Smith and Winston

Released: Aug 27, 2019
Platforms: WindowsmacOSLinux
Last updated: 09 Sep 2026, 20:37 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

26 Dec 2019Developer post
Boxing day bug smashing bonanza
After Christmas I like to sit at my computer, barely able to touch the keyboard due to my distended belly, barely able to see the screen because of my beer goggles, and upload a new patch to Smith and Winston. Well there was this bug report and from that there was a bit of testin
28 Oct 2019Developer post
🎃Halloweeeeen Sale and Helmets👻
Whether you're planning to go out and scare your neighbours, let off a bazillion Diwali fireworks or follow the ancient Celtic harvest traditions and sculpt a turnip in to a truly terrifying object (honestly, don't click that link if turnips scare you) we've got some all hallows'
29 Aug 2019Developer post
Wibble - (update 1.0.1)
If you played the game and the whole screen was blurry or even wibbly-wobbly like the fire on the right... or if the plants weren't gently swaying like young optimistic teens at a school disco pontificating on whether Britney really did want to be hit one more time then we've got
27 Aug 2019Developer post
We made it... just. Release Day!
Obviously we totally know what we're doing and nothing went wrong at all in the Steam back end and we didn't have to open a support query and have a massive panic at all... no siree. Have fun, we hope you like our weird sense of humour and don't forget to use the buddy mode in co
16 Aug 2019Developer post
Release Date Set: 27th of August
We've set the release date for Smith and Winston. It's been a very very long road to get here. Thanks to everyone that has given feed back and encouragement. It really has helped. We have of course created a little trailer: So long and thanks for all the fish.
08 Aug 2019Developer post
Just one more thing...
We discovered a pretty weird and quite delightful bug in macOS builds using Metal as the renderer yesterday. It happens on all builds (Windows, Linux and macOS) with all renderers (OpenGL, DX11 and DX12) but Metal looked the best: If you remember the old days with four color CGA
03 Aug 2019Developer post
Develop Indie Showcase 2019: Video
Jupiter Hadley (twitter: @Jupiter_Hadley) made an great little montage video showing Develop 2019 including a little clip of Smith and Winston. I thought you'd like to see it. Lots of interesting games in there that might grab your attention. We uploaded the final Smith and Winst
26 Jul 2019Developer post
What do you mean it's not done yet!
Like a fine wine or soft cheese Smith and Winston makes us dizzy and smells like feet! But you want to know why it's not finished yet? This is a picture of the VOIDs home. He's a tidy fellow really but he's been stealing all those monoliths for some reason and plugging them in! W
18 Jun 2019Developer post
Develop Indie Showcase 2019
We are pretty chuffed to announce that Smith and Winston has been selected for the Indie Game Showcase at Develop: Brighton 2019 here in the UK. Develop is an industry event where developers from all over Europe get together and talk shop. We're very surprised and quite elated th
23 May 2019Developer post
Update #10 - Power Cubes, Shippy, New Levels, More Debris and much more!
Everything here is available to download now... so update, explore and destroy! New levels to explore Spynall Tapp Where the demons dwell if you can find the secret door at least. Asteroid You’ve made it to the surface of the Asteroid. The space ship that the VOID used to gather
Everything here is available to download now... so update, explore and destroy!
New levels to explore
Spynall Tapp
Where the demons dwell if you can find the secret door at least.
Asteroid
You’ve made it to the surface of the Asteroid. The space ship that the VOID used to gather the monoliths to unleash his power… it’s a bit weird on the giant cube.
These are the final two levels before you enter the Asteroid to face the VOID itself.
Escape from the teacher
Listen, we all know that you hate training levels. But we also know that some people need them. So we’ve added a get out quick door at the beginning. So if you are super l337 hard core haX0r twin stick aficionado then you don’t need to sit through it.
It’s certain flowers that give you coins.
We got an interesting bug report that sometime you picked up a power cube but it didn’t appear in the HUD. After some digging we realised that it wasn’t clear that some flowers give you a coin. So now when you get a power cube an icon appears to let you know it’s a power cube you’ve collected and not a coin.
Power Cubes
Speaking of power cubes. You collect them to repair shippy, well at least that’s what she tells you at the beginning of the game. Well now they are needed to power the spinning portal doors. After feedback from EGX we realised that people were just powering through the levels and not taking the time to smell the roses and explore a little. There is a lot to find in all the levels so this is a little hint to chill a bit, destroy a bit more and dig for some POWER!
The number of power cubes needed is written at the top of the door because the aliens that inhabit this shattered ring world are all highly organised and probably have a spreadsheet about these sorts of things.
Sarcastic Shippy
When you jumped to a new level Shippy told you some useful information about how many enemies you’d killed, how many power cubes you got and all that stuff. Well that was far too nice of Shippy so now she tells you sometimes useful information and sometimes sarcastic information.
Bug Fixes and tweaks.
Screen SHAKE Shenanigans!

Screen shake is worked out for each co-op player independently so now, just as you were making that difficult boost across a gap, your coop partner can’t throw a grenade making the whole screen shake.
If the screen was shaking because, say, a large block was moving, and you threw a grenade… well all hell broke loose and the screen shook like a wet dog. That’s fixed now.
If you’ve turned off the screen shake then maybe give it another go.
Better physics on low end machines
Physics uses more cores if you’ve got them
Up debris in options > game > debris
Faster loading and rendering
We’ve sped up the loading of levels a tiny bit by being a bit more clever… or less dumb. We no longer build the same model thousands of times per level and just do it once. Thank you for recognising my genius.
Have fun exploring and destroying.
dazza
Original post
18 Apr 2019Developer post
Update #9 - Save the Day
Save the coop We’ve turned on save games for coop. So now you can officially continue a coop game you’ve been playing with your buddy. Coop rebirth If one of the coop player runs out of lives they will be given a free life with a full shield if you can get to the next level. We’r
10 Apr 2019Developer post
Update #8 - Coop, shattering and more!
We've releaed a new update to Smith and Winston, so while it's downloading behind your back why not read this and be amazed :) Shattering For a long time we’ve had the world blowing up in to tiny voxels. This has been very satisfying for everyone. We’ve made it even more satisfyi
We've releaed a new update to Smith and Winston, so while it's downloading behind your back why not read this and be amazed :)
Shattering
For a long time we’ve had the world blowing up in to tiny voxels. This has been very satisfying for everyone. We’ve made it even more satisfying now by creating big chunks of floor and walls from the world when you blow it up.
Tree Collapse
Cutting the bottom out of a tree is one of the first things that players do. When it doesn't fall a lot of players feel cheated. So now the tree will fall down shattering in to bits in the process. This is oh.. so... good :)
Head over Heels for Coop.
We recently showed Smith and Winston at EGX Rezzed in London. Coop mode went down a complete storm. "Best Game of the Show", "So satisfying" were just two of the many comments we got from all different types of gamers and we're still beaming from hearing all the kind words.
Coop mode isn't complete and there are still a few issues but it's so much fun we want everyone to join in with a friend and blow some stuff up.
One notable ommision is that we haven't got save games working and when a player dies there is no way to revive them just yet but fixes for those are coming soon.
Dig in.
Better Debris
One of the challenges with Smith and Winston is managing all the tiny cubes that fly around. They are relatively expensive to draw (for what they are) and they are very expensive to do the collision for but oh they are so satisfying.
So in this update we've added a more flexible system where if they are getting too expensive we remove them from the scene more quickly keeping the framerate up for all players and allowing players with monster machines to get even more debris!
This is especially useful in coop where people seem to spend most of their time mining out the floor from under their 'coop partner' :)
Mining freeze
At the EGX rezzed show we learned that a lot of users were just using the mining laser to shoot everything, the world and the enemies. This is cool but when someone said "I don't think you should give the player a shotgun from the beginning!" we realised that we'd got the mining laser all wrong.
So for mining the laser hasn't changed at all but now it freezes enemies it hits for a second or so giving the player time to change weapon. Give it a go and see what you think.
Quicker level restores
With all this new destruction we started to notice that when the player died and we have to revert the level back to it's original state it was taking too long. This has been even more optimized now so it doesn't get in the way of your fun.
New title page and new intro movie
No one likes a long boring intro movie but we've made one just to annoy you even more. Trust me it's very short, gives you an insight in to Shippy and why she's a little mad and hopefully as we finish up the single player mode you'll enjoy her more as a character. We're working really hard to making her a richer and more rewarding part of the game.
We changed the title page just because it so cool to see Shippy in space!
Thanks to all our supporters
Lastly but definitely not leastly we'd like to say thanks to all that have bought the game and supported us. We are just two guys making a game. It's completely self funded, we don't have a wealthy backer or publisher and sometimes we need to take on contract work to pay the bills. It's really frustrating but that's life. Once again, thanks for your patience and kindness.
Tweaks
A lot of small things that players have asked for:

Disable ALT-F4 from killing the game.
Better controller detection and actions when unplugged/plugged in
Correct controller names in the HUD
Enemy shots are more controlled, sometimes they fired at weird angles which sucked
Turn on/off Depth of Field (video menu)
Turn on/off Shadows (video menu)
Turn on/off Bloom (video menu)
Enable/Disable screen saver kicking in (video menu)
Thanks for reading all this, I'd forgotten we'd done half of this stuff. The next update hopefully won't take so long to get out.
Have fun exploring and destroying.
Dazza & Charlie
Original post
06 Mar 2019Developer post
Update #6 - New Levels, Shield is Live and a Rejig.
All of this is live now so update Smith and Winston! ːsteamfacepalmː Story and Arcade Merged If you’ve been following along you’ll know that originally there were two game modes: Story and Arcade. With the introduction of the shield (see below) and thus the removal of one shot de
All of this is live now so update Smith and Winston! ːsteamfacepalmː
Story and Arcade Merged
If you’ve been following along you’ll know that originally there were two game modes: Story and Arcade. With the introduction of the shield (see below) and thus the removal of one shot death these two modes seems a waste of time. So they are merged. The downside of this is that everyone’s saves games are now invalid so, unfortunately, everyone has been kicked back to boot camp and has to start the mission again. The good news is that the mission is much clearer, much more balanced and starts a lot easier because of the shield.
Introductory Offer
Lets be honest no one really likes a cut scene but they are sometimes necessary. We found that people were asking questions like:

Who are Smith and Winston?
Am I playing as Smith or Winston?
Why is shippy such an asshat?
Is shippy the ship?
How many potatoes are there is each voxel?
So when you start a new game you get to see a little 30 second intro sequence which helps to set the scene a little.
Training
The cut scene plops you in to a little training area now where you can learn the controls. We’ve removed most of the introduction Shippy Beacons from the start of the game now. A lot of players just ignored them and Shippy’s voice was just too annoying
Calm down Shippy!
We’ve re-synthesized Shippy so she’s FAR less annoying to the players ears, especially when wearing headphones. So if you’ve turned down the shippy volume… you may want to turn it back up for a bit.
Shiela Sha-poo-pee Shields
We’ve added a shield. This means you can take three hits before losing a life. This makes a huge difference to the game. It’s amazing. We said we’d never do it but in the end, the players were correct, the game is better with a shield.
Bossing the Boss around
Based on the feedback we got about the Chopper Boss we’ve moved him to be the first boss that you see. It’s a better boss, it plays better than bunker boss and this gives us a chance to revisit the Bunker Boss and make him better.
New Levels
We’ve added three new levels to the game… each with distinct eeriness, distinct enemies and one of them is based on my personal addiction to Paprika Pringles.. but it’s probably not clear which.
Anyway, that’s it for now. We’re going to get a build ready for EGX Rezzed in London 4th-6th of April, 2019. If you’re around be sure to drop by and say hi.
Have fun exploring and destroying and thanks for all your help.
be seeing you
dazza.
Original post
27 Feb 2019Developer post
Prototyping a shield... whadda ya think?
After quite a lot of feedback from players we're prototyping a shield in the game. This is part of a bit of a reorganisation of the game. We're merging "story" and arcade mode in to one to make a better game. Originally story mode was essentially the same as arcade mode except wh
After quite a lot of feedback from players we're prototyping a shield in the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP9q7huXdnc
This is part of a bit of a reorganisation of the game. We're merging "story" and arcade mode in to one to make a better game.
Originally story mode was essentially the same as arcade mode except when you ran out of lives you could continue from the beginning of the level you just died on and your score was reset. Even while typing this I can hear what a complete mess of an idea that sounds like ːsteamfacepalmː When you make a game you often get lost in ideas, pause, look at the idea and realise it's been through some sort of transporter accident and it needs to be humanely killed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIiNbDVQMRE
So now we're planning

one mode of play (and coop of course)
a shield with three slots (so the fourth hit kills you).
shield pickups that recharges one of the three slots
less life pick ups (to give the shield pickup some value)
Finally I can get the spread pickup!
Let us know what you think. The artwork and sound effects are all prototypes.
Do you like the idea, hate the idea, think we're idiots, wonder where all the potatoes hide at night?
Original post
22 Feb 2019Developer post
Update #5 - Holodeck lessons
Another quick update with some bug fixes and a new BETA area for your feedback. Hollow Holo We hear you and agree we're really not happy with the way we use Shippy to teach the player how to play Smith and Winston. It's boring and annoying. Training areas in games are always hard
17 Feb 2019Developer post
Update #4 Live - Chopper Boss of DOOM
We've released a new update to Smith and Wintston! This is mainly a metric ton of tweaks to the first half of the game to make it more balanced and more fun to play. Thanks to everyone that gave us feedback and helped make the game even better. Features: Added in the Chopper boss
We've released a new update to Smith and Wintston! This is mainly a metric ton of tweaks to the first half of the game to make it more balanced and more fun to play. Thanks to everyone that gave us feedback and helped make the game even better.
Features:

Added in the Chopper boss. This is the middle boss in the game. He’s pretty epic (testable via the new BETA TEST menu)
Added a BETA TEST menu so player can test specific features of the game and give us feedback without destroying their Arcade Save games. We’ll be adding things to this menu and asking for feedback a lot we think.
Added a button for twitter and facebook in the title screen
Tweaking/Balancing of lives and ammo based on player feedback and streamer videos
Added disabled story and coop buttons to the main menu so players know they will be there activated at some point :)
After the player dies in a level specific enemies don’t restore so it becomes ‘slightly’ easier to finish the level. The cost to the player is that they will get a slightly lower score because there are less enemies to kill.
Beta Test
You can jump straight to the Chopper Boss from the new Beta Test menu option. You can test the boss and give us feedback without affecting your Arcade Save game. We'd love to hear from all players ːsteamhappyː
Engine Changes:

Upgraded BGFX rendering code. At least 10% faster on all platforms.
Added Metal rendering engine for macOS (8x faster than OpenGL)
Added OpenGL rendering engine for Windows
macOS and Windows can select the rendering engine to use in Options > Video
Bug Fixes:

Fix for some of the trophies not being present
Skip cutscene text is now correct for controller, KB/Mouse users.
Ping Game Boy helmet renamed to the correct Pink Game Boi
Chopper based enemies can now be hit by grenades
Mining Laser now shoots from closer to the player so that when right up against the wall it actually hits it. This makes running through the caves and mines a lot easier.
In some levels the player plows through snow or mud, after they died this stopped working, this is fixed.
Some GameObject (enemies, pickups etc) were not restoring after player death
long german and spanish phrases should now in to text boxes
custom in game cursors appear in front of the shippy text.
Once again, thanks to everyone that's played the game and given us bug reports and feedbacl. It's really means the world to us so jump in to the forum and tell us what you think!
Original post
22 Jan 2019Developer post
Patch 2 to Update #3 available today.
Another patch, this one has bug fixes and a few features. Nearly everything here has been reported by players so a big thanks to everyone that helped. We're getting close to releasing new levels soon as well ːsteammockingː New Features: Camera shake can be adjusted in Options &gt
Another patch, this one has bug fixes and a few features. Nearly everything here has been reported by players so a big thanks to everyone that helped.
We're getting close to releasing new levels soon as well ːsteammockingː
New Features:
Camera shake can be adjusted in Options > Game > Camera Shake
Controller rumble can be adjusted in Options > Game > Rumble
Added three custom mouse cursors for KB/Mouse players, see Options > Controls > Mouse.
Added a languages menu on Option where you can select the temporary translations for Spanish, German and French or the default English.
Tweaks to the game:
Added a glow to in game switches to make them a bit more obvious.
Added a flashing light to Shippy beacons so you can ignore them even more :)
Lava wasps now get killed by the exploding Lava eggs.
Spiders can be killed with grenades.
Dashing makes you invulnerable to explosions as well as bullets (while you are blue). So you can dash through spiders.
Some more sound design done in the Swamp of the Reanimated.
Added in more collectable helmets ( they have all now been placed in the game though some of them are on levels not yet released).
Balanced pick up and weapon distribution e.g all main levels should have at least 2 lives in them.
Added some more air pick ups, the number of these dropped off quite quickly as you progressed through the levels, there should now be a few more to test your dexterity.
Small voxel changes to the levels, e.g. fixing voxels that the player was getting caught up on.
Fixed lighting issues in Swamp of the Reanimated. Happened when the player went back through some of the portals.
Made some of the hidden portals a little easier to spot.
Labyrinth secret level is now a lot more forgiving and a wrong portal returns you to the same part of the level rather than the previous bit. Also the portal to the level exit has been differentiated from the other ones.
Bug Fixes:
more robust loading of corrupt save games.
no longer hide the cursor when playing with a Controller. This leads to annoying issues for users when like to use the mouse to tweak options with the mouse but play the game with a Controller.
When using the menus, pressing back selects the menu you’ve just come from to make menu navigation more clear.
Menu sliders now scale better for small resolutions (1024x768).
When setting a controller action to use the ‘B’/Circle button (which is also menu back) set the option but do not go back to the previous menu.
KB/Mouse shooting is now more accurate, the players gun now faces the mouse position not the player.
Fix for PSX controller Circle not appearing in Shippy dialog boxes
Linux, using a non-English locale no longer stops levels loading and doesn’t create corrupt userprefs files (thanks Stephan)
Known Issues:
long german and spanish phrases don’t fit in to text boxes.
custom in game cursors appear behind the shippy text.
Happy Exploring and Destroying
dazza
Original post
14 Jan 2019Developer post
Update #3 available .
Today we released a 32MB patch to Smith and Winston fixing a few small issues that have been reported by players and one we noticed in a Twitch steam. Hot low end action On lower end machines players are having to turn down the amount of debris. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE . So we’ve
05 Dec 2018Developer post
Update #2 is live
Earlier than promised (by only a day) we've released the second update to Smith and Winston. Of course we're really excited to hear what you guys think of the new levels including another secret level! Can you find it? Get lost in the ancient underground temples but watch out for
16 Nov 2018Developer post
Update #2 update
"How are we doing with the next update due on the 6th of December" I hear you ask, well I'm glad you asked because it's going really well. Update #2 is going great and we're on track to deliver it a few days early! With this update you really get in to the core of the combat, eve

Updates & announcements

Develop Stand

Brighton

New levels to explore

Escape from the teacher

It’s certain flowers that give you coins.

Power Cubes

Sarcastic Shippy

Bug Fixes and tweaks.

Faster loading and rendering

Save the coop

Coop rebirth

Buddy Mode

Oh coop partner, wherefore art thou!

Language update

No more clever, adjust the slider

Shippy

Shattering

Tree Collapse

Head over Heels for Coop.

Better Debris

Mining freeze

Quicker level restores

New title page and new intro movie

Thanks to all our supporters

Tweaks

Story and Arcade Merged

Introductory Offer

Training

Calm down Shippy!

Shiela Sha-poo-pee Shields

Bossing the Boss around

New Levels

Hollow Holo

Bug Fixes

Less chatter, more batter

New Features:

Tweaks to the game:

Bug Fixes:

Known Issues:

Hot low end action

Keeping your head!

More text… or space for it

No dead flying!

No more equality

No more HOME

Glyphs?

Bridge over Nothing

This Seems 'Nice'

Deep Down Again

Back to the Daylight

Chalk and Flowers