Update 1.1 for SENTIENT STEEL is out now on Steam! 🤖💙

After over a year away from the game, l returned to it with fresh eyes to give it a final round of polish.

1.1 includes:
- Huge perf. improvements
- Gameplay adjustments
- Reworked visuals
- Fixed audio

And more!

#gamedev #indiedev

here’s the full quote :)

before I decided on grinding wires for travelling in and out of the background, I used a sort of simple ‘teleporter’

wire-grinding was the better choice in the end — but I still find this old clip really satisfying!

#gamedev #indiedev #indiegamedev #unity

SENTIENT STEEL was also supposed to open with a short, 2D animated dev splash — here’s an animatic of it from Sept 2023!

again, another necessary cut, but it’s still a shame I couldn’t get it done on time

#screenshotsaturday #gamedev #indiedev #art #animation

never played the Pokémon TCG before, downloaded TCG Pocket, lost a bunch of online matches 😎

still great fun though! And I did eventually get a win thanks to quietly building this absolute tank on my bench

as with any game, I planned more content before making cuts to get to release

here’s a (very, very) early version of the intro for a cut boss: I’m quite sad I had to remove it, as it has a behaviour which splits the skyscraper in the video in half!

#gamedev #indiegamedev #unity #indiedev

these were the first pieces of (very rough!) “concept art” that I made back in Dec 2021, and a screenshot from the final game

you can see elements which remain from the concept phase: the tall pillars, the use of orange, the ‘random’ building layout, etc.

#gamedev #indiegamedev #art #indie

here are some sketches of Skyrise, versus how it appears in the final game!

I wanted to spend more time on concept art, but getting to a releasable state was the utmost priority. Being a mostly solo dev, I was sadly forced to drop concept art down the list of priorities :(

#indiedev #gamedev #art

here’s some neat ‘cut content’ from about a year before release:

from early on, I wanted SENTIENT STEEL to open with flying a drone: in the final game, it’s a shoot-‘em-up segment, but back then it was closer to a boomer shooter!

sadly, I can’t find any combat footage :(

#indiegamedev #indiegames

here’s my game SENTIENT STEEL and three of the inspirations behind it, I wonder if any of these are unexpected? 🤔

#indiegames #indiedev #gamedev

here’s some early combat footage from around Feb 2022, versus some from the final game

the early footage even shows the original design for what ultimately became the “Eye” Machine, which can be seen in the second half!

#indiegamedev #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #unity

gonna start sharing some development content from SENTIENT STEEL —

this is what the map looked like in Aug 2022, versus the release version. Fun fact: in both versions, you see the city from Cyan’s perspective, which is why there’s a gentle “breathing” motion on the camera :)

#gamedev #indiedev

whenever I used the cover art of SENTIENT STEEL (such as for the Steam page) I used a colour washed version — I don’t think I’ve ever shared the original, so, here it is! 🤖💥

#art #indiedev #gamedev #gaming #artist

ello, I’m etcher, and I love action games

earlier this year I made a co-op one called SENTIENT STEEL, and soon I hope to talk about my next game (it’s coming along nicely!)

I’d love to connect with devs and action game (bayonetta, wonderful 101, god hand, FFXVI, etc.) fans!

#indiedev #gamedev