Covert is a C# Unity game made in a team of five in a week based on a video of abandoned mall and city complexes in China that was shown in class. The protagonist of Covert is a secret agent who is trying to gather information about the crime syndicate that has begun to use these empty buildings as hideouts to operate their law-breaking schemes from. This crime syndicate has conspired with the Chinese government and pays the government a hefty sum for access to these empty buildings. The secret agent is being paid by the FBI to return this information to them which will help them shutdown this consortium’s operations. In order to gather this information he must sneak into these abandoned buildings and retrieve briefcases filled with information and evidence of the syndicate’s crimes. After gathering the information from within these buildings, he must find his way out before he can return the information to the FBI.
The core mechanic of our game is the player trying to move throughout the maze without being detected by any of the guards. Guards will patrol up and down hallways pointing their flashlights around the dark corridors. If a player is spotted by a guard he loses and must restart the level. The player will have to be careful when moving around corners in case guards are lurking nearby. By watching the guards patrol, the player will be able to find times when the guards are not paying attention where he can sneak by in order to reach his destination. By adding multiple stories on later levels, there can be balconies that allow the player to see above the walls of the maze which will help point him in the right direction of his destination. Once the player has picked up the briefcase, a timer begins counting down. The player must find the exit of the shopping center before this timer expires. Because the player is timed once he is carrying the briefcase, it is often a good idea for the player to locate the exit before picking up the briefcase. If a player fails to find the exit before the timer runs out, he must restart the level.
When creating our prototype we decided to add tuning knobs that we could manipulate to easily change the balance and difficulty of the game. We added tuning knobs for the enemy field of view, player speed, enemy speed, and countdown time. By adjusting these values we were able to experiment and test different combinations of values to discover what worked best in our prototype and what was the most fun for players.
Controls
The player controls the main character with the WASD keys to move them in the four directions and uses the space bar to jump. The mouse controls the camera and allows a player to have a 360 degree view of his surroundings.
Ian Switaj 