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Author Topic: Stealth RL ideas?  (Read 1850 times)

Xaron

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Stealth RL ideas?
« on: March 22, 2017, 08:13:14 am »

Dear all,

I'm currently doing my very first rogue like (did other turn based games before) and would love to get some feedback and ideas.

So the basic idea of my game is that you stranded somehow somewhere (story is not set yet) in kind of a dungeon/cave. You have no lights, the only thing you have is a sonar. You will "see" the world around you using this sonar and can create pings to see more around you. But those pings generate noise (obviously) which can be heard by other creatures/robots (personally I prefer a sci-fi setup).

So give you an idea, I've put together a tiny prototype here: http://www.sonobots.com/game/html5 (seem to work best in Chrome or Firefox)



Basically all you can do there for now is pinging. The "world" is filled with random squares just to have something and test all the sonar occlusion stuff.

So my question is: Could this be fun, is this something you'd consider to play (will probably a free game anyway)? What stealth ideas do you have, what could be added?

I already have an idea for that hunger stuff. You see a battery symbol at the top left which would force you to find battery packs or places where you can recharge your batteries...

Would love to get some feedback on this, thanks! :)
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overseer05-15

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2017, 08:41:21 am »

I'd play it.
PTW.
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2017, 09:45:59 am »

Neato.

Ideas:
Directional Ping(ping only in a certain direction, more stealthy but less useful)?
Cloak(turn invisible, drains batteries at greatly increased speed)
Mods(instead of stats, collect Mods that can be installed in certain locations, giving you bonuses and possibly penalties for certain mods(example: Extra Battery Mod: increases length of battery bar))
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2017, 10:15:48 am »

Take a gander at Dark Echo and Sil.

Both have a lot of elements of stealth and interesting pressures on the player to force them to use everything they've got.
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Arx

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2017, 01:36:28 pm »

I couldn't get it to load, but this sounds super cool. Picking up vague shapes and locations based on other things' movements would be something I'd like to see.
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vinterdev

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2017, 05:31:01 pm »

Very nice effect visually (and we always need more sci-fi roguelikes!).

The issue I have with some modern games featuring stealth is precision: it's hard to tell when you should make your move or even if you are actually hidden well.

Early MGS solved this by showing you the enemies' current view direction and alert level.

Thief did it by having very blatant light/dark areas (along with a light meter) and noisy guards.

Maybe this sort of thing could be done with 'mods' as someone already mentioned
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2017, 05:50:37 pm »

To build off what Vinter said,


Stealth is so finicky. I mean there's times in Skyrim when someone notices you through a wall and you're not even moving or making sound, and other times where you're stealing shirt off a dude's back whilst stabbing him and he's just like, "What? Where???"

My advice is to be like Rocket League, give the players all the tools to succeed, but don't hold their hands at all. I'd say that's the biggest problem with stealth in video games, and why as the aforementioned MGS get's it so right most of the time: stealth is often too quantized, based on a skill-level, random value, or  just has certain set variables that aren't all that flexible or interesting.

How to get around this? Unfortunately, it means more work for you, the programmer. If you can create an intelligent, but more importantly, interesting and nuanced A.I. that reacts (and/or learns) to the player in at least somewhat predictable ways then you increase a player's number of options. And that's what stealth is all about really, isn't it? Finding a different or overlooked way to avoid a fight? The key, I think, is emergent gameplay.

Just make sure you don't fall in to the trap of set-pieces and gimmicks. Let the players solve the problems. Etc. Etc.
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2017, 08:47:46 pm »

Bonus points if you can include a neural network AI as an opponent, but that does tend to be difficult to implement.
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Xaron

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2017, 03:41:10 am »

Thanks guys for your fantastic replies! :)

@FallacyofUrist:
Quote
Ideas:
Directional Ping(ping only in a certain direction, more stealthy but less useful)?
Cloak(turn invisible, drains batteries at greatly increased speed)
Mods(instead of stats, collect Mods that can be installed in certain locations, giving you bonuses and possibly penalties for certain mods(example: Extra Battery Mod: increases length of battery bar))

I've tried directional pinging. But I think even though it creates kind of a oppressive atmosphere it's also kind of annoying.
Cloaking sounds fun indeed. Maybe you could equip your bot with different kind of sonar absorbing things? Put it onto my list. :)
I like the idea of mods, too!

@Urist McScoopbeard:
I've looked at Dark Echo, nice game! Didn't now Sil yet and will take a look as well, thanks!
I agree that a good AI is the key here. It should be fair but challenging. A learning AI sounds fun indeed.

@Arx:
That's odd. What kind of system do you use? BTW: I use HTML5 mainly for prototyping, I'm going to create executables as well, so let me know if you (all) are interested in those please.

@vinterdev:
Thanks! Yes it might be difficult to make this right. That's why I'd like to involve you already now for feedback and all that stuff. Ok, for now there isn't much to give feedback for, but this will change.

@all: Do you think this could work nice for classic turn based roguelikes or would you prefer to see it in more a real time environment? I mean my original plan was more a classic roguelike (so not a roguelite)...
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Arx

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2017, 03:56:03 am »

I'm on a Win10 laptop using Firefox. The two things likely to bite are slow internet and a slow CPU. Just checked on university internet, and it seems to be the speed of my home internet that broke it.
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2017, 09:30:16 am »

How would this work in a turn-based system?

Real time, definitely.
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Xaron

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #11 on: March 23, 2017, 12:03:00 pm »

How would this work in a turn-based system?

Real time, definitely.

Hmm... Maybe with a pausable real-time system like in FTL?
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #12 on: March 23, 2017, 10:59:31 pm »

Takes the pressure off. I can now ponder my next move at a whim. Too easy.

Several options for dealing with that, though.

You could make the ability to pause a difficulty level thing.

Alternatively... and I like these ideas better...

You can have some level of time manipulation as Mods. Pausing or slowing time, but keeping the battery running at an enhanced speed, sounds like a good idea for a Mod. An outright pause should be more expensive than just slowing down time, though(you can probably see why).
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Xaron

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2017, 05:07:38 am »

Hmm ya. I see, makes sense. Great idea with those time changing mods!

About pressure: Actually I like games where you're not that pressured at all. Might because of my tiny roguelike background and liking of strategy games where you have time to think before making a decision.
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Xaron

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Re: Stealth RL ideas?
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2017, 11:40:36 am »

Alright, I've uploaded another tiny prototype where you can just walk (creates noise) and ping in that randomized boxes world. Nothing meaningful yet, just want to show a little progress:

http://www.sonobots.com/game/html5

If you prefer an executable: http://www.sonobots.com/game/b002.zip

Use WSAD or cursor keys to move and SPACE to ping.

It's pretty real time at the moment, next steps will be to put in some other bots and test both turn based and real time environment. Thanks!
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