Hello everyone,
I’ve been very busy lately working on some cool stuff behind the scenes, but now it’s time to get back into (public) action with Deep Dive #1 - Guns & Guts. To make up for the lost time, it’s going to be a real informative one!
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Looking at a game like Steel Executor, you might think there’s not much to it. There’s some dude and he shoots a gun and a projectile flies out, so what’s the fuss about? We’ve got plenty of top-down shooters already!
The fuss lies in the intricate details that amount to the whole gameplay experience in Steel Executor - doubling down on aspects of planning, preparation, and execution, as well as the visceral feeling of frantic close-quarters combat.
My idea is that realistically speaking (and that’s probably the last time I’ll ever mention realism when referring to the game), shootouts are rarely prolonged battles with thousands of bullets flying around, and both combatants’ imaginary HP bars slowly draining down from 100%.
Usually, everyone takes cover immediately and is very much aware that sticking any part of their body out may very well mean their death.
Usually, once someone gets shot, they become unable to continue sustained and precise firing.
It’s not a spectacular show with wild close-up camera shots and evading bullets by somersaulting through the room.
Usually, once someone gets shot, they go down. That’s it. No bullet time, life ain’t Hollywood.
I wanted that kind of volatility in my game… but I also wanted a fun video game, which stands in stark contrast to this notion of exaggerated realism.
How can these two worlds meet logically and sensibly, but also retain a degree of fun arcade-y ridiculousness associated with video games?
The design philosophy behind Steel Executor entails (among others [not mentioned]):
- One Hit - One Kill - the consideration of fragility of life in a shootout/lethal brawl, the player included
- Freedom of player approach and choice; providing the player with plenty of weapons and ammunition (because shooting is fun in itself, and because of 3D cone-based bullet spread - we’ll get to that in a bit)
- Enhanced tactical depth achieved through *simple* additions to the classic gameplay framework
- Presenting the player with multi-layered tactical challenges of increasing difficulty (with an occasional, optional “lifeline” in the form of Hacking - but that’s a story for another Deep Dive)
From a game design perspective, you can boil down the concept to just “shooting a gun, and the projectile goes in a straight line, or maybe there’s some slight XY axis offset to simulate recoil”. But what if… we’ll get to that in a second!
THE GUNS
Steel Executor features 8 different firearm types:
The icons for pistols and SMGs are red because these weapons are usually not loaded with armor-piercing ammo in the game.
Unarmored enemies have a red outline.
Armored enemies have an additional white outline.
I wanted to connect that with the UI’s iconography. Simple stuff… or is it?
Shooting armored enemies with “red” weapons will result in a deflected attack, both in the case of guns and melee weapons.
As you might anticipate, this makes pistols and SMGs the most common firearm type in the game. But don’t worry, “most common” loses meaning later on as the skull pile and difficulty rises with each stage.
You can throw the “red” weapon at an armored enemy and handle the situation with just your fists, but you might get swarmed and killed if they bring their friends along.
Planning your room-clearing route is a major part of gameplay in standard Steel Executor level stages. You cannot just pick up whatever, press W and left-click to win.
Consider what weapons you have, what weapons can you reclaim from killed enemies in the next room, whether there are any doors around you could use to your advantage, how many enemies are armored, how many of them are Heavy, how many have guns and what kind of guns, what is the shortest path they’ll take to your position, can you use their friendly fire to your advantage…
…until NG+ end game, where you run around with full upgrades at Mach 5 speed dual-wielding LMGs, just having a great time.
You get unlimited quick restarts, so carelessness and experimentation are rewarded, as the results are replicable.
PROJECTILES & RECOIL
Many top-down shooter classics approach the act of shooting in a very deliberate manner - “since we’re essentially playing a 2D game, the projectiles have to be constrained to a 2D plane and go exactly where you point”, sometimes adding “with the recoil either being cosmetic or very light, and also only in a 2D plane”.
After all, players used to top-down shooters (such as bullet hell games) might get pissed off if they obviously shoot at something, and the projectile just doesn’t listen - “the game is broken!”.
I can certainly understand that approach, and it works for a variety of titles for a variety of gameplay design-related reasons. However, for me personally, this prolonged exaggerated precision becomes simply too predictable with time spent playing, and in the long run, it becomes kind of boring and tedious. Yes, I’m getting what I want… but do I really have to get what I want all the time?
Without some sort of limitation or challenge to the general effectiveness and precision of your firearms, you end up getting bored with the shooting mechanics much quicker, since they’re all very same-y. This applies to all FPS games, so why shouldn’t top-down shooters apply the same rules? (Well, some games just can’t by virtue of being true 2D…)
With these ponderings in mind, firearms in Steel Executor are designed to project a 3D “cone” in front of the barrel, spitting out bullets in a random direction within the specified bounds of the “cone”.
What we end up with is a fully organic effect of limited range to specific weapon types.
I don’t have to do anything extra to communicate to the player that SMGs and LMGs do NOT excel at sniping targets across huge hallways. The bullets will simply hit the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, splitting into a bunch of flashing sparks (and alerting every enemy around).
This effect becomes even more apparent when dual-wielding firearms, as the game is coded to increase the bullet spread factor in these situations.
I don’t have to do anything extra to communicate to the player that assault rifles are fairly heavy weapons, and wielding two of them at once provides you with crowd-controlling firepower, not nigh infinite sniping attempts.
You won’t hit a barn with this much load on your arms, but if the barn is approaching you at high speeds and numbers, it’s just what you want right then and there!
I’m working with a somewhat limiting top-down perspective, but I’m primarily working with the player’s point of view - enemies standing far away near the edge of the screen would translate to “medium range, well within shot range” in a first-person shooter. In Steel Executor, given the camera perspective, that’s a job for a sniper rifle, or a lucky rifle shot.
So while it doesn’t really make sense that an SMG would shoot bullets at a 35-degree angle into the floor, it absolutely makes sense in a top-down perspective game when put next to accurate long-range weapons, such as sniper rifles. As you play the game longer, you start to get a natural sense of “alright, I’m wielding this or that shoddy kind of weapon, this means I need to get closer before firing, or I’ll waste my bullets”.
The built-in long-range inaccuracy of some weapons also organically presents the player with opportunities for utilizing enemies’ friendly fire. Enemies in Steel Executor will happily put 30 bullets in their allies’ backs if it means one of them can potentially hit you. Peeking in and out of cover to bait gunmen into killing their charging knife-wielding friends is a very effective albeit difficult crowd-controlling tactic in a pinch.
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This deep dive turned into a proper 6-pager already, so I’ll just stop right here and split the write-up into two parts.
I haven’t even touched on explosives and some other firearm-related things like hit feedback, so there’s still plenty of stuff to break down and talk about!
Be sure to add Steel Executor to your Steam wishlist if you haven’t already! Thank you for your support!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2541670/Steel_Executor/
Until next time!
- Peter
If there’s anything else you want to know about the game in detail, let me know in the comments!
X / Twitter @paxtyrannica