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Son of Scoregasm Update
I’ve been working pretty hard over the last month or so getting Son of Scoregasm back into fighting form, and while there’s still a few things I’d like to tackle I’m happy enough to release what I’ve been working on. I’ve uploaded an update to Steam which you can download now!
As the image suggests, Son of Scoregasm now runs on Steam Deck! It runs rather well too, full resolution at 60fps! It’s been pretty cool playing the game on it, testing away from my laptops. I’ve also added Arm Mac support.
I’ve also been recording a series of Youtube shorts covering how to get the score medals on each level in the game. These should start appearing on Youtube later today, if you’d like to take a look you can subscribe to my Youtube channel here.
It’s been pretty fun recording them and re-visiting the game properly for the first time in years. I’d forgotten how tough some of those levels are, especially towards the end. Maybe it’s just age dulling my reactions?
With regards to the future, I’m hoping to replace the old OpenGL renderer with the new SDL_GPU api. This should hopefully future proof the game a little more.
I’m also intending on replacing the GUIs in the game. These were designed originally around the limitations of the PS Vita and as such aren’t so great on PCs. I imagine this will be a complete pain to do, but very worth it. Watch this space!
I’ll also be updating the non-steam version of the game. This is mildly problematic at the moment as i need some kind of online score service to use. In the past I’ve rolled my own with PHP and MySQL but they usually get hacked so I’m on the lookout for something else. There are a few services I’ve found online but given how much SoS earns off of steam it’s hard to justify the expense, especially given how limiting some of them are. It’s real shame itch.io doesn’t offer something along these lines. I suspect it would make a lot of people happy.
Finally, if you’d like to try the game, you can grab a copy via the widget below.
Full list of changes/updates:
- Replaced broken online scores with Steam leaderboards. There is a global leaderboard for multi-level runs, and per-level leaderboards for score attack play.
- Removed controller config screen because…
- Sos now uses only SDls Gamepad library. This should mean any controller supported by steam will be configured automatically, or can be changed in Steam itself.
- Fixed Broken dependencies on linux. Now targetting steam runtime 4
- Fixed Steam Achievements not setting/syncing at times.
- You can now use the controller triggers to trigger the pulse attack
- Replaced libBass audio with SDL2_mixer as it plays better on SteamOS/Linux Various engine fixes brought to light over time.
- Thickened the line width of the vector font so it’s easier to read on SteamDeck or other small screens
- Default effects level is now set to high, as pretty much any PC released in the last decade should be able to run this at 60fps in 1080p. My 5yr old Thinkpad runs it at 4k without the fans coming on, so this should be fine…
- Slightly increased the range of the pulse attack.
- Steam cloud save support
- Added more controller glyphs
- Adjusted a tutorial stage so that enemies continue to spawn until the pulse attack is full.
- Dynamic controller add/remove
- Changed saving video settings so each machine you run the game on keeps it’s own record. This means if you play on PC at 4k, transferring your save to steam deck via steam cloud wont attempt to open a 4k window, resulting in misaligned glyphs.
- Fixed boss health bars not displaying in some circumstances
- Fixed buggy string replacement code.
- fixed audio volumes not adjusting in some circumstances.
- Re-based on SLD3, SDL3_Mixer and SDL3_TTF
- Removed old vector font code and replaced with a UTF8 compliant font so Steam usernames appear correctly in the leaderboards, or at least so far as the font allows.
- Made easy mode default. This game is HARD!
- Enemies now move more slowly in easy mode.
- Removed the sway effect on the GUI as it was causing text to be hard to read
- Adjusted enemy score values on extinguisher level to make the medal target more achievable.
- Arm Mac build. Mac version now require MacOS 14 Tahoe or above
- Linux version build against latest Ubuntu LTS (26.04) and Steam Runtime 4
- Windows build via mingw64. likely Win10 or greater
- Fixed buggy strrep code.
See you on the high scores!
Cheers Charlie
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Old Games
I’ve added some pages for my various old games here. There are other random creations but that page lists the most important.
There’s some history to them now I guess, given that the oldest among them was released 20 years ago. I’ve added a small trivia section to each page with a few fun facts etc. about each one. Admittedly, this has mostly been a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me but may be interesting to some of you. So much of what was happening back the in the indie games space is consigned to the internet archive. It’s incredible to see how things have progressed, good and bad.
It’s been my intention this year to get at least some of these old games running again on modern PCs and in some cases all new platforms.
Most of them are broken in some form or other, be it rendering issues, crash bugs, audio distortion etc. so it’ll be god to get them dusted off and working again as first class citizens on whatever platform.
I’d intended to start at the beginning with Bullet Candy, but I’ve added Son of Scoregasm into a forthcoming Steam Fest, so work has started there. Truthfully, I can’t remember too much about writing SoS, other than finding the Vita a pretty cool machine to work with, but I have been very pleased that all the old build/packaging scripts I’d written back then still mostly functioned!
I’ve fixed a ton of little bugs, updated/replaced the libraries I used with the latest versions, fixed the leaderboards which have long been defunct and added support for Steam Deck. The Deck is a pretty cool device, it’s been pretty fun to work with and a lot less labor intensive than i expected.
There’s a public beta available now on Steam should you wish to have a go. Any feedback would be much appreciated!
Post this update going live, I’ll be continuing to work on my game framework, which is still very early doors. It’d be nice to think I could get a prototype of something new working before the end of the year so I’m setting that as a target for the next six months along side updating the old stuff as framework development allows. I have plans for both old and new i feel confident with which helps a lot with motivation.
See you on the high-scores!
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Rise From Your Grave
Rise From Your Grave! I’ve had a bit of an unintentional break from games, 7 or eight years in fact, and it’s been almost 10 years since I released my last game, Son of Scoregasm, on PS Vita and PC. During this time I’ve been working as a chef, running a local kitchen. It’s been quite good fun!
That job has come to an end now, so I have more time to dedicate to writing games and maintaining my back catalog. It is my intention this year to get my older games running properly on modern PC platforms as all of them in their current states are broken in some way.
I’d like also to revisit some of those older titles, re-invent them a little and make them generally more appealing for new players. It’s been 20 years since my first game launched, which I guess makes it retro. 20 years prior to it’s release (1986) saw the release of SEGA’s Outrun, Nintendo’s first Metroid and Zelda games, Llamasoft’s incredibly difficult Iridis Alpha, early doors real time 3D shooter Starglider on the Atari ST and style over substance pioneer Defender of the Crown, all of which were pretty much digital antiques by 2006.
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