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Not my game - but a game by Curve Studios (I did the art on it though).

Stealth Bastard - it's just been released and is FREE for PC (proper free too, not freemium), http://stealthbastard.com/

(http://stealthbastard.com/images/screenshots/ss12.png)

from the website - "Introducing Stealth Bastard: stealth, with a great big kick up the arse. A fast-paced, frenetic, one-step-away-from-chunky-death melange of sneaking, platforming, hacking and cursing. A whole lot of fun. It's like Metal Gear Solid and Super Meat Boy had a baby out of wedlock. Semi-literally."

It's a stealth platformer, with a snes/Amiga era art style. Also comes with a nifty level editor (you can upload levels for others to play and compete for the best times). I can highly recommend checking it out (and not just because of my soopa art ;))

EDIT: - better res screenshots below;

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5649369/SB_14102011_2.png)

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5649369/SB_02092011_2.png)

Looks FUHCKING amazing  :crazy:

Ta! - good lighting from the level designers really helps make things look pretty.

Btw - all the levels were made with the built-in editor, so all the stuff in the screenshots and trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1dLNLji5n0) are available for you to create levels with too.

Pretty...

Ok, you've gotten me interested.

Watching  :handmetalL: :blink: :blink: :handmetalR:

God DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN. This is proper-good. I'm already top-10ing some levels, what fun!

Love the look - the glow, the grunge, the exposed pixels. Lighting system makes it easy to tell why you just got puréed by that nasty camera, music keeps it interesting. Your art is red-hot, Dugan. The Bastard is cute, too. And the goggles! Very fair.

Also enjoying the patronising Overwatch who projects text to fill you in. Level-projected text, always appreciated.

I love that checkpoint respawns keep your old time - lets me break levels up into easy to manage chunks, rather than having to choreograph an entire routine.

I know it's not your game programming-wise, but I've got some small suggestions for da boss.

• I think pressing "R" instead of "Space" at the Score-screen should let you retry the entire level straight away. I know all I have to do is reselect the level, which takes like, two seconds, but it's the little things that make a game great.
• I think pressing "R" IN-LEVEL should bring up a little overlay asking you to press "R" again to "Restart from checkpoint" OR "E" to "Restart Entire level". That'd be well smooth.

Anyway, this is great, all you bastards reading better download it.
 :beer::handjoystick:

I'm a sucker for cool lighting systems. I came for the neat effects but stayed for the amazing and very polished game. The art complements the lighting very well. Congratulations on the game.

Fun game, really dug the art style. I must say though, a lot of the levels were hit or miss. I found myself using the skip function a lot.

Cheers for the compliments, guys! Hope you all enjoy it. I'm really happy with how it turned out and the positive response it's been getting around the web.

@Gainsworthy I'm listening! (Possibly a restart from checkpoint button/key?)

@Fission Mailed You're welcome to try and improve on our levels by using the included editor and upload them for everyone else to enjoy. :)

This game is amazing. That is all.

perfect platform game. i have 1.01 version and its so great and funny. leaderborad system is great. play it!

That'd be hot. I'm just worried about accidentally shooting for the Restart level button (Hence the "R-R" and "R-E" suggestion). But hey, I'm sure you'll work something out. And yeah, restart button at the end would be great.

Also, it's SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I can't believe this wasn't being sold in the Voxatron Bundle or something. Though, you know, I seriously appreciate the free-ness. I mightn't have found it if it wasn't free, after all! You're of Curve Studios, yeah? I'd buy your games, but I don't have a PS3... Explodemon looks lovely, though.


P.S: I guess you being the designer explains why I see onebitbeyond's score floating up at number one on every level. Very nice times.  :beer:

I love this game so much. It's very polished.
The editor is especially great- although I'm awful at level design so I just like messing around with switches and atmosphere.

Hmm, Norton's telling me the file's infected, anyone else received security warnings?

Nope.

It looks so beautiful, can't wait to play it tomorrow when I find the time.

Oh it turns out Norton just has a habit of auto-deleting software just because it hasn't been used by many users.

Brilliant.

norton is a disease that must be eradicated from this earth

it is a cancer upon our species

it is a plague sent to punish us for our sins

but enough about that

this game is looking really, really quite polished

im excited to try it out!

Like others have said, the art and style are nice.  I only played the first six levels, so I don't really have a lot of comments about the gameplay.  Mainly, waiting for a robot to walk to a button is kind of annoying and also getting crushed by a closing door is annoying.  Less annoying because I guess you get a checkpoint at each button or so, but the first few levels don't seem designed to make the timing tight.  Maybe some buttons should only be pressable by robots but not toggle off when the robots step off.

I also found being asked for a login pretty irritating but I don't think many others would be bothered by it.  I don't really care about high scores at all, so to me, that plus the unskippable scoreboard after levels is just wasting time.

The level select menu is also really slow to respond to input (I have a Q6600, 4 gigs of RAM, and an 8800 GT with recent drivers).  Volume controls other than on/off would also be nice.

Yep, menu speed problem seems to be the sheer amount of leaderboard data the game is receiving. I'm going to have to sort this today. Have patience.

EDIT: Leaderboard/menu slowness is fixed as of v1.02. Game will ask you to update, without swearing at you.

No OS X version?  :'(

It was made in Game Maker, so it's not impossible. However, I used some extensions and dlls which were written for the Windows version, so they would need to be rewritten. Specifically Maarten Baert's HTTP2 DLL (for http requests) and GMFMOD Simple (.ogg playback).

Possibly, but not immediately, is the most accurate answer.

http://moacube.com/resources/caster-multi-platform-ogg-extension-for-gamemaker/  :eyebrows:

This got a mention on Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5857334/this-game-wants-you-to-be-a-stealthy-bastard

Yeah it's been getting some good press attention - and over 60k youtube hits since Friday for the launch trailer :handthumbsupR:

Downloaded! This looks like a lot of fun :)

Ah, nice find! I'm completely GM Mac-ignorant, I'm afraid. So, that looks workable from first inspections. Any replacements for http://www.maartenbaert.be/game-maker-dlls/http-dll-2/ ?

The visual design was somewhat poor in many areas, having difficulty telling open doorways from solid walls. I didn't like how parts of the levels "fade out" spontaneously as you move around.

There was a lot of trial and error level design. Bad. One level even begins with you dying if you don't move in the first couple of seconds.

It felt a lot more puzzle and platforming than stealth. In fact, I wouldn't even classify it as a stealth game at all. Maybe a game with stealth elements, but definitely not a stealth game.

The portals were just stupid. Instead of making one great game around one mechanic (stealth, wink wink), it felt like a mash of disjointed ideas failing to get any of them right.

The music was too hectic and not sneaky enough.

Haha! Love it!

Shine on you crazy diamond.

A few irritating things like compulsory login (what's wrong with playing as a guest whilst I try out the game?) and some level design issues like the one where you have to wait a fucking age for the robot to waltz back (I know that puzzle doesn't work unless you do that - but then you should just drop that puzzle, it's not fun, the only person who walks away feeling clever is the level designer).

That aside, loved the visual design (I think a co worker nit picked a few things, but he's a perfectionist) and it felt like a decent solid platformer - and I don't think many people realise how difficult that is to pull off.

I admit I'd like to have done some more in-depth user testing on the level design, but on the whole I'm pretty pleased with it for a spare time project. Which robot puzzle are you referring to, btw? Which number? I can't recall a level that requires a long robot walk.

Yeah, mandatory login, but there's no personal information, it's just in order to provide a fully featured console-style leaderboard and level sharing from the minimum of effort on the player (e.g. just create username/password once, takes 5 seconds). I definitely did it that way since it allowed me to write one system really well, rather than support two systems and weaken the functionality I was really interested in. It also helps with the analytics on the front page, a bit of fun for everyone to see things rack up. I'd do it that way again, all told.

Glad you liked it on the whole. Ta.

A good thing to remember is that what takes the creator 5 seconds will take or seem to a fresh user 25 seconds.

The more hurdles you put in the way of instant gratification the more the player learns to spite you.

But that's really down to design experience. I thought the rest of the game stood up quite well.

I think the bridge the gap puzzle took ages to complete. You might have a fast solution for it, but I don't think it's just me that had trouble with that puzzle and I stopped playing straight after it. Bad puzzle - no biscuit.

We play-tested that puzzle around the office, and never saw that issue arise. These things always come out with more focused user testing. It's a shame you stopped, because the game only improves as it progresses.

Also, design experience? I'm not gonna say much, but, wow, way to patronise.

I think the game is very functional and good, and fun. Like with Super Meat Boy, I can usually see through to see where the speedrun potential might be, but I just like to take my time and experiment with the mechanics.

I do like that you can derail the wandering enemies to make getting past them easier. It's a nice concession to speedrunning, as the faster person might find the right place to dodge through while the slower can take their time and mess with the enemy's movement.

I find the floaty jump fine for getting around but a little frustrating for catching edges when sometimes I drift past them and have to wait to fall back down and catch them. It makes it much harder to escape vertically than horizontally.

I will say that the level selection and menus, while functional and clear, are kind of bland in comparison to most of the other graphics.

I also think having a large emphasis on community levels and speedrun times is a double-edged sword: it can help to build a community around the game, but it can also intimidate players from the start. Having the time ranking less prominent (see Nimbus) might make it less so. But that's neither here nor there, it's still fine.

The mandatory login is kind of obnoxious not because it's a login, but because there's no menu or cancel or anything. It's just enter something, and wait and hope. It took me 8 or 9 tries to register and then it didn't tell me I registered, so I tried to register again and I only found out it had worked when the game told me that name was taken. And the wait is very long with no feedback.

Sounds like you tried to create an account while the server was having one of its 'moments'. Apologies for that, when the server is behaving you get a confirmation within seconds. Would love to find a way to stabilise that baby. 25,000 users in 6 days is much more than I was expecting.

Yeah, menus are functional, agreed. Was gonna do a bit more with them, but was always lower on the list.

Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed it!

If you honestly think compulsory logins are harmless then I'm not sure what else to call it other than a difference of opinion. But the game pissed me off before I'd even started it. And I know I'm not the only person in my office who has complained aloud about a compulsory login when trying out a game.

I have heard that some people are put off by the login, so I do see your point. I'm happy with the compromise so far, the trade-off of login versus features. I am also an amateur coder. I've never coded any online stuff before this, so it's all a voyage of discovery. (I should point out though that design experience is not what I'm lacking). I'd definitely think about a better way to do it if I were to do another online title though (which is unlikely at the moment).

Again, thanks for the feedback. :)

Hi, I worked on the SB:TEA project and thought I'd drop in on this.

It's an interesting point you make, but I honestly can't consider it harmful due to the fact that over 25,000 players have registered and collectively clocked up over 8 years of play time in less than a week.

The project's goal was to garner a community and it's been a monumental success well beyond any of our expectations.

The benefits of people being forced to register outweigh that of them not. It's turned out that plenty of people will register for a free game that they already want to play, thanks to the trailer and a very positive reception from the gaming press.

If we were selling this as a product and we forced people to register when they wanted to try before they buy, then yes, I can see how that would be harmful. Maybe we took a risk with the forced registry, but from my personal point of view and looking at the sheer numbers, it's paid off in a big way.

Big thanks to all of you for playing it and for the feedback  :beer:

SB made it into the Guardian newspaper online (UK):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/nov/11/stealth-bastard-for-free


Would be groovy if it got into the Saturday Guide games section!

My original complaint was that you didn't support guest accounts. Which most other compulsory login systems do. That's pretty much what I got shitty about.

That aside, good game.

Yeah, I gotta say, if I wasn't in a good mood/the game didn't have art by Dugan (talented and trustworthy), I might've bailed entirely.

Being greeted with a login screen pushes my buttons too*. But I see why you've got it! The online experience is simple, but delicious, and it helps you collect instant data about your audience.

If you're going to do it for future games (and hey, why not), make sure the login screen is looking swank - music pumping, maybe a special attract mode running in the background. It'd make it that more tempting.


*EDIT: It's the whole Facebook-connect/everything-integrated/freemium fear for me. When I see login, I see "GIVE ME DATA". Even when it's innocent, like this.

I really enjoyed the game itself - it looked and felt excellent all the way through, and there were some really clever level designs.
I was getting some lag on the more complicated levels, although it's likely the fault of Game Maker itself, not just the game. My only other concern is that, as you get more levels being created, it's going to take an awful long time to download all of them. It would be nice to have a "quick browse" sort of feature that lets you see a level's name, who created it, and what it's rated, but doesn't actually download the level until you tell it to do so. Or maybe it already does that and I just didn't notice.

I was wondering whilst trying to improve my time on level 4-2 (Contain This): now that you've got stats on Tens of Thousands of Bastards, which levels are least finished? Which levels do players stop at? And which ones appear to be popular/easy/re-run? Just curious.


In completely unrelated news, the "Don't get caught inside" section of "Contain This" is awful and horrible and it's mean and I hate it and it said a swear.

I haven't had time to analyse the data properly, but you get an approximate fall off of half the number of players at the end of a world from the start. So, if there are 500 people at the start of one world, you'll have 250 by the end.

There are 30,000 users, but due to a) not running latest version or b) playing offline, not everyone is posting to the leaderboards. I imagine the data would stand proportionally though.

That does mean that less than half the players have finished Bastard Begins, of course. Only 530 players have completed the last level.

Fascinating all this metric stuff.

BTW, I made ContainThis myself. Sorry for the bit in question, but I ran it past a number if people and they all said it was good to go. Because the checkpoint is right there and you only have to do it once, everyone reckoned it was ok.

Interesting ish fact: the day of launch, I made that 1 pixel more lenient either side of the player. You're 15 pixels wide, the gap is 16 pixels, and you've got 3 pixels leniency on either side of your character. That means stopping a 15 pixel character on a 22 pixel spot. Too hard?

Really happy to hear you liked it. Yeah, I could blame Game Maker for the lag, but I really think I could've coded it faster, if I was just, well, better at coding. GM isn't the fastest though, it's true. Interpreted code, damn you! I also definitely left a memory leak in there!

I agree with the level download. I kinda didn't expect the database to get so full so fast. Honestly, I thought the game would be ignored with all the big releases around atm, not to mention Voxatron. 30,000 users in a week was a bit unexpected. I'll definitely have to do something to help that download time. If I get time (the requests are piling up).

Bloody hell, there's only 530 of us? Ah wells, even the hugest AAA developers talk about the minuscule amount of purchasers who beat their games. Still, that's some neat data you've got there! I've got a Thing for metrics, I suppose. Be nice to see some kind of post-release analysis after a few months. After all, it's been little over a week? 30,000 in a week... very swank.


 :lol: Ah, I suppose so! If it helps, I'm very fidgety.

I think it's just that it's asking me to perform a feat that is required nowhere else in the game - up till then, everything else gives you huge leway, so long as you're clever about it (or willing to lose a few seconds). This wants you to move and stop on a dime. I'm not asking you to change it or anything! But it took me ages to beat the first time (I think I had 40 odd deaths that level), and I can't beat it again. I've noticed ducking helps, though.

Am I imagining things or did two unrelated topics get merged?

You're totally imagining it, sorry! :).