Sentinel 4: Dark Star - coming 2014 from Origin8

Thanks guys, it's been a long ride but everything's coming together nicely.

Just a quick New Year's bump for the alien naming competition - check the first post for details. Entries close midnight GMT on Friday 10th Jan!

 

New dev blog! Today Paul introduces path deployable units, a brand new category of weaponry in your alien-slaying arsenal.

 

And another new dev blog - things are ramping up now. Check out our overview of the new stealth and radar system, and the sneaky Stalkers that'll be heading for your base.

 

Competition time! It's another chance to win a FREE copy of Sentinel 4: Dark Star for iOS at launch!​

Today we take a look at our mysterious new Commander unit, and ask you what you think it (or he, or she…) should be called. For an added twist, we’re not dealing with a suit of armour built for a human. An almost-forgotten relic of an ancient alien culture, you’ll have to do some work to win its assistance, but once it’s on your side you’ll have a powerful ally against your mutual foes.

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The alien Commander takes the place of Sentinel 3′s Aurora mech and fills a similar role, though it’s more defensively focused to complement the returning Artemis armour. Here’s a run down of our new friend’s abilities to inspire your naming choices:

- If you love using ship weapons this is the Commander for you. The alien retains the Aurora mech’s Energy Siphon aura, turning every enemy death within range into delicious ship energy.
- When things get rough, it can trigger temporary defences – a period of invulnerability for itself, or emergency shields on all nearby structures.
- Hold back the hordes with the automatic Slow Shot power, or trigger Plasma Rain to slow everything in a massive radius.
- When idle, the Commander will repair the barrier it’s defending, and can spawn its own Repair Drones to patch up nearby towers.
- Surrounded by enemies? Use the vampiric Ingest power to swipe some of their life and heal the Commander.

As before we’ll pick our favourite name to use in-game, and the winner will also receive a free copy of Sentinel 4: Dark Star for iOS at launch! Entering is simple, any of the following methods count:

- Reply to this thread right here. Easy!
- Tweet your entry @Origin8 with the hashtag #Sentinel4
- Comment on this post on our official blog.
- Comment on this post on Facebook

Make sure we’ll be able to contact you in the event that you win!

Entries close midnight GMT on Friday 21st February 2014. Good luck!

 

Yep, post away! The first competition was won by a Facebook fan, announcement here: http://www.origin8.com/blog/news/sentinel-4-dark-star-alien-naming-competition-winner/

 

Beta test applications now open!​

It’s been a while coming, but Sentinel 4: Dark Star is now racing towards release. We’ll soon need a few good players to give the iOS version of the game a thorough going over, so it’s time to open up beta applications! Please read this post carefully before you apply.

The Sentinel 4 iOS beta test will require an account at http://testflightapp.com, so please sign up if you haven’t already registered.

Discussion will be hosted at http://origin8.com/forums, so a forums account is also needed. If you run into any problems registering, contact [email protected] for assistance.

Sentinel 4 is a large game and testing will be time consuming. It’s not all fun and games – you might be asked to play levels repeatedly, or to spend time on “boring” activities needed to isolate bugs. You’ll also be asked for written feedback, so you must be comfortable organising your opinions and putting your thoughts into words. Please DO NOT apply for beta if you anticipate other major commitments such as holidays or exams over the next few weeks. Inactive testers may be removed from beta, and could potentially be blacklisted from future tests.

If we’ve not managed to put you off, fill out the form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1s3XxYMqlB2Ni_Ade0-gYRi2K1cUwChoVAlR23qcQFi8/viewform to apply.

Thanks to all of you who offer your help!

 

Beta testing is underway! It's not too late to apply to be a tester - see my previous post for details.

Plus, we've got our first screenshots from the latest beta build. Below you can see a test of our new lighting and lava systems - head over to our blog for more.

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We've got some new beta screenshots here on our blog, or click the thumbnails below to enlarge. I'll throw up some pictures from Endless mode in a day or two - some testers have managed some VERY impressive setups.

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Yep, Sentinel: Mars Defense was February 2009 if I recall correctly. Of course it was just "Sentinel" back then, we didn't know if there'd be a sequel, let alone three

No firm date yet, but I'm pretty confident in modifying "soon" to "very soon". We're getting really close to submission and I'll post an update when it goes in. We'll probably wait till it's actually approved to set a firm release date though, to avoid any last minute hiccups.

 

Here's a couple of shots from Endless mode, showing off some of our new path deployables. We've cranked up the difficulty a bit since these were taken as people were getting to wave 600+ on Easy, so don't worry if you can't match this wave count in the final release Click for bigger:

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Here's a couple more screenshots showing off the new Colossus tower and the returning Orbital Slow ship weapon. Click for massive:

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Unless we run into a massive unforeseen problem beta will be wrapping up in a day or two, so unfortunately we won't be adding any more testers. On the bright side, it means we're getting closer to getting the game out to you all