Update from Jason
It’s been a busy week here at Shy Snake. We just pushed the update to move Spy DNA to Unreal 4.12. We were waiting until our demo at AFK was complete so as to not break anything right before it was time to show.
I’ve been 100% focused on AI. One big part of AI is making the system respect stealth. In Spy DNA we have a system that gives each character attributes for senses. These, combined with the characters skills, will determine how likely a character is to detect a player.
Sound:
Everything a player does can generate a noise. Some things such as sneaking are quiet, while firing a gun would be loud. The sounds will dissipate over distance and with obstacles. The sound strength when it reaches the character is used to make a check against the character's ability to determine if they hear it. If they do then they may react. For the players, when your character hears a sound, we add a symbol with an arrow to indicate the direction of the sound.
Sight:
Sight in Spy DNA serves two purposes. First is to detect a character. The second is to evaluate the character. Being a spy will often place you in locations where you will not be overtly carrying weapons. This means that in an area mixed with friendlies, enemies, and civilians, an enemy would both have to see you and then decide you are a threat. This means checks against their ability to spot hidden weapons, provided you don’t have a rocket launcher on your back. Anything in your inventory that could blow your cover is a risk for detection even if it’s not equipped. Obviously not having something equipped does make it harder for them to detect it. This creates an incentive to carry light and concealable weapons on many missions.
The sight AI includes a cone of vision so the enemies have to look in the correct direction to see you. If they hear a noise they will turn to look, provided they're not doing something more important already. The AI also ranks everything it sees in terms of “potential threat.” A civilian going about their normal business would register near zero. One running and screaming would start to move the needle.
Smell:
This isn’t really used to detect enemies, but rather hazards. Gas leak, smoke, or a specific perfume could all be clues or hazards.
Alex has also been busy. While I have been implementing stealth, she has been working to de-stealth Spy DNA and make sure the fans of thoughtful tactical games know about us. If you know anyone that would be interested in Spy DNA, please give her a hand in getting the word out.