My stealth game hobby project

[Diego]

Hey there taffers

 

I always had game development as a hobby, even though I never finished anything. What matters is to have fun anyway. I hope the thread isn't considered as inappropriate advertising, I'm sharing here because it's a community I like to interact with and enjoys this style of gameplay. Also, any assets I make for that project goes for TDM as well (within reason, as it's not the same setting).

 

This particular project is one that I have cooking in the back of my brain for years and never had the courage to start development because, well, it's my pet project! the one I treasure the most, and want it to be well done etc. The idea came after years playing stealth games, in particular thief and tdm, and thinking about the game design challenges that stealth brings. In shooters, for example, you can get shot several times and even heal yourself occasionally, so there is a whole gradient of possibilities between success and failure, as in stealth you're either unseen (success) or seen (failure). There are ways to get around it. Thief does it by shifting a little bit from stealth to action by providing escape, defense and diversion tools. Some players (me) don't like it and resort to quick load frequently and it's just not too much fun.

 

My solution to keep it 100% stealth, which gives rise to this project, is to give more planning tools to the player, making the possibility of getting caught a direct consequence of bad planning instead of chance. Maps, routes, specific informations, the player has all this info before he starts the mission, makes all the notes he wants and he can review and alter them during execution. The down side is that it completely loses the exploration aspect, so valued in games today. But what are indie and hobbyist devs for if not for experimenting with different concepts?

 

The setting is inspired by 70s design and technology and the story is the classic espionage novel style. The player is a field agent of some intelligence organisation equipped with fictitious technological gadgets, and his missions will probably be to steal information, documents, take photographs, eavesdrop etc.

 

I'm using the Unity engine to develop. If anyone wants to read more about it, or even help me getting a working prototype, let me know

[Diego]

Here's a video of the gameplay already implemented. I have some basic mantling and movement along ledges in place (not quite robust, but working).

 

There's a gadget I like to call the 'double grapple hook', it's just like a grapple hook, but you have two of them that deserves some further explanation. See, each rope is controlled directly by the player, contracting (to move up, if it's in the ceiling) or extendind (move down), and by giving direct control to each rope allows for some fancy maneuvers, like sliding horizontally (shown in the video).

 

Also in the video is the visual detection system that I like to think I invented but probably everyone thought about it before and just didn't think it was worth it. It works by analyzing a rendered image of the player from the perspective of the AI. It's pretty fast and accounts for silhouette as a bonus. Needs lots of fine tuning.

 

[pusianka]

Evil Master... "me gusta" if I may say it that way

[Diego]

Thank you, evil minion! I mean.. ahem.. shut up and go sacrifice a virgin! or something.

[Sotha]

On the gradient of failure. There is a comparison mismatch. Your example makes death in a shooter game equal being spotted in the stealth game. Death should be the failure in both cases. Thus the stealth game has very similar failure gradient to the shooter. The player can be hit multiple times and even heal. That's the same for shooters and stealth games. On top of that, stealth games have mechanics and benefits for total enemy avoidance, ambushes, diversions... Shouldn't those actually expand the margin of failure as it gives the player more options to choose well or poorly?

 

Thus constant quickloading when spotted equals, at least from my point of view, to play a shooter and reload every time you get a minor hit. Not fun, yet still people do it for some unknown reason.

 

Your project caters to my preferences as I don't like boring and unfocused wander-around exploration missions. I enjoy the heist-type missions where the player is given a map, the map is designed for multiple approaches and the player is free to choose how to proceed.

 

So best of luck with your project!

[SeriousToni]

This is Unity 3D isn't it?? ^^

[GameDevGoro]

Wow this is very, very cool, Diego!

 

I'm glad to see Unity being used for something other than 12 year olds making "CoD But better".

 

Oh, stealth game- many a time have I tried to create one too. *sigh*

[RPGista]

It does sound very interesting, hopefully you'll find the motivation to see your vision through to completion. I would have to agree with Sotha regarding the stealth issue, I never reload when I am discovered unless it displaces everyone in the map and completely breaks the setup the mapper had in mind for you to navigate in; other than that I find it is immensely more fun to just deal with it, and I consider it an integral part of sneaking games (having to fight it out, or run around the corridors hoping you wont bump into anyone else along the way, etc.). But of course you can choose whatever design feature you like, it could be that once your discovered you immediately fail, as long as the mechanics are clear people can adjust their gameplay to the challenges.The grappling hook reminded me of an old game (AvP, where the predator has an elastic grappling hook), and I really liked the "sliding on an edge while mantling" feature. Your detection system is interesting too - only thing I would suggest is to account far any partial cover as a benefit - its not fun to be immediately spotted because your shoulder is sticking out, its a lot more fun when AI can still detect you because you are only 75% hidden, specially from up close, but not immediately (as I believe is the case in TDM).

[pusianka]

What about letting the player in the place as someone else like staff member or employee or even as a guest to let him explore the place but with some restrictions and then allow him to have a look at map and nextly plan the night entrance into the place to steal sth.

[RPGista]

BTW, cool engine there GameDevGoro! I really like those ruin shots, the dynamic lights and objects, seems perfectly fine by me, all that is missing is AI and we are good to go.

[demagogue]

So you're going to make a game like Deep Cover (another link).

I've been looking forward to a game like that for a long time.

Good luck with your project.

[GameDevGoro]

BTW, cool engine there GameDevGoro! I really like those ruin shots, the dynamic lights and objects, seems perfectly fine by me, all that is missing is AI and we are good to go.

 

Oh. Well thanks! Animation is the real problem right now though. If I could get animation working I'd be able to make that into the game I intended it to be. *wistful sigh*

 

 

Now back on track, Diego: I really hope you can make this into a full-fledged game. It sounds like it could be very interesting.

 

Also:

Also in the video is the visual detection system that I like to think I invented but probably everyone thought about it before and just didn't think it was worth it. It works by analyzing a rendered image of the player from the perspective of the AI. It's pretty fast and accounts for silhouette as a bonus. Needs lots of fine tuning.

 

You know what, I had the same idea a while back, but I figured it didn't work out practically because the calculations would be massive when dealing with a lot of AI characters.

[Tels]

Congratulations, Diege, this sounds like you are having fund and I hope you can finish this and make a new game

[Psychomorph]

Pretty good stuff Diego. Keep doing that, I'd like to play some sort of an alpha demo at some point.

 

 

So you're going to make a game like Deep Cover (another link).

I've been looking forward to a game like that for a long time.

Good luck with your project.

 

Oh man, Deep Cover would have been another Looking Glass milestone classic if it was made. Makes me sad and upset each time I think about LGS' fate and what awesome games they would have made, with new engines and technologies, if they had a chance to. Depressing.

[Diego]

eh, the forum didn't tell me there were any replies here!

 

I have this project cooking in the back of my head for years. I tried before with other engines but could never pull it off because of some technical limitation.

 

But I have some bad news: I'm dropping the unity as the main engine. I absolutely love unity! for me it's the best engine for hobbyists and small companies/indies, but I couldn't pull off what I was doing with the free version and the pro is a bit too much for me. That's the bad news, every coding I made so far (not much, really) is pretty much in vain. The good news is I found help and we are moving to the source engine! it's free and apparently doesn't have any of the common limitations that previously shelved this project.

 

Not the best situation but I'm still optimistic. Thanks for the encouragement, everyone!

[Psychomorph]

What about UDK?