Stargate: Timekeepers News

We are very excited to announce that Stargate: Timekeepers - Part 2 is out now.

The wait is finally over, as Season One Part Two has officially launched, adding seven new episodes that are full single player missions to the story-driven campaign. Players who already own Season One, Part One will receive this major update at no additional cost, with the new episodes automatically unlocked in their game.



For newcomers, Stargate: Timekeepers is available for $29.99, which includes access to both Part One and Part Two of Season One. To celebrate the launch, a 25% discount is being offered to newcomers from 5.00pm GMT on 23rd October until 30th October.



Part Two introduces fresh content, including new locations and an exciting new character, Xugga, who will join the team and add new tactical options to the game. These new episodes sets new challenges for players, offering deeper exploration and more strategic opportunities in the Stargate SG-1 universe.



Stargate: Timekeepers is a real-time tactics game where players lead a team of specialists through a story-driven campaign set in the Stargate SG-1 universe. The game begins with the Battle of Antarctica where Season Seven of the SG-1 television series ends, unfolding across 14 narrative-rich missions.



Stargate: Timekeepers was created by strategy publisher Slitherine in collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios Consumer Products and Interactive Licensing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1523650/Stargate_Timekeepers/

Discover the story behind the characters of Stargate: Timekeepers with the new series "Face 2 Face". Here the first episode about Eva McCain, the Team Commander.

Name:
Eva McCain

Role:
Team Commander

Personality:
Perfectionist, strong moral code, leader.

Background:
Graduated the officer school with excellent scores. After years of service, she was promoted to lead one of the SG teams. She had a short romance with Max Bolton.
She finds it very difficult to believe in the timeloop. She would be willing to sacrifice anything to save as many lives as possible. Her redemption story is only possible due to the timeloop, where Max Bolton finally develops enough leadership skills to convince her that the timeloop is real and he can handle it with her help.


You can download Eva's artwork here.

Skills & Accessories:

• Tactical binoculars: Showcases weak points on an enemy, removing stun immunities
  
• Rifle stock hit: Physical stun on single enemy in melee range
  
• Rifle burst: Deals damage to multiple enemies within character’s view cone
  
• Kull disruptor (automatic rifle): Deals damage to single target / bypasses Kull warriors immunities
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello! I’m Robert Brown, narrative designer of Stargate: Timekeepers. I wanted to take a break from our hard work on Part 2 to share some of my reflections on helping craft the game’s narrative.

Writing for a beloved franchise like Stargate – which we devs also love – is a privilege that comes with opportunities and challenges. In creating Stargate: Timekeepers, we wanted to tell a Stargate story that would delight fans and newcomers alike; this meant making something that felt true to the spirit and legacy of the franchise, drawing upon its vast lore in a fun and respectful way.

For my part, I can say that working on Stargate: Timekeepers has been a blast. It was important for us and for MGM that the narrative matched the tone and canon of the franchise, and trying to write in a way that honors Stargate SG-1 – with its thrills, its humor, and its warmth – has never been dull.

I had particular fun exploring the show’s fictional languages. This process included watching umpteen episodes of SG-1 to find little-known Goa’uld phrases for our Jaffa NPCs. How many people get to watch TV for their day job?

I never thought that I’d be writing prayers to the Goa’uld when I grew up, but here we are.

That said, narrative design for games isn’t without its peculiar challenges. One such challenge for this project was trying to deliver TV-like characterization without some aspects of TV pacing.

Gameplay-wise, Stargate: Timekeepers provides a fresh and faithful Stargate experience by focusing on missions inspired by those of SG-1 – sneaking behind enemy lines on alien worlds. Anyone who’s watched the show knows that these missions lend themselves well to compelling storylines. But on TV, we also got to know characters in quieter moments, during their off-hours on Earth or exploring other worlds; Stargate: Timekeepers gives players space and time to strategize, but this isn’t the place for lengthy chit-chat.

So that you get to know your squad, our solution was to find moments for short, mid-mission interactions that (hopefully) complement the game’s mood and reveal more about our characters’ personalities and back stories. That was tricky at times – especially when we’ve also got mission- and lore-related info to provide – but we hope that we’ve struck the right balance.

It’s nice to shoot the breeze, but sometimes you’ve just got to focus on the mission.

Another challenge was our responsibility to the canon. When we implemented anything from Stargate lore, we had to think carefully about how we depicted it. Players have been naturally curious about some of our choices – for example, why does A’ta use her staff weapon differently to the Jaffa in the TV series, and why does Sam’s mimetic device seem to have broader capabilities than the devices we’ve seen before?

When we built upon this lore, and showed familiar things in new ways, we strove to do so respectfully and believably, using our game’s narrative to help explain our decisions. You’ll find little drops of lore strewn throughout the game’s script that should answer some of your questions.

An element of Stargate lore that is crucial to the story of Timekeepers was featured at the end of mission 7. You’ll be hearing more about that in Part 2!

We hope that you’re looking forward to Part 2 of Stargate: Timekeepers! Not only does the second part contain more missions than the first, but you’ll also get more opportunities to pick the team members you want to deploy. Different team compositions mean different narrative situations, so you might hear different dialogue when you replay certain missions. I hope you’ll enjoy returning to these adventures and seeing them in a new light.

Welcome back time travellers,

We are very excited to announce that the beta for Stargate: Timekeepers - Season 1 Part 2 is now open for sign-ups.
Do not miss the chance to jump through the Stargate and help us test the new episodes of the second part of the game.

If you're ready to fight the Goa'uld threat, sign up now.

JOIN THE BETA HERE

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1523650/Stargate_Timekeepers/

Hello, my name is Eryk Przepiórzyński, I work as a Level Designer for Stargate: Timekeepers.
Today I wanted to tell you about the Level Design in Stargate: Timekeepers, and more specifically about the two main topics. The process of prototyping levels and designing the puzzle arenas.

Before we start building a new episode, we analyze what it will be about, what its goals will be, its course, and what additional content it might contain.
Afterwards we are gathering the references of the environment, objects and events from the series or the real world.

Knowing what the goals of the mission will be, and the overall flow of the mission, I can proceed to what is most important, and most rewarding for me in Stargate, as well as in the work of a Level Designer, which is level blockmeshing.

There is no clear term for the process of creating the map, it can be blockout, blockmeshing, whiteboxing or greyboxing.
In each situation it will mean the same thing, that is, a level built from simple blocks, so that as soon as possible we can start testing the mechanics, the difficulty level or, most importantly for our game, the puzzles.



When starting the level construction stage, I plan how many arenas must be included in it. An arena is a location on the map, which is a component of the whole and contains enemies and puzzles.
Depending on the complexity and specifications of the episode, the map may consist of 5, 10 or even more arenas.
The most common structure of our arenas is a situation in which there are two puzzles to solve per arena.

Having a plan of the whole level and knowing how many arenas will be in it, I proceed to build the first arena and lay out all the environmental objects such as walls, rocks, vehicles. As aforementioned, all the environment objects are composed of primitive blocks, however, sometimes I like to dedicate slightly more time to build more complex blockmesh to present my vision of the location or the object more precisely and facilitate the work of other departments.



I don't limit myself to finalizing only one process at the time, rather I try to make the blockmeshing and the puzzle design go hand in hand, so once I have the initial blockmesh of the environment done, I proceed to lay out the objects that serve as cover for our characters.



These are the objects that have a direct impact on gameplay because they are the ones that allow the player to progress through the arena and effectively hide from enemies' viewcones.

While designing the puzzles we do not want to make it with only one solution, hence, in order to deliver the arena to the initial testing stage, we must have at least two interesting and engaging completion ways.
During this stage of work we get the help from our hard-working programmers, through whom we have access to very useful tools which significantly accelerate the process.



One of these tools is the Skill Visibility Tool, which allows us to have a visualization of the ranges and noises of each skill and each character in a few quick clicks.
Placing the pointer of this tool on the terrain, we can check for example if our character can be spotted in this location while using this skill, or if the character can simply use this skill from that spot.

Once the blockmesh and puzzles are designed I accede to setting up the placeholder lights.
These are the most ordinary lights that allow sufficient visibility on the map when testing an episode, or that have a specific purpose, such as when I want to direct the player to a certain place in some way.

When finishing the design of each arena, we begin the early process of iterations. Early process of iterations means nothing more than tests of another Level Designer.
After the initial testing, I proceed to review the feedback and based on it, make changes or improvements.
If all the arenas have passed the internal testing and iteration process, the initial effect is satisfactory and gameplay of the episode is interesting; the level can be delivered to the main testing pass.

After the main testing pass begins, Level Design focus is directed towards the iteration and bug fixing. In some cases, after a few iterations of the map, some of the areas may be completely different from the initial state.
This can be due to all sorts of things, from changing the environment, the idea of the arena itself, noticing something we didn't see before, changing the positioning of one opponent, which will entail changing more, bugs, all the way to completely changing the mission course.

Once the blockmesh on the map is completed, all the arenas are designed and tested, another departments take care of the map.
However, the Level Designer's work is not over until the release and even after that, support continues.