- An Update for the DEADLOCK Community – A New Beginning - 30 January 2025
Hey everyone, The two of us have been hard at work on something new—something that carries the spirit of DEADLOCK forward while expanding on its core ideas. Today, we’re excited to share a first look at the gameplay we’ve been developing. This video showcases the foundation of our weapon and movement systems, including full interaction mechanics, along with a first look at the pistol, shotgun, and assault rifle in action. You’ll also see some of the interactive props and physics-driven gameplay elements we’ve been refining. For those of you who were part of DEADLOCK’s journey, we want to acknowledge the long silence. When development on the original game had to pause, we never intended for it to last this long. Unfortunately, by the time we were in a position to return, a lot of time had passed. On top of that, Valve recently announced their own game called Deadlock, making it clear tha…
- Hello Again Steam Community - 2 September 2024
Hello Again Steam community, It has been over 8 years since our last update on Deadlock. Game developers don’t vanish into thin air everyday so we thought you all deserved a bit of info on what happened, where we’ve been, and our plans for the future. We started Skunkape Interactive in 2014 as a group of 4 highschool friends. From 2014 to 2016 we published our first game (ROOT), started an Early Access VR game (DEADLOCK), and dabbled in some other side projects. Around 2017 our group fell apart. Game dev was always a hobby for us (albeit one we took very seriously) but it just wasn’t enough to keep everyone together. We drifted apart and lost the ability to provide updates to our games, let alone create new ones. Now, while most of the former team have moved on, two of us have decided that we just can’t leave game dev behind. Although we’ve been offline for the past 8 years we’ve been b…
- DEADLOCK Update: Online Leaderboards - 25 February 2017
Hello Steam community. We are pleased to announce that online leaderboards are now live! We are looking forward to competing with you all for the highest score! Other minor improvements have also been made. Read on for the full list of changes. Changelog: Global Online Leaderboards. Leaderboard displays the top 9 players and where your best score falls globally. Updated configuration options. Settings for antialiasing level and bloom can now be configured. Simplified score GUI to remove unnecessary information and focus on score. Drone reactivity has been improved. Inflicting damage yields more satisfying reactions. Added a screen effect indicating when the player receives damage. Added a special effect to make dealing headshots more noticeable. Improved laser sight VFX, new version is easier to see where shots will land. Fixed a minor bug with some shaders that caused mesh outlines to…
- DEADLOCK Update: Online Leaderboards - 25 February 2017
Hello Steam community. We are pleased to announce that online leaderboards are now live! We are looking forward to competing with you all for the highest score! Other minor improvements have also been made. Read on for the full list of changes. Changelog: Global Online Leaderboards. Leaderboard displays the top 9 players and where your best score falls globally. Updated configuration options. Settings for antialiasing level and bloom can now be configured. Simplified score GUI to remove unnecessary information and focus on score. Drone reactivity has been improved. Inflicting damage yields more satisfying reactions. Added a screen effect indicating when the player receives damage. Added a special effect to make dealing headshots more noticeable. Improved laser sight VFX, new version is easier to see where shots will land. Fixed a minor bug with some shaders that caused mesh outlines to…
- DFE Studios is now Skunkape Interactive - 20 December 2016
Hello, Cyber Terrorists! Today DFE Studios is undergoing a name change. We will now operate under the name Skunkape Interactive. We feel the new name better fits our design principles and our studio's roots (no pun intended!). The Florida skunk ape has been our logo and mascot since the first Steam launch of ROOT 1.3 back in September 2015, so the name feels fitting. Don't worry, our name is the only thing that is changing. We are still the same 4 man team who brought you ROOT and DEADLOCK, and moving forward we continue to work hard to create the highest quality experiences possible. Thank you for playing our games, and stay tuned! Skunkape Interactive
- DFE Studios is now Skunkape Interactive - 20 December 2016
Hello, Cyber Terrorists! Today DFE Studios is undergoing a name change. We will now operate under the name Skunkape Interactive. We feel the new name better fits our design principles and our studio's roots (no pun intended!). The Florida skunk ape has been our logo and mascot since the first Steam launch of ROOT 1.3 back in September 2015, so the name feels fitting. Don't worry, our name is the only thing that is changing. We are still the same 4 man team who brought you ROOT and DEADLOCK, and moving forward we continue to work hard to create the highest quality experiences possible. Thank you for playing our games, and stay tuned! Skunkape Interactive
- DEADLOCK: Minor Update - 22 October 2016
Hello Steam community. Today we are releasing a small update featuring ongoing minor bugfixes and improvements to balance, stability, audio and performance. Changelog: Minor bugfixes Increased audio gain of Attack Dogs to improve Player's situational awareness Performance enhancements Ongoing tuning to the game's balance and difficulty We hope you have fun!
- DEADLOCK: Minor Update - 22 October 2016
Hello Steam community. Today we are releasing a small update featuring ongoing minor bugfixes and improvements to balance, stability, audio and performance. Changelog: Minor bugfixes Increased audio gain of Attack Dogs to improve Player's situational awareness Performance enhancements Ongoing tuning to the game's balance and difficulty We hope you have fun!
- DEADLOCK Update: Experimental Touchpad Movement Training Course - 9 September 2016
In an effort to widen the horizons of First Person Shooters in Virtual Reality we have been developing a first person movement system for room scale VR. In our system you can use the touch pads on the Vive controllers to move your character in 3D space, while still being free to move about your playspace as you normally would. This system comes with some drawbacks, namely it can be difficult to adjust to and may cause motion sickness. Therefore we are releasing our training course map so you can jump right in and share your experience with us! We believe that the potential for a system like this is huge. The system supports full world collision as well as falling. Here’s a short video of the system in action. So if you already have DEADLOCK, give it a try and share your experience on our Steam community forum. And don’t forget, we’ve also released an update to Wave Defense.
- DEADLOCK Update: Wave Defense: Powerups, Difficulty Settings and Balance Improvements - 9 September 2016
Watch the trailer Today we are releasing a small update to DEADLOCK. Changes are as follows: Powerups 4 Powerups have been added. Frenzy: Your weapons will never overheat as long as the Powerup is active. Overshields: Grants you 1 additional life. Reflex: Enemy lasers travel in slow motion as long as the Powerup is active. Quad Damage: Self explanatory. As long as the Powerup is active, your attacks do Quad Damage! Difficulty Settings Difficulty can now be set to Easy, Normal, or Hard. Easy: Easy Mode is good for new players who are getting used to the game and anyone who wants to play a more casual mode. Guns take a lot longer to overheat, enemies have less health and enemy attacks are easier to dodge. Normal: Normal is the best difficulty for most players who have played a few rounds. Guns take a bit longer to overheat than on Hard and you still have the advantage of Powerups. Hard: H…
- DEADLOCK Update: Wave Defense: Powerups, Difficulty Settings and Balance Improvements - 9 September 2016
Watch the trailer Today we are releasing a small update to DEADLOCK. Changes are as follows: Powerups 4 Powerups have been added. Frenzy: Your weapons will never overheat as long as the Powerup is active. Overshields: Grants you 1 additional life. Reflex: Enemy lasers travel in slow motion as long as the Powerup is active. Quad Damage: Self explanatory. As long as the Powerup is active, your attacks do Quad Damage! Difficulty Settings Difficulty can now be set to Easy, Normal, or Hard. Easy: Easy Mode is good for new players who are getting used to the game and anyone who wants to play a more casual mode. Guns take a lot longer to overheat, enemies have less health and enemy attacks are easier to dodge. Normal: Normal is the best difficulty for most players who have played a few rounds. Guns take a bit longer to overheat than on Hard and you still have the advantage of Powerups. Hard: H…
