Buckshot Roulette made a solo dev famous by putting a shotgun on a table and daring you to pull the trigger. Now Mike Klubnika is back with something that takes that same energy, cranks the player count to four, and wraps it all in a Saw-inspired party game where losing a round of competitive pea-eating can end with you getting blasted in the face.
That game is Machine Party, and it was revealed at the Triple-i Initiative 2026 showcase on April 9.
What Klubnika built after Buckshot Roulette
Buckshot Roulette earned its cult status by being brutally simple: one table, one shotgun, one set of nerve-shredding rules. Machine Party keeps the stakes-or-death philosophy but replaces the solo tension with chaotic multiplayer. You and up to three friends are thrown into a rotating set of "highly illegal" minigames, and the loser of each round pays for it in the most direct way possible.
The minigame list already sounds unhinged. Players will race to smoke cigarettes at maximum speed, carve a cube to match a target pattern, sprint away from an incoming combine harvester, snipe opponents, and yes, eat peas in secret without getting caught. The tonal range there is genuinely funny, and it fits Klubnika's art style perfectly.
Here's the thing: the closest comparison in the genre is probably Pummel Party, but Machine Party strips out the board game layer entirely and commits fully to the violence. The result looks closer to a Saw trap simulator with a controller in your hand than anything resembling a traditional party game.
The minigame structure and what we know about the format
Machine Party supports 2 to 4 players, which keeps the chaos manageable while still leaving room for betrayal. The game promises customization for your "test subject" character, plus multiple mechanics specifically designed to let you sabotage your friends mid-round.
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Machine Party currently has no confirmed release date, but the developer is targeting Q3 2026. An announcement closer to Summer Game Fest seems likely.
What most players miss when they look at Buckshot Roulette is how much of its appeal came from the audio. The club music running under every tense moment was doing serious heavy lifting. Machine Party will need a soundtrack that matches its tone, and given Klubnika's track record, that's a reasonable expectation.
From one-on-one tension to co-op carnage
Buckshot Roulette did have a multiplayer mode, but Machine Party is built from the ground up as a co-op and competitive experience. That's a meaningful shift. The original game's power came from two players staring each other down across a table. Scaling that to four players across wildly different minigames requires a completely different kind of design.
The Saw comparison isn't just aesthetic, either. The framing of players as "test subjects" competing in illegal games for their survival is doing a lot of narrative work, even in a game that probably won't lean heavily on story. It's the kind of setup that makes losing feel like part of the experience rather than a frustration.
If you're already a fan of Buckshot Roulette's multiplayer sessions or just want something genuinely mean-spirited to play with friends, Machine Party is worth adding to your Steam wishlist now. For more on the best indie releases and what's worth your time, make sure to check out more:
