Explore the premises. Evade the guards. Pick locks. Steal the treasures! And then escape with them.
Burglary, an action/stealth game about stealing from the rich and giving to those needing it: Yourself.
Hints: - When you are captured, it's over! You can restart the level to try it out again, but you can't get a perfect score anymore. - The guards see you when their seeing helper line connects to you. The brighter your light is, the better they can see you. - Lock-picking is easier with more light!
This is perfect! I would love to see this game get a complete polish. It fits the theme correctly, its' extremely fun, and challenging!
M
matthias_zarzecki17 Dec 2012, 03:56
Solid game! I like the light-mechanics, and the line-of-sight of the guard has a lot of potential.
The mini-game is ...interesting. It's a nice idea, but it took me some tries to understand what was actually going to, and it was essentially trial and error. Then I realized I spent more time in the lockpick-screen that in the actual "world" :P
Very nice! I liked the mechanic of brightening/dimming your light, and I think it would be even better if more things revolved around that, rather than just lockpicking and seeing your surroundings. Maybe light-based sensors or something, I don't know.
The use of light is pretty great. Did always wish I could change the light level when I was lockpicking. And talking about the lock picking, your minigame is actually pretty good. And lockpicking minigames are usually terrible. I liked how it got harder with less light.
Love the light dim/brighten mechanic, and I like how it is integrated into the lock picking mechanic. Good little stealth thing (I got a perfect run, whoo :P)
Ashkin, glad you enjoyed the light mechanics! I'd love to have inserted more of this sort, alas there was no time - the light was an afterthought and came in about 9 hours before the deadline and I didn't know how much fun it would prove to be by then. Thanks for the idea, I might use it later :)
bradleypollard, I consciously excluded changing the light while you picked a lock to simulate concentration and to make the risk/reward factor higher. It might have been a bad call though... I didn't have too much time to playtest. (Oh, and I'm really happy that you like the minigame. :) )
Tifu, you cannot imagine how glad your comment made me. I never had time to test all the levels - up until now I wasn't sure if the game was even beatable! (You weren't logged in to Kongregate though, right? Otherwise the highscore submission is broken.)
ananasblau, the guard chases you: a) As long as he sees you. (=The line connects) b) Afterwards he goes to the last place he saw you. (=The red rectangle) c) Then he follows your trail slowly for 8 more seconds. He can see you more easily when your light is bright! Dim it a lot, and run around corners as much as possible. Does that help you? If not, please ask again!
This is pretty good. If I would make a suggestion it would be that the character moves a bit faster, and that the graphics were nicer... but overall it's great. I like the mechanics of it.
Nice game! The "bank robber" thing didn't score to well for innovation or theme though.
J
Jiggawatt18 Dec 2012, 08:33
Great, great gameplay. My favorite part about this is how the lockpicking and lighting mechanics are connected. Both are fun as isolated cases, but you've also implemented the It's essentially a balance between more risk to get caught and easier lockpicking. This is something other game designers could and should learn from.
Also, too often in indie stealth games you're caught the moment a guard sees you, without giving you a chase scene. Chases are a blast!
Definitely could profit from better presentation, but I'm glad you prioritized your entry for gameplay instead. It's a fun and complete game as it is, so a post-compo version with less programmer art, more suspenseful audio, and possibly more things to watch out for could only be a success.
J
Jiggawatt18 Dec 2012, 08:35
Looks like I accidentally the third sentence. Should be "...you've also implemented them together in a way that improves both".
Nice work! I see what you mean now about my game being similar :) The way the light and vision is cast around works very well, and the light's effect on the minigame is a good idea too. The guards' chasing logic is pretty much what I was planning for in my game, but yours works better :) (I ran out of time to put in logic to have them stop chasing the player)
The light mechanics are a really cool idea! The way you have to balance between not being seen and not taking forever on the locks makes this very challenging. It would be nice to see more levels, perhaps introducing different obstacles. All in all, it's a really fun game~
The gameplay is awesome. The lockpicking game seemed really unique and made it a nice balance between more and less light. The only thing I was confused about was the line from the green guy to myself, it made me think that was the path he was going to take (but that never seemed to be the case)
Wow, managing light while remembering the paths I've taken in a tree to unlock a door was thrilling! The music brings out the mood. If you continue to develop this, I expect to engaged further into the burglary by illustrating and animating the burglar, guard, rooms, treasure and locks.
Less is more. That's what this entry makes me think of. You've got a really solid mechanic and a really solid concept with a really solid execution.
I was really happy with the way you make the player both manage the light, and decide to strategically abort lock picking to avoid guards. Great stuff!
Great game play. I loved being able to adjust one's own lights, and the lock picking minigame. It had just the right amount of challenge.
I also really like how you dealt with the autotracker music, selecting a bunch of different titles and making a nice little jukebox of them.
The game needs a bit more polish in the opening, transition screens, and some of the map tiles. But given that polish, I can see people spending a lot of time in this game.
How easy is it to make new levels? You should consider adding a level editor :-)
A lot of great ideas in here! I love the lockpiching mini-games and the increase/dim light button. This gameplay totally deserves a bigger game with more attractive graphics!
Great mechanics, the light range setting, the lock pick mini-game and the interplay between the two is really well conceived and executed. It was also very well balanced with regards to being spotted by the enemy. It was obviously quite abstract, but charming nonetheless. Thanks!
Sensational game! Like others said, love to see it with complete polish. But I still believe lockpicking should be a little different though. Nice that you gave some time to the music.
Great mechanics for both the light and the lockpicking. It feels like a genuine attempt at a simple trial-and-error emulation of how picking a lock might work.
Wow, this is certainly one of the best games in this LD. Everything is very intuitive and gameplay is quite innovative (I love the lockpicking system). It's been a while since the last time I had so much fun with a stealth game.
If I had to change a thing in it, I'd keep the art completely abstract - there was no need to make a drawing of the characters in the title screen, the squares and circles worked just fine and gave the game a lot of personality.
I really like how intuitive the game is without the need of tutorials. Having the enemies line of sight always visible was a very cool feature that made it very easy to understand how the hiding mechanic worked.
X
Xavier28 Dec 2012, 21:52
Really interesting concept. The lockpicking system is truly original
Comments49
The mini-game is ...interesting. It's a nice idea, but it took me some tries to understand what was actually going to, and it was essentially trial and error. Then I realized I spent more time in the lockpick-screen that in the actual "world" :P
Some notes:
Ashkin, glad you enjoyed the light mechanics! I'd love to have inserted more of this sort, alas there was no time - the light was an afterthought and came in about 9 hours before the deadline and I didn't know how much fun it would prove to be by then. Thanks for the idea, I might use it later :)
bradleypollard, I consciously excluded changing the light while you picked a lock to simulate concentration and to make the risk/reward factor higher. It might have been a bad call though... I didn't have too much time to playtest. (Oh, and I'm really happy that you like the minigame. :) )
Tifu, you cannot imagine how glad your comment made me. I never had time to test all the levels - up until now I wasn't sure if the game was even beatable! (You weren't logged in to Kongregate though, right? Otherwise the highscore submission is broken.)
ananasblau, the guard chases you:
a) As long as he sees you. (=The line connects)
b) Afterwards he goes to the last place he saw you. (=The red rectangle)
c) Then he follows your trail slowly for 8 more seconds.
He can see you more easily when your light is bright! Dim it a lot, and run around corners as much as possible. Does that help you? If not, please ask again!
Also, too often in indie stealth games you're caught the moment a guard sees you, without giving you a chase scene. Chases are a blast!
Definitely could profit from better presentation, but I'm glad you prioritized your entry for gameplay instead. It's a fun and complete game as it is, so a post-compo version with less programmer art, more suspenseful audio, and possibly more things to watch out for could only be a success.
I was really happy with the way you make the player both manage the light, and decide to strategically abort lock picking to avoid guards. Great stuff!
I also really like how you dealt with the autotracker music, selecting a bunch of different titles and making a nice little jukebox of them.
The game needs a bit more polish in the opening, transition screens, and some of the map tiles. But given that polish, I can see people spending a lot of time in this game.
How easy is it to make new levels? You should consider adding a level editor :-)
If I had to change a thing in it, I'd keep the art completely abstract - there was no need to make a drawing of the characters in the title screen, the squares and circles worked just fine and gave the game a lot of personality.
I really like how intuitive the game is without the need of tutorials. Having the enemies line of sight always visible was a very cool feature that made it very easy to understand how the hiding mechanic worked.
Simple, easy to implement idea. Please develope it further! Or should I say "evolve" after LD24?