Extra Punctuation: An Invisible Protagonist

[Theminimanx]

Another example of not being allowed to leave any traces (such as dead people) behind is in sly 3, where you, again, have to break in to frame someone for a crime you're about to commit. Because of this, you can't just break the window to get in, but you have to use an alternate entrance. It doesn't really affect the gameplay, but still, it's there.

 

[pigmy wurm]

Rainbow Six had a mission like this. You had to sneek in and copy a file from a computer and get out. Killing a guard, knocking a guard out, or being seen was an instant failure.

I loved that game me and my friend spent so long getting the timing right on it. This was also on the 64, assuming they didn't just use the same mission in a latter game, and we were used to playing golden eye and perfect dark where you could just barrel through most of your problems. The idea that a first person shooter would have a level where you weren't allowed to shoot anything was mind-blowing.

 

[ssgt splatter]

This actually sounds like a game I'd play.
Maybe, The Phantom Chronicals, would be the next Portal in terms of originality.

 

[Top35]

This would be a nice change to gameplay from the current "kill everyone" mindset and one that I would like to get my hands on.

 

[bombadilillo]

theres plenty of ways to illustrate compromised complete invisibility: dirtiness, thermo/normal vision hybrid, volumetric hole in dust clowd that is being lit from behind or being splashed with water. But you'd need to innovate the graphical technology a lot to use anything other than the first.

All these reasons is why Yahtzee said you can NEVER get caught or its game over. Any place worth sneaking into would be able to beef up security and thwart further attacks.

Perhaps after the mechanics revealing tutorial level you get compromised and your bosses reprimand you and you can never invade to the Cambodian Ministry of Secret Stuff again cause there on to you, this enforces the exposure = gameover gameplay only costing you access to some 3rd world nowhere that was your training mission and unimportant to the plot.

You can still use dust water whatnot. Say you have to cross a dusty storeroom, find a way to open a window and disturb the dust clouds to pass. Maybe by turning up a thermostate so the guard opens a window themselves for some breeze.

Also imagine navigating a crowded walkway while a painter paints a wall, the clearest path is next to the wall but touch it and you've got red on you. That might be awesome or frustrating depending on the mechanics. But the possibilities! Grab a chicks ass so she slaps the guy behind her/her boyfriend starts a fight. Put it all in an airport where you need to sneak into the cargo hold for a flight out of Germany.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I'd love to play a game like that. I always go for the stealthy character in games maybe becuase I know I couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag in real life. Stealth always leaves me with a smug satisfaction. I always envisage enemies sitting there going 'but how did that happen! We had guards!'

A completely non violent game wouldn't bother me and that glee that comes with Not Being Found Out would be awesome.

You wouldn't even have to have 'male soldier type A' as the main character becuase anyone can be sneaky. Upping the enemy humiliation factor by having a little girl as the protagonist would be very amusing to me.

 

[Morthas]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective: you play an invisible protagonist and even though it is not a stealth game where you whack people or steal stuff it still has the ''talk between NPCs when you are unnoticed''and nor you can see yourself. Infact during the whole game you are in the process of uncovering the mystery of who you are.

 

[2-part Epoxy]

Wow, cool idea. I would like to play a game like this, centered on deception and borderline-voyeurism. I would be even more impressed if such a game opened the way to counter-deception.

Imagine this: around halfway through the game, you, Mr. or Ms. Invisible, are approaching the target of a difficult mission - some sort of object or information. You have crept into a room, but an enemy character is inside too. Until now, the guards have reacted to any sounds you made with confusion and suspicion, but they haven't realized that an invisible enemy is among them. This character, however, knows (but you don't know he knows - not yet, anyway). At first, this character seems particularly thick, since he barely reacts to any noises you make or furniture you jostle. This enemy keeps up a calm facade until you get too close - then he whips around and wrestles your invisible self to the floor.

Maybe the game could be set up to ensure the player survives this (pants-soiling) encounter, but ever after, some of the enemies would feign ignorance when they suspect you, and you'd have to watch closely if you needed to determine whether you were safe or whether they were faking it, and this ambiguity could be incorporated into the story too.

Such mind-fuckery could turn a game from something resembling a spy fantasy into something resembling Philip K. Dick's nightmares (They know. Or do they? Maybe they are just pretending to know? They know I know they know. Which is what they want... maybe? Because there's something worse that I don't know?) No video game can permanently outsmart a human player, but I think it's cool when they try, and pretty amazing when they succeed. A game that is all about trickery would have lots of opportunities for that, I think.

 

[Xenominim]

There's actually one level in Alpha Protocol, when you go to bug a CIA safehouse that gives you a reward for completing the entire level without knocking anyone out or being seen. I'm not sure why it's just that level (other than the fact it's designed for it) but it was fairly fun up until it comes time to escape. At that point it's mostly about just running for the door and hoping your invisibility power is leveled up enough to last.

Personally though if I were doing an invisible protagonist game, I'd probably want to make the player into an actual ghost. But my idea would be completely different from a stealth game and more about playing a horror movie antagonist.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

There IS one flaw in this idea Yahtzee: If the main character is invisible, then who will we have to clutter-up our American box art?

The main character obviously. A monochrome box will certainly be better than whatever else they would have come up with had he not been invisible

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

Thats... really good actually.

I love that idea! especially about the "boy who cried wolf" factor.

Dont like the fact your a soldier and all that bull. Perhaps a reverse ghost story?

You as a ghost are trying to reach your beloved husband to tell him that you were murdered. However, each mission has you going through increasingly populated areas, so that the people who you can spot are civilians. If the suspicion-o-meter goes up by too much, then a sort of black-ops neo-ghostbuster squad will be called to see what the trouble is.

Bit crazy, could do some work, but i like it

 

[JMeganSnow]

This is actually a really fascinating idea that I'd love to see done, or at least something new and different in the gameplay arena. I mean, sometimes yes, you do want to just murder tons of dudes, but this gets tedious after a while like everything else.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has a stealth mechanic and some quests do actually have potential stealth objectives (and in many quests you can get bonus XP if you don't kill much stuff), but by and large the stealth objectives are badly implemented or nearly impossible no matter how much you invest in stealth. They've been trying to improve it, but for the most part nobody bothers with the stealth objectives in the game, they just kill everything.

This is a shame, because some of the stealth quests are really quite ingenious and could be improved with only a few simple alterations. Why does interacting with ANYTHING instantly break your stealth? I realize this is a common gameplay mechanic, but it's just plain silly and enforces that stealthy players have to endure some kind of fastest-finger mechanic where they have to be ready to put stealth back up again right away.

Why not have it so that interacting with things only prompts another stealth check with a bonus for you to be spotted? Have it so that if you get spotted/heard, THAT breaks your stealth.

In addition, they have quests where there is an objective to avoid having an alarm be raised, but it's almost impossible to do because there very often is NO way to avoid being noticed by the guards, and said guards IMMEDIATELY charge the nearest alarm. Once they start heading for the alarm, there's nothing short of an instant-death spell that will prevent them from triggering it--they're faster than you and you CANNOT pull them off that alarm until they've triggered it. And often not even that works: I've seen the guards trigger the alarm AFTER THEY WERE DEAD, don't ask me how.

Why not make it so that the guards will only go for the alarm under two circumstances: they hit half health, or they are outnumbered. You can even mix this up a bit by having some groups of guards who are a bit overconfident, and a few who are alarm maniacs because they're by themselves and they're squishy. Also, it takes PC's time to use objects in an MMO. Why not enforce this on NPC's as well? If an NPC hits a PC, it interrupts a "use". This would provide some fairness and also make the stealth quests more doable.

 

[Jyggalag]

I wouldn't mind playing classic Sam Fisher style again. We need a return to stealthy games that doesn't require you to kill everyone in the room. Getting them fired is even more satisfying.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Getting them fired is even more satisfying.

hahaha yeah totally It's definately that smug feeling you get from stealth games that makes them fun.

 

[jonnosferatu]

This actually sounds like one of the most potentially awesome games ever.

AFK/buying Thief.

 

[robinkom]

As he began to explain the premise of the agent made invisible by the PMC, I immediately thought of the 1970s TV series, The Gemini Man, starring Ben Murphy. [ ... ]

The show ran for two seasons with the final two episodes being mashed together in a dual-plot TV Movie called Riding With Death which appeared as a movie experiment on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in a later season.

"Sam, my patent papers are at a slight angle; what's going on?"

"So, the gun stays perfectly still while he hits him with a six-foot arm."

"Aaaaand, crash."

"I am become death, the destroyer of portable radios."

"Sam, how do you spell patent?"

"He could die and miss the Bicentennial!"

"Well, my brakes are out... Abby's some gal!"

"Hey my favorite number, woo!" "Seventy?" "Yeah, I love seventy!"

That did become one of my favorite MST3K episodes. I could watch that one all the time.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

There IS one flaw in this idea Yahtzee: If the main character is invisible, then who will we have to clutter-up our American box art?

Put clothes on the character's invisible body.

Depending on how the invisibility is explained, not everything the character carries or holds is also turned invisible, like it is the case in Crysis. Going down the "genetic manipulation" line might make things uncomfortable since it would mean the person is only invisible if naked, but you could always design a full-body suit that only needs to be switched on once and after that its surface is altered so it gives you invincibility powers. You could also, of course, design the suit and depict it in the mode where it's turned off (which would be the case if a) the character is having a conversation at the home base for a briefing or something or b) it's malfunctioning).

But even if you do something that can't be switched off even if you wanted to, you could still put clothes over it. If you want to go down the complete cliché line, just give the character a brown trenchcoat, fitting hat and shades. Or if you go with the suit variant, show the character half cloaked, half uncloaked, so you can both see him and what he does. You should have the option as long as the game's core mechanic is unlimited invisibility power.

.

After playing that much TF2 I'm inclined to think however the enemy would catch on to you over time and use weapons with large spread or spraying effect or even go so far as to flood the floor or use a different material that makes your footprints visible or your sneaking more audible, so if the enemy grows smart over time and the difficulty grows, you'd still find that invisibility won't get you that far either if you're notorious and are expected, which could potentially destroy the planned playstyle and experience of the game - or enhance it, depending on how exactly it's implemented.

It's definitely an interesting mechanic to think about and the idea should be popular enough to make it marketable while still experimenting with a new gameplay element. I mean, who didn't want to go nuts with invisibility at one point or another, if only to become a creepy stalker?

 

[beema]

This sounds like a fantastic idea for a game.
My main doubt for it ever coming to fruition is that in order to be playable and fun and work properly, it would require incredibly advanced NPC AI. Sadly I don't think much work is going in the the single player AI field these days when most games are going down the easy-money multiplayer route.

I just started playing Crysis 2 (can't understand why anyone thinks it's a good game), and I find the stealth to be too easy. Instead of Crysis, where it lasted a fraction of a second and took longer to recharge, it now lasts forever and recharges very quickly, even in the hard mode. They couldn't have found a middle ground? The whole game feels cheap like that.