New year, new stories

Welcome to the new year!

We are so excited that you are all joining us for another year of nonsense and nonsensibility. This month we wanted to give a development update on co-op and competitive scenario play, as well as talk a little bit about working with the established characters from the Sentinels canon in this new medium.

Real quick: not everything is finalized, so some things mentioned here and in previous posts may see changes before the game ships.

We are rocketing through scenario development for co-op in the hopes of getting everything ready for art next month. We have three mission arcs with three or four scenarios in each in the core box, and three more mission arcs in the day-one expansion. So far, we’re on to “final” playtesting on two mission arcs, and are chugging through the third arc.

Co-op scenarios in Prime War are going to be objective-driven fights, with a strategic element similar to the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game. The player characters (as not everyone is a “hero” these days) are coming up against Adversaries that challenge them to think in a variety of ways to thwart the various plots and schemes throughout the various realities that we explore in Prime War. That’s not to say that there aren’t some scenarios that focus on the players plowing through waves of minions; however, most scenarios use that as a backdrop for shutting down portals, escorting civilians, analyzing infections, rescuing familiar faces, or dishing out some damage to the Big Bad. We want to engage many playstyles in our cooperative missions, so there’s options for every character to shine in some capacity, showing off why they were chosen by the Prime Aspects.

PvP scenarios in Prime War look a little different. We want to pit two teams against each other through multiple match types. The core box features a series of Capture the Flag matches, King of the Hill and Capture Point matches, and some neat variations on the classic Deathmatch-style match type. We’re working through these internally at the moment, and will be bringing these to playtesters as co-op playtesting winds down.

Each of the characters in the Sentinel Comics canon is fascinating in their own way, and we’ve been incredibly privileged to be allowed to play around in this sandbox. When we were first working on these characters, we were looking to represent three major things: who they were; what they have become; and how it feels to read about these characters as a fan. With only a character board and seven unique cards, it was essential to capture the most memorable aspects of each character while portraying how they show up in a primarily combat-centric setting. Some characters jumped out right away, telling us exactly how they would be expressed (Tempest, Blood Countess, Argent Adept), and some took a little more digging (Haka, Man-Grove); however, they’ve each been boiled down to the greatest hits to keep every card fresh and useful in a variety of situations.

We’re excited and anxious about the stories we’re telling through the scenarios and the characters themselves, and we can’t wait to have you all join in the fun we’ve been having! Thank you all for your continued interest and support!

Smith at the Forge

-P.S. Feel free to chime in with what you want to hear about next! We’re cooking up one about how we translated some of the characters from the SotM card game, but that might get detailed and therefore delayed until some other things become public.