.

I have one more weapon to wrap up, the modelling is pretty much done so its just texturing and loading/hand animations.

We are still on track to have all the weapons signed off by next week Friday despite a massive distraction...our Oculus DK2 kit arrived!!!. The DK2 is a massive improvement over the last headset, they have done a great job eliminating that nauseas feeling with the higher res screen, positional tracking and more responsive head tracking. We going to setup a game dev jam over a weekend and will really get to play with it properly. Once we wrap up Shark Attack we will definitely look at integrating a VR Game mode for the game.

Next week we will reveal the full weapon listing and details about each but until then here is a pic of the new headset. 

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Categories: Games , Oculus , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Monster Week

This week was a massive one for us as we continue to plough through long lists of tasks for Shark Attack Deathmatch. The game is shaping up nicely and we are about 2 weeks away from wrapping up all the player weapons and item pick ups. 

We spend a fair amount of time iterating and tweaking everything to make sure that things that would typically be boring have a "that's cool" factor. The amount of polish and detail we are pouring into every aspect of the game makes some of the smaller tasks more painful but it's really taking things up a notch.

I managed to get a update out for Greed City this week as well and we hope to take some time next week Friday to plan and design some new cards for the game.

On a side note our Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 is held up in Johannesburg waiting for some unknown documentation required for import, hopefully that gets sorted out soon so we can start playing around with it.

The above image is a WIP shot of one of the Great White Sharks you will be going up against in S.A.D

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Categories: Games , Greed City , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam , WP8

Shark Attack Deathmatch Next Gen progress!

Back in March we submitted Shark Attack Deathmatch for Greenlight on Steam, we were amazed by the response and the fact that it took just under around 4 weeks to get Greenlit with almost 20 000 people saying they would buy the game! Since then development of the Next Gen Shark Attack Deathmatch has been progressing nicely. 

This weeks main focus was adding a new weapon into the game as well as some intense blood effects.

We working hard to get a beta build ready to launch on Steam Early Access possibly by September for player feedback before we launch officially.

The new weapon is a Spear Gun that can fire projectiles a little fast than the standard gun that players are used too. Here is a quick preview render of the RFS (Rapid Fire Speargun)

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Shark Attack Deathmatch on Steam

Help us bring a new improved version of Shark Attack Deathmatch to Steam by voting for it HERE

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Steam

Shark Attack Deathmatch ver 1.2 Released!

We just started rolling out ver 1.2!

Here is the change-list:

Main Features

- New Map (really awesome design to this map, and great visuals)

- New Survival mode for the new map (includes a very different type of shark, you'll have to wait to see)

- Performance improvements (game runs better, much less dropped frames)

- Network code improvements for the Sharks (huge improvement in both speed and accuracy)

- Huge performance gains when blood is on screen (game doesn't stutter anymore)

Minor Updates

- we now hide the cross hair when swimming fast

- the timer will continue to countdown even if you the only person left in the session (provided you actually had at least one or more kills before everyone left)

- When searching for a session we now display 12 available sessions instead of 8 (you can also see which map the session is currently playing)

Bug Fixes

- in Survival mode the game crashed when levelling up

- Shark Attack music playing when sharks are turned off

- Sharks not syncing nicely over network sessions (which lead to sharks popping up out of nowhere and suddenly changing direction etc..)

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360

New Map for Shark Attack ver 1.2

coming soon...
don't forget you can follow us on Facebook for more up to date announcements.

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360

Shark Attack Deathmatch ver 1.1 released

by now version 1.1 should be live everywhere... here is the official list of changes:

• updated physics engine (bug fixes, memory issues)
• knife - when you hold the knife button down and let it go it now counts as another attack (before only the initial slash did)
• pressing X reloads the speargun
• screensaver - new in-game menu screen
• screensaver - can turn on/off the music now
• screensaver - can turn on/off the clock display
• bug fix - Some players had a Null exception when leveling up
• bug fix - now resets the speargun ammo when restarting survival mode
• bug fix - gun is not bloody anymore when re-spawning after just knifing a shark or player
• bug fix - Survival Mode - Shark Kill count is reset when starting new round (if you survived 10 min)
• bug fix - If you accepted an invite to a game whilst in the Network menu the Game Menu would still display whilst playing the game
• improvements - join session speed improvements
• improvements - overall less network traffic (better over slower connections)
• improvements - The game loads up faster (by about 6 seconds)
• gameplay changes - players swim slightly faster now
• gameplay changes - oxygen doesn't burn up as quick when speed swimming
• gameplay changes - speargun reloads quicker now
• gameplay changes - spearguns spear travels faster now
• gameplay changes - hitboxes for divers and sharks have been increased slightly
• gameplay changes - sharks cause slightly less damage on attack (but still just as deadly, but attacks last a little longer now)
• gameplay changes - aiming has been tightened up a little
• multilpe maps - all the changes to support multiple maps have been included in this build as well (ready for ver 1.2)

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360

update on the new map coming in ver 1.2

Here some screenshots taken of the new map:

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360

Shark Attack Deathmatch - Survival mode & oxygen

A lot of people are battling to find the oxygen packs in Survival Mode.
It's at the bottom of the cliff (below where the health pack is)
In survival mode there is only 1 oxygen pack, in Deathmatch mode there are 4 oxygen tanks.

Hope that helps!
Good luck, and happy shark hunting!

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360

Shark Attack Deathmatch - version 1.1 changes

Since releasing Shark Attack Deathmatch on Xbox we have been listening to your feedback and working on some improvements & bug fixes.
So far we have made the following changes and new features, with still more to come for this release:

• Updated physics engine (for improved performance)
• Currently if you hold the knife down and then let it go it doesn't count as a slash.
  Now both the slash left & right will count as attacks which should make it a little easier to knife an attacking shark as well as other divers.
• Pressing X will now reload your gun
• The Screensaver mode has a re-designed option menu (can now turn the music & clock on and off)
• Player now swims about 5% faster
• Player now 'sprints' about 10% faster
• Aiming speed has been tweaked to make it easier to aim
• Sharks don't do less damage know, so you have a bit more of a chance of getting away
• The speargun reloads much faster
• The speargun spear now travels faster
• You don't use up as much oxygen when sprinting any more
• Game Load times are now faster (was about 20 seconds until the start button displays), now its about 12 seconds

Current Bug Fixes

• Some people were experiencing a Null Exception crash when the scoreboard was showing
• Ammo is now reset when re-starting any game mode
• Knife is not bloody any-more when you respawn just after knifing someone

We are currently busy adding a new level which will feature a Pirate Shipwreck,
here are some initial screenshots at the prototyping stage of the level design.
Note there is no lighting or any other effects applied to these models yet, the final version will look a lot better!

Keep your ideas and comments coming in! We make sure we read every single one!
You can comment here on this blog, or on our Facebook page, or even follow us on our twitter accounts:
Developer - SniperED007 and Aritst - WargodWales

Thanks again for helping make Shark Attack Deathmatch one of the highest rated games on Xbox Indie ever, as well as one of the Top 10 selling games on the service!

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360

Shark Attack Deathmatch - everything you need to know!

Shark Attack Deathmatch is a Xbox Indie Game, currently their are 3 different modes

• Deathmatch (your classic free for all online deathmatch)
• Survival (10 minutes to survive and kill as many sharks as possible)
• Screensaver (saves you a trip to the local aquarium)

Tips & Tricks

Oxygen - whilst swimming around you will use up oxygen, in Deathmatch there are 4 locations where you can pickup an oxygen tank which will restore your oxygen back to 100%.

There is one at the base of the cliff, on the 2nd floor of the ship, inside the aeroplane, and one hidden in the main centre rocks (I'll let you find that yourself).

Oxygen burns up much faster when you are swimming fast (i.e. when holding down the left analog), so if you running low on oxygen DON'T swim fast!

Health, there are just 2 health packs in the level, each one gives you a 25% health boost. They can be found at the top of the cliff (just above the oxygen) and near the rear of the ship on the sea floor.

Weapons

Currently there are 3 weapons: 

• Speargun: Unlimited ammo, damage varies between 45 to 100% damage
• Knife: The knife does 100% damage
• Stun Grenades: Blinds nearby players for up to 20 seconds (they have to be looking at the grenade at time of explosion in order to be blinded) Use the Right Back button to throw a grenade.

Sharks

Sharks will from time to time hunt and attack a player. Sharks can be killed, it takes around 3 hits with a speargun to kill a shark. And shooting a shark will definitely anger any other nearby sharks and they will join in the hunt. If you are attacked by a shark your best bet would be to swim fast directly up or down, or find some form of cover.

Future Updates

Post any suggestions, requests, bugs etc... on our Facebook page - Facebook.com/SharkAttackGame
And be sure to like the Facebook page to keep up to date on new updates!

If you are still deciding whether or not to get this game, then checkout this review:
http://retrospiritgames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/review-shark-attack-deathmatch-xbox.html

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Categories: Games , Shark Attack Deathmatch , Xbox 360