Ryan Smith on 5/3/2023 at 11:18

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"What if I told you that I can enchant doorknobs with lethal damage?" - Neil
Let that set the tone for how wild this stealth game is.

[video=youtube;ZiXnxc3BmMs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiXnxc3BmMs[/video]

This little game started out as an idea for a content patch for Thief: Deadly Shadows. I loved Deadly Shadows and its tendency for complete pandemonium when two hostile NPCs find each other (Stonemarket Proper during late game). One thing that happens may set off other things, turning the area into a deadly warzone. Everyone screams. Everyone panics. Everyone dies. And it's really funny to watch. All because somebody got spooked at a strange sound they heard. However, I had a problem:

Thief Deadly Shadows' modding community isn't nearly as large as the first two games. In fact, it barely exists at all now. I could not find anyone to assist me in making this. On one of my streams, I said "it would honestly be easier for me to make my own stealth game and put what I want in it, than to try and hunt for people who have the time and willingness to volunteer for this Thief 3 idea."

...I did just that.

Put a couple grand together and funded a demo. Got myself a partner (who turned out to be untrustworthy) and started building this little demo. What I'm attempting now is a second go at this stealth game, building a budget with time to secure a skilled team of developers.

Now let's talk about the game...

First and foremost, it's a complex 3D stealth game with an emphasis on manipulating the kooky, AI-driven impulses of the NPCs and critters through a variety of stealth and guerilla tactics and items. But it also has RPG and RTS influence all over, especially from older games (such as Thief, Might and Magic, Warzone 2100, Shivers (PC point-and-click)). There is strong atmosphere and very unusual applications of art direction using older tech and 90s-era computer software limits as stylistic features but without the actual limits of the time (ex. unfiltered textures, software mode-era Thief 1, 8-bit WAV files which produced that faint static we all hear from older game sounds.) There are also horror themes and cartoony aspects with some excellent, witty, and dark humor, with special attention being paid to the works of fan mission authors from the Thief community and the absolute barrel of laughs I've had reading through the things they write in mission texts and scrolls. I'll never forget how many times Benny has been chewed out by the Captain for drinking while on shift or losing an important key down a drain pipe.

Let's meet the playable characters:
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/45576a63-ed16-49c7-ae7f-739923f7a688/de1upof-e400ae96-5623-4298-9075-069a467702a6.png/v1/fill/w_1280,h_1280,q_80,strp/uniques_united___meet_the_characters_by_sibernethy_de1upof-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTI4MCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQ1NTc2YTYzLWVkMTYtNDljNy1hZTdmLTczOTkyM2Y3YTY4OFwvZGUxdXBvZi1lNDAwYWU5Ni01NjIzLTQyOTgtOTA3NS0wNjlhNDY3NzAyYTYucG5nIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.nC1ZUohPD0lcGDsueTZEBDhUJoaQp2Y3W7-6zdxXAxo

They are all minors. They are children. They have weapons, and no parents. (nobody knows what happened to them, they just sorta went poof out of seeming existence and have been missing for two years). Oh yeah, they're all siblings as well. Simon has a magical computer in his secret room that is a gate portal to another world. The existence of this portal is a Federal Secret. Imagine Narnia being proven by NASA's science team to exist with photographic proof and the fate of planet Earth, the doom of which rests on the shoulders of a family of six sibling mice, all under the age of 18. You'll realize just how much Miranda got handed to her at the age of 14 when she took on the responsibility of being substitute mom, when mom and dad went DUMC (Disappeared Under Mysterious Circumstances), and managing an entire damn mansion and her parents' whole estate, and raising her five brothers, while also moonlighting the assassin business at a local elite stealth guild that works with law enforcement. One of her younger brothers, Simon, is employed by a king as a diplomat, and another younger brother, Stanley, is a freaking Death Knight with actual cavalry training, courtesy of a Lich King and his instructors. What you have here is a family of kids who successfully escaped reality and into a fantasy world, doing reality as side hustle and to crash at night when they're done.

Here's a few screenshots from sections of the old demo map that I started in late 2021:
(https://sta.sh/21akiryzg5ze) (had to use this link since TTLG somehow ate the images I linked)

The demo map has been thought out already and is what these screenshots are based off. There is a surface world and an underground tomb which these screenshots were taken from.
Interesting so far? Let me know.

Ryan Smith on 7/3/2023 at 15:25

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That's funny, the screenshots were up the other day. Something borked the forum post it sounds like. I changed the post so it has a link with all the images instead of missing IMG display tags.
Also to explain the way the model looks:

This was something my former partner and I were discussing. At the time, we were more strict about making the game look older and we had some pretty specific rules about how complex the models could be. It was difficult to strike a balance between good-looking facial animation and making the model look the part of something from an older game. But since the demo has to be built up from scratch now since my partner and I split, there is plenty of room for a different approach to how the models look. I will take this into consideration as the demo is no longer as hard-bound by those older design principles. It's whatever works for the game the best at this point.

As for the demo map, I have a few short videos on my Youtube channel, mostly to test simple stuff (camera, 3D sound), the screenshots are the only real sort of footage of the demo map that I have so far but you should be able to see them now. Just use the link I added in the OP (or here):
(https://sta.sh/21akiryzg5ze)

Thanks for the feedback!