How would you design a game with stealth elements from the Thief series, mixed with the parkour system with all of it’s advanced techniques found in Mirror’s Edge?
Interesting idea. I wasn’t sure how this could work at first, but I think I might have an idea based on an older concept I thought up, of a stealth game based on speed. The idea is that as you go faster, you’re less visible/audible, so stealth is about trying to keep up speed and not let it drop. Keep on moving, don’t get tripped up.
Mirror’s edge has a system that supports this, a lot of the game is about avoiding getting tripped up. Many things like climbing up ledges or over fences have varying standards of success. Do it higher and more smoothly and make less noise, and go faster. This could also be applied to fall damage. Landing without a heavy fall is optimal, rolling is less optimal, then two levels of fall damage that make less and more noise. More perfect sideboosting could create less noise too.
A basic thought is, how do you inform the player that they’re being loud or quiet? One idea is that loud sounds can be lower pitched and more bassy where the quiet sounds can be higher pitched, softer in tone, and less bassy, so players can clearly distinguish them, yet still receive auditory feedback.
It would make sense to have footstep sounds change radius at different speed thresholds, so that things like wallboosts and the like can temporarily push you over the normal speed threshold, making you quieter until you slow down. It would also make sense to add a sound for hitting a wall at high speeds.
There should be a more mundane stealth system based on going slow on top of this, because it’s hard to go fast without knowing the level layouts. So you have the high level, gottagofast stealth, then the low level stuff. The low level could function more like thief, the high level more like mirror’s edge. Throw leaning on Q and E, move use onto F. Implement the fancy lighting system. Add a blackjack that can disable guards who don’t detect you.
The hard part is the level designs, the enemy AI. To make something suited for this would be difficult. You need to design around the fact that the player doesn’t know where stuff is in advance. How do you plan guard patrol paths that players zip by without getting a chance to study them for flaws? You could give players wallhack vision like everything does these days, show guard vision cones too. Whatever.
The levels probably make more sense being linear than open if speed is the focus, but you gotta provide a lot of paths to get around guards, otherwise the game doesn’t really make sense. I dunno what the final product would look like, would require a lot of thought to put together, maybe research into similar games, if any exist.
Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints 