Fabulist Games has released the first screenshots and a trailer from their upcoming turn-based tactics game, "Star Sentinel Tactics". Star Sentinel Tactics puts the player in control of a squad of United Alliance Marines, aka The Star Sentinels, as they battle to prevent a race of bloodthirsty reptilians from launching a devastating attack on our Galaxy.Star Sentinel Tactics takes the proven gameplay of turn-based tactical combat, and invigorates it with exciting new ideas like eliminating CPU turn waiting, dynamic battles and narrative-driven missions. As well as dazzling 3D graphics and line-of-sight driven by a powerful physics engine, the game offers a cast of captivating characters and creatures, and an array of explosive weaponry. Each of the 28 hand-crafted missions will offer players a unique tactical challenge, from creeping silently past patrols in a dusty desert city to providing cover for heavy assault troops as they raid an alien mothership.
As well as a compelling single player campaign, the game will ship with a full-featured suite of editing tools, which will allow players to craft their own weapons, characters, missions and even campaigns. While it may sound like an ambitious project for a medium-sized team, it has in fact been a passion project developed by just a single man. Lone developer, Philip Ings, explains: “I grew up playing these games on my 8-bit and 16-bit computers. I can't begin to imagine how some of those games were made to fit into 48K. For as long as I've been into computers, I've wanted to create one of my own that was even better. One of the things which always annoyed me was sitting there impatiently while the computer AI took its turn. I've completely eliminated that now. Turn-Based games have always had a reputation among non-fans as being boring, but they don't need to be. With a gripping plot, dynamic battles, lots of explosive weapons and gadgets, and removing all the waiting, they can be as thrilling as any genre. You have to stay true to the tenets of turn-based gameplay though, or you take away the heart and soul of the game. I don't do things like real-time/turn-based hybrids or simultaneous turns. This is unashamedly turn-based tactics like all the old favourites. It's just bigger and more exciting.”
Star Sentinel Tactics is scheduled for a Q1 2010 release.