The game is fine just needed the tutorial of how to knock out the guards, take a while to understand how to do it.

Thank you so much for your feedback. I really appreciate it!

I will add a tutorial on how to knock out a guard in the next update. I can probably combine that with the "sneaking behind the guard" tutorial.

It's been a while, but I've released v0.3.0. This version has an updated tutorial. The player completes the tutorial by knocking out a guard. I hope this helps.

If it helps, thank you very much, but now the guards close the doors when they pass near one, and if I am in the middle of one I get stuck, you could correct this please. That didn't happen to me in the previous version, at any level of the game.

That is very helpful, thank you!

I think I've already found the problem. I fixed it along with a duplicate coin bug and a missing shop UI update after winning a mini-game. I'll test it properly on linux and windows tomorrow. Then I can upload the fixed v0.3.1 version.

This is a bug, the bed locks a door.

Thank you so much for providing all this feedback on bugs along with screenshots. The blocking bed bug is actually pretty difficult to find!

I just released v0.3.1 fixing the following bugs:

• guards no longer close unlocked doors when the player is in the doorway
• fixed the duplicate coin glitch in the UI
• beds can no longer block doorways or window passages

Again, thank you for your help! I'll gladly give you an itch / steam key for the full game once it's ready next year.

Ok I'll be reporting you if I find more bugs in the game, including screenshots if I can.

Hi, I wanted to ask you what kind of suggestions are the ones you are looking for, since I thought I would add a city and forest level in which they asked for 100% of the gold, or maybe add a character that can be unlocked and has a skill that facilitates the game (example: finishing all the levels with the characters with 100% of the gold in each level).

P: I found this, it's not important, but I found it.

Those are good suggestions! It's exactly that I'm looking for ^^

Yesterday I tried adding a big city level as an intro level, but I didn't think it was as exciting as a more focused single goal stealth mission. I'm considering a prison escape as a more exciting intro stealth mission, if that doesn't turn out to be too difficult for new players as a first mission.

Right now I'm working on a floor trap which the player can sabotage. With a mission goal to let a guard have an accident with its own trap.

Unlocking characters could be an interesting progression and reward mechanic. I hadn't considered that yet. Could I already lock 1 or 2 characters from the current 4 characters with the option to unlock, or would that be mean at this stage because they've been unlocked since the first version?

Requiring 100% gold might frustrate some players, so I might use that as a bonus objective. Along with other bonus objectives, such as "no knockouts" and "no alerts". Maybe combining bonus objectives with unlocking characters as you've suggested.

How would a forest level work with stealing gold? Or do you mean a forest level similar to the first two missions in the current demo?

I will look into that candle bug. Did the guard re-light the candle when that happened or was the candle like that from the start?

Thank you for these suggestions! They are very helpful to me ^^

• The part of sabotaging a trap sounds interesting, I hadn't thought about it. It occurred to me that at the level of prison escape that you are going to add, you can lock some guard in some cell, this mechanic can be useful for the creation of other levels.

• Yes, I consider it a bit bad block 2 characters, but it's not what I meant.

I meant that it was optional to get the extra character. But now I'm also considering that for some players it might be difficult to get it. It can work as you propose.

• Yes, I mean a level like the first two mission, this being the last level.

No guard turns it on when it goes out, I think it happened when you moved the one who was asleep in that place. But yes, it happened in this version (3.1).

I added the 100% gold bonus objective and the ability to lock in guards to the suggested features list. I think when the player locks in a guard, the guard should be able to open the door in a minute or more. Just like how knocked out guards are either revived by other guards or wake up after a minute. Otherwise the player will be able to "eliminate" all the guards and make the level too easy. Although that might also be a fun level objective: ambushing all the guards ^^

I won't lock any existing unlocked characters. I could unlock a random character skin when the player meets all bonus objectives. Adding a completely new character to the game takes a lot of time, and I prefer to expand the gameplay first. But it is a very interesting suggestion. Please let me know if unlocking playable existing character skins is interesting enough to include in the game.

I'm not sure about character specific abilities. They sound interesting for replayability, but I don't want the level difficulty to depend on specific characters. I did considering character-specific abilities such as: ability to hide in more places, ability to climb through windows, a very silent character and a faster lock-picking ability.

Speaking of hiding places, I think I'll add more hiding places such as in barrels and under beds. I excluded those hiding places, because the current last level became too easy to complete. But if I include a bonus objective "no hiding", it could be used by the player as either an easier victory or an additional challenge.

I can't reproduce the candle light bug. I've visited the exact same location as in your screenshots, but the candle burns correctly here. I will keep an eye out for when I see an unlit lit candle happening.

Well, if I considered that the guards could free themselves, I had to be more specific in that aspect, I'm sorry.

I find it interesting to unlock a random skin and be able to play.

The skills you mentioned work, I thought I turned off the lights or knocked out faster, but I think that will depend on how the game develops, what you think of this.

I never thought you would add this extra character until you had a full first version, sorry, but I just wanted you to consider it as a suggestion.

It sounds great to add new hiding places, but hiding under beds would only work if there is no guard sleeping. The problem I see is that we will knock out the guard (followed by hiding), and if by chance another helps him it would be difficult to escape, as he is no longer asleep.

Ok, maybe the mistake affected me only.

The traps are done. They trap the player, unless the player sabotages the trap. Then guards fall into their own trap. Maybe I will add a guard that can also fix sabotaged traps. I considered an objective to trap a target guard, but it might be frustrating for the player to wait for that specific guard to walk into a sabotaged trap.

You have a point regarding the beds as hiding places. They are too dangerous. I've limited the hiding spots to barrels, closets and tables.

I'll work on bonus objectives tomorrow, which includes: no guard alerts, no knock-outs, no hiding and 100% gold.

I've been shortsighted about the "trap a target guard" objective. I can just alert that guard and have them chase me over the sabotaged trap. That's much more fun than waiting ^^

Though I should remove the bonus objective "no alerts" for these missions, so I don't punish the player for such a devious tactic. Or keep the bonus objective for the patient players, in which case I should force the target guard to be near a trap so the game remains fair time-wise.

It sounds good and fair to have the guard near the trap so that the targets are maintained. By the way, if you will add the one who repairs the traps as you mentioned???

I finished v0.4.0 with the traps and bonus objectives. I'll push the update to itch this weekend after some play-testing. Then I can continue tweaking the gameplay based on feedback and work on a new "escape prison" intro mission ^^

So after some play-testing I've done the following for traps:

• Traps will be safe for guards and dangerous for the player
• The player can sabotage the trap, so that the trap becomes dangerous for both the guards and the player
• When a guard (or multiple guards) fall through a sabotaged trap, the trap resets (removes the sabotage) the moment that the trap closes
• The player can sabotage a trap again after the trap resets

Otherwise sabotaged traps are very overpowered. I can always change the trap behavior if there's a better solution or suggestion ^^

I'm introducing character skills in the next version. I'd like to hear thoughts on this, if you like to share it.

The skills are: stealthiness, sight distance, action speed and movement speed.

Each character will start with different base skills, and each character will also have different minimum and maximum skill points per skill.

After having done some research on the real-life abilities of the character species, I've concluded that some species are simply better at these skills than other species. So it's not balanced. Maybe that could be fine too in this game. The red panda and bunny are roughly equal. The hyena is a better character. And the cat has some of the best skills.

To compensate for the "better characters", I would let the player start out with the red panda and bunny. Then by increasing their individual thief ranks, the player can unlock new skins and "better" characters.

Each character would retain their individual gold and upgraded skills. So by selecting a new character, the players starts at the skill levels of that character. But the player will be able to upgrade the skills of the new character to higher levels than the previous one. Each character will keep their own upgraded skills. Also, the player retains their level progress in-game, so the player can continue the game with a new character and only having to build up the skills again.

I will give the guards the same skills as the characters. So guards can also become more alert, see further, act quicker and move faster. These skills will depend on the character skills, so that the level difficulty is always balanced towards the character.

The level size will depend on the thief rank of the character. So with higher thief ranks, the player unlocks larger levels. And larger levels can have new environments.

Each character will have their own thief rank. The thief rank increases with each successful objective, including the bonus objectives. It will also be easier to increase lower thief ranks than higher thief ranks. So for unlocking new skins and characters faster, it is better to switch between characters. All this is to promote and reward playing with the different characters.

Maybe I should also add a bit of a story in the game. Maybe a murder mystery with a traitor within the guild. Unless I get a better idea ^^

So what do you think? Could this idea work well for the game, to make it more fun to play with various characters, level them up and unlock new things for a more rewarding sense of progression throughout the game?

I agree with what you mention the skills of the characters, in addition to the game being balanced with the guards, according to the character we choose. It's better than my idea that I couldn't mention to you before.

And I am interested in the mechanics of the ranks to be able to unlock new levels, excellent idea, I would like to try it.

It also occurred to me to add a story, but I never knew exactly what it would be about or how to add it. But if you added one, I guess we'd have to capture, confront or something like that “the boss or traitor” depending on how the story is. In the aspect of developing the story I do not think it is of much help, I am sorry, but, even so, I will try to give some ideas.

Answering your question, they are good ideas to keep playing. And what is the custom game option for?

Thank you! Your answer helps me make better decisions for the game! Awesome ^^

For the Thief Rank, I will assign a rank number to each character starting from 0 or 1. Then counting up from there. And a thief rank progress. When the progress bar is full, the character gains a new thief rank. Each successful objective and activity in the game will increase the progress towards the next rank. Please let me know if you like this idea, or if you have a better idea on how to handle the thief ranks and their progression system.

I added a short intro to the game. I think I will shorten the intro even more to just a few seconds, with just a guard making a remark on the character's situation to give the player some perspective on why they sneak around and join the thieves guild. I don't really like intros. I'd rather play the game than watch a cut-scene ^^

I have several ideas for the "custom game" option. I'll list them here. Please let me know which ideas you like!

Possible custom game options:

• Play challenge / puzzle stealth levels directly from the menu
• Play either mini-games directly from the menu
• Play a random stealth mission 
  • Select size: small, medium or large
  • Select objective: escape, steal, kidnap, sabotage
• Level editor for custom player missions

I built a simple text level editor to create the challenge / puzzle missions. I could create a visual level editor on top of the text level editor and allow players to create their own levels the same way.

For the custom game options, I could add some or all of those options in the menu. I could have them all unlocked for full freedom, or have some options locked until the player reaches some point in the main game. For example, win one mini-game to unlock it in the custom game menu. Reach a specific thief rank to unlock a larger random stealth mission in the custom game menu. Unlock additional tiles and actors in the level editor as a new thief rank reward.

What do you think? Which custom game option ideas do you like and do you have more ideas for custom game options?

Should I lock some options and have them unlock as rank rewards in addition to unlocking stronger characters and skins?

Thank you! Every new big feature is a bit scary. I hope it is a good addition to the game.

That sleeping guard is not supposed to wake up when you walk close to it. I think I know what the problem is. There was a bug where if you got too close to an awake guard, the guard would not be able to catch the player. In shadows, an unaware guard could also walk very close past the player without noticing the player. Which seems unlikely, if the player is right next to the guard.

So I added a "red zone" to every guard. When the player gets too close to a guard, it triggers an instant alert. And if the player gets too close to an alerted guard, it triggers an instant catch. Though this "red zone" should not be active for sleeping guards, that's a bug. I'll fix it, thank you for letting me know ^^

I have another update.

I've added 10 different NPC personalities with a total of 320 unique character dialogues. I'm not much of a writer, so these are mostly flavored gameplay hints. They might be useful to some players, but can also be fully ignored.

So far I've added 29 challenge levels ranging from short and easy to longer and more difficult. I also found a way to put a natural time limit on some of the challenges, by slowly having a guard chase the player. So they have to progress through the challenge, otherwise the guard behind them will catch them.

I haven't created a full level editor, but I have created a simplified text level editor. This is what a text level looks like:

Theme: Forest
4.4..5.5#####
.#.##.#.#####
4.4##5.5.E###
.############
.###3##2#####
.1..........1
####3##2#.###
#########.P##

This is a top-down stealth level. The # are walls, dots are open spaces. P is the player start position and E is the exit. Each number is a unique guard patrol route with one guard patrolling that route. The theme can be: Forest, Wooden Home, Stone Temple or Mansion.

This text level editor is still very basic, but it helped me design challenge levels faster. This could expand to a full level editor later on. If you like, you can try drawing your own level like this and I'll put it in the free game with your name ^^

The "Custom Game" main menu option has become an alternative way to play the game without a story and a guild. From the custom game, the player can select a specific tutorial, mission, challenge, mini-game and upgrade skills. The player will still gain gold and rank when finishing these levels and unlock new levels. The "Custom Game" is also a way to replay specific missions and levels. The "Custom Game" doesn't end, so it's also a way to play infinite uniquely generated stealth levels.

I made a lot of progress, though I won't be able to finish and release everything on January 23rd. My remaining tasks are:

• (finished) add gold, rank, character selection, the skill upgrade shop and tutorials to the custom game menu
• (finishes) add artifacts and the "steal artifact" mission objective to the game
• add the final story scenes
• (in progress) play-test all challenges and missions, including replaying the same missions with different skill point configurations

Optional tasks are:

• A grand final escape mission where the player has to free all their characters and switch between them to escape
• A visual level editor based on the current text level editor, accessible to players to create and share their own stealth levels

I marked the last two tasks as optional, because otherwise it will take me even longer to release a next version. I will work on those after the next release.

Oh no, I just noticed that all the guards lights in missions are missing in the current Itch release.

I did play-test thoroughly before releasing. Since guard awareness is based on sight distance, I didn't really miss the guard light cones. I heard no one else about this, so I guess other players also don't miss the guard lights in this release either.

Anyway, I'll make sure to enable the guard lights in the next release. In fact, I'll add a line of code that always enables the guard lights, even if I forget to manually enable it. I did the same for the player line of sight. In the next version it is more important, because the sight distance is fully replaced by the challenge-style guard lights. I think it makes the game more predictable and tense. Sight distance based guard awareness doesn't always feel fair, because it's invisible to the player.

I released a new version of the game, v0.7.0 "Skills". It includes your first text level as well. I placed it in menu "Custom Game" -> "Community Levels" -> "Level 1 (Sesileiro)".

I will continue working on the advanced text level editor and make it work with your 2nd level first. I'll post a video here playing through your 2nd level as soon as I have it working in the advanced level editor.

I've been playing around a bit and realized that I imagined certain objects to be larger than they actually are.

It is convenient to add an example of the text level together with the image of the result to avoid confusion (for new users).

The level I have created is a test level, I have done it to see how it works.

I now realize that there is only the starting position in the open world levels.

I'm taking steps to introduce an in-game level editor, so players can see exactly what the level looks like. It will be exactly the same as the text level, except with graphics ^^

In fact, the in-game levels will run on the text levels. The graphical level editor is just a user-friendly front for the text levels. I don't have a server to save and share levels online, so I might let players share levels by having them copy the text levels so they can post it anywhere online as text.

The in-game missions use the starting position as an exit, which remains closed until the main objective is completed. But the text levels do have a separate starting position and exit position. I'm not sure what to do with that, since text levels don't have objectives yet.

I will convert all challenge levels to text levels. Then add coins to them in the next update. Each challenge level will keep track of which coins the player has picked up. So they can replay challenges and collect the coins they missed, gain additional gold for skills and optionally achieve a 100% completion achievement on the challenge.

I was thinking of doing the same thing for the community text levels. Let level designers add coins. The game will keep track of the % of coins the players have collected. So if they want to, they can try to aim for 100% completion of these levels if they want to and optionally gain the 100% completion achievement on those levels as well. What do you think?

I've added the intro, outro and readables to the text level editor. The animated gif shows what that looks like.

Here's the text level that it's running:

Level: Village at Night (SnowySierra)
Intro: It was a dark and stormy night. I passed through a cosy village. It seemed rich enough for a visit.
n: Dear sister, I will be gone for a while. I have left some gold for you. Please take care.
d: I saw a gold piece near the west warehouse, but I couldn't reach it across the water.
D: In the south-east area, there's a coin hidden among the barrels.
Outro: I left the village and disappeared in the dark of the night. No one ever knew I was there.
................bB...,Et,,www,.
.7.#######...########.,,,,tw,..
...#*Tc---...#5:::5*#....,,,..6
..B#-n--p#...###::###..D#####..
...#######....S#.##S...B#SS*#..
....8...,.,..,,...8.....#4:4#b.
.7.,,,,###b,,t,,...######:T:#*.
..,,tw##*##w,,,,.,b#2Tc:#:T:#B.
9,,,9w#1-1#wt,,,,..::::::4:4#..
,,w,,w#-B-#ww,.w,,.#2:p:#####.6
,www,w#1-1#Bw,www,.######.B....
,,w,,t##-##w,,,wd,...Bb..b.b.b*
9,,,9www,ww,,,www...,3,,.3b.b.b
,,,,,*w,,,,,,,,w,P.,,ww,,b.b.b.

The text characters n / d / D are special readables. Each have their own line of text and will sparkle in the level to show players that these notes are interactable. Here I use them for providing clues for coin locations.

I'll play-test and release the next version with this example level in the community levels. Then I'll work on the in-game graphical level. That should make designing levels more accessible ^^

Here's the doubled version of your last map. This time, every tile is exactly 1 tile in-game, so you have more control over the level design. Let me know if this helps, or if it's cumbersome. Otherwise you'll be able to edit this map in-game after the next release next weekend.

Guards can't walk through objects, so it's best to keep guard patrol paths clear of objects. Guards can automatically walk around objects, but on this map, guards 1 and 2 are stuck. Maybe also useful to know, is that the guard light cone range is 4 tiles. I will put this information in the in-game level editor as well.

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tttt,,,,tt,,,,wwwwwwwwtt,,,,,,,,tt##6-----------BB6-##bb,,,,
tttt,,,,tt,,,,wwwwwwwwtt,,,,,,,,tt##------------BB--##bb,,,,
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