Crashlands studio will release its next game on Steam Early Access in April

Butterscotch Shenanigans developed a number of really good, really weird mobile games before moving onto the PC scene with the multiplatform, also-very-good Crashlands in 2016. In 2017 it announced a new project called Scuffle Buddies, and I honestly have no idea what happened with that. Its actual new game is called Levelhead, a "co-op level-building platformer" that's coming to Steam Early Access next month.

In Levelhead's campaign mode, players take jobs with the Bureau of Shipping, for whom they must deliver packages across an array of oddly two-dimensional and very life-threatening environments. Powerups enable special abilities like flight and warping through walls, and up to four players can co-op their way through the entire campaign.

It's the workshop that promises to be the real hook. Levelhead will launch with more than 100 different "creative elements" available in three different biomes, and for some reason it will also support up to four players in co-op level-building, which sounds to me like a recipe for chaos—but maybe that's the point. Completed levels can be tagged and shared, players can curate their Levelhead feeds by subscribing to other creators, and leaderboards will track the best runs across all levels.

"Levelhead started its life as a more traditional game that put satisfying platforming above everything else," Buttscotch co-founder Sam Coster said. "After we saw the potential of our level editor, we just couldn’t stop making it bigger and bigger. Seriously, please help us."

Levelhead is set to debut on Steam Early Access in April, which the studio said will enable it to develop new features in conjunction with the community and, maybe more importantly, will also give it the opportunity to scale up its infrastructure at a slower pace than a full launch.

The campaign will be complete and "highly polished" when the early access period begins, but the full release, expected after 6-12 months, will offer more levels, modes, and creative elements, "more depth to community interaction," and more story stuff. Find out more at bscotch.net.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.