You’re a hacker who has the role of hacking into various networks. You don’t actually know programming though, so you’re using a different method.
CyberSentinel is a new game that is currently in Greenlight on Steam. You take on the role of a person who has forgotten how to do their job because of a hangover. After a quick tutorial, you’re thrown into a world where you must move blocks to different files to obtain all of them. Directing them is where it starts to get more complicated.
At its core, CyberSentinel is a puzzle game that holds the promise of becoming pretty tough. In the demo that is currently available, you have access to the first world that has 10 levels for you to complete. You have to setup a “program” to tell the block how to get where you want it to go. The tutorial helps explain the very bare minimum of what you need to know, but if you really want to get deeper into better solutions, you’ll need to do some experimenting.
When you first see the UI you’ll probably be massively confused. Don’t worry, it really isn’t that hard to actually figure out. There are 4 colours you can set: grey (the default), red, blue, and green. You can set these colours to blocks on the floor so that an interaction can happen when your cube passes over it. When you go into the programming panel, you’ll see several arrows along with a blank piece. In the middle is a large field for you to set up your solution, along with the starting cube(s).
To tell a block where you want it to go, select the correct arrow. If you’re not sure what to actually use, just use the direction that looks right from your current point of view. You can’t actually spin the field in 360 degrees, so there shouldn’t be much of a way to get too confused. After you place the arrow, you need to drag off from the starting block to that arrow with the right colour (usually grey). Rinse, repeat this until you come to the final solution. Some solutions will ask you to loop the program around to repeat certain steps. Some puzzles will require a trial and error setup to complete, and every time you need to change something you need to reset your pieces. Don’t worry, this doesn’t reset any placed colours.
From the start you’re hit with some typos. The computer you’re talking with says that you are hangover (instead of hungover). Another I recall seeing didn’t have “employers” as a plural when it needed to be. While not major ones, for a short-ish demo they definitely stood out.
CyberSentinel shows a lot of promise as it stands. I could already see the levels slowly starting to get a bit harder. I only failed to get 3* on two of the levels (or 3 cards, whichever you want to call it), and that was because I let my little companion cube die. The solutions still took a bit of time and tinkering to come up with, and that was with two people working on it together. I would like to see an expanded tutorial so that you don’t have to go digging through the wall of text help menu. Right now, the tutorial fails to tell you anything about the stop piece (the blank one) and doesn’t tell you about using other colours either.
I’ve definitely become interested in CyberSentinel though, and would be interested in seeing it released in full on Steam. The full version promises over 36 levels as well as a level editor, and I think many of us know that when people start getting into level editors, some very good and complex stuff starts coming out of it. Right now, it’s currently aiming for a release in October, 2015, though as-of posting this, it hasn’t yet been Greenlit. You can find the demo on the Greenlight page along with other information about the game.
CyberSentinel Initial Thoughts
Definitely intrigued by it, and can’t wait to see it get a full release on Steam so I can try my hand at some of the later levels!
