SotM: The Video Game Promo Unlock Spoilers and Theories (SPOILERS)

Other Games SotM Game Engine
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I used SST, Visionary, Wraith and Fanatic.

Burning cards from the top and bottom of the deck found the ships pretty quick, Once I found the second, I just suggestioned the one in the trash on to the top so they came out in the sameturn, then a nice Final Days achieved the unlock.

 

I really liked all the unlocks.  They were very thematic, which is way cooler than just setting arbitrary requirements.

I hope they stay thematic, I esp. liked having the previously defeating the villain and then fighting the match away from them.

Really great job, it was a lot of fun.  I'm actually looking forward to getting my new Tablet and doing it all over again.

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Now that we've figured out all of the current unlocks, I thought it would be helpful to collect the triggers into one post and make it sticky somewhere. So I just ran through everything again on a clean tablet and here's what we've got:
 
Sentinels of the Multiverse Digital Game 1.1 Variant Unlocks:
 
G.I. Bunker: Use all three of Bunker's modes in one game
 
Young Legacy: While on Mars, have damage from Baron Blade incapacitate Legacy *
 
Super-Scientific Tachyon: Put 5 bursts into the trash in a single turn
 
Rook City Wraith: Use two Infrared Eyepieces in a single turn
 
Mad Bomber Blade: After defeating Baron Blade at least once, fight Dawn and destroy Citizens Blood, Sweat, and Tears in one round **
 
Cosmic Omnitron: After defeating Omnitron at least once, fight Voss and destroy both of his ships in one round **
 
Tips:
* Lead from the Front isn't necessary, but can make this a lot easier.
** The order that the Citizens/Ships are destroyed in doesn't matter, as long as they destroyed in a single round. Infrared Eyepiece(s) or Suggestion can be very helpful for getting the required targets out at the same time. Getting the required targets under Savage Mana, then using that to destroy them does count for the trigger. The prevously required victory does not need to be done immediately prior to the triggering battle.
 
Let me know if anyone encounters any contradictory info and I'll update this.
 
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  1. Yes, it definitely works better on the iPad 2 now.  It still slows down dramatically and crashes occassionally, but not nearly as frequently as it did before the 1.1 release.

2a) I don't know if "more evil" is necessary. This felt about right to me and if it was much harder, then you'd have more complaints from folks just wanting to pay to unlock them (although if that was an option as well, then "more evil" doesn't matter).  That said, I'd also be fine with the trigger conditions being harder, but not secret - sort of like story mode challenges that are visible to the players.

2b) Related to the above: As others have said, I loved that the unlocks were either based on the backstory or key elements of the characters' mechanics, that felt right as the rich world of Sentinels is part of why I love this game. However, to make it more fair in the future, you might want to consider having the variant bios be visible in game prior to the unlock as knowledge from the wiki shouldn't be required. 

  1. Are you planning to release the second wave of variants along with the next expansion, or should we expect expansions and variants to continue to be separate releases?

 

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I wouldn't be opposed to the idea that the next wave of variants could have a more complex set of requirements. However, something that dispeases me about the current batch is that the game gives very little context for what must be done to unlock them. The only way to figure out how to get the cards without consulting online wikis or message boards is to just fumble around at random and hope that something happens. To me, this doesn't make for compelling gameplay.

I have two ideas that might make the unlock process into something more interesting. The first would be to have some little bit of story or a cryptic clue that would pop up to give some hint about how to proceed. It wouldn't have to give away much, just a tiny nugget to start us off in the right direction.

My other idea would be to have more elaborate multi-step unlock process, but to provide breadcrumbs along the way. So, whenever a player completes one part of the objective, give us a little cutscene or paragraph of text as a reward. These milestones could also include additional clues, but they would mostly serve to let us know that we're making progress. There might also be an alternate result that would come up if we were to complete a goal out of sequence, but that might take things too far with the hand-holding.

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Having a hint in the form of a newspaper headline would be awesome:

It could be Blatant:  "Newest Legacy seeks justice for her Father's death on Mars, Baron Blade in hiding." (or whatever would be appropriate)

Or a series of less blatant Headlines:  "Is Baron Blade on Mars?"  "Freedom 5 to Mars, "Baron Blade must be stopped"  "Newest Legacy seeks Justice for Father's death."

Just putting a headline like that after each match would be cool.

If they don't want it in the post-match sequence you could unlock a new headline, and have a little place to go look and the headlines would be organised by what promo they were giving you clues about.

I think hat would be agreat feature to add, and it could work through promo's in a specific order, giving hints until that one is unlocked, then start giving clues for the next one.

This would be great for later on too, when someone picks up the game and there are a bunch of promo cards to unlock, it would feel more organic.

 

Or there could be a mix, like after defeating Omnitron get a hint about fighting Voss, and then one about ships in the sky, or a military memo/plan to take out both ships at the same time.  That kind of stuff could be really cool, and almost creeate a bit of storyline for new players to play through if they get the game after multiple expansions come out.  If they don't figure it out after a bit give them a more blunt hint that pretty well lays out how to unlock it.

Coudl even add some dialogue explaining the promo, like you unlock Mad Bomber and he gives a little speil about taking vengeance on the city while the heroes are away, then show the unlock.

The promo challenges offer a great way to teach the story of the Multiverse, this time it was geared for thsoe who already know a lot of it to figure out how to recreate the story, but for new players telling the story through the game might be a lot more fun, and create a better bond with players.

 

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Yes! News headlines would be perfect! Make them deliberately vague, so that there is still a puzzle to solve, but at least we wouldn't be starting from nowhere.

This could also evoke the feeling of a rather loose campaign mode if done properly, which I'd imagine many players would appreciate.

 

EDIT: Another more subtle way to reveal a clue might be to slip it into the banter that happens during the new opening cutscene. Perhaps one of the characters could occasionally say something that hints at something related to one of the promo cards. Maybe it could be something that triggers at random, or only shows up if certainly conditions are met. Maybe figuring out how to make a character say their "clue phrase" could be a challenge in itself.

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A storyline would be fun, and definitely especially good for new players.

I like to think of myself as pretty knowledgable when it comes to the Multiverse, but I just would never have thought to kill both of Voss's ships in quick succession to unlock Cosmitron despite knowing the relevant bit of lore. Although I enjoyed getting the promos and like having them to play with, the whole experience wasn't as satisfying as it could have been. If I hadn't "cheated" I'd probably still be messing around trying to get everything (except SST and RCW which I'd have lucked into pretty quickly).

Has anyone actually properly figured out how to do the unlocks? Like, thematically? From what I can see everyone's either messed around in a trial-and-error kind of way, unlocked by accident, or looked it up on the internet.

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Also it would be good to know if we're getting close to the right conditions. Right now the feedback is binary - you either unlock or you don't - and there's no way of knowing whether you were on the right lines getting Legacy killed by Blade in Megalopolis. "Almost" is currently exactly the same as "a million miles away".

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Just going to throw this out there: what if you automatically get the variants, but you have to unlock the bios?

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I actually enjoyed the community puzzle solving part.  I'd like to keep that, there are a good number of people who will enjoy solving the puzzles as a group.

But, the experience will be totally lame for new players who have 10 promos or more to unlock and need to go look up a how-to guide that tells them what match to play where and how best to get all the card unlocked, instead of playing through a story that unlocks new stuff while entertaining you and helping you connect with the story.

 

 

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Or maybe the clues could be easier to figure out (or even blatantly explicit) but the actual task you have to do to get the unlock is difficult to complete?

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Yep. For people who don't already know the stories, they are basically jumping through meaningless hoops for many of the unlocks. The conditions may as well be random. Use hero X, kill minions Y and Z, unlock promo W. Many forumites (me included) didn't know why the irritating trio had anything to do with Mad Bomber Blade, so I'm sure that was completely lost on new people. And that's a shame, because the stories are cool.

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If you really wanted to be evil, make an unlock only work on even minutes of the day :-).

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That's why I think the initial release of promo's like we just had is good, but a future update adding in story clues that guide you to the unlocks would turn what will likely feel annoying and pointless for new players into something awesome and fun.

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I'm totally with you on that. Even if I am not talking to you any more. :wink:

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Lots of good ideas on this page. I was joking about the more evil... a little =). We are definitely taking notes on how it went with this batch!

We'd love to have more story stuff in the game, but that's one of many things we want to do with limited resources. Eventually we hope to include a campaign mode and so on, but things like expansion packs and online multiplayer have to take priority for now.

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I'd say that the best approach would be to use a combination of both. Have some challenges that are easy to moderate in diffulty, but present the player with extremely vague and incomplete information about the objective. Name-drop the villain, for example, but leave it up to players to work out the other details. On the other hand, other goals could be explained directly, but be designed so that it take some hefty creative thinking in order to bend the rules in such a way as to make them completeble.

Oh, certainly. Expanding the core of the game takes priority over fluffy additions like a story mode. There will be plenty of time for things like this later.

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Campaign mode: Freakin' yes. I would buy this on my PC/Steam if you guys can make an engaging campaign mode with story details and bits. This is a must.

Online Multiplayer: Iagree. This has to be priority #1 for you guys. 

I think you folks are doing a fantastic job. Keep it up.

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I really enjoyed unlocking the promos and trying to figure them out as a community.  I can't wait for the expansions.  Campaign mode would be awesome.  And if cooperative on Steam allowed 2 people to play on one computer and 3 on another, I could play Sentinels with all of my friends easily and that would be AMAZING!

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The villians were by far the hardest, and for me cost me the game trying to hang on to dear life until the conditions were met (despite having both eyepieces scan the villian deck). I would never have guessed that blood/sweat/tears had anything to do with Baron Blade, or that Voss's ships had anything to do with Omnitron thematically, other than the fact that doing so utilizes all four villians, and thus forces you to play each one to unlock everything.

The heroes I more or less had the right idea on, although I checked here for hints (not fully reading the comments so as not to spoil the entire puzzle). I even destroyed Bunker's recharge mode, played upgrade mode, and used the extra play to go to turret mode in the same TURN. Wasn't aware it had to be the same game, so I stockpiled mode cards and focused on pure draw power.

For Wraith my first idea was to equip as much stuff as possible, as I initially suspected the trigger condition was to have all of her equipment cards on board, and to then use Infared Eyepiece. Then I attached another, and it worked.

I just felt the villians were both challenging when meeting the condition, as well as figuring out what that condition was.