jasonsloandesign

“Social Stealth”

This was one of the most fun things I have ever contributed to.  I was in charge of the first half of the mission where you played as a mole with a simple goal – obtain a keycard.  There were 5 ways to obtain the keycard but each had a twist of lying, bribing, and sneaking your way to your goal, all while not using a gun.  Dialog trees, restricted areas, lock picking, and stashing bodies all added to the flavor of being the inside man.  I helped create an early prototype of social stealth mechanics, a Hitman style body stash system, and even the quest map the player uses.

Beginning to 20:25

The “mental map” was the central way for players to track multiple quests, quest locations, more information about each quest, and even bodies the player hadn’t properly hidden.

The tea scene was personally my favorite moment in the level.  It was a tense moment of sneaking a vial of poison into the general’s tea and then the cups getting mixed up.  It required the player to time a distraction and make the swap back to the safe cup.

Wanted to make sure that each quest felt uniquely different and catered to different types of players.  The reprogram quest required the least interaction with people and allowed players to sneak the most efficiently into the bunker.

The prisoner quest really was for those players that would rather not get their hands dirty but put the blame directly on someone else.  In this quest you convinced a prisoner to kill the general for you and then you slipped in after the crime was done and picked up the keycard.

Something else that was important was making sure each quest had multiple ways of approaching a situation, for instance, the armory guard could be bribed with a cigar, convinced if you could acquire the proper paperwork, or the sneaky third option, slip through the vent behind him and remove him from his post.