Trailer: The Fortress of the Secret Service
This could also be a 'B-roll' showing
establishing shots on your various locations with slow camera pans.
around 1-2 minutes is a good length in that case.
a play through can be longer. but noone will watch a 10 min movie...
The Fortress of the Secret Service
A Third Person Stealth-adventure
INTRODUCTION
I wanted to make a level where you can only use Stealth and no Combat to infiltrate a government building.
Inspired by the Splinter Cell games. As a Swedish SOG Agent, you infiltrate MI6 to find out where they are holding one of their own agents. Falsely accused and arrested as a double agent, you must locate and free Gus Henry March-Phillipps ll a.k.a Agent 00.
No weapons allowed, so the only tools you have are Light, Shadows and various other tools to sneak into the heart of the British Intelligence Service.
PROJECT DETALS
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Developed time: 7 weeks
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Engine used: Unreal Engine 5.4
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Additional programs: Blender
Sketchfab
Audacity
Epidemic Sound
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Level design and gameplay
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Assets used: AGLS IWALS v1.2.0 Which I modified to some extent with new features that enhance the feeling of being a Black-op / Secret Agent
To get the feeling of being a secret agent...
Because I wanted to create the feeling that you are a Secret Agent who has to infiltrate your own fortress, access important information and save a fellow agent who has been falsely accused.
What is more fortress and agent related than MI6 in London?
Since weapons are not allowed according to the short description of the story in the introduction, that you play as an agent against agents. But being able to shoot from the shadows didn't feel quite right to me for another reason, I felt that the player would have been way too Overpowered.
So I chose to remove weapons altogether and go with stealth only.
LEVEL OVERVIEW
LEVELS AND LEVEL MECANICS
Construction site
Level mechanics used: Patrolling Guards and Surveillance cameras
Both the patrolling guards and the surveillance cameras are there to make the player understand that they are not supposed to be here. The guards are also heavily armed with rifles to make the player understand that it is also dangerous to be discovered.
To get past these obstacles, the player must sneak past the guards when they move or when they turn around as they leave certain areas unguarded as do the surveillance cameras.
You start at a construction site where the player encounter a group of armed guards patrolling the road into the construction site.
And without weapons (as ordered), you have no choice but to try to avoid the guards at all costs.
Once past the guards and inside the construction site we find surveillance cameras with different scanning behavior to confuse other intruders, but not secret agents.
North wall
Level mechanics used: Surveillance cameras
Here, the surveillance cameras are there to show and tell the player that you are not supposed to be here, but they also make the player have to think a little about where they are standing and where they are going.
Once past the surveillance cameras at the base of the building, it's now time to head upwards.
More surveillance cameras since there are no patrolling guards here.
Scaffolding, fire escapes and construction containers create a challenging climb for our agent.
But a hanging crane hook provides an opportunity to get a taste of that secret agent action.
The Roof
Once you reach the roof there is more of that secret agent action.
You have to stay hidden from patrolling helicopters and jump from hanging containers.
Level mechanics used: Patrolling helicopter
Here I wanted to make the player feel like they had moved past the monitored ground level, away from armed guards and surveillance cameras, and instead introduced a patrolling helicopter that monitored the entire roof of the building.
Service stairs and HQ Head office
This area of the level is the first one that is indoors, it is also much calmer and gives the player time to catch their breath.
You enter the Chief of the Secret Service's office to look for information about your fellow agent who has been falsely accused of being a double agent.
The information you find tells you to go deeper into the fortress.
Level mechanics used: Non
Situation Room
A little more of the feeling of being a secret agent is now given in the form of the player lowering himself down a rope a few floors below in an empty elevator shaft to what is a Situation Room.
Large screens with drone images, office cubicles for employees and large cooling systems for all computer systems.
As you sneak past the enemy guards, you will reach an open ventilation shaft that leads further into the building.
Level mechanics used: Light switches, Light indicator, Patrolling guards and Stationary guards.
In here we find the patrolling guards and they are accompanied by stationed guards. So to get past the patrolling guards the player already knows that they leave certain areas unattended but they do not do the stationary guards so to get past these guards the player can use light switches to darken areas that you can walk through.
Training facility (Ventilation shaft)
Emerging from the dark ventilation,
the player finds themselves high above a training facility that the agents use for combat tactics.
A level section full of that agent action, jumping, swinging and falling through glass panes.
Level mechanics used: Non
Training facility (Infirmary)
Level mechanics used: Ventilation ducts, Light switches, Light indicator, Night-vision,
Stationary guards, IR-lamp.
Again we have stationary guards and light switches, which were previously used to turn off certain lights so that you can get past, but you can also use ventilation passages to get into other rooms and avoid the guards in this way.
And to see something in these ventilation passages and alternative rooms when you turn off the lights, it can be good to use your night-vision and your IR-lamp
After the player has experienced more agent action and fallen through glass panes, the player is now inside the training facility's control room.
The information downloaded from the
HQ Head's computer tells us that the imprisoned agent is being held in one of the interrogation rooms.
More guards, understandably since they are guarding one of the best agents the world has ever seen, Gus Henry March-Phillipps ll a.k.a Agent A.A.
Make your way to the interrogation room, use the ventilation ducts to avoid the guards.
Training facility (Interrogation room)
Level mecanics used: Ventilation ducts, Electrical box, Light switches, Light indicator,
Night-vision, Stationary guards.
Here we have another stationary guard in the corridor outside the interrogation room and two more guards inside the control room next to the interrogation room. The player turns off the light at a toilet, takes a detour around the interrogation room through the ventilation passage from the toilet, sabotages an electrical box to turn off the light in the room with the Agent.
Once out of the ventilation that leads from the infirmary, the player continues out into a corridor,
sneak past the guard standing outside the interrogation room
into an adjacent toilet.
Use another ventilation duct that leads past the guard room and around into the interrogation room where the Agent is waiting to
share important information.
Now that the player has received the information from Agent 00, it is time to get out in order to act and clear Agent 00's name.
Escape...
Reflection:
I wanted to have some areas where the player could breathe, take it easy and gather themselves a bit. Give the player a short break from all the sneaking, and that's where the Service Staircase comes into the picture but it felt a bit too tame for a space in a well-guarded building like MI6. I felt similarly about the HQ Head Office space, that there was something missing in these spaces.
Solution:
If I had been given more time for this project, I would have worked out some kind of introduction to a hacking mini-game on a number of hackable surveillance cameras or doors that you could then apply a slightly more advanced version of on the computer from HQ Head Office, the computer where you get Agent 00's position from.