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Game Design Level Design Narrative Design Personal Favorites

The Dawn of The Metal Age: Part 2

The Dawn of The Metal Age: Part 1 So Garrett has just broken into the City Watch headquarters and framed Sheriff Truart’s second-in-command, I’m sure nothing bad will come of this for anybody involved.   “Ambush!”: The lack of a loot objective in “Framed” makes sense given how “Ambush!” starts. Even using New Dark the […]

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Game Design Interfaces Level Design

Ninja Skills.

So many of the elements prone to cause frustration in a stealth game are not present in Mark Of The Ninja, the clarity and consistency of feedback is some of the best I’ve seen in the genre. The straightforward manner in which visibility, audibility and even memory (Both of the player character and non-player characters) is visually […]

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Groping The Map Level Design

Groping The Map: Life Of The Party, Part 2.

“Hey, the City looks almost bearable from up here.” Annotated Walkthrough, 1: From the moment it starts Life Of The Party feels different from the rest of Thief II. Everything is brighter, the surrounding walls no longer tower above you, even the sky seems closer. Some familiar elements remain, the constant industrial drone that pervades […]

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Game Design

From out of the shadows.

It’s not uncommon for games with a well defined core mechanic, specifically action games, to include sections with different mechanics to break up the pacing and provide variety. When it comes to these “palette cleanser” sections it seems the stealth section is on a par with the turret section as the favourite choice of developers. […]