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The Silent City – Final Major Project

Design Rules, Basic Level Design Drafts & Lists upon lists of stuff needed to make this blasted thing.

Originally, the game was meant to be called Shadow Shard, and was based as a stealth game inspired mostly off of Thief & Bloodborne. I had planned on starting it up earlier on in the academic course, but didn’t find the time out of class to do so. Instead, the project remained cemented in my mind.

A 2d stealth game, where the player used a bow as their main tool. They could not fight effectively, being too weak to do so. Only the amount of arrows and types of arrows at their disposition could provide aid in combat, alongside the Shadow Shard, which was an item that allowed them to turn invisible, dash through shadows, etc.

The issue was the following: it would have been easier to make a game that correlated with my final thesis project, so that any research I did for the essay would also count towards my FMP, and help me better understand my final project.

As a result of this, I chose to fully incorporate Environmental Storytelling into my FMP, rather than be a simple stealth game replica, I would go about making a 2D platformer that would tell a story through the setting alone. Something that would allow the player to still make use of those stealth mechanics I’ve been trying to implement in.

Some quick inspirations of what I intend to attempt visually:
Hollow Knight, Hyper Light Drifter, La Mulana

I give you the Silent City instead: a 2d stealth exploration game, where the focus is to find a mythical item using clues left behind in the environment. The player will explore a dangerous, half flooded ruin, hoping to find the solution to their village’s incoming destruction. Its essentially the same concept, however the focus will be entirely on level design. Death itself won’t be a crucial part of the game, however the way the world is set up, and its navigation will be. In that sense, I’ve decided to examine two games that I believe execute levels/dungeons rather well.

Hollow Knight & The Legend of Zelda are both excellent examples of branching level design, making use of various rules and a rich environment to also give birth to interesting challenges and environmental narrative. My main research was through Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video essay series on Stealth, Level Design, World Design and Environmental Storytelling, where Mark Brown critically analyses various games, namely those I’ve previous mentionned.

GMTK’s The Legend of Zelda series goes into great detail about the design of the franchise’s dungeons.

GMTK’s in depth examination of Hollow Knight’s world design, and its branching interconnecting paths.

GMTK’s video essay on level design and storytelling through space, colour, game objects and sound.

Finally, a series on stealth by GMTK that I’ll follow quasi-religiously in my implementation of stealth in this game, the School of Stealth series.

As of now, I’ve begun a rather basic GDD for the game itself, going to detail the final project’s recipe, the story behind the game’s ruin, inspirations and basic player movement. I’ve also drafted some basic world design, based on the temple I seek to create. Here’s an early sketch of it:

Finally, in addition to this early draft, I’ve come up with some level design rules that will guide my process through the project, using what I’ve learned and read from various books and video essays.

Arthur’s Level Design Rules:
* Keep it simple stupid, each room should have a challenge.
* Every room must be unique enough to warrant its own existence.
* Every room must be connected to at least 2 other rooms.
* Connections between rooms can be before/after acquiring a key item.
* Every room must be thematically and narratively evocative, as well as relevant to the game’s environmental storytelling.
* ‘Logic’ between rooms must naturally pursue to the other. (I.E: If there’s a waterfall, where does the water go?)
* Every room needs to be kept in a simple, but cohesive artstyle. There’s no need to overly complicate your life.
* Every room should have elements that can help facilitate stealth gameplay, and freedom of movement.

Thanks for reading c:

The Silent City

Critical Analysis

The Silent City is a game that I’ve always wanted to make. Originally, it was called Shadow Shard. The goal of making the game was to blend the 2D platforming and stealth of Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment, 2012) with the aesthetics and pilfering mechanics of Thief: the Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998).

To do so, I had done much research into stealth mechanics and gameplay, as well as played both games: writing my “Understanding the Game Experience” essay around understanding stealth gameplay mechanics and their impact on player immersion, using restrictions and limitations to convey a sense of reality that no other game granted. Stealth game protagonists are either master assassins that dwell and excell in the shadows, or weak but wily thieves and skulkers who can disappear on a moment’s notice. I loved that dichotomy, that necessary flaw in the character which emphasized how important stealth gameplay was to the games.

Nowadays, most open world games have some stealth elements, or sections, but they always felt ‘added on’ like patchwork, rather than being a key component of the game itself. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks, 2011)’s sneak skill is admittedly overpowered, but its largely underwhelming mechanically. Aside from making the player virtually invisible in the eyes of non-player characters even they’re on their laps, or giving increased damage when hidden, it doesn’t do much else in terms of realism. There are no flaws, hence there can not be any sensation of immersion. I wanted to create a game that ‘fixed’ those issues I saw in many contemporary games, and give my players those emotions, tools, and challenges to play with.

So why did I build a Metroidvania/Platformer instead?
My other interest comes in roleplaying games, and environmental storytelling. Whilst I adore stealth games, and have since I was a teenager, my other passion has also been roleplaying games. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, The Witcher, Chrono Trigger, the whole Tales Of franchise are all games I’ve adored in my childhood.

Chrono Trigger on PC has been rescued from disaster - and could even be argued as one of the best versions | VG247 — Chrono Trigger (Square Enix, 1995)

Later on, I developped a taste for the metroidvania genre, 2D platforming action-adventure games, and their massive, sprawling worlds that were slowly unlocked through character upgrades. Games such as Blasphemous, Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, Roboto Gato, etc. I grew interested in the narrative potential of these games beyond simple dialogue systems, and how the restrictions of the medium (2D plane, platforming) could be used to the benefit of the game’s story.

Blasphemous Home – The Game Kitchen — Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen, 2019)

Environmental storytelling came naturally. To build a story-coherent Metroidvania, one must put some logic aside and focus on background art, assets and environmental narrative to drive a compelling universe, rather than dialogue or realistic scenery. The narrative could be further pushed by creating mechanics intricately linked to the core player fantasy. La-Mulana makes you feel like an archaeologist, Blasphemous makes you feel like a violent zealot, Hollow Knight makes you feel like an explorer, and all of these player fantasies

And so I tried to combine both my love for roleplaying games, for metroidvanias, and for stealth games into this… ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ of a prototype. However, unlike our good Doctor, I have no intention in disregarding their patchwork son. The Silent City is a game I intend on refurbishing and polishing, and completing throughout the years, even if I do get a job (that said, I have so many projects, I will need some help).

Development, what went wrong, what went right:

This was the first, official start of the Silent City.

What Went Wrong:
Over the summer and throughout the year, I had slowly been building up to marrying all my research and essays together into one, final project. Without being too harsh on myself, I feel like I haven’t necessarily succeeded in this. I had to cut a lot from the game itself, I had to remove half an entire level as I struggled with basic functions, HUD, and movement.

The Silent City isn’t an innovative game, mechanically, but it is an attempt at imitating these games from which I’ve taken inspiration. Development time, technical difficulties and outside factors made it so it took longer. Another thing I underestimated was level design, specifically puzzle and room design. The general image and layout of the level is fine, but when it comes to individual locations it becomes deceptively difficult to nail down the ideal layout of a room, so that it conveys what you want it to feel, and what you want the room to teach. A platforming challenge should focus on platforms, and some additional challenge. A rope challenge should be very much the same.

A mechanic I think needs working on is the journal. So far, the integer based journal entry system isn’t ideal, as it only displays the next entry rather than the relevant entry. I might change that for the showcase, and work on it after submission to find something more functionnal; like a boolean based system.

What Went Right:
Alongside WRATH 激怒, this is probably the best looking game I’ve made so far. The basic tutorial at the start of the game is functional, the movement is tight, and audio is sufficient to convey ambience, cues, and atmosphere. I had to drop a lot of things on the way, namely this serves as a vertical slice of what’s to come. Platforming puzzles, rope puzzles, exploration and lore. I originally had a whole half a level ready for the rest of the game, however I decided to drop that until later.

Compared to the original layout, half the level is gone, however it does the job and I think that’s a positive.

It requires some polishing, but I also believe I’ve done sufficiently well in terms of environmental storytelling to satisfy the itch I was trying to go for. The journal does fill in a lot of the gaps, however using the whole ‘stiffs, scribbles and signs’ technique, I managed to convey this is an abandonned, flooded and dangerous place using various sound cues and dead bodies.

Mechanically I’m pleased with the game itself, even if it needs considerable progress to come into what I fully envision this game to be. I have many things planned for it, and this is just the beginning. I do believe I’ve achieved what I could with the time I’ve been given, and once again time management has been the bane of my development process, however what I now have is viable.

So for now, here is the Silent City in all its glory:

What needs improving:

Animation needs to be implemented
Better sprites, using Unity’s tiling system I could make something more dynamic
Sound effects and UI / HUD changes are due
After death, there’s a problem with the camera, but its too late now to fix pre-submission.
More narrative / fixing the journal system to make it more dynamic.
Transition between scenes, please.

What needs added:

Cohesive storytelling.
Better enemies.
A prologue that emphasises how important the rain gem is.
Additionnal levels, additionnal features.
Better sprites/character stuff in general.

Part 5: Case Studies & Attempts at Nostalgia.

Last one, then critical analysis, wooh!
I figured I would have to come around to case studies eventually, seeing as my previous logs were completely swamped with notes of my progress. These dev logs have more so me swimming back to the surface of whatever murky mire of mechanics I had going on at the time. Despite this, I still plan on finishing this game after hand-ins, as its essentially the game I’ve always wanted to make, barring a classic J-RPG with intricate storytelling, characters, etc.

I can't wait to crawl through La-Mulana 1 & 2 on Switch – Destructoid — “La-Mulana has you exploring vast ruins sprawling with puzzles and monsters, […] the solution to the former residing in interpreting the clues left behind by civilizations beyond human comprehension.”

So, first case study:
La-Mulana, (2012 Remastered Edition) is an exploration-metroidvania game where the player takes on the role of an archeologist who delves into the titular ruins of La-Mulana. La-Mulana has you exploring vast ruins sprawling with puzzles and monsters, the solution to the former residing in interpreting the clues left behind by civilizations beyond human comprehension. The game has you reading tablets to understand lore left behind by previous civilizations, as well as fighting back hordes of monsters that hold no greater purpose but to stiffle your continuous glorious progress deeper into these nonsensical ruins.

The great thing about La-Mulana is that it completely emulates how an adventurer-archaeologist would feel, to our eyes. No digging in the ground here, nor sir. We put ourselves in the shoes of previous peoples and try to understand the concepts and morals by which they were guided, all the while solving puzzles that pertain specifically to these civilizations. The Giants, the ‘2nd children’ have a different term for “SKY” than the ‘4th children’. And none of this is extra lore, knowing what terms mean what is crucial to progressing through the game, as well as solving the puzzles throughout the ruins.

I wished to emulate this sort of feeling, by creating the sense of ancient ruins and having some kind of log book wherein the player could investigate certain left over ‘landmarks’, and then have these landmarks written down in said journal for later use. Sadly, they’re mostly fluff and less crucial to gameplay than the rest of the game’s mechanics.

Thief: The Dark Project is 20 years old, and that makes me feel the following emotions | Rock Paper Shotgun — Thief: The Dark Project is one of my favorite games that excells in creating an aura of weakness and skill through its barebones combat married to its excellent stealth system.

Second case study:
Thief the Dark Project (1998) is the grandfather of first person stealth games, the likes of Dishonored and pretty much every ‘stealth’ section you’ve had to play in contemporary first person games. You play as Garrett, a master thief whose sole reason for doing what he does best is so he can pay rent. Sadly for Garrett, and thankfully for us, he gets roped up into a city-scale conflict between two insane factions: one that wants to use a magical artifact to resurrect an ancient deity and return the City to nature (thereby brutally murdering everyone inside), and a zealous group of technology worshipping crusaders that oppose the former.

Thief excells as a stealth game because of its soundscape and sheer level of detail taken into consideration and how it uses sound, line of sight, surface textures and lightning to create the perfect skulking simulator. I had planned on originally making a stealth game for the sake of exploring these mechanics, but thought I did not have sufficient skill, and that it would take some time before I eventually got there. Thus I chose to use it as a case study at first, then as I worked on the game, I would apply stealth-based sections.

Thief has the player make use of various tools and arrows to get through the intricate and detailed levels of each… well level of the game. Water arrows to extinguish fires. Moss arrows to pad sound. Rope arrows to get to higher positions, etc. I sought to use this mechanic and apply it to the game here, however have only gone so far as the rope arrows for now.

Hollow Knight Abilities Locations - Nintendo Life — Hollow Knight is a bug-based metroidvania that banks on its gorgeous art design, and world design to bring the player into an unknown and beautiful landscape.

Third case study:
Hollow Knight (2018) is one of the most acclaimed and rewarded metroidvania games of this current generation, with a sprawling diverse world filled to the brim with intricate world building and environmental storytelling details, it becomes mind boggling. When one considers all this was made by a team of 2-4 people, and the sheer size of Hallownest (that’s the world you explore in this Metroidvania), its rather mind blowing.

That said, I took much from Hollow Knight for the basic concepts and design of the Silent City, namely some world design rules I observed and detailed in Dev Log 2, which are the rules I plan on sticking by as I go on working on this project. I also took the jump from Hollow Knight, and tried my best with the graphics to convey some kind of greater world as you can see in the screenshot above. Sadly, I don’t think I’ve properly achieved this, as my graphical skills are somewhat lacking.

Completing the base game. Part 4.

So, 4th and before last development diary. The base game is ‘complete’ so to speak. There is a beginning, a middle and an end. When you arrive at the door, you can press [E] to enter the Silent City, which really should have been the start of the game. But I would rather have had something that tutorialised the game’s mechanics, and then use this to build further on it.

This big door here is your access to the temple.

So, all this to say we now have a functionning level with plenty of obstacles and other forms of platforming challenges. I don’t feel like this was really a vertical slice of anything in particular, but more so a prototype of what Silent City could be. Naturally there are further coding issues, such as using the journal icon to open the bloody journal rather than having to press [J], and then again the menu for the journal should be able to be used both with keyboard inputs and mouse, however it’s a bit too late for that.

A friend of mine gave me access to a video of his playthrough which provided some crucial feedback, as well as additionnal hints on how to better my jump, which I’ll be adding once submissions is done. The first step is to provide a functionnal game that ATTEMPTS at my original goal:

Playtest feedback of the Silent City.

I’ve fixed the issue with the dots staying in place once one has shot all their arrows, as well as tweaked some of the camera motions to be less harsh and more upwards oriented. AKA: you can now see more content rather than a pitch black void below you taking up half the screen. I have also audio and music by Kevin MacLeod for ambience, as well as generic ambient music.

So, on to what needs to be done:
* Add better jumping;
* Make some smaller improvements, like the HUD button.

Here are some further images on the various improvements done to the Silent City:

Sprucing things up, and adding features.

Its been a while since I’ve posted a development diary log, and well… I sort of need to seeing as its part of the process. A lot of things have been implemented since the last post (albeit shakily).

Amongst these things are: pixel art sprite models, a journal to track down journal entries about the world, particle effects (rain) and backgrounds. Most of the feedback given was to make things clearer, to cut down on the level’s content until I can develop it post-hand in. For now, I deem it important to bank on the use of rope arrows to further emphasise how crucial they are to the game.

I can’t help but be disatisfied with the lack of content here, compared to my Bachelor’s final project where I had multiple levels for the player to go through, I only have one here, which is rather weak to showcase compared to previous masters. (Who knew attempting to design a metroidvania was difficult?)

For now, the ideal concept is to get a level that gives the player sufficient challenges to get through, alongside platforming and rope challenges, to put things into context. My thesis was on environmental storytelling and worldbuilding, which banks alot on graphical storytelling – a thing I am unique inept at. Additionally, I originally wished to make a metroidvania or stealth-like game, but I feel like I might have spent too much time idling, or overdesigning things.

Here is how the game has evolved so far:

Now, the only thing left is the main door, which when interacted with will end the game and bring the player to an end of level screen, likely with a “still under construction” placement, I’ll have to see. I fear I’ve dreamed too big.

Simplest code in the world, just taking from a bunch of arrays and displays them depending on the entryNumber.

The key feature implemented here was the journal itself. It functions off a very crude function that merely increments an integer, depending on the integer, it allows the display of certain entries, but I think I would have to find a more adaptable variant, as if someone misses even a single ‘exposition point’, then their journal remains incomplete, yes, but also out of synch: which is a problem I’ll have to find a solution to later (as in after submission).

What else… mostly practical, quality of life, improvements. The game has a hut which shows the health bar, arrows, available arrows and available journal entries. I’ll see if I can get some feedback about the whole thing, and perhaps change the healthbar to something like hearts instead.

Final Major Project

LEVEL DESIGN * Playtesting * The Silent City

Much of the past week has been drafting levels and dividing each room according to the 8 rules detailed previously, as well as implementing them into the game itself. Alot of the level itself has been done with the intent to tutorialise the player into understanding the fundamental mechanics of the game:

Moving
Jumping
Crouching
Pushing objects around
Shooting the crossbow
Using ropes and rope arrows to maneuver through the level, etc.

First Tutorial area, teaches moving & jumping

As of now, half the level has been drafted. Alongside the grayboxing, which is meant to have exploration as ready as possible, I have made a list of things that need to be added to increase a player’s understanding of what is happening across the world.

A corpse will be placed at the entrance of the stealth section. A corpse will be placed at the location of the crossbow. Wooden surfaces are found with rope arrows already embedded inside them, additionally, the sun gem will be available from this corpse, but nothing allows the player to head back up, forcing them to go through the small gauntlet to learn how to use ropes and then acquire the rope arrows.

After receiving feedback from tutors and playtesters, some areas have been changed, notably the rope arrow test room, which focuses more on learning how to properly climb up and down ropes, as well as understanding that one can only spawn ropes when shooting at wooden surfaces with rope arrows.

*Rope arrows can only spawn ropes if the arrow strikes wooden surfaces.*

The previous layout of this room section taught about ledge climbing more than it did about rope arrows, which needed to be changed. (I encountered a problem where the player did not inherit the velocity of the rope swing, which will have to be fixed soon).

Update: It has been fixed! Much of the movement is now perfected, all that needs to be looked into are walking animations and jumping animations. But I can finally move onto level design properly as well as enemy creation. Acquiring the crossbow early on means I will have to initiate the player to its utility, thus I’ve placed a placeholder enemy that will attack the player and is blocking the way forwards.

*“Bright Green Circles” are dubbed Sentry Eye Golems, which will build up an attack against the player and shoot them if they do not hide or move out of the way quickly enough.*

The player now jumps off of ledges and ropes, meaning it allows for a more fluid and less drastic transition from ledge hangs to jumping, all I require now is to establish a jumping animation and walking animation and the player character itself will be complete.

After which, I will have to establish health bars (likely 3 hits before dying), and HUD for the quiver of arrows. All of which is being worked on as we speak, apologies for the long, distant lack of diary logs beforehand.

Understanding the Gaming Experience, part 5

Writing the essay.

This log will mostly be on writing the actual essay rather than further research, and how I would go about setting my time and such. The first thing I must admit was that I had forgotten I had a presentation to record. So I would have to divide my time between these logs, and the presentation and the essay itself.

The goal is to write within a certain margin of 2.5k, I had planned to have the essay itself be segmented into four major parts, each of them defining and going over various subjects. The ‘introduction’ would define the subjects themselves: stealth, audio & visual feedback, and player immersion. Each would have to be roughly around 300 – 500 words.

Methodology would be pretty quick to describe, as I have done so in the introduction. The abstract would be written at the end. The ‘core body’ detailed my examination of two games through the lenses of what was defined in the introductory segment. The End Body itself was meant to be rather extensive, albeit shorter than the Core Body, as it was essentially a conclusion.

My methods don’t necessarily need to be explained in depth, however looking back to the writing I believe I should have been briefer in my definitions. This was so I could properly explore how the feedback played into the game’s immersive segments. In previous logs I’ve shown I had a decent understanding on Presence theory and its applications to virtual environments, which I do not believe I sufficiently conveyed in my dissertation. In hindsight I would likely go further into psychology and its applications to narrative elements of both games, through the lense of game mechanics that make Mark of the Ninja and Thief so fundamental to the genre, in my opinion.

The core body itself feels superfluous, in hindsight, I could have done better, however once again issues with time management and proper organisation have led to something I feel satisfied with, though not reflective of what I think I’m completely capable.

Understanding the Gaming Experience, Part 4!

The Tricky Thing that is Immersion

Total Immersion® - Intensive Language Courses | berlitz.co.uk — Get it? He’s immersed.

Immersion has numerous definitions depending on the context in which it is placed. Commonly known as physically immersing someone or something in a liquid (“thou hath been immers’d in oil!”). The video games industry and other entertainment industries have used this term as an analogy for being lost in an activity, like reading or writing, or in our case playing video games. So, that’s it? We’ve figured out what it means, everybody pack up and go home? Well not exactly.

A Theory of Spacial Presence, by Wirth et al. is explained in Jamie Madigan’s explanation around immersion in games through a psychological lense on Gamasutra. ‘Presence’ is just another name for ‘immersion’ albeit from a psychological point of view, and psychologists have identified multiple kinds. It is largely accepted that spatial presence is the typical version of presence that applies to video games.

Wirth’s theory on spatial presence, its a bit too complicated a diagram for me

Wirth’s theory explained that spatial presence happened in three steps:

* Players form a representation in their mind of the space or world with which the game is presenting them.
* Players begin to favor the media-based space (I.e., the game world) as their point of reference for where they “are”.
* Player becomes immersed in the game, sacrificing spatial awareness for their investiment into the game’s world.

The magic circle of the game becomes pervasive through various cues (sound, visual, movements, etc) and player assumptions about the game they’ve begun to play through. I’ve defined this as the (core player fantasy). When you play an adventuring game, you expect adventure. When you play a first person shooter, you expect using guns. So on and so forth.

Gordon Calleja identifies two types of immersion in his book “In-Game”: immersion through absorption and immersion through transportation. The former (absorption) is identified a the commonmost form of immersion in the video games industry, and the one Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman pointed out as ‘the immersive fallacy’ in 2003.

At the time, more performant software/hardware allowed developers to pursue photorealistic audio and graphics, which spearheaded an obsession for pushing towards such realism in games. As a counter argument to this sudden movement, Salen and Zimmerman point out that anybody can be immersed in anything without necessarily it having to be as close to realism as possible. For instance, anybody can be immersed in Tetris, which is in no way as close to realism as possible. Instead they advocated for more engaging gameplay mechanics instead.

Calleja proposes another type of immersion, which is amade available through the evolution of “virtual environements within both the humanities and presence theory.” Essentially, video games may “absorb” our attention through a specific task, but many nowadays “transport” us to a fictional game world instead.

“A player who assimilates this game world into their gameplay as a metaphorically habitable environment can be thought of as being transported to that world. This experience is made possible by the anchoring of the player to a specific location in the game world via their avatar, which the game world and its inhabitants, including other players, react to.”
G. Calleja, In-Game pg 27, 2011

Basically, game worlds that do a good job at transporting their player into their fictional reality will see said players immersed into the game. But how is this done? Lazaros Michailidis, Emili Balaguer-Ballester, and Xun He in their examination of immersion, Flow and Immersion in Video games, associate immersion with the Flow state theory, claiming certain criteriae ought to be met to reach it:

merging of action and awareness;
clear goals;
immediate and unambiguous feedback;
concentration on the task;
perceived control over the activity;
loss of self-reflection;
distorted perception of time;
intrinsic motivation toward an activity

This however, is closer to immersion through absorbption than transportation. What Jamie Madigan puts forward is far more in line with what we’re attempting to define. Madigan explains there ought to be a certain richness in the feedback and information:

Multiple channels of sensory information (sight, hearing, detail, movement, etc);
Completeness of sensory information (the less the player has to fill up the better), i.e: Assassin’s Creed where city streets are full of people going about their daily lives;
Cognitively demanding environments (requires focus from the players which will emphasise their mental faculties and allocate brain power to navigating the world);
A strong and interesting narrative, plot, or story (books are capable of immersing their readers with text alone, a strong story or plot will immerse the player regardless of medium);

There are immersion breaking moments that would ruin the facsimile of player immersion: uncalled for tonal shifts in the narrative, difference in setting such as ur sci-fi elements in a heroic fantasy world, repeated reminders that the player is in a game, such as achievement pop ups, tutorial pop ups, etc.

Sources:

Flow and Immersion in Video Games: Frontiers | Flow and Immersion in Video Games: The Aftermath of a Conceptual Challenge | Psychology (frontiersin.org)

Analysis: The Psychology of Immersion in Video Games: Gamasutra – Analysis: The Psychology of Immersion in Video Games

Gordon Calleja, “In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation”. 1st ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Understanding the Player Experience, Part 3

Fanciful Titles and Greater Understanding

After more source hunting I eventually honed the question down to the following, with a fancy title on top: “Stealth Games: Shadows and Sounds, or ‘How do stealth games make use of audio and visual cues/feedback to improve the player’s immersion'”.

The sources I found discussed at length the composition of stealth games, their general attributes as well as common systems that are found in most games. For example, many games give guards simulated ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’.

The former will make use of vision cones to spot the player within line of sight. However a single vision cone makes the AI easily exploitable, which renders them useless. As such, when dealing with vision cones many games make use of multiple cones in addition to the direct vision. For example in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, guards have a primary sightlight, then a much wider cone to simulate peripheral vision, and finally vision cones at the back to simulate the ‘sixth-sense’ of having someone over your shoulder.

From Youssef Khatib’s “Essential Building Blocks of Stealth Play.”

For cover scenarios, games might use raycasts instead to determine whether or not the guard can see the player. Once again, depending on the complexity of the game, guards might raycast to various body parts instead. Depending on the amount of bodyparts properly connected by the raycast, the player will be spotted.

A final common factor to stealth games is an awareness meter, that makes it so players aren’t immediately spotted when they are seen by guards. Depending on the conditions in which the player finds themselves, such as being in the distance, in dim light, immobile or crouched, the enemy’s awareness meter will fill up to eventually detect the player. When this happens, guards will become alert and start searching for them, or attacking them if within direct line of sight.

Youssef Khatib’s State Machine for Guard awareness

Guards can also be made aware of interesting objects that tell of the player’s passing: open doors, mines, dropped objects, etc. In return, this might place the guards and enemies in a searching state until they inevitably track the player down should the latter not change position or move.

In Thief, guards can exchange information depending on what they’ve discovered. In one of my playthroughs, I had left a door openleft a door open and ignored a guard, only to find out that the NPC had communicated my actions to other patrols which led them all to remain in a curious state, swords drawn and making my playthrough a tad more difficult.

Simulating hearing becomes more difficult, however put simply: all sound in stealth games have a distance depending on the volume of said sound. Tossing a stone is going to create sound that travels less than firing a gun. Guards have a predetermined range of hearing, and should the sound waves reach that range, then they are made aware of it. Thief thrives off of its soundscape, allowing both player and guards to closely monitor each other’s movements through listening to the sounds they produce. Mark of the Ninja makes all of these typical systems clear to the player due to the 2D limitations of the medium, in an effort to reduce ambiguity and increase the clarity of how systems work.

Thief: The Dark Project | WSGF — A dimly lit street in *Thief: The Dark Project*

For Thief its clearly delineated shadows and the light gem at the bottom of the screen, as well as the audio cues that are emitted by enemy NPCs and guards. Thief does keep a certain amount of ambiguity, however, which creates an air of tension and an immersive sense for the player to judge whether or not their actions will be safe. Tom Leonard, Lead Programmer, puts this as: “Its about getting the player’s heart pounding by holding them on the cusp [of being found].”

Mark of the Ninja X360 Screenshots - Image #10148 | New Game Network — A guard is alerted to the sound of a gong behind him in *Mark of the Ninja*.

For Mark of the Ninja its the player’s sprite turning into its darker form when hidden in shadows, and the way systems are displayed make for a more binary perception system. If you’re in the enemy’s vision cone, you’re visible. If you’re in light, you’re visible. If you make noise, guards will be attracted to said noise. This grants the player more control over their environment, which emphasises the mastery your character is supposed to have over lowly thugs and basic guards.

Even then, handicapping awareness and detection systems is essential in order to give the player an enjoyable playthrough. Players will feel cheated if they’re noticed by a guard from the other side of the game map, even if their character is in an open field. In a sense, many stealth games push for a semi-realism that borderlines on immersive simulators more than video games.

Sources Used:

Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment, 2012)
Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998)
School of Stealth, Game Maker’s Toolkit: https://youtu.be/Ay-5g36oFfc
Essential Building Blocks of Stealth Play

Understanding the Gaming Experience, part 2

Research Question & Source Hunting

Following a presentation with tutors, I came up with two questions that would possibly be useful for this unit:

How does « Mark of the Ninja » and « Thief: the Dark Project » make use of audio and visual feedback to improve the player’s immersion?
How has player agency and freedom of gameplay influenced the development and evolution of stealth games from 1998?

As a result of discussing with my tutors, I chose the former (option 1), seeing as I had a better understanding of both games rather than the second. It was also more specific than the latter, which was encouraged.

So, following this I was given some feedback on how to make the question more concise as well as where to start from in terms of research.

Defining ‘stealth’ in a more concise manner would help narrow the question down. Did I mean a genre, a section of gameplay, or a specific mechanic? Defining ‘visual and audio’ feedback was also important. Did I mean a hud, or player mechanics? Finally defining immersion in a comprehensive manner was also crucial, seeing as its what my question banked on.

With this in mind, I set off to find some primary and secondary sources, many of which I was already familiar with before trying to detail my research question. Here is a list of what I’ve found for the time being:

* How Thief’s Stealth System Almost Didn’t Work (2018) Youtube video, added by Ars Technica [Online]. Available at <https://youtu.be/qzD9ldLoc3c> [Accessed: 26^th of April, 2021].

* Mark of the Ninja Developer Interview with Nels Anderson of Klei Entertainment (2012) Youtube video, added by VGS – Video [Online]. Available at <https://youtu.be/tFx3sKnBaf8> [Accessed: 26^th of April, 2021].

* The School of Stealth (2020) Youtube video, added by Game Maker’s Toolkit [Online] Available at <https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_s8CEnf_j1ZOu-UCTEXRAfl> [Accessed: 12^th of April, 2021]