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Work in Progress / Out of the Dark - 2D Stealth Game

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ShellfishGames
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Posted: 4th Mar 2014 02:04 Edited at: 4th Mar 2014 02:30
So.. I worked on yet another 48 hour project over the weekend - this time: Stealth!

Since I wanted to create a stealth game for quite some time already, I had a basic idea of how the game should look in mind, when I started the project on Friday evening: 2D, top down, sort of thief/splinter cell-esque with a focus on solving certain short missions without getting caught by the guards.

When the 48 hours were over I had a pretty nice little game ready - but a few things were missing. Thus I spent a few more hours on it today and added a few features as well as three complete new levels (which makes 10 overall).







How to Play

The game will explain this to you for the most part, so feel free to skip this paragraph.
You move around with WASD, aim with the mouse, open doors and interact with stuff by pressing E. You can peek around corners by pressing F and moving the mouse. Using the mouse wheel you can vary your movement speed and enter sneak mode, which is sometimes required to make sure the guards don't hear you running around.

In each of the ten levels it's your goal to steal a golden orb - most levels have exactly one, which may or may not be hidden, although later levels can contain two or three of them, each of which has to be found before the level can be completed.
However, achieving this isn't too easy as there are guards as well as surveillance cameras spread around the levels. As soon as one of them detects you, the level is lost and you have to start over. A small yellow "alert bar" indicates whether an enemy sees you.

Often you can decide how to approach a situation: Sneak past the enemies, backstab them or shoot them with your silenced pistol? Either way, if you kill them you should make sure to hide their bodys in a dark corner, as another guard finding a corpse means your mission is over.

Feel free to have a look at this video of one of the later, more advanced levels:



Note that there are dozens of ways to play this map. In fact, you don't have to kill anybody - which is true for almost every level of the game (Edit: It is in fact true for every single level, I just played through the whole game without killing a single guard - I didn't even know this was possible ).


*** Download Out of the Dark (23mb)***



Alternatively, you can download the original 48h version here (but I wouldn't recommend that, as it has some major problems with most screen resolutions unfortunately... the new version allows you to solve these issues by playing in window mode).


NOTE: Before starting the game, make sure settings.txt defines a 16:10 aspect ratio resolution compatible with your screen setup! Also, the third line of the file defines whether your game will launch in window or fullscreen mode ("on" or "1" meaning window, everything else fullscreen)
Other aspect ratios may or may not work properly.. they tend to ruin the game's field of view shadow thing. I hope I'll be able to fix that problem sooner or later.


Finally, regarding the future of this project and why this is a WIP post: it's certainly not at the very top of my list, but I'll possibly add features every now and then, maybe even a more dynamic AI, and surely more levels.
So, as always, feedback is greatly appreciated, including ideas for future versions of the game.


Cheers!

ShellfishGames
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Posted: 4th Mar 2014 16:49 Edited at: 4th Mar 2014 19:14
Same level, different approach - this time without killing anybody. More difficult in certain situations, but apparently also a lot faster overall.



When playing like this, the light system becomes much more important. Instead of proceeding from one guard to the next, you focus more on the lightswitches, given your relative safety from being spotted in the dark.



Well. Alternatively you can take the "rampage" route and just shoot everything that moves.



Phaelax
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Posted: 4th Mar 2014 19:34
Very nice work for 2 days! How did you do the lighting?

ShellfishGames
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Posted: 5th Mar 2014 02:01 Edited at: 5th Mar 2014 02:02
Thank you Phaelax.

The lighting.. I assume you're refering to the field of view thing resulting in all the walls basically casting shadows away from the player? (Because on top of that there's some "actual" lighting going on in the rooms, with light switches and stuff like that, indicated by the size and opacity of the white Xs on the ground)

Well... that's a little hard to explain. And unfortunately, due to the "what has been seen cannot be unseen" phenomenon, once you know how it's done the whole FOV thing doesn't really work anymore.
So, anybody who wants to play the game, please do so before reading the explanation. (Seriously, I kind of wish I didn't know how it's done in order to being able to enjoy the game the way it's supposed to )



Well... sounds much more complicated than it really is. I spent about 30 minutes on programming this effect, it's really all about the idea I guess.

ShellfishGames
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Posted: 6th Mar 2014 00:29
Working on an improved main menu and implemented achievements today.



29 games
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Posted: 15th Mar 2014 15:07
This is very cool. I've played a couple of levels and I really like it.

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