SENTRY News

Hi, just a quick update to share a video Devlog we've created that shows some of our work in the last month or so. Enjoy!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hi everyone, here's what we've been working on this month:

[h3]Navigator Mode![/h3]
We have a dynamic campaign in SENTRY. This takes the form of two layers that sit above the moment-to-moment level-based gameplay. The first of these is the Ship Overview, a map of the ship that enemy forces move around and you choose when and where to fight them. Above the Ship Overview is the Navigator mode. This is a map of space that you choose a route through on your escape run.

We've spent the majority of our time in April working on this Navigator mode, taking it from a prototype to something suitable for a released game. That includes systems that populate the enemy boarding parties that move around the Ship Overview (and you thus fight in the levels).

We've still got lots of work to do on it but it's shaping up very nicely (and we'll share visuals at the right time!)

[h3]New Level![/h3]
The latest level we've added is "Engineering". This started off as one of our early prototype levels that we felt was strong, so we made some adjustments and did an art pass. Here's how it's shaping up:



[h3]New Enemy![/h3]
During March we created a new dog enemy. This charges toward the player and lunges at them, encouraging them to prioritise shooting them first, or strafing out of the way of their attack.

We felt like there was a good opportunity to make a variant of this enemy type, so created a dog with a ranged attack. This holds back and spits acid at you which causes damage over time, with the enemy performing occasional side-hops to throw off your aim.

[h3]Other stuff![/h3]

• In early April we smashed through the 50,000 Wishlist barrier. For reference, that puts us at around the 370th most wishlisted game on Steam. This is an important achievement, thanks to all those that have Wishlisted thus far, it's a massive help!
  
• We've started work on our next weapon, the SMG. We'll show you how it ended up in our May update, but until then here's the concept art of it:
  

[h3]And just for fun![/h3]
It seems like a long time ago now, but the start of April we were still demo-ing the game, this time in London for the WASD event. Here's the stand, along with the game being played:



This event was interesting in that there was a remote setup (the right-hand monitor). This meant that if I needed a break, Sean could connect and talk people through the demo. It's the first time I've seen this remote demo-ing and it worked well, so I imagine it'll become more prevalent in future shows.



We hope you enjoyed this latest update, we’re active on the following platforms if you want to see sneak peeks of the game or reach out to us:

• Steam forums
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• TikTok
• Instagram
• Discord
• Newsletter signup

See you in the next update!

Hi everyone, here's what we've been up to recently:

[h3]Physical Demo![/h3]
As we had several events we were attending at the end of March, the majority of our time was focused on polishing and bug-fixing a physical demo we were putting together.

This involved watching a lot of local people play the game, making notes and carrying out improvements, then repeating the process until we had to catch our flights :)

[h3]New Level![/h3]
We felt like a new level with a lot of windows would be a good thing for demo-players to enjoy, so we created "Fuel Exchange". Here is an in-editor work-in-progress shot:



And the same level after a weeks more work:



It's not quite finished yet as we'd like to do an additional art pass, but it worked well for the purposes of the demo.

[h3]New Enemies![/h3]
We had four enemies planned for the demo, and last month took two of these to the right level of quality. This month we took the additional two - nicknamed "Dog" and "Leech" - to that same quality level. Their behaviour is quite different from the bipedal enemies we've made thus far, so it provides a good mix in combat. We love making enemies, we've got loads more in-progress that we'll continue adding later!

[h3]Other stuff![/h3]

• We added gamepad support! Doing this meant including a bunch of gamepad specific controls to adjust to do with deadzones, look acceleration, aim assist and more.
  
• We set up auto-control switching so it's easy to switch between control methods
  
• We also expanded some other settings for the visuals plus keyboard & mouse.
  

[h3]And just for fun![/h3]
The events I mentioned earlier included two press-focused ones at GDC in San Francisco across the 20th and 21st March:



One of them had a feature on Steam which got us a load of Wishlists, which is always good :)

Then on Wednesday the 22nd I flew to meet our artist Alex in Boston. We set up our booth ready to commence PAX East the following day:



This was four amazing days of players enjoying the demo and we even got to meet a few from our Discord which was a personal highlight. People loved how the game felt and the venting was a big hit! It was exhausting though, this is pretty much what our booth looked like across Thursday to Sunday:



Being selected by judges to gain entry to the GDC events plus the PAX Rising Showcase was really cool to have our hard work recognised :)

Once PAX East finished on Sunday we caught an overnight flight back to the UK, had a couple of days working before heading to WASD (a 3-day event in London) so we're pretty tired!

WASD is part of the larger London Games Festival and we're honoured to have been selected as part of the "Best of British" category:





We hope you enjoyed this latest update, we’re active on the following platforms if you want to see sneak peeks of the game or reach out to us:

• Steam forums
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• TikTok
• Instagram
• Discord
• Newsletter signup

See you next month!

Hi everyone, here's what we've been up to recently:

[h3]Enemy Focus![/h3]
Up till now, all our enemies were using basic AI, behavior and placeholder animations, so there has been a big focus on taking them one-at-a-time to the right level of quality.

First up was our most common soldier type enemy that has been seen in a lot of our videos we’ve been sharing. We’ve implemented a huge amount of new behavior which we’ll cover in a separate post at a later date.

We then moved on to our second enemy, seen in our announcement trailer wielding a one-handed melee weapon. In addition to the improved animations, AI and behavior, we’ve expanded the types of attack it can perform, and added a leap to the side which makes tracking them in combat a more interesting challenge.

[h3]New Deployables![/h3]
While the majority of our time this month was centred upon enemies, we still found time to introduce six new deployables. Here’s some concept art of them:



[h3]Upcoming shows![/h3]
SENTRY has made the shortlist to demo in three upcoming events. It’s our first time taking the game ‘on the road’ so we’re looking forward to it!

The MIX and European Games Showcase during GDC week are both press-focused events, however we’ve been selected for the PAX Rising showcase in PAX East – so if you’re planning on being there, stop by to say hello!

[h3]Other stuff![/h3]

• Following on from the creation of our Mess Hall level from our last post, we created a bunch of breakable props to populate the level. Lots of fun shooting those up!
  
• Created three new player abilities - a Bandolier, Health Stim and System Bypass Module
  
• Our team T-Shirts arrived :)
  

Stay subscribed to our various social channels listed at the bottom, we’ll be giving some of these t-shirts away in the near future!

[h3]And just for fun![/h3]
While SENTRY is our priority, it was the anniversary of our last game Abandon Ship recently, so we found the time to add some free content to that game to celebrate – one of the new ships was inspired by a SENTRY, as you can see from this concept + model below:



It was fun to take a subject from one game and apply it to a game with a completely different art style!



We hope you enjoyed this latest update, we recently broke through an impressive Wishlist milestone so keep on hitting that Wishlist button if you like the look of the game!

Also we’re active on the following platforms if you want to see sneak peeks or reach out to us:

• Steam forums
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• TikTok
• Instagram
• Discord
• Newsletter signup

See you next month!

Hi everyone, I'm starting up a monthly post to keep you updated on cool stuff going into the game. For this first one we’ll take a look back at some of the headline additions over the last few months.

In the meantime, if you’d like to see some of the below in action then you should check out the videos we post on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. I post about three to four short videos a week at the moment.

Here's what we've been working on:

[h3]New Weapons![/h3]
In our Announcement Trailer we showed the Assault Rifle and Burst Pistol, while the co-op player wielded the Bolt Rifle (some of these may be placeholder names btw) and we’ve been adding more weapons. Here’s some concept art of the Shotgun:



[h3]Abilities![/h3]
We’ve added some abilities to the game, my personal favourite is the Vortex Glove that throws enemies and objects back.

[h3]New Deployables![/h3]
This is our term for the traps and turrets you’d find in other TD games. I'm loving the Wall Spikes (placeholder name), they're short-ranged but deadly. You can see that plus the Shotgun and Vortex Glove in action below:

[h3]New Enemies![/h3]
There’s quite a menagerie of aliens we’re building, although we’re holding off on showing these till our next big trailer (we have to keep some surprises). The eagle-eyed among you may notice some of these new enemies sneaking into a few videos I've posted on our various channels over the last few weeks...

[h3]New Levels![/h3]
Here’s a screenshot of one of our new levels called ‘Mess Hall’:



[h3]Other stuff![/h3]
There’s been A LOT of work on various aspects of the game:

• We added a player Mantle ability to make traversal round the environments more fluid
  
• Tons of feedback improvements to combat and the messaging around that
  
• A Main Menu system - I'm really happy with how this sets the tone the moment you start the game.
  
• Loadout menus for weapon/deployable/ability selection when entering levels via the pods.
  
• A shutter system for stopping venting. Works whatever the size of the window:
  
  

[h3]And just for fun![/h3]
When enemy grenades are thrown at the player, you can now melee them right back. Feels especially satisfying when said grenade explodes next to a window and vents the aliens into space:

An achievement waiting to happen perhaps?

(you can also repel grenades with the Vortex Glove)

Let us know your thoughts on all this! You can reach us right here on the Steam forums, Twitter or our Discord :)