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[More_Badass]

Suspicious Developments | PC | Standard Editon: $15, Special Edition (8 prototype builds, 70 minutes of dev commentary videos, soundtrack): $30
Steam | Humble

Fly your pod up to any spaceship in the galaxy and dock with its airlock to sneak inside. From there, you've got to sneak up on the crew, outshoot them in slowmo gunfights, or outthink them with clever gadgets. Take missions to steal loot, assassinate VIPs, or rescue friends.
Get out of impossible situations by pausing at any time and taking as long as you need to figure out a clever plan. You have a wide range of gadgets with clever uses, and you can switch, aim and fire them with no time pressure at all, letting you pull off ridiculously cool tricks without needing twitch skills.
All your missions get you closer to liberating new space stations from the empires that control them, and this unlocks new gadgets to buy in your shops, and special challenge characters to play.

• Emergent gameplay: use gadgets like teleporters, stealth shields and subverters to invent your own solutions to tricky situations.
• Zoom smoothly from a view of the whole galaxy down to your character sneaking up on guards inside the spaceship you're boarding.
• No time pressure: you can pause any time and take as long as you need to plan, aim shots, and figure out your next move.
• Choose your difficulty: you choose each mission, ranging from trivially easy to nightmarishly hard.
• Randomly generated missions: each one picks a random combination of guard kit, ship layout, and complications like space battles.
• Each life is a character: choose between randomly generated characters with different starting kit, and when you die, play as someone new in the same galaxy.
• Unlock new technologies: your missions help liberate stations, and stations unlock new gadgets for all future characters to buy.
• Personal missions: every character has one grand heist to work towards: rescue their brother, steal their gun back, get revenge on their partner's killer.
• All seamless: the ship you're on continues to fly around the galaxy as you sneak about inside, even as it gets into ship battles.
• Full modular destruction of every spaceship: shoot a fuel barrel to blow up the room and be flung into space by the vacuum. Rip ships in half, destroy secure rooms to form new entrances to dock at.
• Rescue your friends' characters: If someone on your friends list gets their character captured, and they aren't able to rescue them, maybe you can! You'll sometimes get a character whose personal goal is to rescue a friend's character. If you manage it, you unlock your friend's character to play as! They don't get it back. They had their chance. It's yours now.
• Find your friends' items: When you retire an accomplished character, you can choose one item to pass on. You get to name it, and both your Steam friends and your own future characters have a chance to find these as loot. Equally, you'll come across items your friends have named

Launch Week rewards/celebrations (more details)

Unique Shipment: The Everything Gun
For launch week only [now extended to two weeks], there's a ship carrying a unique weapon passing through the galaxy. It's called the Everything Gun, and if you steal it, you'll also unlock it as a random drop in this and all your future games

Be One Of Our Trading Cards
Heat Signature is all about the stories that emerge from what you get up to in game, not our pre-written lore. So for Steam Trading Cards, we want them to be about your stories. We want to see GIFs or short videos of crazy situations you've got into or clever tricks you've discovered, and we'll turn the best into trading cards with your name on! You'll have the strange sensation of being traded, sold, and perhaps broken down to make a badge.

Eurogamer - Recommended

A scrappy, open-ended, infiltrator's delight for the player who enjoys breaking levels more than beating them.
Choice upon consequence upon choice upon consequence - Heat Signature is good at indulging the urge to overreach yourself, wring chaos from even the most humdrum scenario. But as with Spelunky and co, the game's sheer volatility would be nothing without its stable fixtures, its bendable but predictable checks and balances.

Verge - "a thrilling space heist story generator"

That's the most striking thing about this game. Though much of Heat Signature is random, it's all seeded in such a way that creates these wonderful, unique stories. That could be through some sort of clever solution you come up with for getting through a ship, or some mistake you made that ended in a hilarious way, or two characters having an unexpected connection. Each of these moments feels personal. Heat Signature doesn't give you a story to experience — it lets players find their own.

Kotaku - "A Thrilling Game About Spaceship Heists"

Taken together, these elements make for a uniquely to-the-point experience. Occasionally, a mission will go off without a hitch, but if you just take easy/medium difficulty missions in pursuit of risk-free perfection, it quickly becomes boring. Heat Signature is a game about salvaging the moments when shit hits the fan and the ”holy shit, I can't believe I pulled that off" stories that arise from that. You're always outnumbered and outgunned, but you're rarely outsmarted.

PC Gamer - 85/100

Still, those 15 hours are a great time. Heat Signature inspires creativity through emergent complexity like any great immersive sim. I can't stop regaling friends with my stories of heists gone bad or boasting about my flashes of brilliance in the heat of the moment. Heat Signature is brilliant at teasing these anecdotal threads out of a procedural universe.

IGN - 8/10

Head Signature's space mercenary puzzles are great playgrounds for its creative thieving and murdering tools.
With a set of thieving and assassination tools that beg to be used creatively, Heat Signature's puzzle-like missions are great for jumping into for a few goes at a time to try something just crazy enough to work. That's when the fun stuff happens.

 

[Shari]

Thanks for the thread. Love the title.

Can't wait. Pinging JaseC to tell us the exact unlock time. A live countdown would be nice.

 

[More_Badass]

Another important detail from the Steam page

What Heat Signature is not:

We don't want you to buy Heat Signature if it's not for you. We'd always rather have a happy non-customer than an unhappy customer. So here's what it isn't:

- It's not story-driven: there's a backstory to this place and a few conversations with characters, but there's not a story that develops as you play. It's much more about the stories you generate by playing, about how you got out of impossible situation X or pulled off crazy stunt Y.

- There aren't other careers: You can't mine asteroids. You can't build ships. You can't recruit a crew. You're an infiltrator, you break into spaceships for a living, it's all about that.

- There are no planets: The whole game takes place in this nebula full of space stations. You can dock at any friendly station and board any hostile ship, but it's not a space exploration game.

- It's not multiplayer: The friends features mentioned above are fun but they're just sharing content, it's not multiplayer at all and you're never in the same world together.

There are cool games about all those things. This is a cool game about something else!

 

[More_Badass]

Review embargo goes up at release, but in the meantime, beta players have been sharing stories and thoughts on Twitter

https://www.twitter.com/dhindes/status/907848228418326528

Much like @GunpointGame, the intro & main title to @HeatSig instantly establishes tone and personality in a ridiculously smart & concise way
Heat Signature especially impressive because it has more to communicate, like the scale of space and the travel & danger associated with it

https://www.twitter.com/_anthonyburch/status/907852802789138438

2 guards. I have no gun. Whalloped first one. For the 2nd, I turn on a reflector shield at close range &let him shoot me

https://twitter.com/thesolardev/status/909788831582445570

Rescue mission in warzone, hostage and pod destroyed, blitzkrieged entire ship army to fight warzone ship and get back home only in @HeatSig

https://twitter.com/Adam_Ant97/status/909923896274677760

I just had one of 'those' moments in @HeatSig Target locked behind a level 3 door. I blew the only guard with a key into space
Used a swapper to get him out, a visitor to move him away from the nasty fuel barrel, then a visitor to blow the barrel. no more door!
Thats the moment everything in the game just clicked for me. Can;t wait for full release!

https://www.twitter.com/mtrc/status/908310026485420032

So @HeatSig is coming out soon, and I've been playing it, and it's really good, and I want to share the odd story from it. Here's one
I'd been playing as a stealthy ghost, with all nonlethal weapons and gadgets, and taking lots of Bloodless missions (no innocents harmed).
On my third mission, I realised too late that I had agreed to assassinate someone. But there wasn't anything lethal on-board. Anywhere.
I couldn't even break a window or breach the hull. So I had no choice but to drag my target, quietly, back to my pod and leave with her.
Now, Heat Signature is a dangerous world, so I figure I can just find a way to kill her on the next ship I come across. Simple.
I clear out the first ship: nothing. Second ship: ditto. I have stumbled into the most considerate sector of space in the entire galaxy.
After clearing out the third ship and sifting through sci-fi beanbag guns and no-chafe handcuffs, I finally find something: a glitch trap.
Glitch traps let you teleport guards to other locations, which means my unconscious sidekick and I can finally part ways. Into space.

I discovered an alternate strategy literally seconds after my target asphyxiated in space >_>

https://twitter.com/_anthonyburch/status/909538548872704006

a @heatsig story: on my char's final mission. Out of bullets. Only have a shield subverter (inverts enemy shields so they shoot themselves)
My objective, a previous character I played as who is now captured, is at the end of a long hallway. Four baddies. My subverter has 3 shots.
I subvert the 1st guy just after he fires, dodging his bullet. His next shot bounces off his inverted shield and kills him. 2 more approach.
I dodge their bullets as my subverter cools down. I manage to invert their shields. They die, too. Now just me, the captive, & 1 mo baddie.
I'm out of subverter charges. I got a gun, but the gun won't penetrate shields. But I sprint past the last baddie and grab the captive.
I realize there's a window in this room. A window leading to the vacuum of space. I can't go out the way I came in...so i shoot the window.
Me, the captive, and the final baddie (who will explode when he dies of oxygen deprivation) are flung into space.
I remote pilot my ship to rescue me and the captive, and rocket away from the baddie just before he detonates.
Heat Signature is real fun.

https://twitter.com/tomrmarks/status/909517540992311296

Sorry for another @HeatSig story, but plz let me tell you the tale of Vega Horizon, who abandoned her values to save her mom, Jazz Comfort:
Before the rescue op, Vega had completed 10+ missions and liberated 3 stations without killing a single person or taking a single hit.
Her Mom (once again, named JAZZ COMFORT) was on a heavily guarded ship with 9 levels of security.
Vega didn't carry lethal weapons. Ever.
So she gets on the ship, and is doing alright sneaking around and avoiding folk. She gets past the third door, and shit hits the fan.
She gets shot, for the first time in her career, and flung out the airlock.
I figure at this point, in the cold of space, something snaps.
Vega escaped the ship with Jazz over her shoulder, 16 bullet wounds and 30 people dead in her wake.
That was the last mission she ever ran.

 

[sqwarlock]

OH GOD IT COMES OUT TOMORROW AND AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[Duebrithil]

Almost missed the OT. Tomorrow can't come soon enough.

 

[tamaster92]

Very excited for this game!

 

[JaseC]

Thanks for the thread. Love the title.

Can't wait. Pinging JaseC to tell us the exact unlock time. A live countdown would be nice.

It unlocks worldwide coincident with tomorrow's store update.

 

[DouglasteR]

So its duskers with hotlinemiami ?

Im in !

 

[More_Badass]

So its duskers with hotlinemiami ?

Im in !

Check out the third video linked in the OT. It’s probably the best one to show off gameplay at its most ideal (pausing and planning, clever uses of gadgets and weapons, improvising to overcome tricky and tough situations, etc)

 

[Unicorn]

More_Badass, we on the same wavelength.

Man, this and Stellaris DLC both on my birthday. I don't have enough hours in the day.

Been really wanting to play this after Austin Walker hyped it up.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

So it's not story driven but is it campaign driven with missions? Or is it an endless experience?

 

[More_Badass]

So it's not story driven but is it campaign driven with missions? Or is it an endless experience?

I believe the universe is persistent but you switch between different characters across multiple runs. Sandbox (as you decide how you want to play, which factions to help) + roguelite (different runs, permadeath for individual characters, etc), with each character having a final personal mission to work towards (perform a heist, get revenge, rescue a family member, etc)

It sounds very “role-play how you want”. For example, the Twitter story of the person playing as a non-lethal ghost who never got shot and never killed, until snapping and going on a massacre to rescue a family member. He retired after that fateful mission

 

[Shari]

It unlocks worldwide coincident with tomorrow's store update.

My man.

So it's not story driven but is it campaign driven with missions? Or is it an endless experience?

Picking up from Twitter's impression that More_Badass got us:

a @heatsig story: on my char's final mission. Out of bullets. Only have a shield...[...]

So there's an ending? Because AFAIK you only change your character when you die, but maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

Anyway, can't wait.

 

[More_Badass]

Picking up from Twitter's impression that More_Badass got us:



So there's an ending? Because AFAIK you only change your character when you die, but maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

Anyway, can't wait.

Every character has a very challenging personal mission to work towards; you can keep playing after that though, you can also retire and switch to a different character

 

[Shari]

Every character has a very challenging personal mission to work towards; you can keep playing after that though, you can also retire and switch to a different character

Ah, I wasn't thorough reading your previous reply and missed the part on your final mission explanation sorry!

So yeah, looks like endless mode, I'm fine with that, didn't come here for the story.

 

[RS4-]

Hmm, I've had the beta for a while. I'm not even sure it's access to the full game.

edit - probably not

 

[Sinatar]

Definitely looking forward to this. Gunpoint was my 2013 GOTY.

 

[Kalor]

I'm excited for this. Although my PC is out of commission so I'll have to wait a few weeks.

 

[iiicon]

Putting Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Destiny 2 aside once this releases tomorrow. Can't wait.

Review embargo goes up at release, but in the meantime, beta players have been sharing stories and thoughts on Twitter

Jeff Gerstmann had positive things to say about it on this week's Bombcast as well.

 

[More_Badass]

Jeff Gerstmann had positive things to say about it on this week's Bombcast as well.

The #499 (9/19) episode?

 

[razgriz417]

The #499 (9/19) episode?

Yup, heard about the game for the first time today while listening to the bombcast during my commute, am intrigued

 

[More_Badass]

Tom said on Twitter that there will be a 10% launch discount

 

[benicillin]

Holy shit this is out tomorrow? No way, I am beyond hype.

 

[Unicorn]

Definitely looking forward to this. Gunpoint was my 2013 GOTY.

Wow. Haven't set time aside to even play that even though I own it.

Putting Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Destiny 2 aside once this releases tomorrow. Can't wait.


Jeff Gerstmann had positive things to say about it on this week's Bombcast as well.

So glad Bombcast spoke up for monster hunter stories and now this. Waypoint putting in work too for indies.

Tom said on Twitter that there will be a 10% launch discount

Yay!

 

[Ephemeris]

I just discovered this and I want it.

 

[More_Badass]

This is the best video to get an idea of what the gameplay is like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKpSHa3RT-A

I went from kind of interested to wow, I need to get this day one after seeing that video

 

[NandyRewman]

Everyone interested in Heat Sig should definitely check out the Crate and Crowbar podcast - Tom Francis, the developer, is a perennial guest and sometimes host, and always has something interesting to say. Would definitely recommend.

 

[More_Badass]

Everyone interested in Heat Sig should definitely check out the Crate and Crowbar podcast - Tom Francis, the developer, is a perennial guest and sometimes host, and always has something interesting to say. Would definitely recommend.

Yeah, Tom Francis talking about game dev and game design is always very enjoyable. The dev commentary videos are the main reasons I’m interested in the Special Edition. His Youtube channel has devlogs for Heat Signature, Morphblade, and Gunpoint, as well as some let's plays and other talks. His discussions on Heat Signature are really fascinating in hearing how a developer considers solutions while struggling to maintain a core vision.

On easing frustration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcegiHmh9sk
On deciding how damage works and how it affects play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdyUvvrDTfg
On expanding scope and avoiding feature creep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj6mHgbwTc4
This one is especially interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyRtMXYM8KE

Designing In The Dark: Game design involves wildly guessing at things that always seem obvious in retrospect. Here are two metaphors about that, with maximum gesturing.

His site has a lot of good pieces on game design, analysis, and critique

• Breaking down why Prey's opening works and Mankind Divided's doesn't: http://www.pentadact.com/2017-05-29-what-works-and-why-preys-intro/
• The game design philosophies behind Morphblade: http://www.pentadact.com/2017-03-11-morphblade-and-imbroglio-making-a-game-to-test-a-critique/
• How Hitman rewards creativity: http://www.pentadact.com/2016-05-14-rewarding-creative-play-styles-in-hitman/
• Thinking of ways to improve XCOM's design issues: http://www.pentadact.com/2016-02-25-solving-xcoms-snowball-problem/
• Analyzing how MGS V lets you react to being spotted: http://www.pentadact.com/2015-09-13-things-about-metal-gear-solid-v-spoiler-free/
• What to do if your prototype isn't fun: http://www.pentadact.com/2016-06-22-what-to-do-if-your-prototype-isnt-fun/

 

[sqwarlock]

Is it out yet? No?

Fine

I'll keep waiting

 

[Rickenslacker]

I'm beginning to appreciate the PC delay for Destiny 2, there are just too many good PC games out all of a sudden.

 

[Cannon Goose]

God, I can't wait for this!

Not long now...

 

[Stoze]

Getting this first thing tomorrow, I'm craving a systems driven game and between Tom's videos on it and the twitter stories I'm really excited.

 

[BTA]

This is the best video to get an idea of what the gameplay is like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKpSHa3RT-A

I went from kind of interested to wow, I need to get this day one after seeing that video

Was already planning on buying but all I've actually seen was the Everything Gun video and then this; definitely sold me on it being a thing I can comprehend (some of the screenshots were a little hard to process mentally). This plus the Twitter stories I've seen over the past few weeks have me really excited.

That being said I know I won't have much time for it at all the next few weeks, but I'll get an hour or two in tomorrow, and gradually make more time for it in a few weeks when I can.

Really wish it'd been out by tonight, honestly; I was pretty unproductive and would have jumped right into it to clear my head instead.

 

[William]

Can't wait! I'm staying at a hotel for the next week so hoping this will run ok with my crappy laptop so I can bag the silly "everything gun".

Also big fan of Tom Francis' videos and his very open approach to developing this and gunpoint before it. Highly recommended if people haven't checked his channel out before.

 

[More_Badass]

GB Quick Look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYCLn6Ev8_0

 

[DouglasteR]

Drooling here at work.

Its gonna be a long day ! Can´t wait to get home and start some boarding.

 

[sqwarlock]

GB Quick Look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYCLn6Ev8_0

Exciting! Will watch after I play a bit though. Pretty sure there's nothing to actually spoil, but I don't want anything to color my thoughts about the game.

 

[Keasar]

But can you find your own heat signature in this game!?

Spoiler

Looking forward to hearing impressions about this one.

 

[Corven]

This game looks very good, I can't wait to get my hands on it once it unlocks on steam.

 

[More_Badass]

And it's out

Eurogamer - Recommended

A scrappy, open-ended, infiltrator's delight for the player who enjoys breaking levels more than beating them.

Choice upon consequence upon choice upon consequence - Heat Signature is good at indulging the urge to overreach yourself, wring chaos from even the most humdrum scenario. But as with Spelunky and co, the game's sheer volatility would be nothing without its stable fixtures, its bendable but predictable checks and balances.

IGN - 8/10

Head Signature's space mercenary puzzles are great playgrounds for its creative thieving and murdering tools.
With a set of thieving and assassination tools that beg to be used creatively, Heat Signature’s puzzle-like missions are great for jumping into for a few goes at a time to try something just crazy enough to work. That’s when the fun stuff happens.

 

[KPJZKC]

Just picked it up on Steam - a bit disappointed about the price directly copied from dollar to euro but not too surprised I guess.

 

[More_Badass]

Verge - "a thrilling space heist story generator"

That’s the most striking thing about this game. Though much of Heat Signature is random, it’s all seeded in such a way that creates these wonderful, unique stories. That could be through some sort of clever solution you come up with for getting through a ship, or some mistake you made that ended in a hilarious way, or two characters having an unexpected connection. Each of these moments feels personal. Heat Signature doesn’t give you a story to experience — it lets players find their own.

Kotaku - "A Thrilling Game About Spaceship Heists"

Taken together, these elements make for a uniquely to-the-point experience. Occasionally, a mission will go off without a hitch, but if you just take easy/medium difficulty missions in pursuit of risk-free perfection, it quickly becomes boring. Heat Signature is a game about salvaging the moments when shit hits the fan and the “holy shit, I can’t believe I pulled that off” stories that arise from that. You’re always outnumbered and outgunned, but you’re rarely outsmarted.

 

[Anno]

The launch trailer is very good. Alex Ashby should narrate everything.

 

[sonicmj1]

The first three minutes of this game really do a remarkable job of setting the tone. Reminded me how much I enjoyed some of the writing in Gunpoint.

 

[sqwarlock]

The first three minutes of this game really do a remarkable job of setting the tone. Reminded me how much I enjoyed some of the writing in Gunpoint.

Yep. The dialogue and banter feels very Gunpoint, and the opening mission/tutorial is a wonderful thing indeed.

 

[dLMN8R]

Random question - how do people think this game will play with a trackpad on a laptop? I like the Pause mechanic to give me time, and am hoping that a mouse isn't completely necessary to play this.

 

[Zap Rowsdower]

I was enjoying the game up until my pod got shot up and I realized how absolutely terrible the controls for the pod actually are. My character died because of that, so yeah I'm refunding this game and waiting until it gets fixed if it ever does.

Shame, I loved Gunpoint.

 

[Sinatar]

I streamed a couple of hours of it. It's really fun, though I'm not big on the perma-death. Lost over an hour of progress to dying.

If anyone wants to watch me awkwardly fumble my way through the beginning, the VOD is here, skip to 3 mins in for when it actually starts.

 

[webrunner]

Mr Francis is really good at naming a game around a mechanic early in development and then not having the game be about that