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[Hollow-Headed]

Concept:
A top-down stealth/shooter that draws inspiration from games like Hotline Miami, Gunpoint, and Hitman. The main points of gameplay lies in an in-depth weapon system, room-based lighting, an interactable environment, and AI that will react to those interactions, such as finding a body, hearing a sound, or being in the dark. Levels are aimed towards allowing multiple play-styles, ranging from passively using darkness and distractions to avoid enemies, to violently shooting past absolutely anyone that gets in your way. Each level tasks you with a specific goal, but how you achieve it is up to you.

Development:
Although the concept might sound somewhat heavy, for the sake of scope, I'm trying to steer things in a way that makes the most out of the least. If a mechanic exists, then I want it to have not just one purpose, but many, if possible. This is essentially the approach that I'm taking throughout development, working off of something that already exists, and expanding upon it, little by little. Over time, mechanics that have been in the game for a long time might begin affecting the gameplay in whole new ways, as things reach a point where they begin working off of each other.

Graphics:
The game started off relying very heavily on programmer art in order to express general representations, most notably with the characters. Although graphics have made gradual improvements over time, there is always room for improvement. However, I develop the game on my own, and art is not my best skill. It will be a slow process, so please try to look past this and judge the gameplay from a mechanical point of view, rather than visually, if at all possible.

Feedback:
All feedback or suggestions are welcome, so feel free to express any concerns or ideas that you may have.

Stealth features:

• While unarmed, your only chance of success is to avoid being seen. You can't attack head-on.
• If you catch an enemy from behind, you can quietly stun them or knock them out.
• Hide your presence by carrying knocked-out enemies out of the area so that they aren't found.
• Use the environment to indirectly attack enemies by hitting them with doors, bodies, and more.
• Use TVs, radios, bottles, and more to create noise that will cause nearby enemies to investigate.
• Turning off lights and hiding in the darkness will make it harder to be spotted.
• Enemies that are in the dark will move to the nearest light switch, to turn the lights back on.
• Avoid or subvert automatic security systems, like cameras, metal detectors, and sentry guns.
• Gain access to the security systems to disable them, or even turn them against enemies.

Weapon features:

• Carry up to two guns at any one time. Picking up another will drop the one that you're holding.
• Land headshots for double the damage, which also bypasses bullet-proof vests.
• The heavier a gun is, the slower the carrier will move while using it.
• Recoil makes shots increasingly inaccurate with constant fire. Controlled bursts are more accurate.
• Aiming improves your accuracy and increases your vision range, allowing you to see more.
• Smaller guns can be dual-wielded, increasing your firepower, but taking away your ability to aim.
• Ammo can be found throughout levels, which will allow guns to be reloaded.
• Some guns will reload shots individually, which can be interrupted in an emergency.

Technical features:

• An unlocked framerate allows the game to not be limited to 30 or even 60 FPS.
• Plan your approach by pausing and getting a full view of the level.
• Temporarily slow time in order to perform more precise actions and shots.
• The AI will respond to their environment, reacting to blood, bodies, noise, darkness, and more.
• Playable with keyboards and controllers, both with rebindable controls.
• Fair AI vision that typically won't spot you until you can also see them.
• Spatial-based sound effects and AI hearing bases sounds on position, distance, and obstructions.
• Adjustable sound settings that allow you to change the volume of specific sounds.
• Post-mission feedback will score how you did in the mission, based on multiple playstyles.
• A point-based upgrade system allows you to improve your movement speed, reload speed, etc.
• As levels progress, enemies can become more difficult, with increasing speeds, reaction times, etc.
• Progressing through the game unlocks guns to start levels with.
• Automatic room-based lighting, flooring, and wall outlining, which can conform to any room layout.
• Adjustable difficulty settings allow you to select options that can make the game easier or harder.
• Character customization, which lets you choose what your character looks like and wears.

Demonstrations:
A full list of up-to-date gameplay examples can be found here, but here are some examples of the game's progress.


Dark rooms limit enemy visibility so that they must be very close to spot you.


Aiming increases your view range and improves your accuracy, helping to land headshots.


An updated example of graphics and gameplay.


Various security systems and light switches after being destroyed.

[Hollow-Headed]

Full update album can be found here.

Working on adding some visual elements, this week. I wanted to give the game some more feeling. Below are some examples.

Bullet casings:

Each type of bullet has it's own casing. Most drop a casing while firing, but some will drop the spent casings/cartridges upon reload, as seen in this example.


Blood splatter/pooling:

Player is invincible, for demonstration purposes.

Window shattering:

Slowed down for a better look using bullet-time.

[Sankar]

I think you have quite a good eye for details and that's the soul of gunplay: things breaking, shattering, casings flying all around, smoke and particles... The more the merrier.

I'm liking what I see so far!

My only concerned, as you used hotline miami as an inspiration, is that the gunplay can get weird if there are open areas and enemies off screen, it would be nice if you had a way to know that there is someone aiming down on you from the distance.

Other than that, keep up!

[Hollow-Headed]

I think you have quite a good eye for details and that's the soul of gunplay: things breaking, shattering, casings flying all around, smoke and particles... The more the merrier.

I'm liking what I see so far!

My only concerned, as you used hotline miami as an inspiration, is that the gunplay can get weird if there are open areas and enemies off screen, it would be nice if you had a way to know that there is someone aiming down on you from the distance.

Other than that, keep up!

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

I completely understand what you mean about off-screen enemies, and I'm glad that you brought it up, because I've actually attempted to address that very issue. At the moment, I have the AI emulating the sort of view that a player has, in that they "see" in a rectangle, with the enemy being in the center. The dimensions of the rectangle are based on the player's screen resolution, so they basically see the world like a person does while looking at their monitor. As such, they will not see you until you can see them, even if in a completely open area. The player is given a little leeway here, though, which means that the enemies have a slightly smaller rectangle so that the player has a little time to react to an approaching enemy, before being within their sight.

This isn't an entirely fool-proof approach, though, since different resolutions change how much is actually visible, but in a general sense, I prefer that over the alternatives that I've considered.

Edit-
Going into further detail, there are times when an enemy can, in fact, see you before you see them, which is if they are on alert, aiming their weapon while you aren't. While aiming, which you can see an example of in the headshot animation, you get an increased visual range. This is the same for an enemy while they're aiming. If you do something that causes them to be alert, then there is a risk of being caught by surprise, but that, I feel, adds an appropriate amount of risk/challenge to being careful. There are some things that work to balance it, though, such as any time an enemy is triggered into being on alert about something, an indication is temporarily shown, pointing towards their location as a warning, even if they're off-screen. Enemies also can't fire at you until they are a certain distance away from you, based on their view, so they can't shoot you right as you get into their view.

[Hollow-Headed]

Added explosions, because all games must have explosive barrels, of course. They'll break windows and other breakable objects, and damage depends on one's proximity to the blast. In the very last explosion, the one using bullet-time, one enemy was far enough away to survive.

[Hollow-Headed]

Added a bullet-time meter, which finally shows how much time is available. Also added a screen effect, which, for now, simply brightens the screen; just something to help differentiate between it and normal time. The meter slowly refills over time, but will refill faster when the player shoots or knocks out an enemy, as seen in this example.

[Hollow-Headed]

Added metal detectors and security cameras. Additional examples here

Metal detectors will sound an alarm if you step through it while armed, or if you drop a weapon directly onto it. If you're unarmed, you can step through without triggering it.

Cameras will detect the player, blood, or dead enemies, and sound an alarm if it spots any. The greenlight turns from green to red when it spots something.

[Hollow-Headed]

I spent this week focusing on some much needed changes to some of the older parts of the game. Although tedious, it's a small step towards efficiency.

On the plus side, nothing broke. Went better than expected.

[Hollow-Headed]

I've put together an album that shows how various door traits can be used to change how they behave, providing 15 variants to 4 types of doors.

Here is the full album, but here are some examples:

Normal:


Sensor:


Panel activated, constantly open:


Panel activated, timed:


Restricted access, contact:

[Hollow-Headed]

I've decided to rework the AI, and try to streamline how units process and react to information. This in itself will take a good while, but here is an example of the AI's search ability. If they hear a gunshot or see something suspicious, they can decide to search the nearby areas to try to find the player. When a unit decides to search the area, it will gather a list of points, find the nearest one to start at, and then the nearest from that point, and so on.

In this case, the player fires his gun and attracts the AI to investigate, causing it to break from its patrol routine. When it doesn't find anything, it searches the area.

[Hollow-Headed]

More AI! Now with the ability to play follow the leader! While performing a search, enemies have the ability to call other nearby enemies over to back them up. They'll follow the calling unit until the search is done.

This is an extreme example, though, more just to test it, since only one or two enemies will be able to follow a unit in the actual game. This does provide a means for various other potential uses, as well, though, such as VIP targets that will always have at least one armed unit accompanying them at all times.

[Hollow-Headed]

I've tweaked the AI's follow behavior, a bit. Rather than everyone looking towards where the leader is looking, each unit now looks towards the unit that is in front of them. This simply makes their movement and behavior look more natural, as you can see by comparing it with the original animation in my previous post.

[Hollow-Headed]

Added a new type of unit. So far, in previous gameplay examples, there have been two types of unit behaviors: patrol and guard. Patrol units are the ones that move around and actually pursue you, whereas guard units stay still in one specific place, and will not pursue you. Each have a use in potential level design, but it was either one or the other, until now. I've added a hybrid unit, which features the stationary routine of guards, but will pursue you like a patrol unit.

In this example, the hybrids are standing guard, mixed in with some normal guards, but when the hybrids hear the gunshot, they move out of their spots in order to pursue it, whereas the normal guards continue to stay still, only looking towards the sound.

[Hollow-Headed]

There are two changes in effect in the example, both sort of hard to explain, in a sense.

First, the area of a gunshot's sound is now based on each weapon's maximum zoom-out. Essentially, if you can see an enemy on your screen while you're aiming a gun, then that means that unit might hear your gunshot, if you were to fire a shot. This range is the same, regardless of whether or not you're actually aiming, but aiming will allow you to get an exact idea of anyone who might hear it, as opposed to not aiming, and being unable to tell who is beyond your normal view.

Second, sound will no longer reach everyone equally, despite everyone being within the sound's area. This is why some units in the upper-left side of the example don't hear the sound, despite being near the origin of the gunshot. In order to reach a unit, a sound must now navigate the world similar to anything else, in that it has to move around walls, rather than move through them. If, by the time the sound reaches the unit, the traveled distance is too great, then the unit will not hear the sound. Sound does move through windows and doors, though.

What this is meant to do, is to allow the player to be more able to determine the risks of firing a shot, making it easier to determine who might hear, if they're willing to check by aiming. It also brings about some balance to dual-wielding guns, since you have double the firepower, but are unable to aim, and as such, now at more of a risk of not knowing if someone might hear your shots.

[Hollow-Headed]

While taking a break from AI, here's a useful little tweak to player movement.

With this example, you can see the player walking into various walls. Previously, any sort of contact would have halted these movements, which I found to be a bit of an inconvenience, especially if it was just a pixel or two of contact. Now, however, when you're walking straight at a solid object, such as in this example, it will try to determine whether or not you're attempting to move past it, if there's an opening, and will ease you towards it, without you needing to press any other directional keys to do so.

In other words, the movements in this example are all done while pressing a single directional key. The diagonal movement is the game adjusting the character for me, without needing any additional directional input.

[Hollow-Headed]

You can now rebind the controls! Being left-handed, this is a personal necessity.

It allows you to store two sets of control schemes at once. The primary slot is, by default, a typical WASD layout, whereas the secondary slot is currently my personal layout.

"Control Slot" allows you to cycle between the two slots, and whichever one that is displayed is the one that the game uses.

"Reset Controls" resets that slot's layout to its default. It only changes that particular slot, though, so the other slot is safe.

Finally, the ESC key is hard-coded to pause the game no matter what, but the custom controls allows for an additional button for it. A quick-pause, basically.

[Hollow-Headed]

Enemies now react to darkness. If they walk into a dark room, or the lights go out in the room that they're in, they'll move to a light switch to turn the lights on.

[Hollow-Headed]

Bullet-proof vests now appear on characters, until their protection is used up, in order to give a visual indication of protection.

In this example, the vest absorbs four bullets before breaking, and the player doesn't start receiving damage until after it is gone. The amount of bullets that a vest will stop depends on the bullets that it absorbs. In this case, it stops four bullets from the handgun, but it would only stop two revolver shots, or just one sniper round, since those deal more damage.

If a bullet deals more damage than a vest can withstand, then the vest will absorb whatever damage that it can, and the remaining damage is then inflicted upon the unit like a normal hit. So, even a near-broken vest protects at least somewhat from a bullet.

[CesarD8]

The mecanics are looking good, but what I would add in that aspect is making being hit more notorious, maybe with a camera shake, and also the shooting part should be felt more, you could add recoil, a little bit of shaking in the camera and/or a muzzle flash in the gun marking the explosion. Also you should have a particle beside de blood for bullets hitting something. It's all oriented to game feel, the systems that you have seem good and solid, so i just would add these things to make the game feel better Keep up the good work, man.

[Hollow-Headed]

The mecanics are looking good, but what I would add in that aspect is making being hit more notorious, maybe with a camera shake, and also the shooting part should be felt more, you could add recoil, a little bit of shaking in the camera and/or a muzzle flash in the gun marking the explosion. Also you should have a particle beside de blood for bullets hitting something. It's all oriented to game feel, the systems that you have seem good and solid, so i just would add these things to make the game feel better Keep up the good work, man.

You're right, game feel is something that is really lacking, currently. Things like the bullet casings and blood splatter is a step in the right direction, but it needs more.

I'm actually in the process of working on screen-shake, but it conflicts with some other mechanics, so I need to solve those first. Once it's done, though, it will do both of what you suggested. Players will also be able to disable it, if they want, too.

I agree with your other suggestions, as well. I need to think of how they should look and act, but they're both things that I want to add eventually.

Thanks for the feedback.