Sneak 'Em Up (working title) Devlog #1

This post will introduce my latest game project - a top-down third person stealth action game tentatively titled Sneak 'Em Up. Currently it's a one-man-project, with me trying to tackle all aspects of game design and development.

2D stealth games are rare, and top-down stealth games even more so, and those that are top down are likely to be squad combat or turn-based. Sneak 'Em Up, on the other hand, is a top-down action game with strong stealth mechanics. The most well known games of the same style, and the major inspiration for Sneak 'Em Up, are the original 2D Metal Gear games of the late 80s and early-mid 90s. In the early Metal Gear games, you control your character from above, distracting guards and finding hiding places. Since the advent of the 3D stealth genre in 1998, 2D top-down stealth action games have been rare.

Metal Gear, 1987

Technical Details

Sneak 'Em Up is built in Unity utilizing the Bolt visual scripting plugin. Bolt offers me several advantages:

• I don't have to worry about getting C# syntax right. I can spend more time designing and less time chasing missing semicolons.
• Bolt makes it easy for visual or systems thinkers to organize their work. As someone who is not a developer by trade, basic dev protocols like assigning all variables at the beginning of the script are non-intuitive and make it confusing to figure out complex code. In Bolt, I can visually organize related variables, functions, and systems to more intuitively find and understand my work.
• Bolt provides real time feedback by animating the various functions "shooting" out data like integers, vectors, and strings. This makes it incredibly easy to troubleshoot and tweak variables in real time to see the results.
  

Bolt functions "shooting" out data to one another

Design Strategy

Throughout design and development, I'll be using the "find the fun" strategy of game design--that is, iterate on the basics of gameplay to find what mechanics "work" and are enjoyable for the player, then worry about the overall game story, theme, pacing, as well as details like art style, animations, lighting, etc.

My plan is to use very basic assets to prototype mechanics and interactions and iterate/tweak those to find what type of gameplay is satisfying. Once the core gameplay loop is established, I'll then design the rest of the game around that loop, providing the player with a story arch, a possible leveling system, varied tools and weapons, and special sections that twist and vary the core gameplay loop.

High fidelity art will also wait until after the core gameplay loop has been discovered. I will be creating some sprites in the meantime to practice my pixel art skills. I'm particularly proud of this guard, my second pixel art character ever!