KickStarter Spy DNA - realistic tactical combat with genetically enhanced agents

[ERYFKRAD]

Interesting, now I wanna see it in action.

 

[Infinitron]

Jason shows how to manage the stuff you take with you on a mission, how to modify your weapons, and how to use storage such as backpacks and tactical belts.

 

[Zombra]

Newsletter update!

Sweeping vistas and disappearing walls
This month we've done a lot of work that you can actually see when you start the game: inventory, landscape, maps, and building shaders.

You can now mod weapons in-game
The new inventory system allows you to add attachments to your weapons, as well as equip items that can be used to carry other items, such as backpack or a tactical belt. Correspondingly, the encumbrance system has been tuned to reflect these changes.

Watch Jason demo the new inventory and modding of weapons:


Inventory management and weapons attachments demo video
See-through walls
We've modified the shaders used for building walls, so that you can see your party easily, and don't have to muck around with camera angles.

Trees. Lots of trees
Trees look neat and make a landscape come to life. We have nifty trees from SpeedTree that animate with wind and we wanted to have more than a handful of them on the map. So we've overhauled the code that generates maps, and now we can have dense jungles if needed.

As a result of the overhaul, the map load times have gotten much quicker, and even the 2x2 km maps now load in under 30 seconds.

Check out that forrested hill in the left background. Looks a bit like the hills we live in. Read more on our blog.

Trees you can see through
Just like with walls, you probably want to actually see your party and not just enjoy the view of the forest when you play. So we hide the leaves when you have the camera looking down. The vegetation will progressively fade away as the camera moves higher, resulting in a view like this.
See high-resolution pictures on our blog

Minimap
What would a tactical game be without a minimap? So we made one. The cool thing about it is that we generate the map when the mission is generated, while the team is still at the base, planning.

With the ability to see the terrain ahead of time, you now have some new options for infiltration such as scouting to identify points of interest on the map, which will be then marked on the minimap when you deploy.

Here's an example of a minimap for a simple test terrain, showing trees and buildings. The map will look better as we refine the symbols and color palette, but this should give you an idea of where we're going with it.

We're now on Instagram, too
We've started posting screenshots of our work on Instagram, and we'd be over the moon if you followed us there.

Check us out on Instagram
Introducing a new thing: Character profiles. Look for one of those in every email update, and of course on social media.

 

[Infinitron]

Sometimes bugs can sweep you up like a tidal wave of... guns. Kalachov R-45 assault rifles, to be precise.

 

[Infinitron]

Follow along as Jason plays a hostage extraction mission from the beginning to end. We begin at the moment when a mission is generated at the base, continue to mission planning, infiltration, and team selection, then to mission execution, and finally, review the mission results.

 

[Citizen]

This is my kind of autism.

 

[Zombra]

The links to the different sub-articles are cool, check them out.

New demo is nigh
We hit an important milestone a few days ago: Now we can play missions all the way though, which starts when a mission is generated at the base, continues to mission planning, infiltration and team selection, mission execution, and finally, return to base.


End-to-end mission demo video
Early Access release in sight
At this point, the development here at Shy Snake has shifted gears towards stabilizing and polishing the release. Here is a quick list of the top issues resolved this month:

1: Added grass and ground cover to generated maps
2: Addressed performance issues with having lots of trees on a map
3: Added the mini-map in the HUD (For the body-cam fans, don’t fret - it is still available)
4: Fog of war visualization on the map
5: Viewing characters when obstructed by building walls or roof
6: Loading times optimization

We’ve been optimizing our development for the end goal of shipping the Spy DNA game. So we have often delayed or skipped short-term objectives if they didn’t help to get us to the end goal. As a result we are a bit behind on the playtest, but pretty much on schedule for the demo and early access.

Read on to see what each milestone means to us

A bit of nostalgia
As the new demo and early access are drawing closer, we felt a bit nostalgic, so we began to compare our actual progress to the goals we set out to hit two years ago. And you know what? That made us feel good. Aside from having to push out our release dates, we’ve stayed largely on course.

Also, it helps to remind ourselves just how far we’ve come in those two years. Come along with us for a trip down memory lane

We're now on Instagram, too
We've started posting screenshots of our work on Instagram, and we'd be over the moon if you followed us there.

Check us out on Instagram
We include character profiles in each newsletter. Look for one of those in every email update to learn more about people populating the Spy DNA world.

Meet Dan Scott
Dan is a scientist working on getting the DNA augmentation process to go a little faster.

 

[Infinitron]

Two weeks went by since our last video update, and here's what we've done since:

- Characters face each other for chat
- Camera aims at the NPC you're talking to
- Larger minimap: TELL US what you think
- High-visibility path markers
- Oxygen bar
- Breakable windows
- Pain indicator bar

Sometimes sending the wrong man to do the job is way, way worse than not doing infiltration at all.

 

[Infinitron]

Not just combat:

Alex talks about skills and missions that put "Spy" into Spy DNA: low-intensity and covert engagements that require characters to use their infiltration, intimidation, or even seduction skills.

 

[Infinitron]

Spy DNA is what we call a time-based simulation, and has a number of settings to give you full control over your party. Jason explains how pausing works, and how you can use it to your advantage.

 

[Infinitron]

Procedurally generated levels come with their own set of challenges for a game designer. In this video, Alex talks about a few of them, such as: presenting player with problems they can solve with logic and real-world experience, not artificial puzzles; using ambient sounds and lighting to create atmosphere and guide the player; and interaction consistency across all levels.

 

[ushas]

Thanks! More and more looking forward to this.

This simultaneous time-based system is very promising. He has a good point about having control over overwatch in the time flow video. Also glad there is a bird view camera. Just hoping AI will react to our assaults. In one of those full missions they were going from a building to building, seemingly surprising enemies there.

 

[ushas]

And also a new blog post:

Dialog flows and skill checks in Spy DNA
http://www.shysnake.com/blog/2018/10/3/dialog-flows-and-skill-checks-in-spy-dna

Spoiler

October 3, 2018
Dialog flows and skill checks in Spy DNA



by Alex Maier, conversationist

Over the past few weeks, we focused a lot on combat in our game, but there’s another aspect to it: dialog. In Spy DNA you can talk to members of your party as well as NPCs, both at the base and during missions. While some missions have combat at their heart, others can be completed, or at least aided, by talking to people.

In the full release, you’ll be able to complement your Commander’s skills and attributes with those from your party. If the character you create lacks in stealth, charm, or ability to hit targets with any weapon, one of the nine specialist PCs can fill the skill gap and help you succeed.

In the Demo release, we’ll be including a few mission scenarios, and a limited complement of PCs to accompany you. Because of this, my goal as writer/level designer is to provide you with many different options to complete the missions where the combat-oriented PCs can’t help, to make any kind of Commander specialization viable.

Right now, I’m working on a covert mission where you’ll encounter only civilians, and if you screw up badly enough, civilian law enforcement. You’ll be under strict orders not to engage any civilians, and will fail the mission if you do. This means that you’ll have to use radically different tactics here than you would say, on the mission to extract the hostage from a remote rebel camp.

If you can’t shoot’em… talk to them, I guess?

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If you can’t shoot’em… talk to them, I guess?

If your Commander is an infiltration specialist, you’ll have no problem convincing the people you speak with that you’re just an employee of the company you’re infiltrating. The security guards will let you stay and complete your task in peace.

But what if your Commander is more of a breach-and-clear kind of person? This is where level design becomes interesting. To provide a combat-oriented Commander with a viable approach, I’m including options to intimidate your vis-a-vis, if you couldn’t charm your way out of a wet paper bag. In addition to tough talk, your attire will also be taken into account, as will your other choices, which I don’t want to reveal quite yet.

To account for all the possible combinations of Commander abilities and under which circumstances they engage the person in the conversation, the dialog is very branched, and can have a variety of outcomes for the player. Here’s an example of a mostly finished dialog with a security guard in the building. It’s about 80 percent complete, so just imagine another branch or two in there.

Dialog tree example for an NPC on a generated mission

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Dialog tree example for an NPC on a generated mission

Other NPCs in the level will have similarly complex dialog trees, and in each case, I’m aiming to provide options for a combat-oriented character to have a chance of success. Mind you, this will not be a requirement for generated missions in the full release, since you’ll have a full complement of specialist PCs in your squad, to help you get through the missions that your Commander wasn’t designed for.

While failing or skipping a generated mission isn’t going to endanger your overall objective of saving the world (as one does), storyline missions will have to include solution options for Commanders of all kinds. They may not be the most obvious ones, and may require a bit of planning ahead, but I’m determined to make sure y’all don’t get stuck because of choices you made during character creation.

Skill checks
As you’d expect, picking different dialog options and interacting with objects in the world results in a skill check which in turn decides whether you fail or succeed. You’d be “rolling” against the skill relevant to your selection (infiltration, intimidation, lockpicking, etc), but we also factor in an attribute, which gives you a chance to succeed if your skill is zero. The flip side to this is that an extremely poor attribute will generate a penalty.

The skill roll is also modified by Sigma, to set how steep the success/fail curve is. The smaller the sigma, the smaller is your margin from the number you’re rolling against. This means that you’ll experience a critical failure or a critical success with sigma of five more often than with sigma of twenty. Smaller sigmas are reserved for more daring checks, such as last-ditch attempts to convince that night guard that you’re not breaking in.

X axis represents difference between your skill and the difficulty of the task

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X axis represents difference between your skill and the difficulty of the task

In the dialog example above, you’ll be checked against combinations of infiltration + leadership, infiltration + charm, intimidation + strength, or persuasion + mental quickness, to name a few. I select the attribute according to dialog context and common sense, to create the closest approximation to real life we can within our system.

While making your choices, you’ll usually have more than one attempt at succeeding within the dialog branch that you chose, but the guard will remember your choices, and you won’t be able to just quit the dialog and attempt a “redo” a moment later. That’s not how life works.

And on that cheery note, let me wrap up here and go back to writing those dialogs, instead of blog posts. Post your questions below or tweet at us, we’re happy to explain stuff in more detail if you’re interested!

Looks like the skill rolls gonna be drawn from Gaussian distribution. If I get that right, we will be able to choose the sigma, nice.

 

[shysnake]

Thanks to everyone that has been posting out updates. I wanted to answer the questions from ushas.

"If I get that right, we will be able to choose the sigma, nice." Each skill check has it's own sigma set, most use the default of 10 on the 0-100 skill scale. However, for things like bomb diffuse we may use a lower sigma, or on a check like persuasion we could use a higher one. Having said that it would be trivial to add a global game-play slider to allow the player to scale sigma to match their preferred play style. I'll make a todo of that one.

"Just hoping AI will react to our assaults." I have work to do on this one. I've been fixing a lot of issues related to mission design for Alex so she can make all the levels. So AI has been deferred until I had more test cases (levels). I need to un-break a few UI things that happened from the update to UE 4.20 and then I'll be doing a lot of work on the AI. But yea, they need to be more reactive.

I'm happy to answer question if anyone has them.

 

[Zombra]

My excitement for this project continues to increase. I love everything I'm seeing.

I also finally got around to reading the biographies of the premade agents. At first I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to fully create my entire team and assumed I'd find the premade characters boring, but after looking at the bios, I have a very Jagged Alliance feeling, in a good way. Looking forward to working with this crew.

shysnake, I do have some questions about the organizational dynamics of the PCs. It's implied that the "commander" is sort of a "chosen one" PC, more important than the rest. Can you briefly explain this relationship? Is the commander supposed to be "me"? Does this character have authority over the others in the game world (unlike in Jagged Alliance 2 where my I.M.P. character was just another guy taking orders from the faceless "laptop man" and fighting alongside the rest)? Does the commander have to go on every mission, or can I choose to send other specialists only? For that matter, what happens when any player character dies? With a finite team I guess you're not allowed to lose people and continue playing (again unlike Jagged Alliance) - can this be confirmed?

Note: I am only mentioning Jagged Alliance so much as a point of reference - not to imply that JA did it "right" and anything else is "wrong".

 

[shysnake]

My excitement for this project continues to increase. I love everything I'm seeing.

Thanks, that means a lot.

Our commander to party interaction might best be thought of as a mix of Jagged Alliance 2 style and Mass Effect style. Here are what I think are the important points.

• The commander is special, in that he/she is your representation in the game. If they die, it's time to reload / restart. Also since they represent the player, they must be on any mission the player is commanding. This is also why the infiltration options are not played out. For those you are delegating to your team a specific task, but are not present to lead it, so it is not seen, and you get the report when it's done. Aka your "send specialist only" option.
• Team deaths, anyone can die. This is not a game ending event if it's not the commander (you). However, we are a smaller roster at 9 vs IIRC ~40. So if you loose too many people things will get really difficult in the future. Also note, some skills are rare in the team. Usually 2-3 people have a specialist skill, but that implies losing those will limit your options going forward.
• Making the support team vs pre-made. This is an area where we were influenced by ME2, we wanted to make a fun, interesting team. We cannot write dialog for a support team, to give them character, if the player creates them. This also means that some get along better with others and should lead to interesting dialog in the fox/steroid or miranda/jack lines. So we tried to have a varied support party and if we did our jobs, everyone will find a favorite(s).
• The pre-made support party also lets us have loyalty missions for each character to give them extra depth and build the relationship with the other team members.
• Authority. Your party are treated as people, they will follow orders, but it's possible to break their trust. We pushed out the little chart of party member alignments as a hint of who will willingly do what. It can go as far as to have them quit the team.

I hope that answers your questions. Do you have a favorite NPC?

 

[Zombra]

Do you have a favorite NPC?

They're all pretty cool - it's a toss-up between Nuri and Shinichi for my favorite. A sociopathic supermodel who can infiltrate a compound by secretly getting hired as a janitor? Nuri is hilarious. Also I am a big fan of detective stories and reading about shadowing skills so Shinichi instantly resonates with me.

I wish Ivan wasn't named Ivan, or callsigned "Wolf", as these are both Jagged Alliance characters, but I can live with it.

 

[Infinitron]

A quick update on ambient sounds and event-based sound effects, as well as music and character voices.

 

[udm]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy

 

[Zombra]

shysnake Quick music suggestion - consider starting background music tracks at a random place in the track, different every time the music begins. In many games I hear the first 15 seconds of a given track over and over and get sick of it, but almost never hear the full 5 minutes of the track. Looping tracks shouldn't have a beginning middle and end, so there's no reason not to fade in wherever and this will reduce repetitiveness.

 

[shysnake]

Thanks for the suggestion. We talked a bit here and realized it wasn't clear from the video that we have several separate tracks for each mission type. We don't loop the tracks but pick another when one finishes. That said, I can see the argument for starting from an offset at the base.

Re: Call-signs. We've made some internal updates as the roles in the party are becoming more defined, mostly it's just adding more detail. Shin's background is about 4x longer now, same persona, more detail. Alex said she would update the website profiles as time permits. A few callsigns got changed a while back also. You'll hopefully be happy to know Ivan's was changed to 'Viper'. Shin is still 'Sneakers', Nuri became 'Dancer', and her old callsign went to Zoe. Eagle seemed more appropriate for the sniper.

Because, why not, here is the updated Shin bio.
Background:
Shin started his career with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, working his way up to Detective in the Homicide division. He is famous for being able to tail the suspects for hours without being noticed, which earned him his callsign, "Sneakers." It didn't hurt that he's fond of wearing athletic footwear.

After seeing how many lives are ruined due to organized crime activities, Shin developed a passion bordering on obsession for bringing down criminal organizations. When it became clear to him just how internationally connected these groups were, Shin requested to be seconded to the Singapore INTERPOL office, where his investigative talent drew the attention of FLEA (Federal Law Enforcement Agency).

Shin joined the Spy DNA squad on the condition that he can use FLEA's intelligence resources to continue his pursuit of a yakuza group tied in with smuggling of weapons-grade uranium. The fact that fighting organized crime is one Spy DNA's missions made it easy for Shin to move halfway across the globe to join.

Notes:
Shin spends most of his waking time investigating organized crime, but every now and then he allows himself a few hours of downtime. In those hours, you're most likely to find him playing video games.

He's not going to brag about it, but back in his teens, he used to hold a Pro license with the Japanese eSports Alliance, and won the world title in Street Boxer XXIII Tournament 2062. These days, he's switched to mostly playing tactical squad games and multiplayer FPS games such as Cry of Honor and MaxExxtreme Force.

Personality:
Shin worked his way from the ground up, and is a strong believer in letting one's actions speak for themselves, instead of words. He noticed that many people take his reserve and modesty for dullness and mediocrity, but instead of being upset about that, Shin fully embraced this ability of his as an asset for furthering his investigations.

He plays his personality to the fullest by lulling his marks into a false sense of security, only to give them all the rope they need to hang themselves.

We will be updating the website with all the bio updates soon.
http://www.shysnake.com/spy-dna/story

 

[kirin]

Shin started his career with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, working his way up to Detective in the Homicide division. He is famous for being able to tail the suspects for hours without being noticed, which earned him his callsign, "Sneakers."

Shin undercover in his MPD days (left)

 

[Infinitron]

We've migrated Spy DNA to UE4.20 and with that upgrade come some improvements in the user interface and camera movement.

 

[Zombra]

November update, with lots of little videos and the all-important alignment chart:

Update #29

Nov 3 2018

It's November already?

Time flies when you're busy, and we've been working really hard this month on what you may call "polish" items. You know, the things that make the game look finished. This includes user interface, sound design, and general consistency in user interactions. In plain words, making sure that same things behave the same everywhere.
We also updated Spy DNA to run on Unreal Engine 4.20, which turned out to be quite a bit of work, but as a result, we've got much finer control over the user interface behavior and appearance now.



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Object interactions
As a companion piece to that video above, have a gander at this blog post Jason wrote about interacting with the game-world objects.

We use a five-segment menu for our interactions with the world. The center action is the default action. If you quickly left click an interactable object it will select this action. The mouse cursor changes to reflect this default action. This is to allow the player to know what will happen without having to wait for the menu to appear.

Around the center there are other actions that will appear after a very short delay. The bottom option will always be examine. We always show this option, even for non-interactable objects to avoid leaking which objects are interactable and which are not.

On the right we will display an aggressive action, if applicable. For example, break down a door, attack an NPC, or trip a trap. The option displayed will change with the object. The available options are set as part of the object editor.

For the other options we will place a stealthy action on the left, if applicable. For example, sneak if moving, lock-pick to pick a lock. On the top will be a neutral action, again if applicable. Examples, knock on a door if locked, lock if unlocked. [continue reading]

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Level design
Videogames are a visual medium (the "video" part is a dead giveaway), and how each level looks is as much part of the game experience as figuring out how to complete your objectives. As a matter of fact, level design can help you get your bearings and figure out what you should be doing.

To loosely quote Warren Spector: "It's not fun to figure out what to do. It's fun to figure out how to do it."

It's a difficult enough task with hand-made levels, but Spy DNA doesn't have those (aside from the base island), so we need to think carefully how to create those visual anchors for the player to find their way through a level.



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Noises and voices
Sound design in our game includes background music, ambient noises, event-triggered sound notifications, and of course character voices.

When you play the video below, you can tab away, because it's all about sound!



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Character bios expanded
As we work on the missions and figure out the best ways to make each team member useful for the team, we get to know our characters better. As a result, we were able to add quite a bit more detail to each of their bios. Additionally, we’ve changed a few callsigns to better match their owners’ personalities.

As we become more familiar with the characters, we can begin to flesh out inter-team relationships. Who would befriend who? Would there be any conflicts? (The answer is always yes!) Read on to find out how our agents get along.

 

[deuxhero]

shysnake
Can firearms be loaded to +1 capacity in this game or will it be like every "realistic" game ever which treats closed bolt firearms as open bolt?