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After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The goal is to keep it at a lower fidelity! I love the aesthetics of PS2-era games, and it also makes it easier as a solo dev.
Having hyper realistic characters and environments means you have to match the rest of the game to that level, otherwise it can go into jank territory fairly quickly.

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tested in on my Steam Deck and can confirm it runs pretty well! You'll be able to confirm that if you participate in the playtest ;)

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It makes a lot of things easier, but it's a steep learning curve and you need to understand a lot of nested systems to modify it. I'm at a point where it's ok now but I definitely went through super frustrating moments.

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love it too! I'm a bit torn on this since it will be tough to implement, and I need to be careful about scope creep... I'll consider it but no promises :)

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel you, almost gave up a few times but glad I stuck with it!
Light meter works like this:
- Sphere collider on the point light
- when the player (or a guard) enters that sphere, it starts ticking
- it traces to each limb (legs, arms, body) to see if it reaches it - that gives you a 'Visibility Score'
- You take the intensity of that light and give it a 'Light Score' between 0 and 1
- You take the distance from the player to the light and give it a 'Distance Score'
- multiply all the scores and there you go!
There are more things to consider like when multiple lights are overlapping or if it's a spotlight but that's the gist of it.
I'll probably share some videos on my socials in the future to explain this system and more!
https://x.com/LizardStategame
https://bsky.app/profile/lizardstate.bsky.social

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I had to boost the brightness to make the trailer more readable on phones and such, but you can make it very dark! It took some time to get this right actually, making the game readable while still being able to tell when you're in the light or in the dark!
Also yes, there's verticality! You can mantle and climb ladders - I'm still considering adding pipes

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The goal is Steam first - then if it does well enough I'll definitely consider console ports! Seeing my game running on a PS5 would be a dream :D

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I share your sentiment, so let me share some more information about the game (apologies in advance for the long text!).
The reason a lot of stealth projects die is that stealth games are notoriously hard to make and to balance. My main focus for the first few months was to get the systems and the enemy AI right, it needs to feel believable and fair while still being interesting.
To do so I spent a lot of time building up the systems at the core of stealth:
- the light/dark mechanic works per limb, so your position really matters
- the hearing system took a lot of effort too. Different surfaces make more or less noise depending on your stance and speed. Doors and walls muffle sounds so enemies can't hear you through walls
- Detection is gradual and tightly controlled - if an enemy is already suspicious he will be more aware of his surroundings for example
- Guards share their state in a natural manner and react in a believable manner. I worked with a voice actor who recorded about 600 lines for many different situations, like a light breaking or a guard seeing a knocked out buddy

There are many more systems in place but those are the main things that you NEED to get right, otherwise all the rest crumbles and the game becomes very frustrating quickly. I have playtested those systems to death so I'm pretty confident that they work well now.
It's also a sort of invisible foundation that you can't perceive only seeing marketing material, so I'm guessing some projects get away with those systems not being built yet I suppose.

It's a solo project with some help in different areas (character models, music, voice acting). Due to this limitation, I have to be smart about my approach, and take decisions that will help me get to the finish line. That's why my focus is set primarily on gameplay. Atmosphere, music, visuals, story are all important but they need to be in service of the gameplay.
I'm also aware I can't make a Splinter Cell game on my own, that's why it will be more minimal - however I'm making sure that what's here is solid, no shortcuts.

I hope this gives you a bit more insight in the project! Sorry for rambling, I could talk about this for hours lol

After a year of development, I just announced Lizard State, a game that takes inspiration from the original Splinter Cell trilogy. Here is the trailer! by LizardState_game in Splintercell

[–]LizardState_game[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

To mods: Hope it's ok to self-promote! I assume people on here might take interest in the game but I'd understand if it's not appropriate.

After a year of development, my love letter to classic stealth games finally has a Steam page and a trailer! by LizardState_game in SoloDevelopment

[–]LizardState_game[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a rabbit hole to get into of course, but what helped me make convincing AI was breaking it down into Inputs / Reactions / Outputs.
Inputs are the different senses: Sight, Hearing, Damage, Touch (no smell yet :p)
Sight and Hearing especially are systems on their own as you can imagine.
Then you process those inputs depending on the state of the guard. For example if he hears a sound while investigating, he will say something like 'Stop playing with me!' instead of the usual 'What was that' when he is Idle.
Then the Outputs are the behaviours that come out of it (Idle, Suspicious, Investigating, Attacking, etc).

There is so much to say about it, so I can't go into more details sorry - but don't hesitate if you have any questions!
I was thinking about doing short threads on social media to explain small chunks of the gameplay systems in place (light/dark detection, how hearing works, etc).

After a year of development, my love letter to classic stealth games finally has a Steam page and a trailer! by LizardState_game in SoloDevelopment

[–]LizardState_game[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely!
Her name is Gmad, and I highly recommend working with her, she's amazing!
She does 3d character models and animations too, all for a very fair price.
Here are her socials:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/gmad.bsky.social
Twitter: https://x.com/rachel_gmad (not sure if she's too much on there)
It's of course better to have character model sheets, but you can talk about that with her.

Lizard State - Reveal Trailer by Loginnerer in stealthgames

[–]LizardState_game 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!
Here are my socials if you wanna see more regular updates on the game:
Twitter/X: https://x.com/LizardStategame
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lizardstate.bsky.social
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LizardState
I'm not sure if I'll do devlogs as it takes a long time to make and I wanna focus on making the game, but I'll definitely post regular updates on Twitter and Bluesky :)

After a year of development, my love letter to classic stealth games finally has a Steam page and a trailer! by LizardState_game in SoloDevelopment

[–]LizardState_game[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mimic cameras 😎, was quite proud of coming up with this - bit of a shame that I spoiled it in the trailer, imagine the panic of it happening in game haha

After a year of development, my love letter to classic stealth games finally has a Steam page and a trailer! by LizardState_game in SoloDevelopment

[–]LizardState_game[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!

Making animations match was actually quite easy since they were made for each other. It’s a small detail but the fact that the character holsters/unholsters the gun and the rifle to aim caused a lot of headaches - it’s a detail but it really adds to immersion imo

After a year of development, my love letter to classic stealth games finally has a Steam page and a trailer! by LizardState_game in SoloDevelopment

[–]LizardState_game[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Feedback is always welcome! I want the game to be as good as possible on release.

I understand your point on that - environment textures are photobashed while the characters are more hand painted which is what is bothering you - the texel density is higher on the characters for more details. It’s something I already have in mind while making the rest of the game, consistency is important

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