Noisy shooter Selaco adds a new game mode, turns kitchenware into weaponry, and teases plans for chapter 2

The developers have been spinning plates

You can now knock down enemy dirtbags using a dinner plate as a violent frisbee in Selaco. Wonderful. The first-person shooter, which is replete with satisfying explosions, gunfire, bullet ricochets, smashing glass, sparks, goo, blood spatters, dust, ice particles, smoke, flecks of plaster, and bad guys yelling at one another about how she's over there, may be described as noisy, both in the aural and visual sense of the word. Which is how we like it, you understand. This latest update to the early access shooter leans into that by layering on even more juicy shootFX. It also adds a whole new game mode and plenty of other tweaks. The bad news is that some story bits are now delayed.

First things first - the new "Special Campaign" mode is basically the shooter's equivalent of new game plus. It will let players replay the campaign (as it exists so far) "but with unique Endgame Content and Randomization," say developers Altered Orbit in the update post. It'll add random enemy encounters and give weapons ARPG style rarity colours, among other tweakable settings.

There were plans to call this "Randomizer" mode but it seems the devs have redesigned and rebranded it. As with classic examples of new game plus, you'll need to have already completed the game to unlock this new special mode (or, in this case, chapter one of the campaign - what exists of the game so far).

But more fun than this new mode, for me, are the ways the F.E.A.R.-like enemy patrol goons have been further improved. Like I've mentioned, they'll fall over when you throw a plate at them, but also now stumble if you blast them in the leg. They'll take increased damage when frozen by frosty grenades, and make more callouts to one another when looking for the player (for example, they will now yell about your flashlight giving you away).

There's a miscellany of other improvements, such as snappier Halo-style melee attacks, and a bunch of balancing to various firearms. There are also many bug fixes. "Throwing toilets against enemies no longer crashes the game," we're told. "Fixed a rare bug where enemies killed by electricity would instead become invincible." God, I love patch notes.

As for the noise - there's more of that too. "Improved oomph for Fire Extinguisher explosions," yell the patch notes enthusiastically. "Improved sound effect when walking over glass," another note screams. "Went nuts on the audio design for bullet impacts and whizzes," a third note whispers, but with a manic and delighted look that implies there is a landmine nearby. Don't worry, the mine's explosive radius has been nerfed by almost 50%. You'll be fine.

It's a fairly hefty update, which the developer cites as the reason for a delay in the story stuff that was planned to get players closer to their protagonist. Narrative additions they previously mentioned include "a major voice-over pass to flesh out Dawn as a character, the world of Selaco and the general plot". That was planned for the end of this year, but it's been pushed back a couple months to January or February next year, say the devs. In the meantime, work on the second chapter of the FPS "continues to progress rapidly," they say, dropping hints of deployable turrets, miniguns, and... is that a mech suit? Interesting.

If Selaco's many additions and alterations are sometimes difficult to follow, it's partly because the devs don't use a roadmap like other studios might during early access. "Roadmaps tend to have a negative effect on development/work," they've said in the past. "Experimentation with new ideas takes time, while roadmaps are schedule-focused and don't allow for such things."

However they're doing things, it seems to be working just fine. Ed liked Selaco when he reviewed the first early access build, calling it a work of impressive "GZDoom wizardry" and praising those cunning AI enemies. Here's what he had to say about the running and/or gunning.

Firefights are a festival of debris, where it rains printer paper and computer monitors crackle and alien troops coat everything in a sticky purple gunk when you explode them. While the result of your bullets can be quite chaotic, gunfights straddle the line between tactical and balls-to-the-wall boomer shooter really well...

It's currently discounted in Steam's Autumn sale, if you like a bit of noise.