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moved Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

ra1n OP
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Update : Demo available on itch io : catinrage.[itch io]/scrim

Hi everyone,

Like many of you, I grew up playing CS2D. I spent countless hours on it as a kid, and over the years I also made several mods for it. It always made me a bit sad that it isn't really maintained anymore, so I decided to build the game I always wished it would become.

Meet Scrim – a modern take on CS2D, now in 2.5D.

I've been a programmer for about 10 years, and I built Scrim with the help of Claude Code (an AI coding assistant). It let me move much faster than I could alone, while I stayed in charge of the design, the feel and the details.

What's in it so far

Gameplay
- Top-down 2.5D view with a real 3D height field: walls, roofs, cover you can crouch behind
- Strike – classic bomb defusal: rounds, money, buy menu (with rebuy), plant/defuse, half-time swap
- Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch (random spawns), Capture the Flag, a stealth Heist mode, and a sandbox
- 40+ guns tuned on CS numbers, grenades (HE, flash, smoke you can shoot through, molotov), armour and helmets
- Vehicles you can drive (pickups, quads) with headlights and engine control
- Drones, tasers, handcuffs, lockpicks and keys, deployables and buildings
- Day/night cycle and weather – darkness and rain actually change how far you can see and hear
- Smart bots that fight, plant and defuse, from 1 bot up to 63

Multiplayer
- Dedicated servers and one-click "Host a game" from the menu, up to 64 players
- Server-authoritative netcode with prediction and lag compensation
- Spectating, team/all chat, CS-style console, rcon, server.cfg, match rules like mp_timelimit
- Every match is recorded as a small replay file you can watch and share

Tech & looks
- Built from scratch: TypeScript + hand-written WebGL2 and WebAudio, no game engine
- Lighting, shadows, bloom, procedural materials and particles
- Desktop app for Windows (Vulkan), and it also runs in the browser

What's coming
- Scripting for custom game modes (TypeScript, in the spirit of Lua scripting in CS2D), with control over almost everything the game offers: rules, events, entities, HUD, new weapons, maps
- A map editor
- More maps, modes and polish

It's still in active development, so I'd really love to hear what you think: what you miss from CS2D, what you'd like to see, and whether you'd be interested in playing or making mods for it.

Want to work on it with me?
If you're interested in co-working on Scrim – programming, mapping, modding, art, sound, testing or ideas – feel free to contact me via the Discord ID in my profile. I'd be happy to have people from the CS2D community on board.

Thanks to DC and everyone who kept the CS2D community alive all these years – this project wouldn't exist without the memories that game gave me.

PS: for some reason I'm unable to share a video or image preview here – the forum stops me from placing a link in any form. If you'd like to see it in action, message me on Discord and I'll send you some footage.
edited 3×, last 25.10.26 11:35:08 am

old Re: Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

ra1n OP
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user StirlizZ-Fapicon has written
thats cool bro fr fr, but where is the screenshots? you know rupes: no pix - no clix


i can't send links, i have actually a very well made itch io page, it has screenshots + video of gameplay

search "Scrim : Pre Alpha" in itch io (or even google)
its the first result

old Re: Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

XoOt
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Thats one hell of a promising take on a modern cs2d style game. Checked the trailer, yet have to give the actual demo a try but looks very good so far. Def. deserves some attention and support.

old Re: Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

DC
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Sorry, the forum has strict limitations for new users because of ad spam bots. That's why you were unable to post links and share images.

the link for everyone: https://catinrage.itch.io/scrim

It looks pretty cool and interesting. Nice new stuff like drones etc. Also a very high level of polish. That's great and really important. Kudos for that! Portals actually showing the world on the ground is crazy. It looks a bit weird/forced though. Like "I really want to show the world through portals but it doesn't work well with portals on the walls because of the perspective. F*ck it, I'll just render stuff on the ground then". It's a cool effect but to me it doesn't make much sense.

The problem in AI days is that you just can't use AI art and sounds. It instantly gives your game AI slop vibes which makes it feel worthless because everyone thinks they could just vibe code their own version and give it their own touch instead of playing yours.
Therefore I would really focus on getting rid of all AI art and sound. For sound there are many free sources on the internet so that shouldn't be a big deal. Art is a bigger thing if you want to make your game look good and unique.

Also I'm curious about the multiplayer tech stack. Are you planning to make that work in browser as well? If so: Did you already evaluate options? Like Web Transport etc.? Are you planning to make the browser version compatible with the stand alone builds?

old Re: Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

ra1n OP
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user XoOt has written
Thats one hell of a promising take on a modern cs2d style game. Checked the trailer, yet have to give the actual demo a try but looks very good so far. Def. deserves some attention and support.


Thank you for your kind words!

To be honest, ever since I published the game on itch io, I've received little to no feedback. I even started focusing on other side projects (also games) because I wasn't sure whether Scrim was worth pursuing further.

I work as a full-time developer, so the only time I can dedicate to these projects is at night, after my work shift. But seeing that you guys here find the idea interesting genuinely makes me happy.

As a former CS2D fanatic, I always felt I owed it to myself to make a modern take on CS2D at some point. I just never really had the time (or perhaps the motivation) to do it. But when LLMs came along, that changed things.

I never had any big plans for Scrim. It was more like one item on my personal wishlist that I finally got around to checking off.

That said, I might actually consider picking it up again and taking it further.

Again, thank you for taking the time to check it out. It really means a lot to me!

@user DC:

Hi Peter! Hearing that from you honestly made my day. Growing up playing CS2D (and messing around with its modding) is actually what got me into programming in the first place =D I've always admired you and your work, so thank you for checking it out.

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Portals actually showing the world on the ground is crazy. It looks a bit weird/forced though.
Haha yeah, you nailed the exact thought process. Because of the top-down perspective, putting a view directly on a vertical wall just gives you a tiny sliver of pixels, so projecting it onto the floor was my compromise to actually show the other side. I totally get why it feels a bit forced though.

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Therefore I would really focus on getting rid of all AI art and sound.
Fair point, and I completely agree with you on the AI slop vibe. For sound, I did generate some placeholders with ElevenLabs (like reloads and voice announcements) and I definitely plan to replace those with proper sound effects.
Visuals are my main struggle though. There actually aren't any AI-generated sprites or 3D models in the game - everything is drawn procedurally in WebGL2 shaders using signed distance fields (SDFs). Since I'm a programmer and not a 3D artist, sculpting soldiers, zombies, and vehicles purely in math/code is pretty tough, and I haven't spent enough time polishing the character models yet.

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Also I'm curious about the multiplayer tech stack. Are you planning to make that work in browser as well? If so: Did you already evaluate options? Like Web Transport etc.? Are you planning to make the browser version compatible with the stand alone builds?
The funny thing is the first version of Scrim wasn't made with Electron at all - it was 100% in the browser! And the browser version still works today and is fully cross-play compatible with the standalone desktop build.
The main reason I switched to Electron for the standalone release was a nasty shader compilation bottleneck on Windows. By default, Chrome on Windows runs WebGL over ANGLE's D3D11 backend, which compiles shaders through Microsoft's old FXC compiler. Because our lighting and ray-cast wall shaders are heavy, Chrome took over a minute just to compile shaders on startup. With Electron, I have control over Chromium's flags and can force --use-angle=vulkan on the discrete GPU, which compiles all shaders in 4-5 seconds and runs at a locked 165 fps.

For the multiplayer stack:
It runs on a 64 Hz authoritative server (built on Bun) with a custom binary protocol (~5-6 KB/s per client in 5v5), client-side prediction, lag compensation, and server-side visibility filtering (the server calculates fog of war and never sends enemy positions to clients unless they actually have line of sight, to prevent wallhacks).

For transport, it uses WebSockets + a raw UDP lane in the Electron app for unreliable state snapshots (so packet loss doesn't cause TCP head-of-line stalls). Browser clients just connect to the exact same server over WebSocket and play fine alongside desktop players. I did look into WebTransport to get UDP-like datagrams in the browser too, but since servers are meant to be easily self-hosted by players via IP/LAN, WebTransport's strict requirement for TLS/HT-TPS certificates makes self-hosting a pain right now.

Also, what's uploaded on itch io right now is just an older sandbox demo! The current full build has come a long way and has working multiplayer (dedicated server binary + hosting from the menu), vehicles, emplacements, RCON/console commands, more game modes (a full CS-style Strike bomb defusal mode with buy menu & economy, a class-based tactical mode with unique abilities similar to Valorant, a night stealth Heist mode, CTF, and a Nightfall zombie survival mode), plus server-side custom game scripting heavily inspired by CS2D.

Sorry if it seem AI generated as english is not my first language i had to ask chatgpt to polish it a bit.
edited 2×, last 09.11.26 03:26:25 pm

old Re: Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

DC
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Really cool stuff. Thanks for sharing details on your multiplayer thoughts. I basically went through the same issues when I researched what I could use for a - 100% hypothetical - new game which runs in browser and supports multiplayer. I think having quick access via browser without any setup process is a huge plus for such a game.

Keep it up! Unfortunately it's really hard to get any attention these days with all the slop games popping up. Don't let that discourage you too much.

old Re: Scrim: a 2.5D take on CS2D, with modern graphics

ra1n OP
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@user DC:

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when I researched what I could use for a - 100% hypothetical - new game which runs in browser and supports multiplayer

Wait, a "100% hypothetical" new multiplayer game from you?! Don't tease us like that =D

You're totally right about instant browser access though. Being able to just drop a link to a friend and have them in the match in 5 seconds with zero install is unbeatable for getting people to actually try a game. That's why I made sure to keep the browser build working alongside the desktop client (and did a big shader diet pass to cut down those Chrome compile times as much as possible).

Thanks again for the encouragement Peter, it really means a lot!
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