Prototype Photo Tour, v.0.0.1

Hiya! I'm back with a quick photo tour of the v.0.0.1 prototype! This will serve as a quick walk through the core assassination gameplay, and I'll point out the major mechanic interfaces.

The prototype 'safe-house' area. This is a stand-in for what will be your base of operations, and currently is rocking that ultra-utilitarian look.

Here's a quick shot of the 'Store'. Eventually this will be a physical room the player goes to, and picks items from shelves, but for testing and debug, it's infinitely faster to have a simple, clickable interface to buy gear.

And here's the simplified 'Armory'. Currently has two fixed 'gun-boxes' and the holster mannequin, but this is a place where I'll be making changes soon, probably to the boxes so they can be actual boxes instead of gun... trays.

Here's me having used the Mannequin to customize my load-out. I just grabbed a pistol and magazine from the boxes and dropped them onto the straps of the mannequin, and poof! They're transferred onto my person.

Here's the mission controller, which is a simple placeholder that allows me to set-up a mission and start immediately, spawning the level right beyond that starting line. In the actual game, players would have a hallway and a couple doors between their safe house and the mission, to really help define that space in a realistic manner.

Having started a mission, the city street is built, and the local townsfolk begin to wander.

Once I cross that starting line, the mission timer kicks off, and I begin to follow the pathway, keeping an eye out for any demons with glowing eyes and fangs.

Here are a couple overhead shots of mission pathways, which are cobbled together from a procedural generator. The pathway can wind in lots of different ways, even though there are currently only 3 different 'block' types. I'll be adding more block variants and ways each block can have sub-variations as time goes on, to squeeze the most unpredictability out of each mission.

At the end of each pathway, the mission's target demon lurks.

We've just got to fight our way down there to find him! I could try and sneak to the target, but scout enemies walk the pathways too, and will attack on sight. Any gunshots when fighting those scouts will only serve to call more hostile demons down on you.

 So we'll just have to fight those guys, too! Meanwhile, a scared crowd of civilian scrambles to hide indoors until the brawl subsides.

But once I've killed the target...

... and made it back to the starting line, the mission ends! Looks like I killed five of five demons, in about three and a half minutes, banking myself 70 coins...

... which I'll promptly spend on a bunch of magazines, so I can replenish my armory and tackle my next mission!

That's the basic idea, the foundation to build off, and I think I've got a good collection of ideas on how to best make this gameplay an immersive, thrilling experience. The next post up will be a version update, talking about changes between 0.0.0 and 0.0.1, and maybe a peek into ideas coming in 0.0.2. Until then!