We are the 4 guys responsible for Surgeon Simulator 2013. We just released a Team Fortress 2 update and upset the internet. AmA!

How does it feel to have tricked nearly the entire Internet into thinking that Half-Life 3 was about to launch?

Completely unintentional! We wanted to reward people who've bought the game with a fun puzzle for them to work through, one that we'll update in the coming weeks.

The first part was included in our Team Fortress update but before we knew anything it had been linked to Half Life so we woke up the next day and had to quickly put that theory to bed :p

I think you should have kept it up a little longer and made people feel even more bamboozled when it was revealed to not be associated with HL3 or Valve.

hey there's gonna be plenty more bamboozlement to come!

Can you actually get the sandvich out of the fridge?

You can but it aint easy, try using the saw ;)

So how were your sales over the last two days? :)

Well, I'm not wearing a gold Rolex yet

how about a Casio C-80?

I wish, those things are rare these days ;)

Are they really? I have like, three just lying around the house...

are u serious? If they are genuine C-80's PM me immediately :)

It probably just fell off.

Seriously! What causes the damn watch to come off every time?

Real talk: this was really the result of a wrongly set health value on the watch, but it sort of became a bit of a trademark thing so we kept it ;)

I believe many of us Half Life fans want to know - when are you going to release Counter Strike 2?

We had it ready for release but Valve beat us to the punch with Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

It was really frustrating because we had iron sights, kill streaks and all that. It would've been awesome!

Now that I've done all the levels, how qualified to be a real surgeon am I?

You are none qualified i'm afraid, but don't let that hold you back!

Will the next update allow you to operate with a crowbar?

We'll probably add it just to commemorate the near implosion we created!

What was the answer to the puzzle?

EDIT: And if the answer was simple, did you intend for people to overlook it?

It's a small part of a bigger puzzle in Surgeon, you wont be sure if you have the correct answer until the other clues appear in the game, which will be in another update soon

Does that mean there is nothing more related to the puzzle in the current version? Only the Medic statue?

You can still work out the answer to this section of the puzzle, you just might not be sure it's the right answer until all the clues are in, and even then you might not be sure you have each section correct.

You make me wanting to buy the game... :D

well it is 33% off today... http://imgur.com/R5PC6wD

We don't want the answer, we just want a little hint.

Here's a hint: I've seen the answer on the internet, but being the nature of these things people aren't sure if that's correct.

Saturn one?

Well the dots do indeed refer to the solar system, other than that, I'm not at liberty to say!

So was that patched in AFTER the HL2 Korean bug or before? Why Korean? Such an odd coincidence...

The puzzle was planned to go in for our Team Fortress update which was last Friday. When you complete the procedure on Heavy you get rewarded with a Medic statue and the puzzle is on the bottom of that.

We can see the obvious link now but when the puzzle was designed there was any of this Half Life 2 stuff going around.

Just wanted to say thanks for supporting linux! The best kind of developers are the ones that care about all of their consumers.

EDIT: I'm about to buy your game now. You guys rock.

thankyou :D

Will Surgeon Simulator 2013 be getting Steam Trading Cards?

I would be more moved to buy if it is, FYI.

Surgeon Sim will have Steam Trading Cards, Sometime soon

Great to hear, thanks. I'm rather enjoying that new wrinkle in Steam.

Will probably pick up your game today.

Today's a good day to buy it as its just gone on sale. :)

Two questions

1) What's the deal with that Cassio watch? I used to have the exact same brand until the strap broke (Seems to do that in-game as well, stunning realism, I might add)

2) I must say I miss Nigel stammering "Oh God, what have I done!?" from the original game, what made you decide to nix that?

Again, great game, great concept, yadda yadda yadda, shut up and take my compliments.

The Casio watch just seemed like the sort of watch Nigel would pimp out. That exact model is pretty rare nowadays and fetches a decent price on ebay.

I'll follow up on question 2. While we loved Nigels voice too, and believe it worked well with the game jam it was just a little too slapstick for what the game had become. After developing the game into what you see now we felt the tone of the game had shifted to a darker comedy compared to its insanely slapstick roots and the voices just didn't seem to quite fit in as well.

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This is my favourite Surgeon Simulator gif, happened to NerdCubed: http://abload.de/img/untitled-35as5j.gif

I'm just gonna pimp one of my favourite youtubers of all time here and say this is one of the funniest ones I saw : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYjCXjIeNJk

YES. I was actually going to ask if you guys saw Biggi's video, you just can't go wrong with that man :D

Biggi kills it, every time :) Banzaii's laugh man. Get's me every time

1. Where can I get one of these t-shirts I've been seeing all over twitter
2. How was it working with Valve on the TF2 update for Surgeon simulator?
3. Lastly, What made you decide to do Surgeon Simulator and are you surprised on how well it's been doing?

1. Hey give @SurgeonSim2013 a quick tweet and you never know ;)
2. Valve were great to work with, they sent us some assets from the meet the medic short and we just tried to do what we could within the Unity engine to get it looking close to the video.
3. It originated from a Game Jam in January this year, the theme was heart beat and we immediately went with a surgery idea. We thought it was a little straight forward so the ridiculous control system was added taking influence from games like QWOP and the hand in Jurassic Park : Trespasser

If you have all the assets from Meet the Medic, would you be able to put the Blu Spy's head in the refrigerator for a future update? I was a bit disappointed when I didn't see it there...

I'm afraid we didn't get all of the assets, only some, but I'd love to see it there too one day :)

Is there a picture of said shirts, not sure that I've seen them?

here's our mugs in them https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1016615_280398372104976_2011678682_n.jpg

what's your favourite video/LP of your game? And why is it Rage Quit: Surgeon Simulator?

I gotta go with birgir pall's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYjCXjIeNJk If you haven't seen his stuff, watch a few of the I Broke... videos, truly hilarious :)

This is probably my favourite video.:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlZWl173_70

How much money have you made off the game? Were you surprised by it's instant success?

Have you ever thought about adding less exciting parts of being a surgeon such as regular blood work or diagnosing ailments based on CT scans?

Haha I'd love to have a really dry section where you're just sorting files or writing reports in between operations. I think as long it can still be funny then we'd consider it.

The inital craziness after the game jam was completely unexpected yeah.

I've played a lot of games, where I've said to myself "I could make a game better than this." As game designers yourselves, I suspect you've played a lot of different games too. Is there a game that was soooooo bad, it actually became the driving force behind your desire to become professional game designers? If not, what is the absolute worst game you've played and why?

I dont think it's the bad games that drive you to want to make games. It's those amazing ones that you can't forget, you say to yourself "Damn if I could make people feel that way about a game I made, that would be amazing"

One thing you realize when you actually start making games is one thing:

Making games is HARD, so when you play a particularly bad game you still know all the blood, sweat and tears the team put into that game but they couldn't quite pull it together and that's the real shame. No one wants to make a bad game but unfortunately it's very easy to make one.

Can you actually call Trisha?

no.... not yet

Have you started working on Surgeon Simulator 2014?

We said from the start, if we were ever to do a sequel it'd be called Surgeon Simulator 2013 2

How did you get those nasty sounding sound effects for Surgeon Simulator?

slicing and chopping melon. Serious answer

how was it working with valve to make the medic addon?

Valve were amazing they sent us all their assets over and then just let us run with our idea. The meet the medic video was one of our original inspirations in the gamejam, so we just studied it meticulously and tried to get it as close as we could to that.

Have any of you spied on us working on the solution to the puzzle? If so, what were your reactions when we came up with crazy stuff?

What happened to that one guy who said, "Eyy Nigel, I just tried summa 'at tripe you dropped off," on the phone?

Are you a registered GP? Because this..uh..pill bottle..you know what..nevermind.

Oh, and I thought I'd let you know..I know exactly who Mr. Burke is. I know how he smiles at the thought of calling Trisha, and I saw his little...medical cross in the ambulance, and I saw his "legitimate" medical certificate among other things.

You seem quite knowledgable. Have you read all of Nigels blog?

All I'd really like to know is there anything left to find in the game that you've hidden?

That would be telling...

How are you guys compensating for my lack of sleep and new found surgeon skills? I've been up forever and streamed your game for eight hours straight yesterday to ValveARG chat. We're desperate for more information, I've torn the game apart, seen the textures, done everything I can imagine, what am I missing? Come on guys, just a little hint, I'm out of ideas.

P.S Massive respect for putting in a little more game into your game, the ambulance levels were lip munchingly frustrating, but I've had so much fun with your game thank you!

Thanks for playing! Really pleased your having fun mate. they'll be a little more on the puzzle in the future, we can't reveal anything just yet but when you see the inevitable 'surgeon simulator has been updated' in yoru steam client. It might be time to have another little look :)

What's the best tool to get through the ribs in meet the medic? I can't find any good tools that don't take 7 minutes and 4000 ml blood loss

The bomb that's in the pan on the left is pretty effective ;)

Could you add a degree of drunkenness in surgeon simulator with the oculus rift?

We cut out alcohol and went straight to hallucinogenic drugs. Just jab the green syringe into your arm..

Can confirm, drugged mode on oculus rift is quite an experience.

As r/tf2 has been asking, why didn't you guys add the spy head in the fridge of the medic add-on level? And if possible, will you add the permanently Ubered spy head in a future update? Amazing game, by the way, love it.

Probably the number 1 requested feature of the TF2 update :) I'll see what we can do, can't promise yet tho!

Is this game intended to be fun, or you have started it as a serios simulator, but ended up with fun?

It was always gonna be a comedy game :P . The "Surgeon Simulator 2013" name actually came about really late in the process, and it made the concept much funnier.

The original WIP name we had in the game jam was "A and E (and w,r and space)"

A friend and I once played your game with one person on the keyboard and one on the mouse. Also, we took a shot every time we killed the patient.

Thanks for a fun night.

aha the classic co-op version of Surgeon Simulator. Kudos

What was the hardest part about making a game like SS13?

Probably the hardest for me as the dev would be dealing with the obscene physics in things as complex as Nigels arm and the head in the brain level. Caused a lot of bugs. We left most of them in but now they are 'features'

this was my favourite one :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmZSdPrR7jc

Probably just choosing which ideas to go with. We had loads ourselves and then the guys on our greenlight page were coming up with a ton more, as well as the Bossa team. We had to pick and choose which ones we thought would work best without losing the essence of what people loved in the original demo.

My arm is fractured. How many hatchets do I need to replace it?

Hatchets... Our artist Jack's (Jacky-boy) nickname was The Hatchet, and he owns a hatchet. You should ask him