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Sentinels: Returning in January

This isn't a post I wanted to make, but here we are.

TL;DR: Not abandoned, not by a long shot, just accepting the inevitable that we need a longer break after the great lockdown of 2020 broke... literally everything. We'll be back at the end of the year after a proper recharge and upgrade.

If you want more details - we kept promising updates, and I know they never came through -put simply, I bit off more than I can chew. If you hadn't seen the general discussion posts, I foolishly thought that I could juggle full time gamedev work along with a new move, new job, and essentially new life, along with a whole host of other issues. I kept optimistically thinking things would get better, sugarcoated the posts here, and then promptly was dragged back under with a million things that demanded my attention. I've had far, far too many sleepless nights trying to put all the pieces together, and all it's resulted in is poor updates that don't even deserve to make it to the beta.

This game is an enormous passion project that I've poured years of my life into, and our other dev even more - and we will never abandon it. But it was a mistake to continue to try to jump in half-cocked when my outside life was in shambles. Despite our best efforts, all the coffee and goodwill in the world can't manifest a working build from a week of no sleep. This is the last thing I ever wanted to have happen, but I didn't forsee having to build everything back from the ground up, and at this point it's obvious that a proper break is needed.

For those of you who have stuck with us this long, thank you so much for your support. We'll be back at the end of the year, after we've had time to recharge and properly set a roadmap for the future. I'm hoping to sprinkle in some updates here and there, but promising absolutely nothing until this year is in the rearview mirror. But what I can promise you is we'll be back in January, bright and early, and hopefully a bit better rested. :)

New universal slot, more mods, and buffs are on the way

Long time no see! Unfortunately our last post (back in APRIL, good god) was a bit premature. California lockdown laughed at my happy cheery post, I think... Tl;dr: lockdowns suck, but we're back! And in good news, the forced hiatus gave us new perspective into the game, and how to address some of its problems. Turns out having your nose buried in a project nonstop can cloud your judgement a little :) We're working on a lot of QoL changes, as well as how to make some of the more complicated elements more accessible.

First off, there's the addition of a Universal slot.
This will allow for Sam, Kat, or Frank to have a slot that holds an ability that all commanders can accces. The effort here is to make the game a little less complicated by default, as the universal slot would be replacing one of the 5 existing slots, and allow you to make some more interesting tradeoffs for what you take into battle.
For instance, a simple one would be giving a morale boost to all structures when you kill a boss. This would change your strategy, as now you will want to aggressively take down bosses when they come on the board, as well as potentially change mods/items you use to take them down faster. If your goal is getting those sweet, sweet killstreaks, this would be a great way to do it. It will turn several currently default mechanics into equippable specials, allowing us to make them far more powerful.

We're also working on customizable loadouts.
The Universal slot started to make it clear that being able to customize loadouts would be great. So now, you can get loadouts that can have a wildcard slot on it, and it can be modified to add a slot of your choice. For instance, you might get one that replaces the Elite structure slot with a wildcard, then if you wanted to have a loadout with two energy specials, or maybe two activatables, that’d be an option.

Also adding in support for ultrawide monitors. Had a few monitors die on me at basically the same time, and replaced 2 with an ultrawide monitor… So yea, had to make that work. :)

Thanks for sticking with us, as always can't wait to hear what you think!

We're still alive!

Remember that last post? "We'll be right back after things get a little more settled after moving."

Ha ha ha. Ha.... ha.

Yeah. So moved, tried to get settled, got computer and new office set up. Had 3 (? ish) days of getting things back up and running, then BAM. Lockdown.

Unsurprisingly, that darn beer bug threw a wrench into... well, everything. Still can't believe how fast everything happened; we both live in California, and things are more than a little chaotic over here. We're also pretty damn sure we both caught it. (0/10 would not recommend. WORST. COUGH. EVER.) But we didn't die! Yay! And we're really really hoping things are going well for all of you, it's scary times out there.

There may be no end in sight to the lockdown, but we still have our computers. Just wanted to post and say yes, we're both alive, we have an adorable new office dog, and we're back to work on Sentinels! Separately and somewhat haphazardly, as paying rent and wanting to eat is still a thing, but we're back and doing our darnedest.

Don't have any game updates for you quite yet, but can promise you'll like what's coming down the pipe. Assuming nothing else explodes, we should have a new beta for you soon! Despite the circumstances, we'll try to return to business as usual in every way possible. For now, we have a new team member! (Forgive the boxes, moving suuucks)



Say hello to Captain Sparrow Whiskey Tyrian Druid the Third... Sparrow for short. ;) Though to be honest, we're still not sold on Sparrow as her name - anyone got a fun name for her? We are accepting any and all suggestions, my eyes are crossed from all the online dog name lists. She's a corgi mix from the Ukraine and the best dog ever, as well as the literal only reason the lockdown hasn't driven me insane.

Wishing all the best to all of you and yours - stay safe out there!

Happy belated anniversary!

Hello everyone! We just passed our 3 year anniversary releasing into Early Access, and we wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for all the support over the years. (I can't believe it's been 3 years already!!!) We're planning on a big anniversary event, complete with a sale and new content, but as is often the case, real life happenings threw a bit of a wrench into things.

Both of us have to move (and I don't quite have a place lined up yet for myself, ha :)) and it is taking quite a bit of time. We've tried to juggle moving and game dev'ing, but it went exactly as you would expect- not so well. So, instead of rushing things, we decided to delay a bit and wait until things are settled to get things going. We'll keep you updated, and I can promise that good things are in the near future!

As always, we value your feedback and hope you're enjoying Sentinels! See you all soon :)

Winter is here!

Grab your coats! The creeps are feeling chilly and will explode into snowflakes this holiday season.

Some creeps are also feeling a bit bah humbug, and didn't want to leave halloween behind... don't be surprised to see a few bats flying around here and there. (Real talk - a bug in the critical hit points are causing bats instead of snowflakes in some areas. Will patch out in the next couple days, but... honestly I kinda like it. :))

Patch notes:
Added christmas hats to runners and lights
Snowflake explosions added (accessible through founders only section)
Fix for creeponium being too dark in mission 2
Major improvements to missiles
Added red beam to enemy attacks
Reduced sniper recoil
Lots of tuning changes
Reduced enemy power on last wave of Iron Sky
Repair pack now only recovers half of hit wound points
Added animation for frenzy being active
Fix for doors opening on spawners
Fix for names of mods

We've also revamped our website! Let us know what you think, plenty of things to explore. :) mindwalkergames.com

And a bunch of little fixes per usual. Happy holidays!