[B]To fix the error when starting the game from the shortcut on the desktop, fix the target parameters so it shows something like this \"\"C:\\Program Files\\Mind Control Software\\Silencer\\Silencer.exe\"\" (or wherever you installed it to).[/b]
Download links and the status about it going open source are at the bottom of this post And yes, it\'s free. Also, all in game shots were taken on the singleplayer tutorial, so sorry about not having any real action with the various weapons/explosives.
The premise of Silencer is simple. It\'s sometime in the future, and you are on Mars. The government isn\'t well liked, and you are hired by an agency to work against the government. There are multiple different agencies you can work for, and each agency has different bonuses that will aid you. Silencer is a 2Dmutliplayer sidescrolling game. You can play with up to 8 other player controlled agents, and you can also form up to different teams. 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 4v2, 1v1v1v1, etc., or just a simple 1v1, it\'s all there.
Main Menu
A key ingredient to Silencer is a certain object placed throughout all of the levels. They are called terminals. There are two different sizes, a small and a super terminal. The goal of Silencer is to hack these terminals (by pressing your action key). You are left vulnerable for a couple seconds while hacking the terminal, but it\'s all for a good cause. When hacking a terminal, it does two things. The least important thing it does is it gives you credits. Credits are used to buy equipment. I\'ll go more into detail about equipment and where you buy it later on. The main focus of hacking a terminal is that it leads towards obtaining a government secret. This is the main goal of the game.
Me by two civilians
To win a game in Silencer, you must successfully obtain three secrets through one way or another and bring it back to your base. I will go into more detail about the base later on. Now onto the question you\'re probably thinking, \"What is a government secret and what do I do with it?\" Once you hack enough terminals, a shrinking circle will appear on your radar/minimap in the middle portion of your HUD. The circle will be shrinking to the location of a super terminal. This super terminal will contain the secret which you need to pick up. Any other players in the game will be able to see what super terminal your secret will be at, so you will need to be careful. Only players on your team can pick up your terminal, but once you actually have it, it\'s a whole different story. The objective is to bring the secret to a specific location in your base. You have to be careful though, because whoever has a secret is a prime target for everyone else to kill. It doesn\'t really help that you move slower with the secret, either! If you, or anyone who has the secret, is killed while it is in their position, the secret will be dropped. This will allow anyone to pick it up and bring it back to their base. Once the secret is returned to, say, team A\'s base, then everyone on team A will be rewarded with 1000 credits. Again, I\'ll go more into credits, equipment, and base information later.
Me with the secret
Now to explain the concept of hacking in this game in more detail. The focus of Silencer is to obtain secrets, but the only way to obtain a secret is to hack terminals. An indicator is shown on the left hand side of your screen that shows how close you are to obtaining the location of a secret, which will be at one of the few super terminals in the given level. Super terminals take a bit longer to hack, but they give you more credits and help you find the location of the next secret much quicker. Whereas a regular terminal might only get you 10% closer, a super terminal might get you 25% closer. As this is the main concept of the game up until someone has a secret, a common tactic by many people is to disrupt people while they are hacking by trying to kill them. Don\'t worry though, because if you die you promptly respawn in your base.
Hacking a small terminal
Hacking a big terminal
Notice the indicator on the left showing you how close you are to obtaining the location of the secret
Now onto your base. It is NOT a fixed portion of the level. In the beginning of the game you can choose where to put the entrance of your base. All you are doing is just placing some kind of inter-dimensional door to your base. When you press your action key on the base door, you will enter your base, which is completely separate from the level. No one can see the entrance to your base and viceversa . The only way to gain entrance to an enemies base is to catch them entering or leaving it. Knowing the location of an enemy base is vital in trying to steal their secret as certain tactics employ knowing the location of the enemy base to try to kill them. In your base, there are a multitude of different things to do. At the very end of your base there is a terminal for you to return a secret you may have. Return three secrets to the terminal at the end of your base and you win the game. You alsorespawn at a designated location in your base. If you are ever hurt, you can go into your base and run past the machine that you respawn at and it will promptly heal both your health and your shield. More about that later. The final important aspect of your base is that is the center of your operations where you can buy equipment. More about that later also.
Base Door
Inside Base - Respawn/heal area
Inside Base - Equipment Purchase area
Inside Base - Terminal where you return secret
While you can run, jump, climb latters, and climg onto the edges of platforms to pull yourself up, there is another way of movement. And this is through the jetpack. You can go places you normally wouldn\'t be able to reach, and it can give you safety in times where you may die by getting you off the ground. Once you activate it to fly for a limited amount of time, it\'s energy will continue to drain even if you stop using it. Once it\'s drained, it will take a couple seconds to recharge where you can promptly use it again. Inertia is a big deal here as it is heavily accounted for while you are using yourjetpack. An explosion from a plasma grenade will send you flying if you are using your jetpack and assuming you weren\'t killed.
Jetpack!
Now about saving your own skin. You have health and you have shield. If your health reaches zero, you will die. Certain weapons may primarily damage shield or health, but everything with exception to the flamethrower and the flare have to go through shield first. So this means that you can\'t go right to using your blaster because it hardly scratches the shield. But if your shield is at 0, it would deal a lot of damage to your health.
There are five different agencies that you can work for when you create your character. Each agency has their own special abilities. Some of the basic specialties that each agency include but definitely are not limited to are -
- Noxis - Can jump extra high
- Lazerus - Chance of resurrecting at the location of your death with full health and no shield, can employ lazarus tract
- Caliber - Can employ security pass
- Static - can employ the virus tech
- Black Rose - can only fight solo, only agency to employ poison/poison flare/poison flamer
While you are playing, not only will you have to deal with other player agents, but you will also have to deal with NPCs. Here is a quick overview of them.
- (government) Guard - Hostile to you, either shoots a blaster, laser, or rocket
- (government) Robot - Hostile to you, shoots a rocket, or it will emit a charge if it walks by you to severely hurt you
- (government) Magistrate - Appears late in game. Doesn\'t attack. If shot at, he will teleport out and multiple laser and rocket guards will teleport in.
- Civilian - Will not attack anyone, only walks back and forth and will run away if there is violence nearby.
When you first log in, you will be in the main lobby where you will see everyone that is not in a game, the option to create a game, and the list of games that are currently up but haven\'t started. Once you join a game that hasn\'t started (as you can\'t join one that has started), you will be in the pregame lobby. Here you can choose what team you are on and what equipment you want during the game. You can have a maximum of 8 technology slots, where each equipment will require a certain amount of technology slots. While a laser weapon may only require 1 technology slot, a remote detonator bomb may require 2.
Main Lobby
Pre-game Lobby
And I guess that leads me to finally talking about the equipment. Once you choose what equipment you want before the game has started, you have access to buy it when playing. With exception to the blaster, as that is free and is given to everyone, all of the equipment costs different amounts of credits and are all bought inside of your base.
- Blaster - short range pistol, infinite ammo, only weapon that everyone has it and spawns with it, hurts health a lot
- Laser - long range weapon, limited ammo, hurts shield a lot
- Rocket - very long range weapon, limited ammo, hurts shield OK and health ALOT, some splash damage
- Flamer - very short range weapon, limited ammo, ignores shield and only affects health a lot
- Poison flamer - same as flamer, but leaves them poisoned dealing damage over time
- Poison - Can carry up to 4 at a time and very inexpensive, while running past another agent and pressing your action key, you will poison them. The more you poison them, the more damage over time you do
- Flare - Grenade - acts as a torch spewing fire upwards only affecting health
- Poison Flare - Grenade - Same as flare but poisons afterwards
- Camera - Placeable - acts as a mobile surveillance point letting you see what is happening at that location on your HUD
- Plasma Detonator - Placeable - a remote detonator, when detonated on your command it emits a large explosion. Slightly vertical while mainly horizontal
- Plasma Bomb - Grenade - Emits the same explosion as a plasma detonator but thrown
- Shaped Bomb - Grenade - When thrown it releases an explosion mainly forced upwards, reaching high heights.
- EMP Bomb - Grenade - Kills everyone\'s shield but yours
- Neutron Bomb - Grenade - Kills everyone but you unless they are in their base
- Base Defense - Installs turrets overhead in your base that shoots lasers towards any intruders
- Base Door - Allows you to install your base door anywhere with exception to if you have your secret counting down
- Laser Turrent - Placeable - Lets you place a turret on the ground that shoots a laser at the opponent
- Virus - Will convert NPC robots to be friendly, and will shut down an enemy\'s base to disable them to buy their tech until they repair it
- Security pass - makes you friendly to all NPCs unless you shoot them
- Insiders Info - Gets you one step closer to obtaining a secret without hacking, but costs credits
- Lazarus Tract - When running past a civilian and pressing your action key, you will make them a walking bomb. Once someone else runs into them, the civilian will explode.
Partial list of equipment
Misc. Information - Please read!
As you play and win games, you earn points from your agency depending on how well you did. Each agency wants you to do different things. For example, Black Rose will reward you handsomly with points if you steal the enemy\'s secrets and poison them. Once you have X amount of points, you level up, and you can spend it on an increase to attributes. These include but are not limited to (off the top of my head) -
- Hacking - The higher hacking is, the quicker you can get your secret from hacking terminals
- Contacts - More credits are gained from terminals. Also you can see how long until a super terminal is online.
- Endurance - Increases Health
- Shield - Increases Shield
- Jetpack - Increases the amount of time a jetpack can be used before it has to be recharged
- Technology Slots - Increases the maximum number of technology slots you can have
Login screen - if you don\'t have an account, just make up a login name and password. That automatically creates an account for you, so remember the login credentials you used!
Character Selection - Obviously you can create as many characters as you want to
Agency Information!
Noxis
Lazarus
Caliber
Static
Black Rose
You can obtain the client here which is found in
this thread. The main website is
http://arsia-mons.com/. Silencer was created by Mind-Control Software, and their website can be found
here. There are definite plans for it to go open source, where it has a dedicated community that will be updating it.
Silencer Ventrilo information:
IP:74.86.15.27
Port:3964
Wiki: HTTP://S11.Info/
