Sanctum Message Board

Firstly: this a tech demo that’s right now is basically just for fun, rather than marking an abrupt change of direction for Sanctum devs Coffee Stain Studios.

Secondly: awwwwww. Hope they wind up doing something with it anyway.

Thirdly: GOAT SIMULATOR.

And also, more goatily, this:

Goats are dicks, man.

Basically it’s Just Cause with a goat. And there is nothing whatsoever unhappy about that sentence.

Things to know:

1) it’s made in Unreal Engine 3 2) “We’re just playing around a bit with programming stuff, this is not our next big IP, calm yourselves journalists”, but “it is a *real* game, we made it. It’s just that it’s not finished and we don’t have any particular plans with it.” 3) Follow this chap if you want regular updates about where this is going.

Please. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease make this, and release it. Otherwise I’ll eat your laundry.

Sanctum 2, whose younger brother we talked about a little while ago, is out. It's looking... blue. And gray. Also fun. Corridor shooting in corridors crafted by me? Yes please.

Sanctum 2‘s release is hovering over us like a drone, and that’s a good thing, because Dr Smith rather enjoyed the original game, and I’ve got a kick out of what I’ve played so far of that shiny sequel. However, there is already something else with the Sanctum name on it on the Steam store page, and that’s Super Sanctum TD. And this where things get a bit meta: it’s a tower defence game from inside Sanctum 2, as you can see in the trailer below. It is apparently the result of nine months work, and is either free if you pre-order, or $4. It’s a tower defence game, like I am not sure they actually made in 16-bit days.

Hmm.(more…)

IGN plays Sanctum 2 with Executive Producer Ted Lange, showcasing what's new in the sequel to the popular PC tower defense / FPS hybrid.

Is this first footage from boots-on-the-ground tower defence sequel Sanctum 2 in-game or pre-rendered? Don’t ask me, I’m rapidly losing the ability to tell. Last week Jim showed me an Arma 3 video and I genuinely had to ask if it was from a game or a real recording, even though it featured a man being fired into the sky. I worry about myself, I really do. I’m pretty sure this is from the game itself though, even if it’s scripted up the wazoo for comic effect. If so, it will be a pretty videogame, as they go. It will also have towers in, but I guess we knew that.(more…)

Sanctum 2 is suggestively eyeing 2013 from across the crowded, deafening-dubstep-blaring bar that is time, but the first in its tower defending lineage hasn’t gone into cryogenic stasis just yet. Via its IndieDB page, Coffee Stain Studios has announced all sorts of free goodies, just because. Well, maybe not all of the sorts, but those of the progression-based medal and boss-fight-introducing map varieties – so basically the only sorts that really matter.(more…)

Multiplayer

* Lots of connection issues fixed for multiplayer
* Cancel button when connecting through the server-list

Graphics

* Detail Settings

Towers

* Anti-Air - Level 6 missiles re-target if their current target dies

General

* New medal system, you gain cores for completing levels. Cores that you have earned are displayed in your level selection screen.
- 1 core -> Easy
- 2 cores -> Medium
- 3 cores -> Hard
- 4 cores -> Insane
- Achievements are checked to give you appropriate cores
- If you have completed a level, you gain 2 cores
- If you have finished a level on insane, you gain 4 cores

* Limited waves increased
- 10 -> 10
- 15 -> 20
- 20 -> 30

* New Victory/Defeat screens

* Tower Limit in multiplayer increased
- 1 & 2 players: 7 -> 8 towers
- 3 & 4 players: 6 -> 7 towers

* Survival now stores and shows you your best wave in the level list
- Also notifies if you are close to your personal best

* While bringing up the chat, you see the last 5 chat messages that has been sent/received

* Serverbrowser now shows how far a game has progressed

* DPS KING
- Showing who did the most DPS after each wave!

* Changed DLC Presentation In-Game

* Loads of bug fixes..

Top notch first-person space tower defense malarkey, Sanctum, is going to have a baby! Imagine that. The offspring will take the form of a sequel, which is going to dally with the consoles on the sly but if it’s as enjoyable as the original, I’m sure that won’t stop us from greeting it with delighted ‘awwws’ and dreadful babyspeak. Work has already begun at Coffee Stain Studios, who reckon they sold 300,000 copies of the first, but we shouldn’t expect Sanctum 2 before 2013 apparently. It’s also worth nothing that Sanctum is available for £2.37 on Steam for a few hours.

Sanctum Update - THE OLD CITY

• 3 new game modes!
• Bounty - Building phases will come with a time limit. Kill enemies to gain resources.
• Pre-built - A number of pre-built towers will be scattered across the map; how will you build your maze now?
• Stamina - You only live once. Start the game with an absurd amount of resources. Be wise in your spending. You'll never get a cent again. Now, presevere.
• NEW Weapon - The REX
• NEW Tower - The Kairos
• Client side hit detection (we like lag as much as yo udo)
• Localization support!
(German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Danish included with patch, more to come)

Maps
• Complex
• Chargers will no longer spawn on the map.

Towers
• NEW! Kairos
• Slows down flying enemies
• Holo
• Level 1: 30% -> 28%
• Level 2: 60% -> 56%
• Level 3: 90% -> 84%
• Level 4: 120% -> 112%
• Level 5: 150% -> 140%
• Level 6: 180% -> 168%

Weapons
• NEW! REX
• REX is a rapid-fire rocket launcher.
• Secondary fire is a target lock-on.
• Assault Gun
• Heat generation from secondary fire has been lowered from 60% to 50%
• Spread down slightly

Enemies
• Spore Pod
• Delay between enemy spawns have been reduced by 0.2 sec
• Enemy strafing reduced by 200 units
• These changes will make them more vunerable to splash damage.
• Walker
• Delay between enemy spawns have been reduced by 0.5 sec.
• HP has been reduced by 5%
• These changes will make them more vunerable to splash damage.
• Soaker
• Weak spots will now pulsate the way they should.

• Hoverer
• HP has been reduced.

General
• Field of View option added.
• Client side hit prediction.
• Localization support.
• English
• German
• Spanish
• French
• Swedish
• Danish
• More forthcoming..

• Facebook button for the menus.
• Community button in the menus.
• Explosives will now hurt the Bobble Heads where it hurts most.
• Pathing particles are bigger
• Gib sizes have been increased dramatically.
• There's now a tiny camera shake when you land after an inappropriately high jump.
• Version sensibility
• You will not see games hosted on other Sanctum versions anymore.
• Resolution Detection
• You should now get your default resolution when entering Sanctum

Sanctum, the ludicrously pretty first-person tower defence game which we exposed to our critical bits just here, can be won right here, right now! Yes, a dozen lucky RPS-reading webnodes will be able to plug themselves into the game by emailing us the answer to this question: the word “sanctum” means holy site. What is your holy site, readers? You know, the one you would defend with towers. Tell us, and the most interesting answers, as judged by an RPS editor, will win Steam codes.

Usual rules apply. Closing date is midnight of 30th of August.

Gather your friends for four-player co-op.

You might remember that scintillating pretty FPS-tower defence hybrid Sanctum rather tickled our fancy. Quinns said: “It’s the single best tower defense game I can remember playing since Defense Grid: The Awakening.” And it was already co-op, but now it’s 4-way co-op thanks to a new patch. And even more enticingly it’s now 75% off in the Steam summer sale. £2.50! That is only 250 pence more than it would be if it were free.

Watch the trailer below for further elucidation, and go read the Wot I Think if you need further convincing.(more…)

Updates to Sanctum have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Sanctum

• Added support for 4 players in co-op!
  
• Added Endless Singleplayer mode!
  
• Added Limited amount of waves in multiplayer!
  
• Added Turbo Mode!
  
• Added more Achievements!
  
• Added co-op build and upgrade towers!
  
• Added Ping in Server Browser
  
• Added option for server to kick players
  
• Added option to see full games in Server Browser
  
• New and improved HUD arrows!
  
• Improved GamePad support!
  
• You can now "Ping" by right clicking in the overview!
  

On top of this, a huge amount of general bug fixes, performance optimization and balance changes has been made.

The Facility map makes its debut during E3 2011 with this trailer.

Updates to Sanctum have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Maps
• New co-op only map: Facility!










Towers
• Anti Air projectiles on client will no longer fly off into the sky.
• Anti Air projectile lifetime down .25 sek
o This means that even if they miss there is a good chance they'll deal splash damage to enemies
• Gatling damage buffed a lot (!)
o lvl 1: 4 -> unchanged
o lvl 2: 7 -> 8
o lvl 3: 11 -> 13
o lvl 4: 18 -> 21
o lvl 5: 31 -> 39
o lvl 6: 64 -> 80

Enemies
• Wave number now plays a bigger role when calculating HP in coop.
o This means the enemies HP will scale up slightly faster

Weapons
• Both the slow and freeze got diminishing returns in preparation of 4-player co-op.

General
• 3 New achievements!
• Added a wave foreseer to know what the upcoming waves are. It's in the encyclopedia.
• Stat screen got a lot of new stats.
o Stat screen now supports 4 players.
• Added an icon in the party window so that you can see when other players are ready.
• Slightly optimized RAM and Texture usage (now use slightly less memory)
• Optimized network usage
o Now sending half the amount of data to synchronize animations
o Now sending half the amount of data to synchronize Soakers growing back
o Lessened the amount of data sent for replicate damage effects of players
• Changed color for build, sell, upgrade and chat messages to the player assigned color that originated the messages. In preparation of 4-player co-op.
• Changed color for overview and HUD arrows for the players. In preparation of 4-player co-op.
• Changed color for textures on players. In preparation of 4-player co-op.
• New leaderboards for Facility.
• Improved gamepad support, pressing next/prev buttons( L and R ) in Overview marks televators and fire buton is used to teleport.
• Added a community button in the main menu that can instantly take the player to chat/forum/facebook/leaderboards/achievements

Bugfixes
• Fixed endscreen freeze on long multiplayer matches
• Hoverers now have the correct hit-effect when shooting them in the head from the front
• The client now sees the correct animation of the server all the time, instead of sometimes seeing the buildphase animation in the actionphase
• Fixed so that no unnecessary data sent to client when enemies dies
• Clients no longer see a +p when enemies dies at the core
• Client no longer pauses mid-air when pressing escape
• Tutorial now shows a maximum of 2 waves instead of 21
• Pressing next/prev when aiming at a elevator now longer break tower scrolling
• Increased network stability with on unstable connections

I’m a fan of indie tower defence FPS Sanctum, what with it ticking off the four Quinns food groups (dramatic, interesting, full of personality and cheap), and you can even hear me talking about it a bit too fast on the latest Three Moves Ahead podcast. I am, therefore, glad to announce that the developers have rolled out the first of the promised free content updates for the game (now patched into the game automagically via Steam), introducing a new level, Glade, and a handful of new UI improvements . Bringing the game’s total level count to, uh, four. But serious, don’t worry about that. According to Steam, I’ve spent more time playing Sactum than I have Portal 2. An old trailer follows…(more…)

The new Glade map revealed!

Is Sanctum's daring fusion of tower defense and first person shooter enough to make it tower over its competition?

Last week I played tower defense FPS Sanctum and posted some impressions. Since then I’ve played a bit more. And some more. And a little more still. I may even have missed a meal somewhere along the line. If you’re a fan of tower defense, having fun or missing meals, you should probably buy this game.(more…)

Introducing co-operative tower-defense gameplay.

First personly shooter / tower defense hybrid Sanctum comes out this Friday. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “FPS and Tower Defense at the same time? What? How?! No!!” Or maybe you’re some cocky cock, and you think you know exactly how it’d work. In which case allow me to tell you that you’re probably wrong!(more…)

Slaughter all worm-babies! What name of nasties will you eradicate in Sanctum?

Meet the arsenal you'll have at your disposal to combat the waves of enemies in Sanctum.

The scatter laser is a multi-purpose precision killing tool.

That’s first-person shooter tower defence, of course. Sanctum, a UDK-powered project that we reported on some time ago, is now fully evolved up into a commercial project and has a pre-order-based beta going up on Steam. Want to know a bit more? Well, there’s a detailed video below, which explains how you set up your game in a classic tower-defence building phase before taking on the creeps with both the tower network you’ve created, and your own weapons. Looks interesting, and the art style is neat, too. The full game hits on April 15th. (more…)

SKOVDE, SWEDEN - Coffee Stain Studios, developer of "Sanctum," a game that blends first-person shooter and tower defense action, announces a long-term license agreement with Epic Games to use the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) for its current and upcoming projects...

A thrilling tour of the build system in Sanctum.

An alien horde is attacking Elysion One, take them on alone or call in a friend to help save your home and protect the core.