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[2DArray]

Thanks for the feedback so far!

The sentry fov is just something that you get a feel for over time...or at least that's how it is for now.  If it seems too obtuse, let me know, but it doesn't look like people take too long to get a general idea about how big it is.

For the sentries, their states are three main parts that overlap:  Their blinking red light means that they know you're in the room, and indicates that an enemy is more likely to teleport furniture around to try and find you.  On top of that, each one individually opens up (and stays open) when they personally spot you for the first time.  Since it takes a little bit of time for the transform-into-attack-mode animation to play, the first encounter with each baddie is given a bit of a delay before the shooting starts and becomes a little more forgiving than any repeat offense.  Finally, if an enemy has seen you within the last ten seconds, he'll spin around while he moves so he can look for you in all directions at once.

Phew!

It'll probably take the average player a significant amount of time to fully understand all of these rules, but they ultimately boil down to "don't get seen or shit will suck and you'll have to either get out of there or find a safe hiding spot where you can wait it out."  This seems like a pretty intuitive kind of behavior in a stealth/survival setting, so I don't really think that a misunderstanding of the states will cause any serious problems.

That keyboard thing does sound like a problem, though.  Might be one of those things that I just can't notice anymore because it's already been janky for so long.  I'll look into it!

I've got my normal sound guy working with me on the game, but his contributions won't be available to the audience until the game is released (I think this'll be a nice surprise for people who've already played the alpha version).  He's awesome and the audio will be awesome.

Oh, and I can't use regular alpha fade-outs for the outer walls of the building because it breaks z-sorting, so it had to be something with cutoff alpha instead.  I went with stripey bands instead of blobs because it seemed...like...more fun, I dunno.  I'm pretty sure that players learn to phase it out really fast.  Oh, and I allow the player to leave a wall partially hidden because it allows a very minor extra bit of exploration - if you sit still and look at a partially hidden wall, you can see the bands slowly animating.  I'm a total sucker for dumb little shit like this and the game is packed full of it, but I don't have any better explanation for it than that.

[jonbro]

Cool, I figured it was something I could get a feel for eventually, and it is nice to not have everything with a gui element stuck to it. I definitely don't thing you need a tutorial for it either, it was just something I was a bit confused about. I am not the most knowledgeable of the stealth genre (pretty much just dishonored + what ever stealth mission are stuck into other games), so I don't know how these things are communicated.
A while back, they were talking on the idle thumbs podcast about the crispness of the stealth in mark of the ninja, and it sounded like that game did a really good job of communicating the enemy states. I haven't played it though.
For the keyboard thing, I have noticed that the Input.getAxis smoothing is much less worse on gamepads with unity, so if you have one with an analog stick, you might want to try that?

[iggie]

Played a few levels and having fun. A couple of ideas - Menu font had little black pixels in outline, looked rough. - And you could turn the "comments & ideas" URL into a clickable button that opens the webpage.
I don't know why Fuel changed to Food, but then again a general sense of confusion seems to be the aim
I look forward to having another go at this later.

[2DArray]

Mark of the Ninja aims to give the player as much information about the state of the game as possible, and it works out really well (ninjas must notice everything around them, after all!).  I don't think it would be as appropriate in this game, though - this is supposed to feel more like a survival situation rather than a heist or other intrusion.

As far as "not being knowledgable of the stealth genre," that's totally, totally fine.  This is an action game that plays pretty differently from a lot of other action games, so there's no assumption that anyone will already understand the basics at the outset (like what you'd see in a lot of current FPS games, for instance).  Lots of roguelikes have this problem, too, so I tried extra hard to design the rules in ways that would make sense to Average Joe and Regular Jane instead of just the stealth pros and roguelike vets.  Faces can see you, lasers can burn you, food is good, crouching makes you harder to see but slower to move, etc.

[johnki]

Man, I haven't played this since shortly after the last build. Hiding feels hard again haha. Then again, I'm also getting quite a few really open levels and it almost feels like the AI know where stuff is going missing now.

Anyways, I'm determined. I'm going to make it at least halfway to the end of the progression meter. Eventually.

[2DArray]

Ahoy again!  I've got a new public gameplay alpha with a bunch of changes.

The biggest changes involve the main difficulty/pacing curves of the main Campaign mode.  Playthroughs should be tougher, but more succinct and exciting (...hopefully).  The game also starts off with a bit more default content unlocked, so it's not quite so barebones at the beginning.

Everything still needs more balancing, though, so that's where I need your help the most - it'd be awesome if anyone could tell me how far they can usually get in Campaign mode, along with an estimate of how long they played the game total.  Notes from people who already saw previous versions would be extra helpful since you guys already have some experience!

If you're curious about the specifics, you can check here, but if you just want to play something, the downloads are here:

Windows

Windows (64 bit)

Mac

Linux

Unity Web Player

[poe]

This is great, keep it up