Former PC Gamer editor Tom Francis' Gunpoint was lavished with praise last year, so it's only fair that we eagerly anticipate and dissect every bit of new information about his upcoming projects. A video he uploaded to YouTube today of Heat Signature, "a stealth space game about temperature," looks early, but promising.
As you'll hear in the video, Francis describes it as a space stealth game about sneaking up on ships by trying to stay cool. It currently looks like it has two main phases. In the first, you sneak up on the enemy ships with your small spaceship, balancing your thrusters against their heat detectors. Thrust too much while you're within their range, and they'll detect you and start firing.
If you manage your momentum right and get close enough to attach to the enemy ship's hatch, you can then board it and begin what looks like a more familiar, top-down stealth action phase. You sneak around corridors, tackling and punching guards (kind of like you did in Gunpoint), or just shoot them in the face. The ship layouts and stats are randomly generated, and the transition between the flying and on-board phases is already seamless.
Again, this is a very early build of the game, but future plans Francis describes makes it sound like a really neat roguelike of sorts. You'll spawn, get specific targets to assassinate, board ships to collect intel on those target, hijack ships, pick up different weapons, etc.
Heat Signature is one of two game prototypes that Francis is working on, neither of which have a release date. Last we heard, his grappling hook game ( GHGC ) was still his top priority.
