Hjarpe on 16/9/2021 at 08:10
Sorry for the shameless plug, but you taffers might be interested in my sneaky imm-sim "Filcher".
Filcher is a first-person 2.5D noir stealth game. As Sporey the master thief, you'll infiltrate guarded buildings to steal from the wealthy and corrupt, using only your senses, your wits, and a handful of tools and gadgets.
[video=youtube;SusgBwMCWKQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SusgBwMCWKQ&lc=Ugy4rlgoBUpV-wdAg_x4AaABAg[/video]
There is a free demo if you wanna try it out!
Website: (
http://filchergame.com)
Steam: (
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1355650/Filcher/)
Itch.io: (
https://johan-hjarpe.itch.io/filcher)
henke on 16/9/2021 at 11:28
This is definitely the right forum to be shamelessly plugging this! :D Some folks in the "What are you playing" thread have been playing it, and it's gotten a few mentions previously as well.
I'm playing Deathloop right now so I've got my fill of immsim/stealth, but I wanna play this eventually. Actually I gotta say, kinda ballsy releasing this on the same day as Deathloop, since there's a good bit of audience-overlap.
Shadowcat on 16/9/2021 at 13:15
Nice to see the 451 :)
Jashin on 17/9/2021 at 06:15
Clearly Thief 1 with retro spinning sprites.
Looks good I'll add it to my list.
Twist on 30/9/2021 at 18:28
Is anyone else playing this yet? It's really good. Don't miss it if you love Thief!
The focused mechanics, clean art direction, and atmospheric sound designs are intentionally restrained, likely resulting from the game being made by a single person with a limited budget. But that narrow scope, coupled with consistently disciplined decisions, results in a highly effective design.
The aesthetic makes simplicity and restraint a compelling feature, with bold shapes and high contrast lighting providing a distinct visual style and clear gameplay readability. The ambient score is often repetitive and straightforward, yet it manages to feel evocative in a similar way Thief and System Shock 2's often simple ambients feel so evocative.
I'm so impressed with the restraint, precision, and consideration of Hjarpe's design work I found myself curious about his previous games. While I found a couple things, there must be something more I'm not seeing because Filcher seems like the work of someone much more experienced.
This is core Thief gameplay distilled into a precise and carefully considered new and original game. When I have the time and will I'd like to write more about it.
It's also generously priced (US$9.99). I've happily paid twice this for games that were less polished and less substantial.
Twist on 30/9/2021 at 23:03
Here's an excellent and relatively short (15 minute) video review of Filcher:
[video=youtube;bRxtvuC1d0E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRxtvuC1d0E[/video]
It's pretty free of spoilers and by the end of it you'll likely know whether or not this game's for you.
The one thing I'd add is that the game does a better job than Thief at avoiding cascading failure, which makes the (I'll admit) controversial lack of in-mission saves more tolerable. Also, its definition of Ghost -- which is the top rank you can get for a mission -- is looser than the Thief community definition. You can get a first or even second alert and still not "fail" a ghost run.
Jason Moyer on 1/10/2021 at 00:06
Does it have NPC banter? The omission of that is one of the reasons Neon Struct was kind of boring (that, and the AI not hearing the noise you made when you were crouched).
Jashin on 1/10/2021 at 15:16
TBH Neon Struct's issues are way more than just a lack of npc banter, it's an overly-simplified demake of deus ex and therefore the systemic interactions found in an i-sim (that makes i-sim, i-sim) really don't exist in it.
I
really like Eldritch, its systems somehow came together, reinforced each other and deepened the atmosphere AND gameplay. But unfortunately it's been downhill ever since for Minor Key.
Quote Posted by Twist
Here's an excellent and relatively short (15 minute) video review of Filcher:
It's pretty free of spoilers and by the end of it you'll likely know whether or not this game's for you.
The one thing I'd add is that the game does a better job than Thief at avoiding cascading failure, which makes the (I'll admit) controversial lack of in-mission saves more tolerable. Also, its definition of Ghost -- which is the top rank you can get for a mission -- is looser than the Thief community definition. You can get a first or even second alert and still not "fail" a ghost run.
Good video this.
Twist on 1/10/2021 at 17:38
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Does it have NPC banter? The omission of that is one of the reasons Neon Struct was kind of boring (that, and the AI not hearing the noise you made when you were crouched).
Well, there's some scripted banter, but it isn't voiced. So you might enter an area and a character might say something, but it's communicated with text hovering over or near them. I know this sounds odd, but the overall design -- the 2D sprite models plus the comic panel style of the cutscenes with text narration rather than voiced narration -- helps it integrate into the world better than it sounds. But regardless, there isn't much banter on the whole, anyways.
IF you're a Thief fan, I seriously doubt you'd find yourself bored in Filcher. The excellent scale and pacing of the gamespace keeps you engaged. I know there are some who came to TTLG via Deus Ex or System Shock and have never been big Thief fans, so maybe those players might find the quiet patience required in Filcher to be boring, so Filcher probably isn't for them, and that's okay. This is pretty strictly a Thief-like for Thief fans. It doesn't just bear some influence from Thief, like Dishonored or Gloomwood, it is very much a pure Thief-like.
Comparing to Neon Struct can be useful, though. Similarly to how Warren Spector once compared Thief and Deus Ex, Filcher tries to be a scalpel where Neon Struct tried to be a swiss army knife. Which approach do think is more likely to succeed with a limited budget?
Because of its broader scope, I found many of Neon Struct's features underbaked. With Filcher, because of its disciplined, narrow scope, the features it does have are much better developed and much more polished.
henke on 3/10/2021 at 11:37
I'm playing this now, on mission 3. There are times when this really does bring back the ol' Thief vibes, but a lot of the time it's also just really frustrating. The lack of Quicksave really does hurt it. And the sliding mechanic is just a clunkier version of Thief 4's swoop. This last run I failed because I too ended up sliding into the back of a guard when I was just trying to crouch. This would play better with a separate swoop-button and having the crouch just work like regular crouch.
Also, while I'm suggesting things:
-some voice acting would go a long way towards making this better, seeing how much story is in it. There's tons of voice actors down in the Thief editing forum that might do something like this at an affordable price, ask around!
-low res textures are all the rage these days, but the texture filtering here is not doing these any favors. Set em to Point/Nearest Neighbor, not Bilinear, PLEASE! Now they look less "COOL RETRO" and more "SMUDGY MESS".