Making the Sausage: 1.0

This post is for the new players, Meat Scientist enthusiasts, and Rangus File collectors who want to know ALL THE THINGS!

Quick navigation before we dive in:

• This page is a thicc drop of developer insights and behind-the-scenes content
• Want the patch notes? Read them here: Stick A Fork In It. (Beware of spoilers!)
• If you're looking for the item unlock challenge, point your Bolt Burger this way to Meat Your Quota!

Time for all you biscuit busters to buckle up!

What 1.0 Means to Us

1.0 means SWAPMEAT has finally become the game we always knew it could be. The core was there early on, but we've spent the last stretch adding the polish, weird little details, and special touches that turn a fun prototype into a memorable experience. It's still the same bizarre, meat-swapping chaos at its heart, just bigger, smoother, and a whole lot more complete.

During Early Access, we realized we'd drifted away from some of the roguelite elements that originally inspired the game and resonated with a lot of players. This version is our answer to that. We took a hard look at what makes a great roguelite compelling (progression, replayability, surprising runs) and worked to bring those ideas back into the experience.

As a studio, we've always been pretty good at building prototypes and proving out crazy ideas. But eventually all those rough edges need attention. A huge amount of work went into polish, balance, pacing, and presentation, and it finally feels like all the pieces are clicking together.

– Jason Stokes (Omg_Crangus) Game Director

The Soul of Carl

Not only is Jason SWAPMEAT's Game Director and Art Director, he is the voice - nay, the soul! - of Carl Rangus. Carl originated as a small character in the game, intended to be a simple quest-giver. When Jason added his then yet-unknown voice talents to the concept art Doug Williams cooked up (more on that in a bit), the true Carl Rangus was born. Hilarious, warm, and infinitely quotable.

True or False: Jason found Carl's unique voice while driving his kids to school. Answer in the lore drop below!

The Disgusting Art of SWAPMEAT

We can't talk about Carl without talking about Concept Artist Doug Williams. He's the man responsible for the weird and possibly insane aesthetic of SWAPMEAT. Doug's natural art sensibilities are a mashup of body-horror-meets-90s-cartoons. This was a match made in meat heaven. Who else puts a head in a floating jar, or a gaping mouth in the middle of a monstrous body?! Doug does.

It's gory. It's glorious.

Fun fact about Doug: he's the humblest guy you will ever meet, and one of the most talented. He's built terrifying and inspiring worlds on many games and films (cough Guillermo del Toro cough). We love Doug so much that we forced him to do his least favorite thing and talk about himself. Go tell him he's handsome and did a good job.

Want more to see more artwork? Follow Doug on YouTube, where he posts making-of videos like this one for SWAPMEAT:

Want MORE artwork? We gotchu! Keep scrolling for a look at the new Steam Achievements and Trading Cards, as well as selected posters and concept art from SWAPMEAT in our Fan Kit.

Mystery Meat: Why We Renamed Artifacts

Artifacts were the code name for "Ultimate" abilities that you'd unlock through a terminal in the ship / lobby. When we remade these into something that randomly dropped during a run, something much more similar to Mario Kart items, the name didn't really work anymore.

When we re-implemented this system and removed Artifacts from your load-out, we placed them as pickups from a Mystery Meat Cube. I intended to give Artifacts a real name, but I forgot to.

So now Artifacts are called Mystery Meat and you get Mystery Meat from interacting with Mystery Meat Cubes.

– Jamie Stormbreaker (OMG_Stormbreaker) Co-Founder, Design Director

The Benefits Terminal: A New Way to Grow

SWAPMEAT has always had ways to upgrade your character's overall power. The Smart Meat Terminal let you opt into bonuses that fit your playstyle, while the Carl Terminal had a separate set of Upgrades — permanent bonuses you'd naturally earn just by playing the game.

The distinction made sense on paper: Upgrades were things the game handed you, Smart Meat was things you chose. But as the Carl Terminal grew into a hub for Quests and Challenges, those Upgrades started to feel out of place there. And without much to compete with, the Smart Meat Terminal started to feel a little underwhelming.

The fix was to combine them. The Employee Benefits Terminal brings both systems together into one clean, organized home for permanent upgrades — because as intergalactic employment law requires, keeping you at peak earning potential for the company is a legal obligation. Plus, every good job comes with perks!

The first Perk track you'll unlock is Health Insurance, and we want to reassure you: unlike most health insurance, this one actually does something. Each of the four ranks increases your maximum health and makes health containers restore more of it. By the time you've fully upgraded the track, you'll be noticeably harder to kill and much better at recovering when things go wrong. It won't stop you from getting shot, but it does mean you'll have a fighting chance when you do.

Health Insurance is just the start. Show enough initiative and you'll get invited to the Company BBQ, or enrolled in the Wellness Program — the company takes a dim view of permanent death. Maybe Carl will finally change his mind about pets in the office!

– Lewis Mohr (OMG_DiscoDonut), Engineer

The Tutorial: Building a Better First Run

One of the things we heard from you over the last few months was about the very first thing you do in SWAPMEAT: the tutorial. Although our players didn't have issues completing the tutorial planet, it was clear there was confusion when going from that space to an actual run. So we tore it out and rebuilt it. Here's what changed, why, and what you can expect:

The old tutorial sat you down on a dedicated tutorial planet and tried to teach you everything before letting you loose — it threw you into the deep end by washing you in new mechanics all at once, and it stood between you and your friends. Most of you start the game by jumping into a session with people you know, and being stuck in a tutorial first is the opposite of fun…Sooo we cut the tutorial planet entirely and changed the flow of joining a friend from the main menu. Hosts can now select the starting difficulty immediately when creating a new save file, play (or skip) the tutorial from the game menu, and joining players go directly into the host lobby, no forced tutorial.

For those who do play the tutorial, it should be fairly snappy. Your first moments now happen entirely in the ship lobby — no separate level, no detour. It opens with a short intro cutscene where Carl prints you out of the respawn fridge as a fresh blob of Smart Meat, and from there you learn only the simple, core mechanics. Like swapping meat, losing meat, and gaining new abilities.

Instead of cramming everything into those first few minutes, we spread the teaching across your early game through Carl's mainline quests. "Employee Probation" hands you your tools one at a time, and later mainlines gradually introduce more: more ship terminals, more planet exploration, and more of the story. If you play a lot of games in this genre, a lot of this will feel familiar — get into the game quickly, and learn by doing and experimenting while in game, because that's part of the fun, right?

The thing we're most excited for you to feel: you're not reading countless tooltips, you're being shown the ropes by people. Carl, your relentlessly upbeat boss, talks you through every step like a proud mentor (who's maybe a little too comfortable cutting corners). And Roxie (the ship's deadpan AI) is right there to keep him honest. By the time you step off the ship, Carl already feels like your boss and Roxie already feels like the one who's seen it all, and it's up to you - a brand new Squishy, to help them feed the galaxy.

– OMG_DirigiblePlums, UX/UI Designer

Reviving Your Friends

Roguelite games and co-operative games can be at odds with each other; on one hand you want the player to be challenged and you need to kill them. On the other, if they're playing with friends, they don't want to sit around and spectate for very long. Nearly two years ago when we first added Franken Beans we realized we had a problem with the way we handled respawns – the host of our game died and realized they couldn't respawn, so they just quit, killing the game for all of the other players.

Balancing for single player and co-operative has been tough, but one of the principals that I've tended to stick to is that if you're playing with friends, it is okay if the game is easier. A lot of the time that is just true anyway since players have varying levels of skill.

We've changed how the player dies and respawns a number of times throughout alpha, beta, and early access. In this update we're making one final change.

You still have respawn tokens, but dying will no longer have anything to do with your Hunter timer. If you die in multiplayer and there are still other players alive, you can wait for them to come over and resurrect you at no cost. If all players are downed, the run is over.

We hope this encourages you to play with friends and makes things feel more fluid and natural. Thank you for all the feedback over all of these tests.

– Jamie Stormbreaker (OMG_Stormbreaker), Co-Founder, Design Director

New Official Soundtrack

Announcing the Original SWAPMEAT Soundtrack, from Composer Austin Wintory!

Here's what Austin said about working on SWAPMEAT:

"Anyone who knows me knows that the chance to be genuinely musically experimental is something I'll never pass up, and it's doubly great when the game is equally wacky and fun. Triply great when the team behind it is just a delightful group of folks. I was introduced several years ago to the One More Game team and for SWAPMEAT they basically said "We love retro games, we love funk, we love 90s animation like Space Ghost ... and our game is super so do whatever feels right!"

"Welcome to SWAPMEAT, I Love You" is the title of the first track on the Original Soundtrack. Have a listen.

We held an AMA with Austin in our Discord and saved you the video if you missed it. Here's a teaser: the music in SWAPMEAT changes when you swap body parts! Did you notice that before we mentioned it?

Shoutout to OMG_DianeMarie for being the late night talk show host of our dreams!

The Official SWAPMEAT Soundtrack will soon be available as standalone DLC on the store page. (At the time of this writing, we're just waiting on our friends at Valve to check that everything looks good on their end. It might even already be there by the time you read this!) You can also buy it bundled with the Rare & Questionable Cuts companion album.

Wait, are there two soundtracks?! Yes! Here's a quick way to distinguish them:

• Original Soundtrack = official score, no lyrics
• Rare & Questionable Cuts = a concept album, all the lyrics

Which brings us to...

Behind the Music

How did Seattle indie musicians end up making a deliberately weird, genre-spanning original album for a video game? The answer, in a picture:

On the left playing bass is Jamie Stormbreaker, One More Game's Co-Founder. On the right is Aaron Kasson, and onstage but hidden by his drumset, is John O'Connell. When Jamie had the wild idea to write an album of songs inspired by SWAPMEAT's world-building, Aaron and John were the first people he reached out to. This is the making of Rare & Questionable Cuts.

Rock 'n' roll.

Loot Event for Launch Week!

Meat Your Quota to unlock five new cosmetics!

This event automatically applies to all players. Slay enemies, celebrate birthdays, harvest meat cores, defeat bosses, and of course, swap your meat: each action counts toward an unlock milestone. Once the milestones are hit, the items will show up in your meat locker.

This event runs until June 24. Get all the details here.

Steam Achievements & Trading Cards

No game is complete without them! And, be honest: neither is your heart. Go make Carl proud.

Thank you Doug Williams for the covet-worthy artwork in the Cards and Achieves. (And the electrifying art in this header. And the image of Carl floating in a galaxy of hot dogs. Why is Carl just a head in a jar, anyway? Best to not ask.

There's a Wiki for that

In all of SWAPMEAT's chaos, new enemies, abilities, weapons, and meats can be overwhelming. There's a Codex in the game for this, but when you're not mid-run, relax with a deep dive on the new SWAPMEAT Wiki. Surprise your friends with your arcane knowledge of how element upgrades work! Like we said, relaxing.

Fan Kit

Assets that would make Null jelly.

Screenshots, key art, concept art; streamer overlays, transitions and stingers; gifs, emotes, posters; content galore! Plus, a helpful FAQ for new players, as well as control scheme layouts for Mouse + Keyboard and Controllers (PlayStation/Xbox). Everything's in the Fan Kit! Enjoy!

How to Play, But Make it Funny

Completely new here? We made Dense Matter just for you: a comedic crash-tutorial in episodic form. Because "do this, do that, don't do the other thing" is just boring. And nothing about SWAPMEAT is boring.

Bug Reports

Report bugs or crashes in our Discord. This is the official path that guarantees your issue will bug the devs. Yes we know what we wrote and we love it.

You Did It

You made it to the end of our 1.0 deep dive, dear indefatigable, infinitely re-printable Squishies. If there was an Achievement for the irl lore-hunters, you just earned it. Told ya it was a big drop! But wait, there's more here:

• Stick A Fork In It: the 1.0 Patch Notes
• Meat Your Quota: launch week loot event!

So much goodness. That's what today -- and 1.0 -- is for!

Thank you. We love you.

-- The OMG Team