Heat Signature Release Date And Launch Celebrations

Heat Signature will be out on Steam 21st of September 2017! At time of writing, that’s Thursday of next week. It’s for Windows PCs, other platforms will depend on how this one goes.

We don’t do pre-order bonuses because I don’t want to pressure you to buy before reviews are out. But I am super grateful to those who buy at launch, because our whole future depends on how we do that first week. So we’re doing a few special things to celebrate it and thank those of you who are joining us:

Unique Shipment: The Everything Gun

For launch week only, 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. More info below.

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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. More info below.

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Unique Shipment FAQ

How do I find the shipment?
You’ll come across it randomly as you fly around, quite frequently, and you’ll know it by a big golden light flashing on it, like in the video.

Does this mean I have to be online to play?
Haha, God no. It’s a single player game and we’re not assholes. This is just a bit of fun.

What happens if I board the ship but fail?
That’s fine! The ship will still be flying around until the date it’s due to leave, so you’ve got as many chances as you like, with whatever characters you like.

What if I don’t steal it before it leaves?
Then you won’t get the Everything Gun, and it won’t drop randomly for you.

What if I buy the game after the date the shipment leaves?
Same, you won’t get the Everything Gun, and it won’t drop randomly for you.

If miss out, will it ever return?
Maybe some day, but we haven’t decided so won’t make any promises yet.

Is the ship hard?
The guards don’t have great kit, but it’s a large ship and it’s usually on its way somewhere, so pay attention to how long you have before it docks (there’s a countdown once on board). I’d recommend not tackling it with a totally fresh character, you might want to take a Teleporter or Slipstream to get to the bridge fast.

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Be On A Trading Card FAQ

What kind of clips are you looking for?

– Clever or ridiculous: my favourite are ‘I was in this impossible situation and here’s the mad thing I tried to solve it’
– Less than 1 minute in length, preferably less than 30 secs.
– GIF, GFY or very short YouTube clip. You can also link to a particular timestamp in a longer YouTube or Twitch vid if you like
– Cut, or link, straight to the good bit, or at most a few seconds before. No lead-in – if it needs that it’s probably not what we’re after.
– Tell us in the Tweet what is happening, as best you can in the character limit.

How do I submit one?

On Twitter! But!

– Do it as a normal tweet, not a reply to us – we’d like people who don’t already follow us to see it. That means don’t start your tweet with @HeatSig.
– Instead, mention @HeatSig at the end! You can say something like “I just did X in @HeatSig [link]” – that way we’ll see it.
– Upload or link your clip, obviously. GIFs uploaded direct to Twitter are the coolest, but I know they’re more hassle to make and if they’re more than a few seconds they won’t fit in Twitter’s 7Mb, so links are fine.

Example:
I just used a Glitchtrap to teleport a body into space and then Swapped with it to escape the ship in @HeatSig https://youtu.be/zGRddCgdKPQ

What’s the deadline?
We’ll start looking at entries September 28th, but we’ll keep accepting them until we have enough that we love!

How will I know if I’m picked?
We’ll reply to you on Twitter.

How will I be credited on the Trading Card?

We’d like to make the title of the card your name, but!
– If you prefer an alias we can do that (caveat below).
– If you’d rather we used the name of the character you were playing at the time we’re very happy do that (we can still credit your real name in the description or not, your choice).
– If we’re using your name or an alias it’ll be subject to our approval: we don’t want anything that is or sounds like a joke name or something that’ll clash with the fiction.
– We can discuss this if you’re picked.

The description on the card will probably be our summary of your cool moment.

How do I capture videos or GIFs?

If your PC has an nVidia card I like nVidia ShadowPlay. It’s included in the GeForce Experience (unfortunately you have to make an nVidia account) and you can set it up to always be recording, then hit a key to have it save the last 5 minutes. Amazingly it seems to have almost no performance impact. That’s what I do.

Otherwise, OBS is your best bet. You’ll want to go to Settings > Broadcast Settings > Mode > File Output Only to make it save to disk instead of streaming live. I think it can do a similar always-recording thing but I haven’t used it for that myself.

For editing, I like Avidemux.

For sharing, I suggest YouTube. In theory it’s possible to upload videos straight to Twitter but it’s never worked for gameplay videos for me.

To make GIFs, first make a video as above, then I recommend GIFCam for capturing the bit you want.

You just watch your video back and put GIFcam on top of it and hit Record. I’d say 16 fps is good enough for this, and you’ll need the file size to be under 7MB to upload it on Twitter, which is the best way.

Failing that, you can upload small videos to GFYCat and it’ll both GIF them and GFY them – GFYs are better quality equivalent of GIFs, but they don’t embed natively in Twitter.