It’s officially the destination year for Marty McFly and Doc Brown. Ain’t the future grand? So what do we have in store for you in 2015 (other than hover boards and Cafe 80s of course)?
Expansions, expansions, and more expansions
The end of 2014 was all about getting the Sentinels of the Multiverse base game (also known as the Enhanced Edition) released on iPad, Android Tablets and Steam for PC and Mac. That covers a pretty large swath of the game playing public, which means it’s time to turn our attention to those wonderful expansions you all know and love. We promised we’d have news along those lines in January and here we are.
Sentinels on the tabletop currently has 4 boxed expansions, 1 boxed mega-expansion and 9 individual mini-expansions. In addition to expansion decks, there’s also tons of “Promo Cards” which you’ve already seen in the game as Variants. Moving forward, Variants will continue to be free unlockable content, while expansion decks will be paid downloadable content.
The DLC/IAP for expansions will work as a standard “permanent purchase” for the store from which you buy the game. For example, on iOS you can use it on any iPad as long as you sign into your iTunes account. Be sure to check the rules of your store for details on features & limitations. Purchasing from one store will not provide access to the content in another store.
Read on to see how we’re planning to get all those wonderful new characters and environments into your hands. Just be aware that any dates are estimates, and subject to change.
Wading in
The first DLC will be called Mini-Pack 1 and will include 1 hero, 1 villain and 1 environment:
- Unity - Everyone’s favorite heroic technopath, and master of bots.
- Ambuscade - A world-famous movie star turned hero-hunter whose appetites have lead him down a villainous path of genetic manipulation.
- Silver Gulch - It’s 1883, and the wild west has never seemed quite so wild as it does here.
We’re starting small on the expansion front for a couple reasons:
- We want to get something out for you as fast as we can
- The development cycle for the first expansion will necessarily include time spent adding support for the various stores. (That’s 4-5 completely different purchasing systems!)
We’re planning to have Mini-Pack 1 playable at PAX South in San Antonio, January 23-25th. (Oh yeah, did we mention we're going to PAX South? Booth 1369!) If all goes according to plan, it will be available across all stores and platforms shortly thereafter.
Off the deep end
Once we’ve implemented all the various in app purchasing systems, then it’s just a matter of building, testing, and releasing more content. The first full expansion DLC, as most of you have already surmised, will be Rook City.
“Dark streets, vile sewers, and twisting alleys; all home to the terrible criminals that control this city. Welcome to Rook City, where evil never sleeps.”
Rook City adds 2 new Heroes, 2 new environments and 4 new villains including the vile Matriarch, widely considered to be one of the hardest villains to defeat across the entire Multiverse! We’re planning to have Rook City playable at PAX East in early March and released to the public somewhere in the month of March.
After that, the order is clear for a bit, but the actual dates are still a bit fuzzy as it will depend a lot on how quickly we find we’re progressing with implementing new decks. After Rook City, expect to see the following:
- Infernal Relics (2 heroes, 2 environments, 4 villains) - early Summer 2015
- Mini-Pack 2 (The Scholar, Miss Information, The Final Wasteland) - Summer 2015
- Shattered Timelines (2 heroes, 2 environments, 4 villains) - late Summer/early Fall 2015
Those of you who are familiar with the world of Sentinels know that the next chronological release on the tabletop was the Vengeance Mega-Expansion. For those new to the fold, Vengeance is more than just an expansion, but an entirely new way to play Sentinels: you can play against up to 5 villains at once! This will be a much larger project, on the order of an entirely new game in some ways. As a result, depending on several factors, we may choose to develop the Wrath of the Cosmos expansion before tackling Vengeance in the Fall of 2015.
After Vengeance and Wrath of the Cosmos? We’ll just have to wait and see what the brilliant and devious minds at Greater Than Games come up with...
All the news that’s fit to print?
We know that expansions are on everyone’s mind and we hope this gives you a good idea of what to expect along that front in the coming year. But this is far from the only thing we’ll be working on in 2015. There are features both big and... slightly less big in the works, including:
- Smartphone support
- Online multiplayer
- Linux support on Steam
- Mac App Store release
- Windows Store release
- Achievements and Villain challenge modes (more info here)
- Updates, fixes and tweaks based on your feedback
To stay up to date on everything we’re up to, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. If you happen to be heading to San Antonio for PAX South, make sure to stop by the Greater Than Games/Handelabra booth and say hi!
Until next time Handelabranauts.