Ideas in short Stealth RPG Maker Game(MV)

[jameswestbrook351]

The commercial game I have been working on is being put on hold for several weeks while I wait for my friend to finish a coding piece, so I wanna work on a short game for a few weeks while I wait. 


I have been playing a lot of dishonored 2 lately, and it annoys me how I have yet to see good stealth gameplay(if anyone has, please link me to try it out lol) in an rpg maker game, so I feel like designing my own good one. After playing with Yanfly's stealth plugin Ive deduced that in terms of stealth the creator would have to design all of it on their own. 


I already have ideas for how to program it, so I just want to discuss game mechanics in it. Attached is an image of 4 different players you can play as. The first one is going to be a blind person, or class if you will. For a while I've wanted to create a gameplay based on a person with echolocation(for those who don't know, echolocation is basically "seeing" with sound. Its mostly blind people who have this.)


I want each class to have different perks. For example the 3rd one which will be an Incubus, I want his class to have the ability "seduce" which allows the player to have a back up in case they get detected. They can seduce the enemy and knock him/her out before the enemy summons for help. 


I imagine the girl on the left will be able to knock out enemies if she sneaks up behind them. The younger girl on the right I perpaps want to design it's abilities based on how a child would go about being stealthy. (Maybe her perk can be being quiet, and animals are more friendly to her.)


To make each bust more unique, I plan on using Photoshop to change the colors, like I did with the first one. 


Here is a video if you want a quick video on what makes a good stealth game. Options.


The maps will have to be huge in order for this game to properly work, to allow space for players and enemies. My plan is to use that one plugin that preloads everything when the game opens. I'lll probably alter the loading screen to say "hey this may take a few minutes. This is to prevent lag and long loading screens in game. Go grab a coffee, get a glass of water, you probably dont drink enough anyways. relax and in a few minutes this will be done preloading."


Anyone have suggestions or ideas to implement? This is meant to be a short game that takes a few weeks to complete, if I finish it  ill probably put it on steam for free. 

 

[Kes]

Please bear in mind that this particular part of the forum is not for individual specific games, it is meant to be for more general discussion of the design of game mechanics.  Be prepared, therefore, for things to be discussed which might not be directly relevant for your game.  If you want it to be focused purely on your game, then I will need to merge this with Features Feedback thread.


Busts are not game mechanics, so you might want to edit that bit out to make it clearer to people exactly what it is you want to focus on.  Similarly with the size of your maps and the preloading.  Neither of these are game mechanics.  Are the descriptions of the 4 characters directly related to the design of the particular mechanics you have in mind?  Things like Charm are not specific to Stealth, so again there seems to be a lot of detail which is not related in an obvious way to your topic.  I think you will get more constructive discussion if you remove everything that is not about the stealth mechanic, and that way people will be able to home in on what's fundamental.

 

[jameswestbrook351]

Please bear in mind that this particular part of the forum is not for individual specific games, it is meant to be for more general discussion of the design of game mechanics.  Be prepared, therefore, for things to be discussed which might not be directly relevant for your game.  If you want it to be focused purely on your game, then I will need to merge this with Features Feedback thread.


Busts are not game mechanics, so you might want to edit that bit out to make it clearer to people exactly what it is you want to focus on.  Similarly with the size of your maps and the preloading.  Neither of these are game mechanics.  Are the descriptions of the 4 characters directly related to the design of the particular mechanics you have in mind?  Things like Charm are not specific to Stealth, so again there seems to be a lot of detail which is not related in an obvious way to your topic.  I think you will get more constructive discussion if you remove everything that is not about the stealth mechanic, and that way people will be able to home in on what's fundamental.

Ill start this again on that forum then. I'll remove parts that are irrelevant or i'll further explain relevancy. It'll take me a bit to rewrite it. 


Thank you. 


EDIT: I looked at the thread, and it does not suit what I am posting on this site for. I'm just going to keep this private since it seems there is no forum suited for simple discussion of mechanics. 

 

[PsychicToaster]

This is a forum for discussion of mechanics. I am just personally not sure what you're looking for. We need more information on your game than some busts and vague descriptions of some maybe, maybe not mechanics.


I was a huge fan of the old Thief games(not that new shameful trainwreck of the same name) and I would gladly help if I had a deeper understanding of how your game will play.

 

[jameswestbrook351]

This is a forum for discussion of mechanics. I am just personally not sure what you're looking for. We need more information on your game than some busts and vague descriptions of some maybe, maybe not mechanics.


I was a huge fan of the old Thief games(not that new shameful trainwreck of the same name) and I would gladly help if I had a deeper understanding of how your game will play.

The point of this post, which apparently I wasn't very clear on, is I have nothing set in stone. I brought it up to see if anyone had ideas regarding mechanics. Similar to YandereDev when a few years back he made a redit post about the concept idea of a "yandere simulator" where a bunch of people replied with different ideas for how they envision a yandere simulator. 


The point of the busts was so I could show characters I had in mind, however now i realize it's not entirely relevant. The point of the vague descriptions is because I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas for mechanics in a stealth rpg maker(mv) game. 


The point is simply for idea discussion, if anyone has ideas, or if anyone has specific questions. 


EDIT: Okay so here is some more information that is probably needed. THe game will probably be separated by "missions". Each mission takes place in a different location and has different options for completing objectives, and has different objections each time. Dialogue and possibly missions are different based on who you play as. 

 

[Canini]

You seem to have a lot of interesting ideas here. The only other stealth rpgmaker game I have played is "Hall of the mountain king". It was not very good but I think it was someones first game. I really like the idea with different characters. I often find stealth games no fun since there is often only one way to succeed. Having different characters and different ways to do things would add replayability.  

 

[Basileus]

I'm kind of interested in this topic as Stealth missions have been grafted onto RPGs for a long time now but they are often done so poorly. I feel like stealth has a place in RPGs but would probably have to be integrated more completely into the game than a simple "now for something completely different" mission that requires skills that were never needed before and will never be needed again after. So I have a few questions to help get the conversation ball rolling.


Why use stealth? I feel like this needs to be answered or the resulting game will make no sense. Why do your characters need to use stealth to complete their objectives? Is it because they are weaker than the enemies they are fighting, or for some kind of diplomatic/political reasons that factor into the plot?


What kind of stealth are you thinking of? There are a lot of different ways you can be "stealthy" to get things done. You can sneak around at night while avoid guards, or you can walk into the place in broad daylight but have to keep people from getting suspicious while you do your job, or you can systematically defeat groups of enemies to prevent them from raising alarms that would alert more enemies in later areas, etc. To get a sense of the mechanics of stealth, I think a good place to start would be to hash out what it is these characters are doing and what kinds of tools and tricks you want them to do.


Does combat factor in at all? Does the stealth just set up fights to make them easier or avoid fights all together? It's good to know from the start if the player will be allowed to fight enemies if they flub the stealth parts or if detection results in a failed mission/game over.


There are all kinds of mechanics that go into stealth game play, so familiarity with all of them should help a lot. I personally am familiar with mechanics like:


Vision Cones: Zones in front of guard-type enemies that the player needs to keep out of to avoid being seen. The game play with this is moving around to stay in "shadow" areas to avoid being spotted. This is mostly about player positioning and timing.


Light Sources: Zones that generate light which allows the enemies to spot the player, perhaps only dangerous if the enemy is close and facing them or dangerous to step in at all. The game play her is to either avoid the light to evade detection, or to put out the light sources to create dark areas so the player can proceed. This is mostly about timing and strategic thinking - especially if the resources to disable light sources is limited.


Alarms: If the player is spotted or engages in combat, they have a limited amount of time to kill or knock out the enemy before an alarm is tripped which will notify all enemies in the area that there is an intruder and possibly active defense systems like turrets and traps. Sometimes enemies can trip alarms if they spot evidence that the player is there (like unconscious guards) to encourage the player to clean up their tracks. The game play here is mostly tension-based due to the time limit and the massive punishment if the alarm is allowed to go off. This is almost all strategic thinking and learning to plan ahead to intercept enemies before they reach alarms or figuring out how to defeat them instantly before they can call for help.


Pathing: The player needs to get to a certain part of the map and cannot be seen getting there. In order to do so the player is required to create a path there by moving boxes, climbing up and down pipes, and solving puzzles to open up new paths to avoid enemies. The game play here is mostly puzzle-based as the player works out where hidden passages are and how to unblock them, but can also be timing-based if areas are patrolled and the player needs to solve the puzzles in between patrols without being seen. This is heavy on thinking and timing and having multiple paths that require different skills to unlock can be very fun and rewarding.


That's about it from the stealth games I've played. I guess the rest of it comes down to things like secondary objectives - i.e. why the player needs to be in stealth in the first place. Having things the player needs to steal or conversation points the player needs to reach to spy on someone gives the stealth maps a purpose. Then you just needs obstacles and challenges for the player to overcome to reach them and you should be pretty good to go. 

 

[jameswestbrook351]

@Basileus


Ohhh these are good questions! You definitely can't just throw stealth into a game without some sort of reason unless you at least did it right.(which most don't xD)


(after writing the whole thing) thanks for these suggestions/questions! These definitely help. 




Why use stealth? 


The characters aren't one man armies, and can't take on an entire building full of guards or soldiers.




What kind of stealth are you thinking of? 




This is definitely the tricky part. Me and my friend were discussing this. In games like dishonored, it's in a 3d space, typically you use height differences to avoid being seen, by being on lights, bookshelves, or under objects, or behind stuff. However this is rpg maker, you can't use 3d based mechanics in a 3d space. We have to base the mechanics to suit the rpg maker engine. One of those things I think is a radar, since a big problem is sight. In games like dishonored you can clearly see people using sound cues or if they are in sight. In this game the viewpoint isn't first person and stuck in one place. (perhaps another option is allow the player to move camera lol i don't know if there is a plugin for that.)


There will probably be at least one mission where you blend in but if you get caught doing something wrong, you get exposed, but for the most part it'lll probably be "infiltrating a place and if you're seen you get in trouble immediately". 


It will depend on the character how the mechanics work I think. Each person has perks or quirks in their mechanics. The blind character(i know a way of programming sight by sound thank god) is typically dressed similar to the guards in the area, and he is only "noticed" when he does something out of the ordinary or if someone gets too close. He can be spotted without worrying basically, as long as he doesn't get caught doing something he shouldn't or if he's not recognized up close. He probably can't sneak in through windows or other complex things you would need sight for, since echolocation doesn't give you precise visual details like eyes do. He'd probably have to excel in blending in or knocking people out when not in sight(which could be an issue if you cant "see" others around you hehe)


I'm thinking of having an assassin character who can knock out/kill people by sneaking up on them, but can't fight off a whole group. 






Does combat factor in at all? You pretty much avoid fights altogether, as none of the characters excel in fighting multiple foes. however for the assassin character we will make a slight exception. She can knock/kill someone under one of two conditions 1. its from behind 2. if they are still "shocked" and not prepared to retaliate. She cant openly fight people who are already prepared. 


I dont believe in immediately dying or getting a game over if you're caught, I think that's too cruel. But I think the player should take damage or something along those lines. 




There are all kinds of mechanics that go into stealth game play, so familiarity with all of them should help a lot. I personally am familiar with mechanics like:




Vision Cones: 


This kinda goes hand in hand with the next one so I'll just describe it there.




Light Sources: 


In yanfly's stealth plugin, it allows you to make regions which work as hiding spots, if my friend who is doing the lighting can do this, I can mark the dark areas as hiding spots. 




Alarms: From my experience watching people let's play on youtube, timers should be minimally used unless it has good gameplay involved. 


In dishonored in mission 5 or so, if any alarm is sounded before reaching the main hall, your target doesnt go to his bedroom(easier to kill in) and instead goes to his heavily fortified bunkerhouse. It isn't impossible to do this and isn't that much harder, but it adds a bit of variety to it. Id say alarms would have to depend and be designed per mission. 




Pathing: I want to allow different options for completing missions. All of which involve some degree of sneaking past patrolling guards. Some involve simply walking past each guard with good timing, while others involve using your surroundings to get to other areas/paths, or some finding clues to other options.




i had a list written out for different things that can be done in rpg maker mv. 


1- different ways of reaching places. all of which require some degree of a combination of cleverness and stealth. 


2- sneaking past patrolling guards. 


3- using distractions. I don't know how to implement this given this isnt a 3d space engine like dishonored was, but I am thinking youd have to place items and leave a timer for them to make noise or something along those lines.


4- looking for alternate ways of accomplishing things. I hate to keep bring up dishonored, but I really didnt like thief lmao. In the second dishonored it has a nasty habit of secretly having ways for you to bypass objectives. In the second mission(do not read if you dont want spoiler) they want you to do the corpse mission to get easy access. You dont need to do that. You can literally just run like hell through the building and get to the carriage as quickly as possible. The fourth mission wants you to rewire the fence, when you can easily just go around or above. In the mansion there is a way of bypassing getting noticed by the mastermind guy whose name i forgot even though I did the mission 3 times. I want to implement something like that, where you can accomplish objectives without following them at the same time, if the player is clever enough. 



(There is no attached image anymore)

 

[PsychicToaster]

You have officially broken the forums for mobile.

 

[jameswestbrook351]

You have officially broken the forums for mobile.

omg i did not know what you meant until I opened it on my phone.


I am now dying of laughter. 

 

[Kes]

@jameswestbrook351 I hope we're talking about the same thing here - quoting entire posts just to indicate who you are replying to.  If you want to make it clear who you are answering, simply use the @username convention as I have done on this post.  Otherwise, as you can see for yourself, accessing this on a phone is a nightmare.


Thanks.

 

[PsychicToaster]

That and before it was edited, there massive black boxes in the post lol. It's been fixed. Highly amusing, I'm just glad this thread started moving in the right direction otherwise. Stealth is a risky mechanic for an RPG to revolve around, one that has been used in a variety of ways over the past two and a half decades to varying degrees of success. Most of them were pretty terrible. 

 

[Kes]

@jameswestbrook351  It think it would be very helpful if you edited that post to remove the long quote and to put the big image in a spoiler.


Thanks.

 

[jameswestbrook351]

@ksjp17 i opened it on my mobile after editing it. Do you know why it still jumps out to the side even after removing quote and image? 

 

[Kes]

It's not just on mobile, it's also on my browser as well.  


Would you like me to try and edit it for you?  At the moment it's pretty unreadable.  (Of course I may not be successful.)

 

[jameswestbrook351]

@ksjp17 I have no objection, by all means please do.(if you can, screenshot because on desktop im not noticing it. Im using chrome) 

 

[Kes]

Here is a screenshot of what I can see - also using Chrome (half scale because so big).  As you can see, a chunk of every line runs off the right hand side and I have to use the scroll bar to access it.

Spoiler

I'll have a go with editing the post.  I shall probably do this in 2 stages, so don't worry if for a short time it appears to be blank.


Fingers crossed.


EDIT


That seems to have worked.  At least when I view it now it's okay.  Is it fine for others?

 

[jameswestbrook351]

@ksjp17 that is actually really odd. for me it goes to next line when it reaches a certain point unless im on my phone. 

 

[Kes]

Is it still like that now?

 

[jameswestbrook351]

@ksjp17 it seems fine on my phone now thanks