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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperPlaytestingVolt Patrol : a stealth driving game
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LOUD
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« on: July 09, 2019, 07:31:02 AM »

Hey everyone, i am working on my stealth driving game since 11 month and i think it is time to get more feedback Smiley

What is Volt Patrol ?

Discover a unique mashup of driving and stealth :
Drive to weave your way out but don't get caught by the Volt Patrol surveillance or you will get shocked!


About

A company hired you to test its mobile surveillance system called Volt Patrol.
For this purpose, you will have to drive stealthily across their complex highly monitored!



No add-ons, no power-ups.

Key features

  • audacious mix of driving and stealth
  • drive & retry
  • simple design

/!\ Game still in development /!\

What to know about this version ?
  • There are only 11 little levels which represent the beginning of the game.
  • There is no music but there are sounds.
  • There is around 15 minutes of play.
  • English is my second language.

>>> Download here on itch.io!

I need feedback about :
I am looking for feedback about everything. However, if it is not your kind of game, please tell me.

If you can and want, please provide a video of your first playtest (with a youtube, google drive, dropbox or anything else).
It could give me a lot of precious and subtle informations to improve the game.

Let me know if the game was suffering bad performance on your computer.

If you don't know where to start, i am interesting about your opinion on :
  • did you find a feeling of stealth? why?
  • did you find a feeling of driving? why?
  • do you think this mash up is working? why?
  • did you enjoy it? why?
  • what seems to miss? why?
  • would you like to play the full game? why?
  • feel free to give feedback about anything else!

Please be sincere and explain your feedback.

Thanks for your time Wink
« Last Edit: July 09, 2019, 08:06:00 AM by LOUD » Logged
RealScaniX
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« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2019, 03:13:18 AM »

Hi!
 
I just checked out your game. I really like the look of it. The tutorial phase is executed nicely I think, it just took me some time to recognize it as such and know that the door will open after I pressed all the keys. Xd
 
Some remarks:
- the camera tended to misbehave, e.g. did a full rotation around me without a reason. This happens after driving backwards or using shift to look back, but it also happens for me if I just drive forwards, wait until I stand still and then turn left.
- you are switching left and right when driving backwards. this gets stuck though and if you just want to rotate after a brief backwards drive, you are still rotating in the opposite direction
- when deactivating a switch with R while standing on it, it instantly gets reactivated. You should probably wait until the car has left the switch (collider?) until you react to it again
- the controls felt a bit off. I don't know if it was just because of the camera problems, but I ended up going in the wrong direction more than once.
- the sounds are good, just needs some sound for the movement of the vehicle and some music probably. Smiley
 
And again: The tutorial and build up of difficulty is really well made.
 
Good work! Smiley
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LOUD
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« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2019, 06:00:53 AM »

@RealScaniX thank you for your feedback  Wink

Interesting that you took a while to understand how to open the door. I mean, taht the only thing you can do aside driving Smiley

About your remarks :
- i am not able to reproduce what you describe here. Unless you mean the vehicle rotate when you go left or right without moving forward/backward. Rotating on the spot is totally normal. A video or a gif of the bug could be nice to help me to investigate it.
- ok i will correct that
- without seeing how you played and how was the game i don't know how to improve the controls. Did you used your keybord or your gamepad ?
- sounds needs a lot of work ^^

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RealScaniX
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« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2019, 06:06:58 AM »

It's not hard to reproduce for me, the camera rotated from the back view to the front while driving normally a lot.
And a simple way to reproduce the direction bug for me was: drive backwards (probably need to rotate left/right), stand still, turn left -> turns right instead until you drive forward again.
I'm playing using the keyboard.
 
And for the first door: I expected the door to open when I got close or when I used a button etc.
I kinda ignored those texts at first and when I started reading them, they described something I had already done, so I did not do it again at that time.
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LOUD
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« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2019, 07:10:55 AM »

Well i cannot reproduce what you describe.
Except the problem with reversing direction when you go backward, stand still then go left or write withotu going forward. If you can send me by pm a video it could be really helpful.

About the door, there are no explanation about it in the texts. Texts explain only how to control the vehicle.
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RealScaniX
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« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2019, 08:15:10 AM »

I know, but you need to press the keys in the order of the texts to open the door. e.g. I've already pressed SHIFT when the text mentions it and I didn't notice it switching when you press the mentioned key, so I just stubbornly ignored it. Wink
I'd change it, so you also get the progress if you pressed the key before the corresponding message appears.
 
Will see if I have time later to record the other effect.
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LOUD
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« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2019, 09:05:05 AM »

I have updated the game with :
  • new camera view
  • new gamepad controls
  • new camera control
  • levels remade and  added

Download link :https://visumeca.itch.io/voltpatrol?secret=VEK9KRdbye15MHSNPlygM13nSM
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jbarrios
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« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2019, 05:46:16 PM »

Hey Loud,

I played your game.  I recorded it and my thoughts:


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LOUD
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« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2019, 12:39:56 AM »

@jbarrios:
Thanks for trying Volt Patrol Smiley
The problem with camera changing its direction is because english input mapping was entering in conflict with something else. And as i am on a french computer, i didn't noticed it before.
Thanks for pointing that and correcting my typos :D

Anyway, i updated the game with :
+ new level design
+ decorations
+ lighting
+ balencing
+ bug fixing

Grab the new update in the 1st message of the topic Wink




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diegzumillo
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« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2019, 02:39:58 PM »

I love the concept, and I'm a sucker for experimental design. And I love stealth games! So if it seems like I'm being too critical is because this is exciting to me.

First some trivial remarks:
Controls with the keyboard are not great, IMO. My recommendation is to only use WASD if mouse is also used, otherwise you have a game playing with your left hand only, which is fine as an option for lefties but maybe not standard. BTW, using mouse to look is not a bad idea. With the gamepad the controls are great and intuitive. You follow conventional driving control scheme which is a good idea.

Level 15 seems broken. I get the idea, there's a car doing circles around a button that turns off the laser pointing at button 1. But the light only goes off when I drive over the light switch, the AI hits the switch and it goes 'click' but the light stays on.

Less trivial remarks:

While playing, your question "does it feel stealthy?" (not your wording but anyway) kept coming to my mind. It does... a little. Now, I may be completely wrong, but I suspect a lot of what makes stealth feels like stealth relates to context. If you strip context away from, say, Thief, you end up with an abstract game of avoiding moving volumes. You try to find patterns in the moving volumes and navigate around them to reach point B. I remember a bunch of games in the Flash era that you play with your mouse cursor and you had to move the cursor from A to B dodging polygonal shapes. Same basic mechanic but doesn't feel stealthy.

I am not saying you can't recover a suitable context that feels stealthy inside a car, but that developing that should be a priority, in my opinion. It's the difference between avoiding a volume that moves in circles, and: trying to shake off a dangerous machine that saw you for a moment and a high speed chase started, but you managed lose it and now it's searching the area, but you turned off your headlights and engine, so you wait for the right moment it's not looking at you and make a run for the gate inside the base, where you, the resistance's best infiltration driver can steal the plans of the.. thing of the... whatever. EDIT: I understand you you want to keep the design simple, but you did ask if it felt stealthy too lol.

I really like the combination though. I think driving mechanics can definitely spice things up. The level design you have right now of finding number combination and hitting the buttons is simple but forces an extensive use of the play space. You have to go everywhere and constantly move around, it's neat. But, again, this might be a bit too abstract to feel stealthy.

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LOUD
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« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2019, 02:22:20 AM »

@diegzumillo

Thanks for your feedback and your appreciation!
Hearing what a player of stealth games thinks of the game is interesting Smiley

Good point about lefty players. I will think about the use of the mouse but the annoying thing is to give the ability to look backward with the mouse. I could put it on a key but it seems inelegant to have camera controls separated on mouse and keyboard instead on just one kind of input.

I understand your issue with level 15 but i had the exact opposite feedback from another player which, without sound on the switch at every passage, was unable to understand the light was activated/deactivated by pressing the switch. So i kind have to chose one way to do this and i will choose the clearest.

About  your remarks on "does it feel stealthy?", that’s a tough topic on which i am heavily thinking since i started the project (a year ago).
Because i will write in the near future an article about this i will only say a few things about it.

Thief, for example, is an immersive sim that relies on a context but not only that. Sure, it helps reinforcing suspension of disbelief.
That being said, if you put abstract volumes it will requires the same skills and the same effort to get to the point if you manage to get the tension as high as in the original version.
From my researches, one of the most important thing to get the stealth feeling is to provide the right amount of unknown with visibility limitations through level design pushing player to take risks. And it is an aspect that can be applied in any context.

What you said about Flash games, may be another category of “stealth game”.
I’m saying this because i think we can divide stealth games in multiple categories.
Thief’s category, is based on your feelings and the tension it creates within the frustrum of limitations (such as player visibility as said before).
But Metal Gear Solid (ps1)’s category gives the player full visibility of what is going on providing tactical approach. Which, i think is more like the flash games you talked about. And in the end, context is even more important here to make it stealthy.
Another recent stealthy game like this is Volume (on steam) which is almost abstract.

I am not saying that Volt Patrol is strongly stealthy but it uses same part of aspects as Thief category uses.
For example, escaping guards during alert is a part of the cultural and typical stealth experience players know and expect. And it’s a thing that i don’t provide (there are good reasons for this but it’s a big topic which i will not cover here).

To finish, i try to make a game with an appropriate scope for me, a solo game developer who doesn’t want to take years to release a game.
So, it means that i try to make a simple, yet of good quality, stealth-driving game Smiley

Thanks again for your analysis Wink
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