We all knew that asshole, the one who would constantly be eyeballing your screen in Goldeneye. Maybe you were that asshole, if so Australian based studio Samurai Punk has just the game for you. Screencheat is a pretty standard arena-based first person shooter, elevated by one enormous twist: everyone is invisible. So how do you kill one another? By cheating of course! Each player’s screen is displayed in a traditional splitscreen fashion and the only real way to discern where anyone’s located is to peek at their screen. It’s an incredibly unique concept, and really such a good idea it’s a wonder nobody has come up with it until now.
Screencheat can be played as a local splitscreen match but you can also take your play online both against friends or complete strangers. Although my experiences with online play performed very well with almost no lag you do lose a little bit of the magic in the process. Local multiplayer isn’t a necessity to have fun, but it’s definitely the way this game was meant to be experienced.
The game features nine different weapons to play with. Most will likely prefer to stick to the standard blunderbuss which gives a relatively nice spread at the cost of slow reload times. More keen players will likely make the switch to the revolver rifle which can fire multiple shots with a much smaller target area. Players who aren’t crackshots have some options too, items like the candelabra and hobby horse will allow you to take a more melee approach to dispatching of your enemies. Just remember, no matter which weapon you choose, if you can find somebody, it’s a one hit kill.
The game has five different gameplay modes to choose from. My First Deathmatch is the default standard mode to play in, Hillcampers is a traditional king of the hill setup which is of course made more interesting with invisibility, my favorite mode is called One Shot, and gives each player a single bullet, preventing them from reloading until everyone playing has shot their gun.
There are a few extra customization options available to you before heading into a match. You can set the number of kills required to win, add a time limit if its desired, and even limit the guns that are available in matches. Unlike most first person shooters, every weapon is available to you upon spawning, but you can’t change your weapon until you die. Gun restrictions are somewhat limited, you can force all players to use any type of weapon, but you can’t mix and match. A match with all crossbows? No problem. A match with just crossbows and blunderbusses? Impossible.
To be clear, Screencheat has almost nothing to offer a solo player. There’s no AI of any sort and as a result the only way you’re even going to be able to see the game in action is to find people to play with. You are able to join random lobbies through the online play, but that’s it. It would have been nice to have some bots to practice against or even just a shooting range so you could get more familiar with the weapons instead of the trial by fire situation the game puts you in instead.
While Screencheat works great with couch multiplayer I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as a party game. Games like Nidhogg and DiveKick take genres and strip them down making them approachable to anyone, Screencheat is taking a type of game that non-gamers already find challenging and adding an extra layer of complexity to it. If you have plenty of friends familiar with first person shooters then things will probably go well, but players who don’t have a lot of experience with the genre will most likely find this out of their league.
While online play ran smoothly we did run into a couple bugs along the way. Several times players would find themselves snagged on invisible spots in the environment. We also had some trouble with the game trapping players in the pause screen occasionally during play. This is all likely stuff that can be smoothed over in patches and we never encountered anything that had a more serious fix beyond restarting the match.
The teddy bear bomb is a particularly odd weapon.
Screencheat is an amazing concept and I really enjoyed playing it, but at the same time it really feels like it requires the perfect storm to maximize your fun. Online multiplayer ran well, but it just doesn’t compare to having people sitting down and playing with you. If you have a group of friends who have FPS experience then you’re probably going to mine a lot of enjoyment out of Screencheat, otherwise you may find yourself out of things to do with the game relatively quickly. The game is a ton of fun, but I wish you got more for the $14.99 price tag.
