Spy DNA handles equipment differently than other games. We attempt to simulate the real world as much as possible. So I will talk about encumbrance, uniforms, and accessories.

Encumbrance in Spy DNA involves two mechanics: weight, and free items. Weight will be familiar to everyone. More weight means it becomes harder to move and you have to slow down.

We also add the mechanic of free items. The idea is that to carry an item, you either need to store it in a pocket, backpack, or other location made for the purpose, or you have to carry it in your hand. Because of this, even a few free items will quickly make it impossible to move. This represents the character’s inability to hold everything without dropping anything.

To clearly show why a character is slowed down or can’t move at all, we now show two distinct icons over the character portrait to indicate the two encumbrance conditions: a kettle-bell weight for weight encumbrance, and juggling hands for too many free items.

Uniforms are used to ease the management of character equipment for missions. Each playable character has four uniforms: base, casual, field, and fancy. These act as preset slots for equipping characters.

When heading out on a mission, you can select one of the three non-base, uniforms. You can customize the appearance and equipment. Whenever you modify a character’s uniform, it is saved and will be loaded the next time you select this particular uniform again. So if another similar mission comes up you can click a uniform and start with the same equipment you used last time, or modify it to suit the needs of your current mission.

Note that when a character returns to base, the leftover equipment isn’t kept. Any storyline changes or resources advancing the characters’ progress is applied to the state of the base level when you return from the mission.

Everyone who has played the typical RPG is familiar with the way most games model encumbrance: Your character has a “carry weight.” Add anything to your backpack, from nothing at all, and up to that magical "carry weight," and your character moves exactly the same way. Go over the limit by even one bit, and in some games you lose the ability to run, or sometimes you can no longer move at all.

We think there's a better way to model this.

What if instead of using the player stats to compute a weight limit, we just compute the walking and running speed for any given weight? Computers are good at math, so this is not a burden to them as it would be to human players playing a pen-and-paper game.

Here’s a rough graph of the results:

Making the speed vs weight tradeoff continuous has a big effect on gameplay. In most games the strategy is to just pick up everything in sight until you are encumbered, then go through your inventory and throw away what you don’t want to keep. With a continuous system now the player will have to decide for every item, if it’s worth its weight.

Encumbrance affects things beyond running speed. Walking can also be slowed and the rate a character loses stamina might change. In addition some actions can be impacted. Some examples:

You are trying to pick a lock. Encumbrance will have a minimal effect as a character is not really moving much.
You are trying to swim across a stream. It may seem pretty obvious that this is not the best time to be wearing heavy armor or carrying your gold ingot loot.
Bicycle riding. Some small effect, but like lock picking, the effect will be minimal

Each in-game skill will know how to adjust for any given encumbrance, making for a richer and more realistic player experience.

Here's a case in point: Mythbusters testing encumbrance in a real-world Doom setup. It will go no different for the characters in our game: the fitter and stronger they are, the more they can carry without a noticeable encumbrance.

Can you really carry all the gear of a first-person shooter and remain operational? UFC's Brendan Schaub helps Jamie and Adam find out.

December 2019 Spy DNA Beta update: Equipment

Movement and encumbrance