Feedback appreciated for stealth game prototype
polycounter lvl 8
I posted this on work opportunities section also, I apologize if this is not to right forum to cross-post but I also need some feedback. Some publishers showed interest in the project but declined after playing the demo, finding it "too focused on "old-school" stealth"...of course they didn't word it this way but hinted.
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What do you think of this game-play? Any thoughts? Roughly speaking a mixture of thief-system shock is not a good idea for today's indie market?
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What do you think of this game-play? Any thoughts? Roughly speaking a mixture of thief-system shock is not a good idea for today's indie market?
Replies
I think that's what the publishers meant as well; just having the basics in there, in the same way that Quake is the core of shooters. Just making Quake nowadays isn't good enough anymore. Think of things you can do with the stealth, besides what you currently have.
For example, I think more dynamic movement could be a big improvement.
I admit it is not the best original idea as a premise and for the demo we focused very much to get the ai done in unreal script and get the weapons & tools working. From now on, I'd need to expand the team.
- the video is too long. You have maybe 40 seconds of it that summarizes features, but you have another 5 1/2 minutes of showing off the same sort of stuff. I'd cut it to 2 minutes or so.
- You comment about showing it to publishers, and then you mention being 'indie'. These aren't the same thing, and more importantly, they go after different markets. You should probably clarify what you are going for internally, and then stop worrying too much about what publishers think if you are thinking of doing an indie release.
- You either are not coming up with Unique Selling Points, or assuming that theif-system shock gameplay IS your USP. This only works if there is a clear lack of any games like that available these days. You should probably strive for adding more originality in some form (gameplay, art...anything really) OR determining that the market demand means you don't need to come up with anything more, because your game will be the only thing in it's little niche (which may be unrealistic).
-The art looks nice, but if you are going to be self-funded, are you biting off more than you can chew? Can your (starving) team create a ton more assets of that quality or better, in the time allotted? If you are indie, you certainly can't compete with published games in terms of making fancier assets in greater numbers than a big team can...
- It's a good start, so I hope the team can make a finished game in some way or another!
As a small developer, you generally can't. That's the point I was trying to make. You need to focus on stronger gameplay because you don't have the budget for a license for something like Riddick or Aliens, and you don't have the manpower to get very high production value.
There are some small-team games that look gorgeous, such as Journey, Dear Esther, but they are designed to work with limited assets, and even then you gotta work very hard to make it work.
Like Kevin said, it feels like you're biting of more than you can chew, aiming for the development style of an A-level game, but on a very small team. This isn't going to work, it will simply over-tax your people, and still end up a bit short.
edit: ninja'd by Snader!
Also, the enemy AI looks broken. You can alert them, and then immediately crouch to un-alert them?
By publishers I mean not ubisoft or thq but more like "mid-sized European publishers" who do "indie" titles. Nowadays, without a publisher even getting on steam is difficult. By indie here, I'd mean early days of mount & blade or amnesia.
One programmer did all the programming, one animator helped me and two character artists did the characters. I did the rest, everything else.
I've never aimed for "high production values" but overall all art assets for levels are almost done, what you see in the video is only a fraction of it so I don't need any more "art team" to do bulk of the work, but more like polishing. We have 5 huges levels, depending on many factors as you can assume, we can look at safely 8-10 hours of gameplay.
My exact questions :
1)Does the whole world looks a bit "outdated", or does it look "ok, doable" for indie standards?
2) Yeah, the gameplay doesn't bring much new to the table, more or less like thief style stealth, only in sci-fi setting... How does this idea sounds? Ok, there are no much of splinter cell or DX Human revolution type of "fancy" stealth ideas. Only a modest attempt to revive some old-school stealth ideas in sci-fi setting with a bit of blending horror elements.
Too complicated? Meh? Intriguing? Not a good idea for an indie project? Since I don't have clear answers for these questions and since we have working ai & toolset and a wonderful archetype system right within the editor, I'm looking for co-designers and co-producers to bring more ideas to the project.
Editing AI alertness and their paranoia levels or adjusting their persistence to chase the player or their overall perception of the player reactions is a breeze because of our archetype system, designer can make totally new ai right within the editor. You can have custom difficulty settings easily, which can appeal to ghosters or less care-full sleuth.
It's great that you have most of the assets created already!
I'd say the art looks fine for indie standards, as long as you have some sort of hook to get players to want to buy it...presumably some sort of gameplay hook.
Yeah like it's been said above, you need to set yourselves apart from what's already out there. Shouldn't be that hard since there's hardly any proper stealth games any more.
The monochromatic palette isn't helping tbh, get some colour in there, along with lighting that leads the player through the level instead of just being there for the sake of illumination. If you using the light/shadows as the stealth mechanic like in Thief, then this should be on the top of the priority list.
If you're going for a stealth game, makes the weapons/ammo sparse and only needed as a last resort.
What's the objective of each level/mission? Keep it spiced up, sneaking around just to get to the next area isn't that fun.