[Prototype] Agent Unseen - "tough as nails" stealth-em-up

francoisvn

Gameplay Video:



Downloadable Builds: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/unseen/#download


Hello everyone,

We’re back with another weekly prototype. Thanks to everyone who’s been giving us feedback over the last month, we really appreciate it!

So, this week we revisited the idea of mixing stealth games and roguelikes. We originally prototyped this at the start of the year, but we felt we didn’t do it justice the first time, so we’ve taken another jab at it, and I think we’ve got a much more fun prototype this time.

Unseen is a stealth roguelike prototype where you’re trying to progress through a series of increasingly difficult missions with powerful upgrades. Move in the shadows and carry out your missions before the guards notice you.



Instructions:

Movement: WASD or arrow keys
Sprint: shift
Aim: mouse
Taser: left click
Active ability: right click
Select active ability: scroll wheel
Interact: space or E

Guards can’t see you in the shadow unless they are very close. You’re either in the light or not, there isn’t a continuum of lighting levels. Health and items refresh between missions.

Known issues:

AI is dumb as soup.
Dashing to your goal is way too easy now, and should be nerfed.

Feedback Questions:

1. Replayability is one of our primary goals. Do you think this is possible with the current direction? We want to make this game about as little direct combat as possible. Avoiding conflict and sneaky takedowns are the idea.

2. Exploration and discovery are staples of the roguelike genre for a reason, but seem counter to the “finish the job and escape” mentality you want in a stealth game. Do you think this will be an issue, or will side objectives and lootables be enough to encourage players?

3. Thoughts of the top down visual style with the raytraced vision/lighting?

4. Anything else? This is the first public showing, so please tell us any other thoughts/concerns.


Downloadable Builds: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/unseen/#download

dislekcia

The flash build isn't working for me... Just sits there on a black screen. Am I missing something?

francoisvn

@dislekcia: It seems like it's hit or miss with the flash version. There is an initial loading screen with a mostly black background, but it should arrive at the starting menu very quickly. Have you tried a native build? Due to framerate and fullscreen issues, the native build is actually a better playing experience.

EDIT: trying to see if we can get the flash build working, but not sure yet.

EDIT 2: Ok, I managed to reproduce and fix the issue in a VM. Hopefully this means it's been fixed in general. The native builds are still a better experience, but hopefully the flash build works now (same links).

Riocide

Edit: Flash version is fixed now so please use the link in the original post please :)

As Francois said, the flash build might have some frame rate issues due to some quickly implemented raytracing, so if thats an issue please try out one of the native builds, I just uploaded the mac one to our site. (Aside: The native builds also have antialiasing )

Nandrew

A lot of stealth games dissatisfy me mechanically and I've always felt that the best way to address matters would be to emphasise a particular angle. Most recent thing coming to mind is Stealth Bastard (http://www.stealthbastard.com) which emphasised precision and action quite well. I really like the promise that your system shows for an upgradeable information economy. In the between-level abilities, tools are probably decent overall, though I thought the stuff like vision width and blueprints were the most fascinating because they were "low-admin" tactical improvements. I don't know if you have any more of those, but I can imagine a well-equipped, late level sneaker in this game having diverse buffs like increased hearing range, better viewing angles around corners, extended view distance, and visual indicators of enemy sight cones.

I would keep right-click abilities to a minimum if possible so the player can focus on doing the basic interactions with greater care and precision while their buffs automatically / passively serve them. I would go as far as saying that they pick their right-click at the start of the game and stick with it (this could be a way of selecting your basic "character class").

I would also generally nuance and buff the information indicators. If I can hear a guard behind a wall, it's easier to keep track of a "ghost" of his inferred position than to visually process the current sound rings. I'd increase the default view cone to something slightly unrealistic. Temporary imprints can be left at the places they were last sighted, fading over a second or two. You could have your regular cone of "direct" vision, and have an extended arc of "peripheral vision" which gives you only partial or generalised information, etc. If all of this is too kind to the player, you can still increase external challenge to compensate.

Finally, I think your exploration dilemma would be solved by working more on environmental features before returning to the matter of adversaries. Shifting walls could make the raycasting more mechanically relevant and interesting, doors could be added between rooms to break up levels and prevent excessive dashing behaviour (though one upgrade could be to instantly -- but noisily -- break through doors) and you could work on that good ol' rogue staple of vaults or set pieces, in which you can place treasure or side objectives (if you can somehow make getting these affect your ability to upgrade between levels, that would probably work well for you). The pickup reward is one thing in itself, but it's nice to have them in special or interesting situations, like guards patrolling in scripted patterns or formations. Or maybe it's a room full of traps.

Otherwise, immediate suggestion I can make is that the AI's threat range needs to be increased to outstrip the player's and ensure that they get in the first hit if they discover and charge at you. :D Think that's it for now.

francoisvn

@Nandrew: Thanks for the feedback. We had discussed the idea of an "information economy" to some degree, but hadn't thought of making it the focus of the stealth until now. I think it's probably a good idea to find something to focus the stealth on, and an information economy is an interesting idea.

As I see it, active and passive abilities have a few types of information they can play with: vision, hearing, lighting, level structure and movement (such as knowledge of guard patrols). Any others we missed? Also, we could relatively easily add other information systems, such as the wiring system we had in the earlier prototype.

We've thought of a few information-focussed upgrades that we can/will try:

• Your vision angle (already implemented).
  
• Your vision range.
  
• Memory of what you've seen or will see (variation on the current blueprints).
  
• Hearing range (of you and guards).
  
• Noise levels (how much noise you/guards make when walking/running).
  
• Thrown vision cameras.
  
• Projecting your vision to look around corners and such.
  
• Better indication of enemy vision (currently not implemented for performance reasons).
  
• Limited invisibility.
  
• Things that play with the current lighting, like smoke bombs or disabling cameras.
  
• Things that alter the levels structure.
  

I think limiting the number of active abilities a player has at any one time is probably a good idea, possibly just to make it easier to play. However, I do think a few (maybe limited to 3 or so) active abilities will add quite a bit - there are already a few interesting interactions that can occur with the limited set of items available. The idea of classes is an interesting one, but something we'll probably want to avoid for now to make things easier to prototype.

Nandrew said:

If all of this is too kind to the player, you can still increase external challenge to compensate.

I agree with this - rather give the player too much information for now, and then add more challenge, in the form of guards/cameras/traps/whatever a bit later.

Nandrew said:

Temporary imprints can be left at the places they were last sighted, fading over a second or two.

Great usability improvement, thanks for the suggestion.

Nandrew said:

You could have your regular cone of "direct" vision, and have an extended arc of "peripheral vision" which gives you only partial or generalised information, etc.

Will have to think about this a bit more, not sure what sort of information we might only show in the peripheral vision.

The reason we haven't added doors and moving level structure is mostly due to performance concerns (our raycasting is fairly expensive at the moment), but we'll definitely have to tackle this at some point. Vision through doors is another piece of information to play with.

Thanks again for all the great feedback, it's given us a lot to think about!

We're also interested to hear what others think about the prototype so far. Any takers? :D

TheFuntastic

Played for a couple of mins only (sorry, it's near bedtime). Disclaimer: Roguelikes aren't my thing.

My biggest problem was that the experience felt very "claustrophobic". Found myself selecting blueprints first by default. I like the idea of rooms as Nadrew mentioned, especially would be cool to have rooms with lights on that are "known" entities. Eg, this room has lights on and two guards. Okay what happens if I instead take this darkened corridor with potentially anything in it.

Also I could've used more feedback on health damage - both dealing and receiving. Especially if you're expecting me to be engaging in "combat". I also surprised I had three lives. Hotline miami runs at one hit kills. That really encourages you to play tactically rather than just button mashing. I found it disappointing I didn't have a way to "sneak" (slower but no footsteps). I also thought my sound would be more alerting to the guards.

In fairness though I didn't play long enough to learn about the interestingness of the upgrades, so I can't really comment on that.

Denzil

If I may ask, how did you implement your vision system? Is it a package you used or did you do it from scratch?

francoisvn

@TheFuntastic: Thanks for trying it out. Any feedback, however brief, is appreciated :)

TheFuntastic said:

My biggest problem was that the experience felt very "claustrophobic". Found myself selecting blueprints first by default. I like the idea of rooms as Nadrew mentioned, especially would be cool to have rooms with lights on that are "known" entities. Eg, this room has lights on and two guards. Okay what happens if I instead take this darkened corridor with potentially anything in it.

Good point about the claustrophobic feel. A plan to combat this is to include some form of blueprint memory where you can see the level structure that you've seen earlier, but my initial implementation brought the game to a grinding halt, so I need to speed it up first.

Memorable rooms types is a good idea, although I'm not sure how to best communicate those types to the player without giving them more information by default. Perhaps something like markings on the floor might work. Implementing this is gonna require a fair bit of work on the level generation code, so it might have to wait a bit, which is time to think about it :)

TheFuntastic said:

Also I could've used more feedback on health damage - both dealing and receiving. Especially if you're expecting me to be engaging in "combat". I also surprised I had three lives. Hotline miami runs at one hit kills. That really encourages you to play tactically rather than just button mashing.

The idea is not really to make the player engage in combat. The main reason we include multiple lives is to hopefully limit the frustration of playing for a long time and then dying after just one mistake. If the guards' AI is improved so that they don't react so quickly and go for the kill, we can probably get away with limiting the health more.

TheFuntastic said:

I found it disappointing I didn't have a way to "sneak" (slower but no footsteps). I also thought my sound would be more alerting to the guards.

The default movement is to sneak/walk, whereas you can hold down shift to run. If you run it's much easier to alert nearby guards. Maybe you move too fast, but when your speed was reduced the game felt quite sluggish, perhaps due to other factors.

@Denzil: It makes sense to first mention that the tech stack for the prototype is Haxe + OpenFL + HaxeFlixel + Nape. Haxe is a cross-platform language, OpenFL is a framework for cross-platform media software, HaxeFlixel is a game engine, and Nape is a 2D physics engine (HaxeFlixel has a simple built-in 2D engine that I replaced).

The visibility polygon generation was fairly difficult and I went with a fairly naive implementation initially to just get things working. This article, with its interactive demos, was a big help in quickly understanding the algorithm. Improving my implementation is something I want to do relatively soon so that I can use it for more interesting things, but I haven't had the time yet. I'd be happy to give you access to my code now, or later when I've improved it, but it might not be very helpful if you're not at least using Haxe.

Denzil

Oh, thanks. I actually discovered that article (and Haxe) about two days ago. I get the general idea, but am missing the last few steps (actually drawing the shadows/light). But I have a Unity package now which kind of does it, but it misses some optimizations I feel. Do you raycast in an arc with small steps? Or do you raycast towards known vertices (and around them?) I think I will try and do that eventually, because at the moment I am just raycasting in steps, and it feels unnecessary (and processor intensive).

PS. Nice little prototype, I don't have much more to contribute though than what was already said here :) I also have some sneaking about in Grave Days, so I'd like to see what you are doing and maybe get some ideas :P Grave Days won't be sneaking focused though, just a little side mechanic, so I don't expect it to be nearly as thorough as yours.

TheFuntastic

The default movement is to sneak/walk, whereas you can hold down shift to run.

Ah, in that case the feedback is off. I shouldn't be making footsteps at all when I sneak. Only when I run. The speed has nothing to do with it ;)

francoisvn

@Denzil: I currently do a combination of steps and casting to vertices. The steps are just there to give a circular distance to the visibility. When I improve the algorithm I will probably only send rays to vertices. If your package works for you, I advise sticking with it for as long as possible.

@TheFuntastic: Good point, I'll change that in the next build to make it clearer.

dislekcia

@fracoisvn: What can you do to allow for more emergence? In 2D stealth games, I feel like there's often very little variance in movement options, which is weird because MOBAs are 2D plane-based movement games and they've gone crazy with movement stuff... So what if you had player skills that would leave explosive packages on the ground that would blast stuff away from them when triggered? This could affect the player AND enemies too, stun people when they get lobbed into walls at high speed, etc. What about short-range teleports through walls? Risky, but potentially awesome, especially if you can't carry items with you when you teleport.

Speaking of items - I feel like the way Spelunky's item carrying system is consistent is one of the major ways it creates awesome emergence. You could easily have levels where you had to carry stuff to an exit, or carry a key to a door to get through one area, or pick up a screwdriver to open vents, but then choose to leave that behind so that you can pick up a bomb, etc. Experiment!

konman

@francoisvn Very nice! Those moving shadows etc feel a lot similar to Teleglitch, a game I bought on steam during the December sales.

The real-time shadows in 2D is not always easy to achieve, so I can appreciate the complexities. I managed it in XNA a while back after reading many tutorials, but have yet to get a similar effect working in Unity... with or without shaders.

I am currently building a prototype where AI moves around a navmap and use line of sight with a state machine engine to determine behavior, so that routed my interest in this - as this effect would compliment that style of game :)

Riocide

@dislekcia In dota 2 at least a lot of the interesting movement they have plays around with elevation/cliff faces/other obstructions (trees). You have blinks, leaps, pushes, pulls etc. that play around these obstructions and contribute to making positioning an essential part of the game. In that regard I think we can add similar types of obstructions and even do something similar to elevation by adding "layers" to a level (pipes > floor > vents). The big difference I think comes in to how the player moves around. In stealth games my default assumption with movement is slow and calculating. Do those kind of crazy 2d movement skills work with that mindset? Experimentation seems to be a good mantra :P

Btw. there is a blink item in the game atm you can sometimes finds. It's fun, but way too OP

FanieG

@francoisvn - this is so much more polished than the old proto. And MUCH harder. It could do with a tutorial level. The controls freaked me out at first, but I think that was @Denzil's fault. I have played a fair bit of "Grave Days" and that control system is similar (but different?). He has you also aiming with the mouse, but then moving with W (or mouse key). Weird how one game can influence another. Like playing Battlefield after a couple of rounds of COD. Anyway, nice prototype, hope you take it further.

SUGBOERIE

Fun. I played the first version and really liked the circuitry puzzle element to it, with that one I felt more stealthy though because i could plan my route. It kinda irritated me at first that there was limited sight in this one but I feel like that's a main mechanic in this one which I learned to like once you understand the way the guards see/hear you.

Just a thought. Have the same circuitry thing to hook up to cameras around the level to increase what you can see in the level.

Otherwise, good prototype.

Side question, how's your experience been with HaxeFlixel? Saw, it a while ago and have been wanting to try it out.

francoisvn

Thanks for all the feedback guys :)

@SUGBOERIE: I've use Haxe and OpenFL on other projects before, so I was already semi-familiar with the stack. I like HaxeFlixel, already used it for another prototype (in the works). It won't be for everyone, but I think it's awesome for 2D games.

Gonna be working on Unseen again for the next while and I thought I'd just post a quick update on what I have planned:

• More information-based upgrades: improved hearing, quieter movement, thrown vision cameras, ...
  
• Improved information transparency: guard vision, lit/hidden indication, guard ghosts/imprints from sounds, ...
  
• Minor UI improvements: bigger target indicator, pause menu, ...
  

My current focus is to try slow down the game a bit, and give the player more interesting choices to consider when creeping around in the dark.

francoisvn

I'm happy to report that a new version of Unseen is available (same link). It's basically the same version we showed at the CT meetup last night, with a few more minor improvements.

Some of the changes:

• Changed the way sounds from guards are displayed on the screen.
  
• Changed sound assets.
  
• Added more indicators for when you are in light and when you are not.
  
• Added doors between some rooms.
  
• Changed walk and run speeds of the player and the guards to make more sense.
  
• Added more upgrades.
  
• Added ability hotkeys 1-9
  

At the moment, we're primarily interested in how easy it is to understand the light and vision systems, but general feedback is always useful :)

Denzil

I'm unfortunately getting insane amounts of lag, rendering it unplayable :/

EDIT: clicking the download swf button seemed to fix that issue. I'll try it out a bit tonight/tomorrow

One quick comment, I love the blink ability, but it is too powerful for one reason. Escaping. It is a great ability without it aiding in escaping (as much as it does). I think it should be limited in that it should not recharge while you are actively being chased. I think it is fine if the guards are alerted, or that you can use it while it is charged up, but just should not recharge after you are seen. Also, perhaps it should attract nearby guards to the position you blinked, similar to sprinting (does it do this already? I didn't check, just afterthought)

francoisvn

There is unfortunately a bug in flash that crops up in this case, and Adobe have long ago said they won't be fixing it. Running just the SWF (not embedded in a page) seems to fairly reliably resolve the problem.

So that we can put out updates more quickly, and so that we don't need to get players to download a new version each time, we'll be using the flash build primarily at the moment. If it doesn't work for someone, really sorry about that; if you let us know we'd be happy to try upload a native build for you.

francoisvn

Hey Everyone,

We’ve done a lot of work on Unseen and wanted to show you where the project is at the moment. Oh, and we’ve changed the name to Agent Unseen as part of an early attempt at theme, so let us know what you think about it.

This is basically the same version that we were showing around at A MAZE. Since our last forum post, the following things have been changed:

• Revamped level generation
  
• Upgraded enemy AI
  
• New item system
  
• Updated visuals and more colour variety.
  
• Added more information features, such as a minimap and guard state change alerts
  

All these changes have made quite a impact to the frame rate, which means the web version is very sluggish right now. We highly recommend you download a native version here. If you’re determined to play web, we’ve put an updated flash version here.


Looking for Help

We’re very close to the point where we might decide to take this further and develop it into full commercial project. We still want to do some iteration on the core mechanics and then send it out to a broader audience, to see if it gains more traction, but we feel like some improved visuals and audio will go a long way to getting some more attention.

One of the internal points we’ve been using to see if a project is viable to develop is the excitement of the community and the interest people show in potentially collaborating with us on said project. If someone actively wants to spend time on a project, we think that’s a great sign that we might have something people will want to eventually play and pay for.

So with all that being said, we would like to officially invite people in the community who are interested in working on Agent Unseen to contact us. We are specifically looking for artists and sound designers, as those are the areas we are most lacking in.

So yeah, get in touch, either in this thread, via DM or send an email to leonvn@clockworkacorn.com with your contact details and some information on how you would like to help.


Play Online: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/unseen/#play
Downloadable Builds: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/unseen/#download

MCA

Hey @francoisvn, I'm very keen to contribute and get involved on the sound design side of things, although if I'm honest, my musical composition skills are moderate. I suppose some references as to what kind/style of sounds you're after could be useful - though I appreciate that the graphics can influence the sound and visa versa.

francoisvn

MCA said:

I suppose some references as to what kind/style of sounds you're after could be useful - though I appreciate that the graphics can influence the sound and visa versa.

Good question! Our idea is to have a secret agent theme (think some mix of James Bond, Johnny English, Austin Powers) with evil villains and their henchmen, and over-the-top level locations (like on top of a volcano, under the sea, or on the moon). Of course we are completely open to suggestions, and we imagine that the theme will be heavily informed by both the artist and musician as development progresses - we want to work with the artist and musician on the game, not dictate to them.

Mexicanopiumdog

Just wanted to say that I'm also keen to collaborate. We can make this game awesome!

francoisvn

So we have a new build with an updated video:



Downloadable Builds: http://clockworkacorn.com/games/unseen/#download

We got some awesome feedback at rAge, and we had a few people that really got into the game, which was a terrific experience. This is basically the same build we had at rAge; we haven't had time to make any changes from all the great feedback we got, but soon...

Changes from the previous build include: the item system has had a complete overhaul (it's much simpler now), we've added support for XBox 360 controllers, and made a number of other changes across the board. This build also features a mix of audio from @MCA and @Mexicanopiumdog from their sound challenge entries. I'm sure I've forgotten some changes we've made, 'cause the game feels very different at this stage, so the best thing to do is just try out the new build :)

It's currently pretty difficult (but doable) - you only need to beat 5 missions to beat the game. Can you complete the Agent Unseen challenge? Good luck!

MCA

"pretty difficult"??? You've given the guards guns!

Are the guards on pre-determined movement paths? I found I could wait for them to complete a circuit of their route and pounce when they stopped to look around, which made things a bit easier - perhaps a time limit to complete some missions so that you can't just wait indefinitely?

francoisvn

Hehe yeah, "pretty difficult" is a bit of a euphemism ;P

Yip, the guards have patrols, and guns :)

I feel like waiting should be interesting in a stealth game. That could be because you are using the time to make plans or absorbing information, like guard patrols. In fact, I'd like to make waiting in the shadows and planning your future actions where most of the interesting player decisions are. IMHO, the difficulty and interesting part of the game should be about deciding what to do, not about executing your actions.

Do you feel like waiting is currently a bit boring?

MCA

francoisvn said:

I feel like waiting should be interesting in a stealth game. That could be because you are using the time to make plans or absorbing information, like guard patrols. In fact, I'd like to make waiting in the shadows and planning your future actions where most of the interesting player decisions are. IMHO, the difficulty and interesting part of the game should be about deciding what to do, not about executing your actions.

That makes sense. In the first couple of levels, it can be a bit boring, but that's because there's only a couple of guards around. In the later levels it's more strategic, as you say.

Mexicanopiumdog

Wow, so I gave the new version a swing and I found that its soooo much more difficult! I have to say that waiting at this stage is a bit boring...and sometimes the Ai patrolling path just doesn't allow you to pass or at least its very difficult...Maybe we need some more features? I definitely like the new look though - the way the edges glow up with a blue colour is really cool.

TheFuntastic

Just played this version. They new look is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better! I have a sense of space and can actually plan my movement now. Picking off a gaurd from the shadows is now a super rewarding loop and as my flatmate would say "I'm batman".

Some stream of consciousness thoughts

• Your melee weapon needs to have and arc of attack. This is more fair on the player in the top down perspective. Trying to hit in the direction of a guard is a very fiddly maneuver, missing the guy "right in front of you" feels pretty lame. Also reference a lot of other games, and notice there will be an arc on the melee weapon (hotline miami, last of us, etc)
  
• Some situations are impossible, particular two guards patrolling a choke point in full light before the player has any items. Maybe the player needs to start with a free item?
  
• The game is way harder, but actually more fun because we're closer to a more coherent "model" of how this game's universe works - Hotline Miami is tough as bloody nails, but it feels fair because all the players actions have very obvious and meaningful consequences. The questions are what can we do to improve this further?
  
  Perhaps you could model what a lot of AAA games do (detective mode in Batman, Listening mode in Last of us, also in deus ex i believe). In these games you can enter a mode where enemies are highlighted (within a radius) even if they're not visible but the price you pay is that movement is clamped or severely limited. Yeah it's "cheating" but it enables many of those "I'm batman" moments which feel awesome and are kinda the whole point.
  
  So maybe you can bind "hearing" to a button, and means you can't move when activated, but you can hear around corners as it were. This allows you to build a model and form a plan (this is important) before you run into engagement in difficult scenarios. This would have to better than the current "hearing" abilities in that it would have to highlight enemies as if they were in plain sight.
  
  An ability like that would also make a great addition on a skill tree. "levelling" in the old version was a nice concept, but it didn't quite jibe. I think it was because items were confused with abilities. Something like "hearing distance increased" would be an awesome upgrade that would make not dying meaningful.
  
  Other "abilities": invisibility, running quietly, run speed etc
  
  
  
• Items as pickups was way better :)
  
• They inventory system is a bit junk though. You're going to have to rethink this ;) Possible solution: Hotline Miami only had one weapon slot, and whatever you choose to pick up would replace the currently activated weapon. This of course you need graphics to differentiate items/weapons
  
• Throwing distance on grenade weapons seems important. Simple hold to throw further could work.
  
• Let me restart with fire/enter/whatever. Exit to menu wasn't the best
  
• Maybe the positions of lights should be visible for all rooms. Found a lot of time I wouldn't know if going around a corner was lit up or not. This made it random rather than tactical.
  
• I think the interestingness of the game really shines when dealing with strategies for taking out guards. Amp that up. Have static guards standing near mission objects (suddenly distractors get more interesting) etc. Also patrolling guards are a bit hyper- makes things like getting a gun less meaningful that it should be because they are hard to hit.
  
• Also I know this goes against the "roguelike" convention, but I'd kind of like to play failed missions again. There were quite a few that felt interesting, but then I screwed up. Being presented with a completely different situation after that felt disengaging. The penalty of this could be the fact you lose your abilities and start with no items, so you still maintain some of the "unforgivingness"
  
• This also helps for narrative purposes. I enjoyed some of your missions, in particular "file taxes". Would be cool if we could link this over few levels to build narratives. Eg lift print lvl 1, plant evidence lvl 2 ... kill the right guy lvl 5. These narratives could be a bit more prebaked, whilst still allowing you to random gen levels and maintain the roguelike feel.
  

Squidcor

Well done on the new version guys, I found this one a LOT more engaging than the previous ones. I think the move towards a harder difficulty is what makes the most difference for me. I really felt like I had to slow down, lurk, and consider how I was going to get past the situation in front of me.

What I really want is a few more things in the level, and a few more ways to interact with the environment. Here are some throw away ideas:

- Pools of water (or something) that you have to move through really slowly to avoid making a lot of noise.
- Sniffer dogs that cannot see you, but will bark if you get too close.
- Furniture that you can hide behind, or even push around.
- A trap item.
- Little passageways that you can use but the guards cannot. (Like the vents in Mark of the Ninja)
- The ability to briefly peer around a corner without exposing myself.
- Enemies that don't patrol, but are strategically placed so that you can still get behind them. (@TheFuntastic mentioned this already).
- Loud machinery that will drown out other sounds in the room.
- Corridors?

Also, the gamepad controls would be a whole lot better if you put a deadzone on the analogs. I died more than once because I accidentally slid out of my hiding place.

francoisvn

Firstly, thank you all for trying the new build @MCA, @Mexicanopiumdog, @TheFuntastic and @Squidcor :)

I've been meaning to reply to the great feedback here, but have been a bit swamped recently (sorry for the delay). A lot of the comments I completely agree with, like adding more information for you to plan around when in the shadows, so please don't think I disagree with your suggestion, or didn't read it, if I don't directly reply :)

TheFuntastic said:

Your melee weapon needs to have and arc of attack.

The idea is that, if you make a good plan from the shadows, executing that plan should be fairly easy. So things like an arc for the taser will definitely be made more clear (there is already a bit of an arc, and you can sweep for a bit, but it should be better).

TheFuntastic said:

Some situations are impossible, particular two guards patrolling a choke point in full light before the player has any items. Maybe the player needs to start with a free item?

You already start with a taser and an extra health point, we wouldn't want to make things easy now ;)

TheFuntastic said:

So maybe you can bind "hearing" to a button, and means you can't move when activated, but you can hear around corners as it were. This allows you to build a model and form a plan (this is important) before you run into engagement in difficult scenarios. This would have to better than the current "hearing" abilities in that it would have to highlight enemies as if they were in plain sight.

Something like this was on our todo list for an item pickup, but it made me think: what if standing still for a bit improved your hearing (or other senses)? No need to press a button, and it can still be upgradable...

TheFuntastic said:

Something like "hearing distance increased" would be an awesome upgrade that would make not dying meaningful. Other "abilities": invisibility, running quietly, run speed etc

All of those, except run speed, are already in the game. It might not be communicated very well when you get them, but they're there :)

TheFuntastic said:

They inventory system is a bit junk though. You're going to have to rethink this ;) Possible solution: Hotline Miami only had one weapon slot, and whatever you choose to pick up would replace the currently activated weapon. This of course you need graphics to differentiate items/weapons

Am I correct in assuming it's the changing of active items that's the issue, not the fact that you can carry multiple items? If so, I completely agree. I do think that carrying multiple items can give rise to some interesting situations where you combo things, but at the moment it's quite clumsy to switch, it needs to be much sleeker.

TheFuntastic said:

Also I know this goes against the "roguelike" convention, but I'd kind of like to play failed missions again. There were quite a few that felt interesting, but then I screwed up. Being presented with a completely different situation after that felt disengaging. The penalty of this could be the fact you lose your abilities and start with no items, so you still maintain some of the "unforgivingness"

Haven't thought much about that disengagement aspect. Not sure hat just being able to restart would work, even if you drop all items. I will have to think about this one a bit more. Personally my reaction is more like: "DAMN! Why did I try to do that? AG! Oh well, let's try again, I'll be sure to finish this time..."

Squidcor said:

- Pools of water (or something) that you have to move through really slowly to avoid making a lot of noise.
- Sniffer dogs that cannot see you, but will bark if you get too close.
- Furniture that you can hide behind, or even push around.
- A trap item.
- Little passageways that you can use but the guards cannot. (Like the vents in Mark of the Ninja)
- The ability to briefly peer around a corner without exposing myself.
- Enemies that don't patrol, but are strategically placed so that you can still get behind them. (@TheFuntastic mentioned this already).
- Loud machinery that will drown out other sounds in the room.
- Corridors?

Lots of little juicy interesting ideas here, thank you :)


An idea I had to try and smooth the "interest curve" (how interesting it is to wait in the shadows and plan) was have more inanimate obstacles in the earlier levels, and slowly replace those with guards as you progress from level to level. The idea is that you can more easily plan around all the rotating cameras, lasers and such, which have a very regular pattern, before moving on to the more irregular and "random" guards. Does this sound like a good idea?


At the moment we're spending quite a bit of time doing contract work so we can build up our savings again and get back into things full time, so unfortunately updates might be a bit slow. We'd be very happy to accept any donation though... ;)

Pomb

Had a play and it's pretty freekin cool. I like the feeling of peeping round the corners and seeing the enemies blinking. After my first death I tried a new strategy of just running and clicking like mad and it worked awesomely, so I'm not sure that, that is what you going for but in terms of finishing levels it did the job. You can maybe make the taser something you first have to pick up or weapons be more once off/limited charge uses, so that you force the stealth in sections of the maps, maybe its a baseball bat and after knocking them out they revive which is something I didn't like was the back tracking without any conflict.
I really liked that darkness bomb that was really cool :P

francoisvn

@Pomb: thanks for trying the new build. I'm guessing that, while you got through the first mission or two quite easily with that strategy, it didn't allow you to finish the game, right?

I need to spend some more time thinking hard about the game design, but our intermediate focusses are:

• Difficulty - making the game much harsher.
  
• Escalation - increasing the difficulty (on the current mission) to punish for mistakes.
  
• Interesting observation - making it fun to hide in the shadows and figure out a plan.
  
• Theme - improving player engagement.
  

The major thing we looked at in the last update was making the game more difficult (with minimal changes to mechanics), and I feel like escalation would curb your run-and-gun strategy. The hope is that: radioing in more guards, locking down the complex, and activating cameras, should make it so you will very quickly get punished for a string of bad mistakes (which is what I consider running around guns blazing).

Nandrew

Oh, this version is definitely lovely.

I like the idea of more fixed-placement enemies to start with. Go for that, sounds pretty win-win.

I would second a melee arc increase.

I'd like to see a projection of where the guards last saw your character, mainly for an indicator of "get the heck away from this area" but possibly for player mistake education too. I also think it would be cool to show a dotted radius for your hearing range (if not showing all the time, then definitely fading in while a guard is in noise range). It would be super helpful in deducing whether you've got "full ear coverage" of a room or corridor, which will assist in meaningful decision-making.

I'm quite enjoying the sharp and merciless difficulty vibe and this will be a great aspect to refine and pay the most attention to. And if you find a way to teach players that "baiting out" guards with your own running is a thing, you can teach them how to deal with seemingly impossible patrols in lightened corridors without using any items at all, like I do. <3

And yeah, new graphics, yum!

francoisvn

@Nandrew: Thanks for the really positive comment :)

These recent comments by you guys have had a noticeable impact on my recent happiness. Thank you! It's making it really difficult to carry on with contract work instead of working on this, but we do need the money right now...

Nandrew said:

I'd like to see a projection of where the guards last saw your character

On the todo list :)

Nandrew said:

I also think it would be cool to show a dotted radius for your hearing range

I think there are some notable advantages to doing something like this, but I'm not quite sure how it would work. Currently, your effective hearing range is partially based on how loud the relevant noise is - you can hear a running guard from further away than a walking guard. Of course we could change this, but a range shown from you would only be possible if all external sounds had the same range, which I'm not sure I agree with. Thoughts on this? How do you think it could work?

Nandrew

What about categorising your hearing into three explicit ranges: soft, med, loud. The relevant hearing zone is highlighted when a sound of the relevant volume is heard.

I don't know how 100% this concept is but if you're paying attention to sound volume you could make some interesting additions to the game, like a variety of hidden traps / turrets which you can hear humming gently when you're close enough.

MCA

I don't think a visible delineator of hearing range makes sense. Louder sounds travel further than quieter sounds, having the level of the sounds playback according to the realistic source level and applied attenuation over distance/obstructions makes for better realism, and I think more of a challenge - e.g. you don't hear the guard behind you as loud as the one in front of you. And I think having a visual cue for hearing range might be misinterpreted as a range of sight or other ability, which could be confusing.

francoisvn

Something like that could work. It'll be complicated by the various items that affect your hearing range, but it sounds doable. I'll have to think about it a bit more and try it out.

The current idea is to have all gameplay-relevant sounds have visual indicators too, which I think can work well with traps that make a soft noise. For some traps, there might only be a subtle graphical indication, but the idea could be that you would hear the trap when approaching slowly.

EDIT: my comment was made before I saw @MCA's reply. I think @Nandrew's idea could work, it just need to be tested. I have similar concerns about realism and players expectations.

Mexicanopiumdog

I wouldn't overkill the whole gadgety side ie. Radii and Arcs as indicators...or maybe an option to enable/disable it? Could be a cool option to have but it might make things a lot easier.
Having Sounds play at different volumes with a lowpass filter on if they are coming from outside the room will make the game feel very real and you can accurately place sounds and dont need to have any visual indications. Also, have you thought about guard reactions - when they spot a dead guard, how do they react? Become more cautious, group up or start searching more in that area?

Kobusvdwalt9

A bit off topic from this game but I saw on you blog you were on humble's front page. Do you mind sharing how that has affected the steam greenlight votes ? Monsters and medicine that is.

francoisvn

@Mexicanopiumdog: I agree, the interface should be kept as straight-forward as possible.

Cool idea with using a low-pass filter for more distant sounds :)

Yip, we definitely want guards to react to dead bodies, both immediately and in the long term. Not sure exactly how it would work, but it would probably depend on how many guards there are, and how much the situation has escalated. If two guards see a body, one of them might run off to call others while the first guard investigates, but if they see a pile of bodies they might be a lot more cautious and stick together.

@Kobusvdwalt9: I don't think being featured on Humble had much of an effect on Greenlight. There are a number of clicks required to get from the Humble store to our Greenlight page, so we didn't expect (or have the goal of) increasing our Greenlight traffic with Humble.

TheFuntastic

Amazing how zeitgeist happens, discovered this browsing igf entries:
http://games.digipen.edu/games/alone#.VFm8k_mUcrU

Haven't played it yet, and I don't post it here to depress you that someone else has made the same game ;). But hopefully you can learn something from the game.

Riocide

@TheFuntastic Thanks or the link! I'll definitely check it out. Always cool to see how someone else approached a similar idea. Nothing new under the sun eh?