My new game Sentry Knight Tactics came out yesterday for PC/Mac and on Steam and Humble Bundle. Check out the trailer below. I started the Sentry Knight series early here on Newgrounds, amongst other portals, and this is my first Steam launch.

But Im not gonna talk about that in this post; you can read my older posts to learn more about the gameplay. This is gonna be more personal of an entry. 

I've been working on this game for over a year and its always a big deal to see your baby finally go out the door. My team and I spent months and months pouring our lifeforce into a game and hope people get enjoyment out of it. Its been that way with every game, just more so with this one considering how big it is (for us). 

My goal with game design, as is every endeavor in life, is to constantly improve and grow. It's been over a year since I started this game, and even longer since I put the last one out. Between shifting platforms, building a new audience, I was initially nervous about performance. But it's been pretty well recieved so far - over 700 people picked it up right away, and it has a high score on Steam, so I am very thankful and proud of that.

Pretty well recieved so far, awww yeah

I just wanna gush for a moment and say I couldn't have done any of this stuff without my online pals and peers who encourage and help me. Without Tom and Newgrounds to inspire me, I would never have made anything. Without Armor Games to be willing to take a risk and publish me, I probably wouldn't have been able to break into this exciting new market. 

Whats next? 

While I am proud of putting the game out, I also feel somewhat empty now that the game is out the door. I know I will begin working on a new game soon, but working on Sentry Knight Tactics daily for the last year became part of my routine and way of life. Now that its gone, I have a lot more time to reflect on it's strenghtns and flaws and learn from criticism for the next game.

I would make Sentry Knight Tactics all over again, but SKT is an isolated experience. A game made by some guys in isolation to be experienced by people alone, in isolation. That is the nature of RPGs, but I've undergone a major philosophical shift with how I design games while I made this one.

The primary purpose of games (to me) has become a source of connectivity. Through cooperation and competion, groups of people bond. My modern society has less conflict, more solo entertainment and less cohesion than it ever has before. These things can easily cause a person to become isolated from others. When I play online shooters or offline fighters with friends, there is a sense of a tribe - a hiearchy forms based on skill level and a need to communicate and work together becomes a real bond. The competition and cooperation bond of games may be synthetic, but I they can substitute and faciliate the essential ingredients of a group, at least temporarily. But games are supposed to be temporary distractions anyway. Multiplayer games can do wonders to connect very different people, and I want to create a game that is the foundation for connecting people.

TL;DR - Single player games are cool but I wanna make a multiplayer game next.