Pickpocket RPG (MAGS Dec 2016)

Started by Mandle, Sat 07/01/2017 01:42:53

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Mandle

PICKPOCKET   RPG

[IMGZOOM]http://i68.tinypic.com/jshgk3.png[/imgzoom]

[IMGZOOM]https://s29.postimg.org/h1sqfn4qf/Caught_By_Police01.png[/IMGZOOM]

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME

Well here we go with my entry into the December 2016 MAGS contest:

The game features full-motion video backgrounds (filmed wonkily by myself) and five levels of stat-based RPG-style pickpocketty goodness (or you could build a character that just beats people up and nabs their cash.)

The game features planned are not 100% implemented yet, but the game is playable from start to finish and, as I found myself, is quite challenging and may require quite a bit of strategy to win. I have won the game once myself and it took me about an hour to do so.

A Short Game Guide

The goal of the game is, through your criminal activities, to move up from level to level. There are five levels so if you can complete level 5 you will win the game.

The main stats (also explained ingame) :

Perception: This mostly helps you spot where a potential target is carrying the goodies, but also might give you some information about their stats etc. A more vigilant NPC is harder to perceive.

Pickpocket: The name says it all really. How good you are at your craft. Sensible choosing of both target and pick-location will aid in success (for example: the front pockets of a target walking towards you are an easier target than the back pockets, and vice versa.)

Vigilance: Before pickpocketing (or attacking) a target you can look around to try to get an idea of the local police pressence. Vigilance helps with this, and also helps you to run away from the cops in the event you are caught (or run from a mugging target if the fight isn't going well for you.)

Violence: This stat helps you to hit your target in a fight, whether it be against the cops, or against a target you are trying to beat up and mug. The countering stat is your target's own Violence stat so choose targets carefully. There is no way to see what the cops' Violence stat is, so be extra careful in fights with them.

Oh, and you can ignore the Charisma and Creeping stats for now. These stats are not yet implemented.

A few other useful hints:

* "Move Up A Level" button. Once you have enough money to move up to the next level this button will appear. Plan carefully before pushing this button! Make sure you have enough stats and money to survive in a harder level. The difficulty of NPC targets and police increases with each higher level as does the cost of living (food and rent). Don't be shy to click on the:

* "Retreat A Level" button. If a new level is too hard for your character it is probably best to retreat to the previous level and regroup your resources. You will lose the money you paid to move up to the current level though. An extra advantage of moving is that police pressence will have reset to the default level when you move between levels. Which brings us to the:

* "Lay Low" button. This button causes your character to end the current day and halt their criminal activities to give the local police pressence a chance to cool down a bit. You will have to pay for rent and food for this day starting from level 2. In level 1 you are homeless and scavenge through garbage for your food so there is no cost for laying low on level 1 (so you can SPAM IT! hint-hint)...

WARNING: The game is a "roguelike", by which I mean: If you die you will not be able to restore. You must start again. The autosave is only for if you have to stop playing the game partway through and wish to continue later. Click the ingame "Quit" button to autosave your game and return to the title menu. Be very careful to click on "Continue" on the title screen to continue playing next time or your autosave may be overwritten. If you DO mess up here, and hit "Play" by mistake, then use Alt-X to force the game to shutdown.
DO NOT use the ingame "Quit" button or your saved game will be overwritten!

Cheers and enjoy (fingers and toes crossed)!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME

Please also remember to vote for your favorite MAGS entry in the MAGS thread in Competitions And Activities forum if you play all the entries. Cheers!

selmiak

the gameplay over the video is cool. does this work out of the box in AGS?

Shadow1000

#2
I just beat the game. My comments are on the competition page.

One thing I want to add is that I didn't realise that you can add to your violence by equipping more weapons. In real life this would not make sense; you cannot really equip 6 brass knuckles and 15 switchblades but once I realized this I got my violence stat up to 100 pretty quickly and that really helped.

Thanks for posting more info about the stats. That was also very helpful in terms of understanding the gameplay. You got a fabulous entry and I hope that you do expand it with more gameplay and use the other stats.

Cheers

SHADOW

Mandle

Quote from: Shadow1000 on Sun 08/01/2017 21:59:50
One thing I want to add is that I didn't realise that you can add to you vigilance violence by equipping more weapons. In real life this would not make sense; you cannot really equip 6 brass knuckles and 15 switchblades but once I realized this I got my violence stat up to 100 pretty quickly and that really helped.

Yeah, it's a bit of a logical leap. I was going to have a system where you could only have one at a time, which would have been easy to put in with just a line or two of code, but ended up leaving it out for now as it would have taken too long to rebalance the gameplay.

Perhaps the character becomes more and more familiar with different weapon types the more he can get his hands on and this helps him fight? :P

I do plan on expanding the gameplay to take care of some of these illogical issues (including NPCs turning with you as you turn around (laugh)), and also include the other stats. And then I think it could be a seriously fun and involving game of some complexity and replay value with different character types having their own path to victory.

Cheers for the other comments and glad you enjoyed the game.

Shadow1000

Geez..thanks for the correction to my typo. I fixed the post...

Mandle

Quote from: selmiak on Sat 07/01/2017 19:02:16
the gameplay over the video is cool. does this work out of the box in AGS?

I used the Theora plugin that you can see in the game folder, although it might not be 100% needed. I used mainly because I'm familiar with the way it works.

MiteWiseacreLives!

Hey if I don't get any feedback when I attempt to pick-a-pocket, does that mean I was unsuccessful? Or am I missing something?

Mandle

Quote from: MiteWiseacreLives! on Mon 09/01/2017 05:31:14
Hey if I don't get any feedback when I attempt to pick-a-pocket, does that mean I was unsuccessful? Or am I missing something?

Yes, it means no success.

There will be an extra mechanic in there where the target has a chance to catch you in the act and the police could show up, the target could try to fight you, or you might be able to charm your way out of the situation.

But I didn't have time for this so it is just blank for now and nothing happens.

Slasher

Mandle has put a lot of effort into this game and as it's a MAG game it was done quite quickly (tell me about that!)  so it's not quite as polished or complete as Mandle would have liked it to have been. None-the-less, the potential is there to build a full game given time.

I wanted to click on the 'live' people (laugh)

Enjoyable game open to further tweaks and improvements.

Well done Mandle for another technique driven game (nod)

Mandle

Quote from: slasher on Mon 09/01/2017 11:12:04
I wanted to click on the 'live' people (laugh)

Naw, no point in that... I already picked their pockets while filming the videos...

Cassiebsg

There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Mandle

I just replayed my own game after stepping away from it for a few days to gain some perspective and...

It ain't actually all that bad a game...

I had quite a bit of fun with it and managed to beat it again after about an hour of playing...

It was frustrating in that I could get almost to the win and then get knocked back down by the police, and then had to retreat a level or two to rebuild my resources, but it didn't feel frustrating enough that I felt like I had no chance and wanted to give up...

There are still a lot of balance issues of course: After a while you can easilly max out your stats and then everything just becomes an economic issue of whether you can progress or not. I need to look into this and think on it deeply...Stats need to be a bit harder to come by, but this means also rebalancing a lot of the game so as not be impossible if stats are lower...

One huge piece of advice I would give to anyone seriously trying to win the game is:

Patience is key! Don't just go after every pick...especially in the later levels...

You must lurk and wait for the perfect opportunity: Find the target with the most expensive goods and the best chance to grab them and then go for it!

In this regard I think this simulates a pickpocket's job quite well. It also means that the player must wait through fairly long periods of time without much action, but because of this:

While playing the game I felt myself thinking like a pickpocket whose life depended on their patience and ability to pick a good target.

And I was quite surprised that the game could put me in that mindset, so I'm very happy with it so far, and sorry for critiquing my own game here. Think of this post as a dev's blog that he can read later and remember the feel of the game before he messed it up later with too much tweaking...

Cheers!

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