SENTRY News

In a recent post (which you can find here) we broke down the development of our new logo. In it we mentioned we'd also be updating the Steam capsule images too, and as you may have noticed, we have!

With this sort of thing, you need art that covers landscape and portrait versions. Here's the landscape:



...and here's the portrait:



There's a few goals we wanted to achieve with these images. We wanted people to see them and think (in no particular order):

• This game looks cool
  
• It also looks professional
  
• It must be a game where you shoot
  
• The character + gun gives the impression of it being sci-fi
  
• This stood out when I saw it on a random Steam page
  
• I want to learn more!
  

We're hopeful the above images achieve those objectives :)

In a future post we'll show some of the early concepts (there's some very cool ones that weren't quite suitable or gave the wrong thematic impression) but in the meantime, here's some images of how the above capsule art came together.

One of the early concepts that we gravitated toward was this image of a SENTRY with a battle in the foreground. Note we hadn't hit on the colour scheme yet, but the rest is pretty close:



While this worked in portrait mode, the next step was to test it in landscape:







During this process we hit upon the orange colour scheme, which we liked more than the grey we'd tried previously. It both matched the colour on the SENTRY breastplate armour and we felt made it stand out more.

While we really liked the portrait one with the orange colour scheme, the landscape versions weren't working for us, so we started to experiment with something different, a single SENTRY in an interesting pose. Here's a few examples where we were trying different poses, colour schemes and logo positions:









As you can see from the final version, we chose the shooting pose with the orange colour scheme and the horizontal black stripe to show the logo.



As I mentioned above, in the future we'll show some of the other concepts we discarded along the way, as although they ultimately weren't suitable, they're too cool to remain unseen :)

Until then, keep an eye out for our imminent Announcement Trailer - hit the Wishlist/Follow button for the news to appear in your Steam feed:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252680/SENTRY/

Thanks,

Gary

Take a look at the latest screenshot we've posted:



(You can see a larger version by navigating to the store page screenshot carousel and clicking on the image)

This shows one of the more destructive actions you can take in the game, which is to shoot out a window and vent the area around it into space. That may result in your own death, but as we've described here, sometimes sacrificing a crew member is a legitimate decision to make if you're at risk of losing a subsystem.

Needless to say, this is a game mechanic that we have a lot of fun with and we can't wait to show you a snippet of it in action when our announcement trailer launches soon. If you'd like to be one of the first to see it, make sure to Wishlist or Follow the game so the news appears in your Steam feed.

The SENTRY Defence Program needs you!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252680/SENTRY/

In a couple of weeks time we'll be unveiling our announcement trailer, which is a very important event during a game's development process! As part of this, we've been revisiting our original store assets like our logo and key art (more on that soon). This post unveils our new logo:





A logo is an important part of identifying a game. It should primarily be clear and legible, also being suited to the themes and tones of the game it represents.

Much like making games itself, logo creation is an iterative process. We created our original logo very early in development. It was acceptable at the time, but was always something we planned on revisiting - and as the game took shape, the way we wanted to refine the logo also started to become clearer in our minds.

For comparison, here's the original logo:

At first glance, there are some similar elements we retained, like the upside down triangle that appears on the armoured breastplate of each SENTRY. We felt that this worked well to both frame the logo and have something meaningful from the game represented.

Aside from the colour usage, the main difference is the font. We shifted to something that felt more in keeping with the sci-fi theme of the game and felt more professional. There are lots of other minor details that contribute to the overall finish.

Because a logo can be used in various places, it's important it works in each context. We therefore ensure it looks good in solid black, solid white and 'flat' formats. You can see the flat version below:





We didn't make the new logo on our first attempt. We explored many different fonts, colours and iconography to hone in on our chosen design. Here are a few examples:



Of course, this was starting from a position where we knew what we wanted to achieve. If you rewind back to our original logo development, that process was much more explorative. Just for fun, here's a look back at some of the - very early, remember - original concepts:



It feels very odd to be looking at such old work from the beginning of the game... Still, you have to start somewhere!



We hope you've enjoyed seeing how we came about creating our new logo. Next week we'll take a look at the new key art, and we'll update the store page with everything. Remember to keep an eye out for our announcement trailer, hit the wishlist or follow button for any of our news to appear in your feeds on Steam :)

Thanks,

Gary

PS - we went through a similar process on our previous game (which involved a heftier logo redesign). If this subject interests you, there is an article that breaks down that process here.

Everyone at Fireblade Software just wanted to say that however you celebrate this time of year, we all hope that it is filled with fun, laughter and presents :)

Here's to 2022, when you'll be hearing a lot more from us!

Hi!

In our last screenshot post we revealed the player character for the first time, promising that we'd return with more details - so here we are, fulfilling that promise!

Myriad alien threats besiege humanity and it is up to you to defend fleeing ships from capture. The crew and passengers of these civilian vessels are kept in stasis for their own safety while an autopilot attempts to evade attackers.

When aliens manage to board your ship, the SENTRY Defence Program (often abbreviated to 'SDP') is the best form of repelling the invaders.

This wakes crew from their stasis and deploys them to areas that are under attack.

Here's a close-up of a SENTRY:



Crew that are activated under the SDP wear the standard-issue base layer with protective armour on top.

In order to deploy a SENTRY around the ship, special transport tubes are used and you can see an example of these in our previous post.

A SENTRY is a single person (or two in co-op!) and is therefore unlikely to survive every encounter. But as long as there are remaining crew in stasis, there is always another SENTRY that can be activated.

That is why the SENTRY Defence Program needs YOU! So sign up today!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252680/SENTRY/
Thanks,

Gary