Game concept
This game is an indie project being developed by a single man at the time. Taking into account the lack of resources the game tends to have unique mechanics, sophisticated puzzles and light content set.
You are a professional burglar hired by a rich scientist and businessmen. He does not give his name and you call him the Client. Your job is to steal a very important prototype from a highly guarded lab. The lab inside is guarded by turrets that shoot laser beams, so being spotted means death. Some of them are mounted, some are moving. There is no path you can follow without being spotted.
The Client gave you one device that helps you to slip by guarding units. It is a mobile microwave gun that interferes electronics with its emission and temporarily turns off a targeted "guard". The gun shoots an intensive electromagnetic beam, just like a laser beam, but of a different wavelength.
At the beginning of your mission you find yourself in the Client's workshop inside the lab (it doesn't matter how you got there). He already prepared for you the environment so you can learn the basics without harm to your health. When you feel ready, you go outside the workshop, where everything is real and dangerous. Since it is night and employees are home, there are no people in the lab. You will not meet a human guard (who wants to pass by deadly turrets?). Using the MW-gun and your wit, pass guarded rooms, passages and staircases to steal the prototype. Utilize different things from the environment that could be helpful to trick the guarding system. But remember: being spotted means death!
{MW} is a first person physics puzzle {with storyline}. The game is oriented on a wide audience: it does not contain limiting content and does not require high-end hardware. Recommended age - above 12 years. The game could be attractive for people who liked games like Tag: Power of paint, Q.U.B.E., Quantum Conundrum, Portal.
The target platform is PC.
- Original gameplay
- Sophisticated puzzles
Mot
Mot (stands for "MOunted Turret") is a guarding unit with fixed position and deadly laser gun. It is able to identify a burglar and terminate it with one shot. When the outer blue indicator of charge is full it is ready to shoot, but it shoots only when the inner indicator of identification is filled with red light. The recharging time (t_turrech) is constant, but identification time (t_turid) depends on the distance from the mot to the burglar. When sabotaged, it needs some constant time (t_turreb) to recover itself.
Here are the features of mots:
- one-shot termination
- identifies burglars, t_turid
- rechargeable, t_turrech
- recovers after MW-attacks, t_turreb
- fixed position
Pat
Pat (stands for "PAtrolling Turret") is a guarding unit with similar to the mot's features, save its position is not fixed but moving along some path on the ceiling.
MW-gun
The MW-gun (stands for "MicroWave") is used to temporarily disable guarding units on short distances. Its main parts are a magnetron from a microwave oven, two capacitors, a voltmeter, a rangefinder and a discharge button. The voltmeter on the back of the gun indicates the charge of the capacitors. After a shot the capacitors discharge, and the voltmeter indicates recharge of the capacitors. When the arrow of the voltmeter reaches the red area (it takes time t_mwrech), the gun is ready to shoot. The rangefinder is used to estimate the distance to a target, as the MW-gun performance depends on the distance.
The MW-gun is useless on such distances where a guarding unit needs a time to identificate the burglar (to directly shoot at a guarding unit the burglar must sneak near to it, cause it to shoot somewhere and make use of the recharging time (t_turrech)). The recharging time of the MW-gun (t_mwrech) is always longer than the rebooting time (t_turreb) of any guarding unit, so the burglar can not cyclically shoot at the same guarding unit keeping it in a rebooting state.
Here are the features of the MW-gun:
- sabotages guarding units
- rechargeable, t_mwrech
- limited interfering distance, d_mw
Coffee bean
To slip by a guarding unit it must be disabled. Coffee beans are used to trick guarding units, causing them to shoot at thrown beans. A bean could be thrown from a corner or other place where the burglar is invisible for a guarding unit. The burglar makes use of recharging time of the guarding unit for emerging from shadow and shooting. Coffee beans can be found in coffee machines. The burglar can take a limited amount of beans at a time.
Here are the features of coffee beans:
- confuse guarding units causing them to shoot in vain
- limited amount
Conceptual levels
While achieving the main goal - stealing the prototype, the burglar passes numerous corridors, rooms, labs and so on. On every level the burglar starts at the (S) point and finishes at the (F) point. Unused coffee beans at the end of a level are bonuses. The core of the gameplay is playing with time delays and tricking guarding units.
Mot and coffee beans introduction
This conceptual level demonstrates the operation of a mot and how to bypass it using a coffee bean.
The burglar moves along the path 1-2 and reaches the corner, after the corner at the opposite end of the corridor he faces a mot. The mot immediately starts identification (the burglar is not close enough to the mot for being spotted immediately) and the indicator on the mot quickly fills with red light. At this moment the burglar has a time to step back or run to the door DR1. He may run straight to the door, but the mot would rather recognize and kill him. So the right thing to do for the burglar is to estimate the time of identification and choose the next point he could safely reach in that time. In this case, the right path is 2-3-4-5. The burglar hides behind a flower pot (point 3) while the mot "forgets" about him, then runs a short distance to the next flower pot (points 4 and 5). These pot-to-pot distances are short enough to slip not being spotted. At the point 5 he reaches the door to some office and sneaks inside.
Inside the office he finds different stuff, which is useless for him, save the coffee machine at the kitchen corner. He grubs some coffee beans from the machine and, perhaps, returns back to the door DR1 and throws a bean in the corridor. But there is no effect, because it is too far from the mot. There is another, DR2 door, which opens close to the mot. Following the path 6-7 and dropping a bean on the floor of the corridor, the burglar confuses the mot, which shoots a laser beam at the bean. Right after the shot the burglar can hear a sound from the mot with increasing tone, that indirectly indicates recharging process of the laser (the blue ring indicator on the mot's face directly indicates recharging progress). This time delay the burglar may use to spring from the corner and shoot with the MW-gun at the mot, disabling it for a while that is enough to slip to the exit door DR3. The recharging time of the mot is very short, so the burglar must be very quick to spring from a shadow and sabotage the guarding unit.
In case the burglar used all coffee bean before finishing the level, he can always go back to the kitchen, but taking risks.
Pat and specular tile introduction
This conceptual level demonstrates the operation of a pat and tricks with specular tiles.
The burglar finds himself in a lab with 6 rooms guarded by a mot and a pat. In the corridor he finds two unlocked doors: to the kitchen and some experimental room. He grubs some coffee beans at the point 2 and goes inside the room at the point 3 (LAB1), since the next corridor is guarded by a mot and he can not proceed that way. In the experimental room he should be cautious, since the walls are low and there is a pat that goes back and forth nearby. He can not just go outside the room and slip to the exit door, because the mot will immediately shoot him at the door.
A smart burglar would guess that since there are two turrets watching the exit door one of them (or both) must be destroyed. The pat periodically appears in front of the mot, so there must be a way to make turrets shoot each other. To find out how to conduct this plan the burglar explores the area and finds a way to get closer to the mot.
Since the walls are not very high the burglar manages to jump over the wall at the point 4 and to get to LAB2. While jumping he spots himself but because he chose the moment for jumping when the pat was at the farthest point from him, the identification time was enough to land alive at the next room. At LAB2 he should be very cautious because the room is situated at the middle of the patrolling path of the pat. Going outside the room is not the right option, so he has to get to the next room (LAB3). To get there he has two options: 1) throw a bean to the corridor sitting at the door DR2 when the pat is close, then while the pat reboots follow the path 5-6-7-8; 2) using a great agility follow the path 4-6-7-8, saving one bean (+bonus). At the point 8 the burglar quickly slips to the point 9 and there at OFC2 he has two options again: use a bean and follow 9-10-11 or follow the alternative path (note, that the mot does not "see" what happens in these offices because it is pilled with some high boxes).
In the OFC1 he finds some boxes of different height. After climbing the point 11 the burglar can see the corridor that is controlled by the mot. The floor is covered with matted and specular tiles in the chess order. The task of the burglar is to find the specular tile that lays in the middle between the turrets and throw a bean at that tile when the pat appears in front of the mot. The laser beam shot at the coffee bean reflects from the tile and hits a turret. After that both turrets are destroyed and the burglar follows to the exit.
Designations on the maps
The game has an original gameplay, but adopts elements of the concepts of such games as:
- Portal. Single tool for solving every puzzle, sophisticated puzzles based on already known techniques, original plot, polished gameplay.
- Half-Life. High interaction with environment, physical puzzles, original vehicles.
- Stealth Bastard. Deadly guards, recognition delay, action.
[Under estimation]