What better way to start the week and round out Next Fest then watching Team Lead Gary Burchell play through the SENTRY demo!
Sentry
Developer Demo!
What better way to start the week and round out Next Fest then watching Team Lead Gary Burchell play through the SENTRY demo!
SENTRY Demo Livestream!
Join Gary Burchell, Team Lead on SENTRY while they play the Next Fest demo!
Demo Out Now!
Hi everyone,
We're due to take part in the upcoming Next Fest, but we thought we'd release the demo a few days early!
Current plans are to have it available till the end of Next Fest so make sure to jump into the action ASAP :)
This is just a snippet of the main game, so it's not got final balancing, polish etc. plus in the Early Access release you'll get extra stuff like the dynamic campaign, upgrades, loads more enemies/weapons/abilities/deployables and co-op. But you'll get all that when you check out our launch version - right now you get to shoot a bunch of aliens and vent them into space!
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the demo, whether those be bugs, feedback or whatever. Best place to contact us is either the Steam forums or Discord
Dev Transmission (September 2023)
Hi everyone, this monthly update is a bit later than usual because we’ve been exceptionally busy getting our Next Fest demo ready!
That also means this is a slightly different post compared to previous Dev Transmissions because we’ve spent the month exclusively polishing and bug-fixing all of the content that’s in the demo.
So rather than having things like new enemies, levels or weapons there were hundreds of little changes that have improved the core gameplay. That ranges from reworking the HUD to ensure everything is prominent and easy to read, through to removing small friction points in the controls – and everything in between.
We did this by running private test sessions with handfuls of people each weekend. We’d send out a build on Friday, which would be tested over the weekend. We’d watch the videos of these tests and prioritise what we were going to fix, working toward a new Friday build that would be sent to another wave of testers.
We’d like to extend our thanks to our community for dedicating their time to help us make the game better – and we can’t wait for you to all get your hands on it during Next Fest. Or maybe we’ll release it a bit sooner? Keep your eyes peeled, put it that way…
Realms Deep Trailer!
We participated in the recent Realms Deep event with our new Combat Gameplay Trailer. Check it out!
We love hearing from you! If you want to reach out we’re active on all these platforms:
See you next time...
Check out our Combat Gameplay Trailer!
Hi everyone,
Take a look at our new trailer showcasing combat gameplay:
This debuted at the recent Realms Deep event and we made it to celebrate our upcoming Next Fest demo - we'll have some exciting news on that shortly!
Call for Playtesters!
Hi everyone, if you're interested in helping us playtest SENTRY we've just opened up a call for Next Fest demo testers.
Just head to our Discord and check out the Announcements page for more details.
We'll be running continuous playtests for both the demo and main game from now on, so there'll be lots of testing opportunities going forward. Of course the October Next Fest is just around the corner and with our Early Access release due late this year, one way or another you'll be able to join the SENTRY Defense Progam before you know it :)
Dev Transmission! (August 2023)
Hi everyone, this monthly update is a little late because I was away at the end of August and have been catching up! Anyway, here's what we've worked on during that time:
New Trailer!
We created a new trailer that we’ll be debuting during Realms Deep on the 30th September. In case you weren’t aware, this event is hosted by 3D Realms and if you’re partial to a FPS and other cool indie games it’s definitely worth tuning in.
It was fantastic to see all our work pulled together in this fashion and we can’t wait for you to see it!
New Enemy!
…Or more like an old enemy polished up. The Heavy (placeholder name) is slightly larger and bulkier than your standard soldier-type and carries a plasma-based minigun that lays down a withering hail of fire. We prototyped this enemy very early on – in fact you can see him in our Announcement Trailer - but switched focus to other enemy types while we worked on the rest of the game, so it’s been good to bring this big guy up to the same standard as his peers.
Loadout Screen!
When entering a level to commence your defence a SENTRY is deposited via a pod transport system. During this sequence you are presented with a loadout screen that allows you to choose which weapons, deployables and abilities you want to use in the coming battle.
We created a loadout menu a long time ago, but it wasn’t efficient to use and was visually outdated compared to our more recent Upgrade and Unlock menu system, so we’ve completed a rework to bring it up to scratch.
New Level!
Our latest new level is one with lots of high walkways, ideal for throwing enemies into bottomless pits!
Other stuff!
Every month we do loads of smaller changes that don’t necessarily warrant a section to themselves. Besides tons of little fixes and polish tasks, we also did:
- More co-op work, we’re at the stage where we have a long list of individual features that need to be networked. Co-op is in a pretty good place but there’s still a huge amount of work left to make it shippable.
- Fixing up a bunch of co-op sound effects where you could hear the audio your player made but not the sounds the co-op player was making.
- The start of a save system
Just for fun!
At the start of the month we took part in Tiny Teams, a festival dedicated to games created by small teams. We have just one programmer, artist and designer, with some part time music and sound-design and myself handling non-core-dev work (QA, Community, Production, boring business stuff) and because we’re choosing to self-publish it’s great to have events like this that shine a light on the little guys!
Tell us what you think about the latest additions! If you want to reach out we’re active on all these platforms:
See you next time...
Dev Transmission! (July 2023)
Hi everyone, time marches on and we're back with our monthly update! Here's what we've worked on in July:
WIP Co-op!
During the first phase of the project we ensured co-op worked with every feature we created. This was proving very time consuming so we eventually switched to prioritizing singleplayer so we could hit certain project milestones. This month we’ve been going back and patching up any new features that weren’t working properly over the network. In addition to this we’ve added a swathe of player animations to improve how the co-op player looks.
Co-op is a huge task and while the basic gameplay is working well, there’s a lot of mission and campaign specific work to come! With only one programmer we need to switch focus in August onto other areas but it’s been good to play co-op again.
New Enemy!
If you keep an eye on all our posts you may have seen a recent video explaining the theory behind why we add certain enemies to the game – it’s well worth a watch if you’re interested in design, so if you haven’t watched it you can do so here.
One area we were lacking was an enemy that took up a large amount of the screen and moved slowly but was heavy hitting. This month we’ve filled that slot with this bad boy:
This enemy stomps toward their target, shooting rockets from either arm at distance, flamethrower jets up close and can also do a ground stomp if you’re trying to run past and take advantage of his slow turning to attack his weak area.
Oh, and if you’re thinking of shooting out a nearby window to quickly take care of this beast you can forget it – he’s immune to venting!
Completed Level!
Last month we talked about Air Exchange, a greybox level we’d created with large fans that could suck enemies into them. This month Alex completed the environment art so we have a new finished level to add to the ship:
Navigator!
We’re continuously working on the Navigator, one of the layers that drives the game. This month there was a large focus on creating the sectors you escape through on your run, including a special sector that will become an optional tutorial for first time players.
We also spent time on how the research currency is represented and accrued in this part of the game and how it all ties into our upgrade system.
Other stuff!
Every month we do loads of smaller changes that don’t necessarily warrant a section to themselves, so ordinarily this is where we mention some other interesting/noteworthy stuff – however there was a lot of focus on the headline items above this month, anything else was SUPER boring stuff like updating the engine, fixing bugs etc. :)
Just for fun!
Our composer Barry Topping was back this month, he delivered a new set of tracks for our current ship and is starting to work on music for our away missions. Barry's music is awesome so this is always a treat.
Tell us what you think about the latest additions! If you want to reach out we’re active on all these platforms:
Until next time...
SENTRY Video Devlog: New weapon and enemy breakdown!
Hi, we've made a new Devlog that shows the SMG and Needlejack enemy. This delves into the theory of adding weapons and enemies to the game and how they fit into our roster.
These take a while to make so if you like it and want more, please let us know!
Dev Transmission! (June 2023)
Hi everyone, here's what we've worked on this month:
Upgrade System!
Our top priority in June has been to create the Upgrade system, which is responsible for unlocking and upgrading weapons, deployables (our name for traps & turrets) and abilities.
This is an extremely important feature that involves a lot of user-interface tasks as well as setting up how the economy works. This is one of the critical systems that will help drive how engaged people are when playing the game long-term, and we’re confident we’ve made something cool!
While we’ve set up our existing unlocks and implemented three weapon’s upgrade paths, over the coming months we’ll be rolling this out to all other weapons, deployables and abilities.
New Weapons!
As part of proving out the upgrade system, we expanded our pistol roster by two. We already had a Burst Pistol (the left-most gun in the concept image below), the secondary fire for that switches between single shots and burst mode:
The two new pistols have upgrades that allow them to either have remotely detonated explosive rounds or an optical zoom mode.
New Level!
Sean has finished the latest level in greybox form, which is called ‘Air Exchange’ and is a convoy-based level where you must prevent the enemies from escaping.
As it’s based on a giant air-conditioning and circulation theme, this area has giant rotating fans which are an ideal place to locate some push-traps and utilise your Vortex Glove ability (which throws enemies back):
Now that the greybox part is done, it’s handed over to Alex so she can do the environment art for it (most likely in July).
New Enemy!
A while ago we made an enemy archetype called ‘Drone’ (placeholder name!) – this idea was based on an enemy that is very zombie-like, with a melee-only attack and able to sustain a decent amount of damage unless you hit it in a weak spot, which is ordinarily the head on most enemies, but for this creature would be on a cyst that is spawned in different parts of the body.
Originally we created something literally zombie like based on infected colonists (something you may have seen in the odd video we posted on social media), but this didn’t feel right alongside the enemy roster, so we revised the model into something more appropriate as this concept shows:
We also implemented their cyst behavior, which expands in size as it gets shot; ultimately gibbing the enemy once the cyst has received enough damage.
Navigator!
Last month we talked about the Navigator, one of the layers that drives the campaign. We spent time implementing some additional visuals to communicate ship movement, planet rotation and other aesthetic niceties. We also created a Fog of War system and some homing missiles, which hunt your vessel and provide some impetus on your escape.
We’ll show both this and the Overview modes later down the line – they really help structurally differentiate SENTRY from other FPS and Tower Defense games :)
Other stuff!
Every month we do tons of smaller changes that don’t necessarily warrant a section to themselves, so this is where we list some other interesting/noteworthy stuff!
- New kill indicator audio – super early in the project we made sound effects to indicate when you were hitting and killing enemies. At that point in development we lacked sufficient feedback so the kill sound overcompensated – but now we have a host of systems providing a strong sense of combat feedback, we finally got round to revising the kill sound. The old sound effect was something that we tended to ignore after hearing for so long, but it’s good to have this much more appropriate new one (and we added options to disable these for those that want to).
- We also added different footstep sound effects while moving through vents. This was always on our to-do list, but with a part-time sound designer other audio had taken priority up until now. Can we call ourselves a FPS if we don’t have the iconic vent footstep audio?!
- We continued expanding our basic soldier class enemy (see the May update for more details), this time with a variant that carries a personal energy field. This needs to be destroyed before you can harm the enemy, the shield staggering them as it breaks, before recharging after a period. This all helps provide interesting target prioritisation as well as making an enemy that has some initial resistance to deployable damage.
Just for fun!
In our new level with the giant fans we thought it would be cool to have them controlled by panels accessible by the player. While they spin constantly and are lethal for anything that falls (or is pushed!) into them, for a small cost you can activate an overdrive mode which drags anything walking nearby into the fan. Sucks to be this guy:
Tell us what you think about the latest updates! If you want to reach out we’re active on all these platforms:
See you in the next update!