Ludography
78/100
Players17 ratings
71/100
Critics4 reviews
More scores
Metacritic7 critic reviews
71/100
Metacritic usersuser score
63/100
GameFAQsJust Right-Tough
3.5/5
Player reviews
91% positive855 reviews
Steam Deck
Playable
Runs on
Windows, Mac, Linux
Price
US$13.38

Where to get it

Screencheat cover

2014 · Samurai Punk · First-person shooter · Indie

Screencheat

Screencheat is a chaotic split-screen multiplayer shooter that forces players to rethink the way they approach conventional multiplayer games. In the Screencheat arena, fast reaction times aren’t enough to keep you alive. When everyone is invisible, players will have to master the art of taking a not-so sneaky look at their opponent’s screens and working out where they are based on uniquely coloured areas of the map and distinctive landmarks.

Released
21 October 2014
Platforms
LinuxPlayStation 4WindowsXbox OnemacOS
Genres
First-person shooterIndieShooter
Developers
Samurai Punk
Publishers
Samurai Punk
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
First person
Themes
ActionComedyParty
Country
Australia
Age ratings
CERO BACB PGPEGI 7GRAC ALLUSK 12CLASS_IND 10ESRB T
Languages
Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish (Spain)
Time to beat
2.5hmain story8hcompletionist

About

Screencheat is a first-person shooter video game developed by Samurai Punk and published by Surprise Attack. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in October 2014 and was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in March 2016. The game was later ported to Nintendo Switch in November 2018, under the name Screencheat: Unplugged, and featuring enhanced graphics and a revamped interface.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Screencheat is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game, but in functionality it is a second-person shooter, because every player's character model is invisible. Since the viewpoints of all players are shown on the screen, players are required to look at others' screens to deduce their opponents' location, hence the name of the game. The maps are brightly colored in order to make it easier to figure out where a player is.

Screencheat includes several different gamemodes. Some, including My First Deathmatch, Hillcamper (similar to King of the Hill, but with the hill moved to another place after every few seconds), and Capture the Fun (where players fight for possession of a piñata), are multiplayer FPS standards. The game also has a handful of unique gamemodes, such as One Shot, where each player is limited to one shot and cannot reload until a certain amount of time, and Murder Mystery, in which players have to kill a specific opponent with a particular weapon.

Development

Screencheat was developed by Australia-based studio Samurai Punk and published by Surprise Attack. The game's inception came from the 2014 Global Game Jam, where it received several awards and honourable mentions. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux on 21 October 2014. Prior to release, a free public beta period ran from 4 August to 3 September.

It was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 1 March 2016. In November 2018, Samurai Punk released Screencheat: Unplugged, optimized for Nintendo Switch with remastered graphics and a new weapon-unlocking system.

Reception

Screencheat received "mixed or average" reviews from critics upon release, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Critics praised the game for building an enjoyable experience around a single novel idea, but they also criticized the game's lack of depth, and limited replayability.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
macOS21 October 2014Worldwide
Windows21 October 2014Worldwide
Linux21 October 2014Worldwide
Xbox One1 March 2016North America · Worldwide 1 March 2016
PlayStation 41 March 2016Worldwide

Editions and related releases

Ported as
Screencheat: Unplugged
Built on it
Screencheat: Unplugged

Games like this

Collections3 collections

Years

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.