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[StevoIRL]

Mods feel free to move this if it's in the wrong section
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Your locked and loaded, your pockets are loaded with ammunition and grenades, your wielding a weapon that can kill people in 3 shots. All indications show that your going to go out their and f*ck some shit up.

But instead you cling to the darkness, corners become your friends, corridors your worst enemy.

NO ONE MUST SEE YOU.

Every move your questioning whether this was the right approach, will I get by?

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Chances are you'v experienced something like that above me and found it a roller coaster ride.

For me Stealth games = probably some of the best experiences you'll have in a game, add in coop and bam you'v a recipe for success! But if you look at the genre as a whole there aren't that many Stealth games. Sure there are games that allow stealth but not many that really concern the mechanic as it's main focus.

For you what makes a great stealth game.

Does the genre suffer from being too tied down to a simple formula?

Could you think of ways to spice up the concept of stealth in games!

Discuss
(Ill try pitch a few ideas tomorrow during my many breaks in college  )

[Jackson31]

I've never really had a great time with stealth games, they always frustrate me when an alarm goes off or a guard spots and kills you just because you did something that the tutorial said not to do (not because you did anything wrong, thinking in real world terms)

I think I've had more intense gameplay experiences that you could call "stealth" in multi-player online shooters like counter-strike or battlefield, in those games, I know that enemies are all human players, so they won't spot me unless they physically see or here me on their end and you can't always predict how well or poorly an enemy will respond to noticing you.

So yeah, I'd say that the main thing stealth games seem to lack is more realistic AI and mechanics. often it boils down to something as boring/simple as "while pressing this button AI will become stupid"

[Wilson Saunders]

The thing with stealth games is that even though they some times use the same interface and mechanics as a shoots they are puzzle games. Getting from point A to B without guards X, Y, and Z spotting you uses similar skills and offers a similar satisfaction as figuring out how to get all the red squares to the top of a Rubrics Cube.

So ask yourself how will giving the player bullets, grenades, and shadow cover create an enjoyable puzzle?

One of my favorite stealth games is "Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines." In that game you could see the patrol paths of every guard and their visual sweep. The game seemed fair in that if you got spotted you had every opportunity to examine the guard that spotted you before you moved into his area. Also the game's challenge came in the restrictiveness of the rules. The Spy is the only one who can dress up like a German and move un opposed through the guards' line of site. However the objective usualy requires the Sapper to get to get past these guards and he had no such skill. Each commando had a specific skill set, and the levels were designed so that you had to use all of them in a non trivial way.

As a game designer your job is to set the limits of what the player can do in your game world. A good game designer will make the experience of working around these limitations fun for the player.

[C.A. Sinner]

Not necessarily "breaking the mold" but what annoys me about a lot of stealth games is that the rules for being spotted are vague and hard to figure out. Enemies often have ridiculous lines of sight and even more ridiculous hearing. For instance in Deus Ex HR you can walk normal speed right behind a dude without him noticing you. I wish stealth game designers would invest some more time into making their games believeable and making the rules clear to the player.

[StevoIRL]

Thanks for the replies guys and definitely some of the points raised here share my own views on the matter.

I think Multiplayer wise their is quite a unique situation in games like Red Orchestra or Armed Assault where the value of a players life is quite damn high. People playing instinctively become a lot more nervous about moving around and often find themselves on paths that they logically think would avoid enemy players.

If you think about it in the mainstream market the design of stealth comes in two flavours "Aggressive Stealth" and "Passive Stealth".

Aggressive Stealth designs have the player locked in a role where they are able to easily dispatch enemies and encourage players to take risks knowing that any consequences of breaking stealth can be resolved in 30 rounds of bullets. Generally players act like predators, surveying a quite vulnerable and albeit predictable enemy and picking them off one by one (Batman AA perfect example of this).

Passive Stealth is something I don't think we see a lot of. Hell one of the major examples I can think of is Amnesia where the player is in such fear that they have to run away to a place where they feel safe and hope they aren't caught (The feeling we all got when playing Hide and Seek and probably the most exciting one IMO).

Commandos is a fantastic example of it aswell and I was reminiscing with a friend about it how tense that game became as you had to really avoid enemies.

One of my favourite Stealth games in fact a mod for CS:S. The hide and seek mode! Was brilliant, you selected a item you wanted to be then hide around while players tried to find you. Those sort of emotions though are rarely used in games these days imo.

Design wise the ideas iv ran through my head that id love to see would be a multi player experience (honestly I think it's the best way to get the most out of Stealth) where you one or two guards, and a group of robbers. Set in a dark area where the Guards have a torch while the robbers have a limited view infront of them. When they take a objective they see their speed decrease by half and have to make their way to a point to "score"

[dustin]

it's not exactly stealth but I think the mechanic would work well in a stealth game.

Pac Man Vs.

Pac man looks at his screen (separate from all others it's on a gameboy) and can see the whole level while the three ghosts contolling him look at the main screen on the tv.  Pac mans screen shows the whole level while the ghosts screen only shows a small area around each ghost.  The ghosts have to work together to figure out where pacman is and then all converge on him.

[Belimoth]

it's not exactly stealth but I think the mechanic would work well in a stealth game.

Pac Man Vs.

Pac man looks at his screen (separate from all others it's on a gameboy) and can see the whole level while the three ghosts contolling him look at the main screen on the tv.  Pac mans screen shows the whole level while the ghosts screen only shows a small area around each ghost.  The ghosts have to work together to figure out where pacman is and then all converge on him.

Almost like a stealth game in reverse.

[ducktails]

That PacMan VS game could work really well on something like the WiiU. The Splinter Cell multiplayer had something like that going on too where one or two players would be stealthy Sam Fishers and the rest would be security guys searching the map for them. The kicker is that the hiders have a 3rd person view and tools while the seekers had 1st person view and guns.

But yeah, I'd like to see a game focus on "passively" blending in public environments rather than remaining hidden within the shadows -- situations where the guy that's "it" is trying to find players in a crowded mall or a fair or something. I found The Ship late and never actually played it, but the concept behind it still seems fun. I wonder if people still play it.

TF2 also has a become an inanimate object hide and seek mod though I've only actually played it on one server.

[Danmark]

Static patrol routes and Benny Hill-style pursuits are boring. So is the option of going loud in so many ostensibly stealth games.

I found The Ship late and never actually played it, but the concept behind it still seems fun. I wonder if people still play it.

Only played it when it was a mod. It's a fresh experience and worth checking out, if not particularly replayable.

TF2 also has a become an inanimate object hide and seek mod though I've only actually played it on one server.

See here for the background of that idea.

[Zest]

If I recall correctly, don't the Assassin's Creed games at least toy a bit with hiding in plain sight? Certainly in the later games, you are disguised as an NPC trying to kill other characters who are also disguised as NPCs.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Spy Party yet.

[StevoIRL]

Spy party is interesting because they take the fundamental flaws (Horrible AI pathing and animation compared to what the user is doing) of stealth in games and use that instead as a mechanic.

[1982]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Spy Party yet.

Maybe because I don't quite know how it relates to stealth games, except for players role of mostly waiting, observing and finally shooting a target. But I think that generally there in stealth games has to be some kind of threat against player. At this point I don't see if theres any such in Spy Party. Only bad score or similar when you shoot wrong dude.

However that concept could be made into a bigger complete game and have a lot similarities with stealth games in general.

[StevoIRL]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Spy Party yet.

Maybe because I don't quite know how it relates to stealth games, except for players role of mostly waiting, observing and finally shooting a target. But I think that generally there in stealth games has to be some kind of threat against player. At this point I don't see if theres any such in Spy Party. Only bad score or similar when you shoot wrong dude.

However that concept could be made into a bigger complete game and have a lot similarities with stealth games in general.

Sorry I don't know if your aware or not but in Spy Party one user plays as the Spy while the other is the Sniper. So one player is actively trying to avoid another a blend in.

[1982]

Sorry I don't know if your aware or not but in Spy Party one user plays as the Spy while the other is the Sniper. So one player is actively trying to avoid another a blend in.

Yes I didn't know that, I thought they all were NPC's at the party. Well NOW we are talking about interesting game 

[StevoIRL]

Sorry I don't know if your aware or not but in Spy Party one user plays as the Spy while the other is the Sniper. So one player is actively trying to avoid another a blend in.

Yes I didn't know that, I thought they all were NPC's at the party. Well NOW we are talking about interesting game 

Haha was thinking to myself that you were missing a bit of the story Wasn't simply one of those sniper arcade games

So Spy Party invokes the big brother feeling on you, where there is zero cover or shadows to hide in. It's all about selling yourself as a disinteresting object while at the same time giving you a set of animations that distinguish you from everyone else. In essence it's hide and seek in a sociological way.

One thing I want to ask people, which is more exciting to play, a seeker in a large dark area with the ability to illuminate a small FoV while being against a multitude of opposing players, or the hider who is on the run from the seeker in a large dark area but with different areas to hide in?