4 Responses to “Mini Design Challenge II: The Game’s Afoot!” »»

1. Chris
   Comment by Chris | 05/09/06 at 7:05 am

   I don’t have a complete or coherent plan in mind, but I imagine something multiplayer and competitive. Two or more teams working to gain the same item. To prevent players with familiarity with the scenario from shortcutting the process and “ninja-ing” the reward, the heist can only be run at a particular time (”At midnight, the casino earnings are transferred to the counting room.”).

   Part of the fun could be guessing what NPCs are actually members of the opposing team, setting up traps or other ways to slow them down or have them get caught, both teams having to work in stealth and possibly cooperating to prevent guards or cops from shutting down the whole operation, etc. It’s a little more than simple CTF as player killing would probably cause the scenario to fail for both sides. What devious plans or tricks can each side pull to have the others get caught or ensure their own success?

   It would be interesting, maybe astonishing, to watch a really good team who knows the system and the operations well, and could pull off the heist before another team was more than a few paces out of position. That wouldn’t be fun for the losing team, so mechanisms would need to be created to ensure that the heist itself takes sufficent time and covers enough geography to offer a chance to a flat-footed team to snatch victory.

   I imagine public, service, and HVAC pathways through buildings, car chases through city streets, surveillance equipment, hacking into video and security systems, traps to slow down opposing players or guards, alarms, sleeping gas, disguises, paid NPC informants and distractions, a shared map for each side which shows the plan, daring escapes by helicopters or motorcycle, etc.

2. Chris
   Comment by Chris | 05/10/06 at 4:52 pm

   One more idea.

   I was talking to my wife about this. Her first idea was a kind of “choose your own adventure,” where many of the details are abstracted or hidden in the narrative, leaving strategy and decision making to the player. Now, instead of laying out exact plans, the player chooses high level decisions which alter how the plan executes and impacts the overall chance of success.

3. Jeff
   Comment by Jeff | 05/11/06 at 8:52 am

   I love the first idea, though you’d need to prevent people from learning the system too well, mostly because certain strategies wouldn’t be feasable long term. For example, if someone was doing an Ocean’s 11 style heist, they couldn’t disguise themselves as the cops more than once. It only takes once for someone to check that every time after. That said, that could possibly force very creative heists. Though making the rule system for that would probably be a real bitch

   The second idea’s not so bad either, but high level of direction makes you fell like you’re not in actual control of the heist. The “a-ha” moment feels out of your control, and probably isn’t that fun.

   I think one of my favorite ways to do this would be you playing one of the “beginner” heister roles. The person who purposefully has part of the plan hidden to them, like Matt Damon’s character in Ocean’s. This makes it easy to set up as a traditional game (mission based), you feel in control, and as the heist occurs, the whole plan begins to reveal itself as you’re taking part. Not the best solution, but a possible one.

4. Jeff
   Comment by Jeff | 05/11/06 at 8:53 am

   I would also ask, actually, if the Sly Cooper games really work as heist games. I would say no, but they definately do make you feel like a sneaky thief, which helps.

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