Sentinels
New towers are coming!
Get ready for the flamethrower, laser tower, sniper's nest, and (my personal favorite) the magno bombs! We're hoping to get a beta up for you to test in the next few days. New towers were long overdue, and we think these will not disappoint.
More updates are also coming down the pipe - we've redesigned the FPS exit and entry, added launch pads, as well as vastly improved the enemy firing mechanics.
We're also setting up a discord for Sentinels! If you're interested in joining, leave us a comment! A public join link we'll be available with the upcoming beta.
All this and more coming soon, can't wait to see what you think! And be sure to follow us on twitter - we'll be posting videos of all the new turrets and features leading up to the update.
New beta - confetti and danger!
We've added a lot of new features this time around, and we're eager to see what you think. We wanted FPS mode to feel more exciting and engaging, give you more to do - and a little something to fear.
Some enemies will now attack you under certain conditions. Watch out for detectors - they have cones of light that will target you when in FPS mode, and cause all enemies around you to attack. Stay on your guard!
When you're spotted or detected, you will be unable to leave FPS mode until the timer runs out.
Enemies that can attack will have blue lasers emenating from them. If you boop them or you're spotted, they will turn red and begin to attack you.
Some of the smaller planes will now swarm you and attack you exclusively if you get too close.
We've given you a shield to help you deal with the new threats - hold S to activate your shield using the S key. You can catch the bullets on your shield, then release to unleash the energy back onto your opponents. If you find yourself surrounded, use the mobile gun platform to get to a distant turret before they overwhelm you!
We're still working on tuning passes, and want to get everything ironed out before we update the tutorial levels accordingly.
We also added in the first of hopefully many EA-only perks - under options, you'll see a founders only section. There you can choose between multiple explosions to spice up your gameplay a little :) Enjoy, and we'll be adding in more as time goes on - personally I want to add in pumpkin loot crates... we'll see. Or maybe bat explosions!
There have been a multitude of little changes and improvements this time around, and your feedback will be infinitely helpful as we work on getting this build live. Let us know what you think!
(For instructions on how to join the beta, click here.)
Chrono mode is live!
This is an exciting marker for us - we've made a lot of progress since entering Early Access! In addition to all the fun new things here, we've added in the mobile gun platform, new enemies, new guns, marauders, strike forces, and enemy support... not to mention new levels, new encounters, and so much more since last February. We've come so far, and we can't wait to see how far we'll go!
As said in the beta, we're working on adding EA-only perks for you guys. Currently working on gun skins, unique voicelines, and confetti explosions, among other things. We'll keep you updated, and let us know what else you want to see!
I know a lot of people are hesitant to buy early access titles, but if lack of development is your concern, let me allay your fears as best I can. Yes, there's just two of us here, but we're dedicated to this game - you can look back over the posts to see evidence of the steady updates. We'll see it through to completion, and we'd love to have you along for the ride. :)
*whew* that was a lot! Spiel is over, patch notes for the latest build is below. And there's also a playthrough here for you, so you can see all this fun stuff in action!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO7uB2Wwm2o
Patch notes:
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We've added an awesome new feature called chrono mode - slowmo activated by pressing shift while in the mobile gun platform. This is a limited resource designated by a blue energy bar - it will regenerate whenever not actively being used.
We've also added a perch, which will place you high over the action and allow you to survey the action below in slow motion. You can freely activate commander specials (hotkeys 1, 2, and 3) and activatable structures while perching, but shooting will disengage you from the perch.
Strategic energy usage has always been important, but it felt bad when you ran out of energy after a hard battle and couldn't even shoot. Along with some other energy changes, secondary (sniper) weapons will now fire even if out of energy. Your increased energy regeneration won't kick in until you stop firing, but this way you can shoot those little guys trying to escape instead of just staring helplessly.
Some fun graphics changes are in too! We updated the fog effect and really like how it turned out - we'll be iterating more, but give Sierras and Into the Pit a visit for the best examples. A proper entrance and exit teleporter has been added as well.
Orbital laser now has a much more visible presence - before, things could sneak by you and it wasn't always obvious when or where the creeps were getting bugzapped. Now the laser will start hitting earlier, and it clearly represented in a deluge of lava melting all creeps in its path. This functions as a bit of an alarm system as well - if you see it activating, you can quickly go over and knock out some of the creeps before the orbital laser reaches them, saving you valuable charge power.
Killstreaks have also been vastly improved - a little badge icon will now show up on every creep killed once your killstreak begins, and the bar will reset after every 10 kills, allowing you to extend your streak. The longer your streak, the more points and orbital laser charge you get, so keep an eye out for those groups and keep your killstreaks up!
Other changes:
Updated marauder stun effect
Adjusted orbital laser bar to stack on top of structure bar
Added new runner and mech animation
Smoothed energy gain display
Doubled machine gun firing speed, lowered reload time
Reduced air strike missile health
Boosted enemy health for higher difficulty levels
Adjusted cooldown, sizes and duration of specials
Decreased artillery strike damage, increased cast size so it can hit planes easier
Tuning and balancing changes
And plenty of small fixes per usual. Things are really coming together guys, let us know what you think!
New beta - chrono mode!
Now onto the fun stuff - new beta is up for your testing pleasure! We've added an awesome new feature called chrono mode - slowmo activated by pressing shift while in the mobile gun platform. This is a limited resource designated by a blue energy bar - it will regenerate whenever not actively being used.
We've also added a perch, which will place you high over the action and allow you to survey the action below in slow motion. You can freely activate commander specials (hotkeys 1, 2, and 3) and activatable structures while perching, but shooting will disengage you from the perch.
Strategic energy usage has always been important, but it felt bad when you ran out of energy after a hard battle and couldn't even shoot. Along with some other energy changes, secondary (sniper) weapons will now fire even if out of energy. Your increased energy regeneration won't kick in until you stop firing, but this way you can shoot those little guys trying to escape instead of just staring helplessly.
Some fun graphics changes are in too! We updated the fog effect and really like how it turned out - we'll be iterating more, but give Sierras and Into the Pit a visit for the best examples. A proper entrance and exit teleporter has been added as well.
Orbital laser now has a much more visible presence - before, things could sneak by you and it wasn't always obvious when or where the creeps were getting bugzapped. Now the laser will start hitting earlier, and it clearly represented in a deluge of lava melting all creeps in its path. This functions as a bit of an alarm system as well - if you see it activating, you can quickly go over and knock out some of the creeps before the orbital laser reaches them, saving you valuable charge power.
Killstreaks have also been vastly improved - a little badge icon will now show up on every creep killed once your killstreak begins, and the bar will reset after every 10 kills, allowing you to extend your streak. The longer your streak, the more points and orbital laser charge you get, so keep an eye out for those groups and keep your killstreaks up!
Other changes:
Updated marauder stun effect
Adjusted orbital laser bar to stack on top of structure bar
Added new runner and mech animation
Smoothed energy gain display
Doubled machine gun firing speed, lowered reload time
Reduced air strike missile health
Boosted enemy health for higher difficulty levels
Adjusted cooldown, sizes and duration of specials
Decreased artillery strike damage, increased cast size so it can hit planes easier
Tuning and balancing changes
And plenty of small fixes per usual. Things are really coming together guys, let us know what you think!
For instructions on how to join the beta, click here.
New build is live!
The Strike Forces have been tuned and improved, and the marauders have been made much easier to take out while they're hovering before they shoot you. The Strike Forces, Marauders, and Medics are FPS only, so be sure to be on your guard!
There’s plenty of new stuff in here as well! Other additions include an overhaul to the killstreak meter. Previously, it didn’t impart any benefit besides giving a bit of score boost – the graphics have now been updated, and the streak has been tuned to make it easier to purposefully extend the killstreak yourself. In addition, it grants orbital laser charge with each successful killstreak! The better the streak, the more orbital laser you gain. We’ll be tweaking this as we continue, and will update the voice callouts, but are happy with the direction.
A tips and tricks section has also been added! Pretty self-explanatory, you can now browse various help sections and go over controls and mechanics. There will also be help tabs for mechanics not explained properly ingame yet. Expect many more to come in the next few days as well!
Energy build has also been improved – along with a sparkly animation, your energy will rebuild much faster if you stop shooting for a few seconds. You can still do everything else – mobile gun platform, build towers, use energy specials. But when things are getting a little crazy, this will give incentive to sit back and strategize a little bit, letting you watch the board and plan ahead while your energy quickly tops up.
Lots, and I mean LOTS, of tuning adjustments. Several abilities were moved to event-based triggers, instead of cooldown-based. This removes a lot of the randomness brought on by enemy specials happening in the middle of waves. They now will start at the beginning of waves, with a clear callout to let you prepare.
Other updates:
Fixed splash screen and updated MindWalker logo
Energy bar now turns purple when adrenaline mode is active
Adjusted marauder hang time
Updated icons
Added small enemy medic
Lowered the energy generation rate of adrenaline mode. Made adrenaline mode drop explosion start killstreak, as well as other explosives
Halved creep escape damage, and capped at different levels based on size.
Changed gun tower to target furthest enemy on path.
Made in game hud draw over sniper reticle, so you can see minimap while sniping.
And tons of little fixes and optimizations per the norm.
New beta - Strike Force!
Strike Forces are flying enemies, and stun your turrets
Enemy Medics are also high flying, and heal enemies
Mauraders are ground based and will stun your turrets for 4 seconds with each shot.
Currently there are voice callouts for when they spawn, and their path will glow red. We're planning on making the path more obvious. Strike forces and medics will fire their missiles and then leave - Mauraders will continually stun your turrets until defeated.
We're really excited with these guys - it feels like there's a better balance of the highs and lows now that you don't have to compete with your turrets to take down enemies. Like we said earlier, this is still very first pass - much tweaking still needs to be done to get this really running smoothly. (Your feedback would *really* help us :)) Thanks for reading, see you soon for the next patch!
Other changes:
Increased Automated and activatable damage
Updated killstreak text
Fixes and improvements for autofire mod
Updates to paths in Speed Trap
Improvements to Doubleback
Modified killstreak to allow for better ability to exend killstreaks intentionally
Note: There is currently a bug in Sierras that does not let you continue the level. If this is your first time playing the game, please do not join the beta or play Sierras until fixed. Thank you!
(For instructions on how to join the beta, click here.)
Build is live - so much stuff!
We've also made a bunch of tuning changes and improvements. We really wanted to get this build out to you guys, but there's likely still bugs lurking. If you run into anything, post a bug report! More info the better, and we'll get it addressed ASAP.
A note about our upcoming plans - for awhile now, our balancing has been a push-and-pull between FPS and TD. It's a fine line between guns doing decent damage to suddenly feeling like peashooters, and just throwing more health at the creeps isn't the answer. We think we've come up with something that'll fix this though (finally!), and we're excited to get it implemented. We're implementing more FPS-only enemies, that your turrets will ignore and you'll need to shoot down yourself. There's some of that already in game, but this is a bit different... besides being on a much larger scales, they'll be support enemies. ;) They'll pathfind around and just keep healing creeps until you take them out! We're hoping that since they're not on a set path and we don't have to balance them around turret damage, we can focus on having them be fun to shoot, and things'll work out really well. Healing enemies is just the start, we really want to flesh this one out. We'll keep you posted!
And thanks for joining us in this adventure, guys. :) Rest of the patch notes down below.
Energy specials now do not cost any energy to use, and are just cooldown based. However, if you want to use the special while it's on cooldown, you can spend energy and use it a 2nd time.
Added new effect for activatables - now you'll be able to see when things are usable in FPS mode ( use X while in FP mode to activate) and the color and size will scale as overcharge is built up.
Added automatic weapon modifier - removes reload, and firing rate slows the longer you shoot.
Game speed improvements - higher difficulty levels are now significantly faster.
Bombs now drop from loot crates - bombs can also activate 10 seconds of adrenaline mode, which stacks if you shoot additional bombs.
Adjustments to energy pool size and regen rates based on current energy level. This allows you to get low on energy, and energy will regen faster, so you can still use weapons effectively but overuse will limit ability to use specials.
Moved starting match and fast forwarding time from space bar to ‘F’, as it was too easy to press it accidentally at times (since space is used for mobile gun platform).
Some tuning changes for into the pit and mine.
Visual fixes including the addition of occlusion map support and reflection modifications for shaders.
Various rendering optimizations, including single pass stereo rendering for VR.
Upgraded to newer unity version, and a few fixes related to that.
Altered guise’s innate unit ability to grant more health to nearby enemies, and to only be on medium units. Also shows on HUD element.
Fix for wave callout voices not playing through proper channels, and thus not producing ducking on other sounds.
Boosted commander weapon damage and energy usage.
Improved enemy spawn variation and added more robust support to director’s event system.
Added support for leaderboard name in properties.
Added weapon switching, located on character portraits before you begin an assault.
Added new gun models
Adjusted runner path in Factory
Improved minimap - enemies now are green when first entering the map, and fade to red the closer they are to escaping.
Adjustments to Outpost 17
Some visual and graphics changes
And your usual optimizations/fixes.
New beta - more adjustments and new effects
Energy specials now do not cost any energy to use, and are just cooldown based. However, if you want to use the special while it's on cooldown, you can spend energy and use it a 2nd time.
Added new effect for activatables - now you'll be able to see when things are usable in FPS mode ( use X while in FP mode to activate) and the color and size will scale as overcharge is built up.
Added automatic weapon modifier - removes reload, and firing rate slows the longer you shoot.
Game speed improvements - higher difficulty levels are now significantly faster.
Bombs now drop from loot crates - bombs can also activate 10 seconds of adrenaline mode, which stacks if you shoot additional bombs.
Added support for leaderboard name in properties.
Added weapon switching, located on character portraits before you begin an assault.
Added new gun models
Adjusted runner path in Factory
Improved minimap - enemies now are green when first entering the map, and fade to red the closer they are to escaping.
And plenty of little optimizations and fixes per usual. Let us know what you think! :)
For instructions on how to enter the beta, click here.
New beta build - Adrenaline waves added!
Adjustments to energy pool size and regen rates based on current energy level. This allows you to get low on energy, and energy will regen faster, so you can still use weapons effectively but overuse will limit ability to use specials.
Moved starting match and fast forwarding time from space bar to ‘F’, as it was too easy to press it accidentally at times (since space is used for mobile gun platform).
Some tuning changes for into the pit and mine.
Visual fixes including the addition of occlusion map support and reflection modifications for shaders.
Various rendering optimizations, including single pass stereo rendering for VR.
Upgraded to newer unity version, and a few fixes related to that.
Altered guise’s innate unit ability to grant more health to nearby enemies, and to only be on medium units. Also shows on HUD element.
Fix for wave callout voices not playing through proper channels, and thus not producing ducking on other sounds.
Boosted commander weapon damage and energy usage.
Improved enemy spawn variation and added more robust support to director’s event system.
And as per usual… so many other minor adjustments. We had our perforce server die on us, so lost many changelist notes that we usually rely on for building these patch notes… Oh well, that’s life sometimes.
For instructions on how to join the beta, click here.
New devlog post - Sale announcement!
Latest devlog post is up! Along with info about the last few patches, we're coming up on the one-year mark of Sentinel's entry into Early Access - and we're doing a huge sale to celebrate! Learn more here.