Game Play
Goal: Get to the exit.
Keys:
- ←/→: Movement
- ↑: Activate (switches/key-card slots), command lifts to go up
- ↓: Lay bomb (press again to ignite), command lifts to go down
- A: Jump
- S: Shoot
About
I think the inspiration of this was Metal Gear Solid. I wanted to build something that had a mix of action and stealth. So that theme was weaved into the game play pretty early on: You start off as a secret agent escaping prison to get back to base to stop some form of enemy attack, or something. The storyline petered out pretty quickly after that, and despite the action and stealth elements, you’re pretty much doing the same sort of thing you would in most of the other games I’ve made: collecting keys, activating switches, etc. Amazing how mundane espionage can be. 😉
Anyway, the theme allowed me to experiment with elements like enemies that can “see” you, and will be alerted into action when they do. For this I used a technique very similar to ray-casting, although I didn’t go any finer than the cell. I also experimented with having damage be a function of distance, but I’m not sure this ever worked right. From my play-throughs, it always seemed easier to one-shot kill an enemy when you were further away from them.
It was also a game that I regrettably lost a lot of work on. I didn’t keep proper backups and the laptop I was using developed disk problems and I had to get it replaced. I know that I lost most of episode two, plus all of episode three and four. Episode three took place mostly underground, and there were things like mine-cars that you could travel on (I still remember working on that New Years Day 2000). Episode four started with you dodging falling bombs from an aircraft. They had lore being doled out to you in the form of mission briefings and everything. Really quite regrettable that I lost all that.
Let that be a lesson to everyone: make sure you’ve got good backups of your work (not sure I’ve fully internalised that lesson either). Ah well.