Stealth section prototype

I’m starting to make a prototype of part of one level for a 3-day game jam. I’m not at all sure I can finish it in time, but it will get things moving on this game!

The game levels can be broken up into sublevels (or “rooms” of the roguelite):

1. Trenches
2. Dotted series of barbed wire and walls, possibly bombed-out.
3. Some turrets or pillboxes with minefields in-between them.
4. Open land, water, tents; maybe some broken walls.

Multiple examples of these four “rooms” can be randomly selected to build the level. Well, most of it.

Note: for the Stealth 3-day Game Jam, I will have to avoid section 3, as it requires fighting to get through it, and the game jam has a requirement of no violence (at all).

After most of the level is built from those rooms, a final section with its mission objective is selected from the following “rooms”:

• Buildings and Guards (go in a target building for a minilevel that is the mission objective)
• Airstrip (destroy a prototype aircraft or drug-running plane)

After that much of the level is the final “room” – a wide-open area with the LZ, where the chopper picks you up.

If I skip the minilevel inside the target building and, instead, just make it the end of the prototype, this game can be made 100% stealth. I can design it to end immediately if a Guard touches the Ranger. Really, that represents the hardest and most important aspect of the game to make! The rest is just run-n-gun.

I’m still working on how to do it. I guess maybe an A* path is calculated between the room Guards and the Ranger, and while it’s calculated it keeps track of obstacles between them. The more obstacles, the less likely the Guards can “notice” the Ranger.

Also, I can still give the Ranger gas grenades and flash-bangs to aid escape and find a new hiding place.

I could give the Guards the grain of a goldfish so they forget that they are looking for the Ranger after 3 turns (or whatever).

Man, this is gonna be tough… I’m such a newbie! Well, this will be super-educational, even if I can’t do it in 3 days…