Among Thieves Games Design Document

Games Design Document
Among Thieves

Lee Griffith

High Concept

One-line Introduction:

Play as a magical teleporting thief as you break into the house of a collector of ancient artefacts,
working your way through the city of North Shore and avoiding the local law enforcement.

Theme:

Stealth, First Person, Fantasy, Magic

Environment:

The level for this prototype takes place in one city, but with three distinct ‘feels’ to the areas. The
first area that the player begins with will be a built up, slum type area. This will feature tall,
apartment style buildings, that are spaced close together.

The second area will be the noble district, with larger detached houses that are well spaced apart
and clearly meant for those that are wealthier than the starting area.

The third will be the mansion that the player has to stealth from. This will be a wealthy and lavish
area, full of displays of opulence. This area will also be different from a gameplay standpoint, as it
will be more compact, and difficult to avoid the guards in.

Setting:

North Shore is a city full of old money, with large noble manors dotting the hill that the city climbs.
Due to this, the city is also a popular spot for gangs and organised crime.

One of these gangs is led by a gnome man named Don Peacock, who gives the player character an
offer he can’t refuse, upon returning to the city. This job will send the player from the lower part of
the city, and up the hill toward the manor at the top.

Unique Selling Points and Key Mechanics:

• Stealth – The player must use their wiles to avoid the view of the guards that patrol the city
of North Shore. Combined with the player climbing mechanics, and teleport, if the player is
patient and watches the guards, they can achieve their objective unseen.

• Teleportation – Teleportation will be one of the player’s main methods of traversal. They
will be able to aim where they wish to teleport to, before travelling to it. If it is within range
of the teleport, then you can go there.

• Player Agency – Player Agency is a huge aspect of this project. Allowing the player to play
this level how they like. Whilst there are of course ways the player is ‘expected’ to go, the
point of the design of this project is to allow the player to really go through it however they
like. This will include multiple entrances to the manor that is the player’s target, allowing
them to take different approaches to how they achieve their objective.

• Sprawling Level – Featuring multiple districts of a city, the player can explore the city of
North Shore, seeing the disparity between the noble district and the slum firsthand.
Collectables will also be placed across the level, encouraging the player to explore further.

Lee Griffith

• Lore – Taking place within a continent crafted for this game, the player may read through a
Codex, seeing where potential new missions would take them, and what else is going on in
the continent of West Reach.

Enemy Types:

• North Shore Guard – The town guard of North Shore are not the brightest bunch in the
world. Drawn from those who failed to join the military, but still wished for a position of
power over the average woman or man.
The guards patrol the streets to the letter of their orders, doing little to go above and
beyond. They do however have orders to attack on sight if they spot intruders.

Pickups:

• The Artefact – The main objective of the level. Finding and stealing this artefact is that job
that the player character has been sent on. Once they’ve picked it up, they will be able to
return to where they started and exfiltrate through the sewers.

• Jewels – A little something to help encourage exploration. A handful of jewels will be spread
across the level. If this was going to be more than a vertical slice, the extra money players
would receive from stealing this jewels would be used to purchase upgrades or equipment.

Target Audience:

The target audience for this game will be split between two main groups. The first will be fans of
stealth games in general, such as Metal Gear Solid, or Splinter Cell.

The second group will be specifically those who are interested in First Person Stealth games. Games
such as Deus Ex, Dishonored, or Thief. Fortunately there is a gap in the market currently, as since
these are really the main influences for the game, and there hasn’t been a release from any of them
since late 2016. This means that players who enjoy these sorts of games could be hungry for more,
which would be a perfect opportunity for Among Thieves.

As far as player types on Bartle’s Taxonomy goes, the type of players who would most enjoy this
game would be Achievers and Explorers.

Market and Competitors:

The potential market for this style of game is quite solid, but not as large as some other genres, such
as FPS, Sports, or RPG. Looking at sales figures of the games that are influencing this, we can see that
they sell a good amount, but not compared to gaming heavyweights.

Dishonored 2 – 2.5 million sales
(https://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Dishonored+2&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSal
es=0&results=200)

Deux Ex: Human Revolution – 2.18 million sales (https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-04-
deus-ex-human-revolution-sells-2-18-
million#:~:text=Deus%20Ex%3A%20Human%20Revolution%20sold,and%201.38%20million%20in%2
0Europe)

Dishonored - https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-28-higher-than-expected-dishonored-
sales-mean-bethesda-has-a-new-franchise

We can see that there is a market here. The publishers were apparently not particularly happy with
these sales figures, as they were large, expensive AAA productions. However, if the game was

Lee Griffith

created on a small indie budget, but still played well, and innovated (Or played on nostalgia of old
Thief games), then lower sales would be perfectly acceptable.

Regarding competitors, at the moment the only real competitors to a game like this would be the
same games that influenced it. However, due to the lack of new games in this genre, this isn’t an
issue, as most people who are interested in this genre would likely have already purchased and
played these other games, and would like to play more. Also, as this would be an indie game, the
price point would be lower, allowing more people to buy the game at this lower price.

Gameplay Influences:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygzYdu7OFu8&list=PLJA0MNUyOCaHoNj8NaCDj2Ygot-
SDpLUj&ab_channel=FallenFoggy

Deus Ex is a first-person action role-playing game set in a technologically advanced near future. Deus
Ex allows the player multiple different ways to play the game; you can play it as a first-person
shooter with RPG elements, a complete stealth game where the only combat you are forced into is
against the bosses, or a mixture of both.

Dishonored 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91qamm6oUoA&ab_channel=RabidRetrospectGames

Dishonored 2 is an action adventure game set in an oppressive world set somewhere between
Steampunk and Dieselpunk. Whilst combat is a completely viable route to playing through the game
(Although this will grant you the ‘bad’ ending), the game is much more geared toward stealth, and
that is where the true challenge of the game lies. As the combat is quite easy, and overpowering
ordinary soldiers with your powerful magical powers isn’t particularly challenging.

Attempting to move through the levels whilst being spotted as little as possible is how the majority
of players go through the game, and where the influence for Among Thieves really comes from.

Thief II: The Metal Age

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAfeoX_5AH8&ab_channel=BasementPhilosopher

Thief II is a first-person stealth game. However, the game plays completely differently to Dishonored
2. Gone is the fast movement and combat of that game. Instead, Thief is slow and methodical, and
combat is your last, desperate option.

The player must use a handful of different tools, as opposed to magic in Dishonored, and augmented
abilities in Deus Ex. Whilst all of these games do approach this differently, they are all working
toward enhancing the player experience with somewhat similar abilities and skills, just flavoured
differently.

The Pillars:

Taking influence and inspiration from these mentioned games, Among Thieves is going to operate
around three main cores ideas, or pillars.

Lee Griffith

Exploration

• Exploration is often a key aspect of these games, and will reward the player in a variety of
different manners. Across the three games used for inspiration, and something that will be
implemented in Among Thieves, is that this extra exploration will often lead to alternate
routes into the objective, that may have less enemies, or perhaps will allow the player to
skip parts of certain areas.

• Large maps with a focus on verticality are also a large part of these games. As this level from
Among Thieves is going to be set within a city, verticality will also be a large part of the
mission and will feed into some of the game mechanics.

• The last, main aspect of exploration are collectables. All three of the influencing games have
them. Whilst in Dishonored and Deus Ex they are usually extra supplies that the player can
find, or snippets of information, in Thief, if playing on a harder difficulty, the missions will
require the player to steal an additional amount of items (such as jewellery) just to complete
the mission.

Avoidance

• In both Dishonored and Deus Ex, it’s up to the player whether they wish to sneak through
the missions, or fight their way through. However the player will often be rewarded for
doing it the silent way. In Dishonored, this is reflected through a system called ‘Chaos’,
where the more people that are killed during missions, the more the chaos rises. This high
chaos will lock the player out of achieving the ‘good’ endings, and make later missions more
difficult. This system is nice for players who don’t necessarily wish to play a stealth game, or
have a bit of fun. However, Among Thieves is going to be leaning more toward the way this
is handled in Thief.

• In Thief, combat is not a substantial part of the experience. Whilst combat is available, it is
extremely simple, and the game recommends you avoid it. On higher difficulties, missions
will actually fail if you kill a guard, civilian, or a pet belonging to the target. This is to
emphasise the fact that you’re a thief, not an assassin. It’s the player’s job to get in, and get
out.

• In Among Thieves, there will be no combat from the player’s perspective. The game is
primarily going to be about avoiding detection, much like Thief.

Player Choice

• As mentioned previously, player agency, at least in the approach to objectives is a large part
of these games. All three of the games do it differently, however they all do it in a way that
rewards the player for going off the beaten path.

• More agency also adds extra replayability to the game. The player may wish to go back
through the level by taking a different path, and seeing what will happen if and when they
do.

These three main pillars are what Among Thieves is going to be built upon.

Lee Griffith

Moodboards

Exterior

As mentioned previously the exterior of the level is going to be split into two main areas. These will
be the poorer area of the city, and the richer part of the city.
The idea is to create a walled in section full of multi-story apartment type buildings crammed close
together in the poorer area, giving a feeling of claustrophobia and oppression. (However, this will be
offset by giving the player a sense of freedom, by allowing them onto the rooftops).

The above images will be used as inspiration for the poorer area.
The richer area, however, will be much more spaced apart, with larger, detached buildings. This of
course will be done to highlight the disparity between the two areas, reminding the player of the
differences between the nobility and the commoners.

Lee Griffith

Interior

The interior of the target mansion is going to be the most lavish of all the areas in the level. A large,
two story mansion built like a castle sitting atop a cliff, the mansion is going to be full of paintings,
expensive jewellery and finery, and even have a ballroom. The feel for the mansion however is going
to still be more medieval, so whilst it may not seem particularly extravagant to our modern-day
standards, to the people of this world it would be.

Lee Griffith

Art Style

The art style for the game is going to low poly, but with a somewhat more drab colour palette than
the usually brightness that a lot of low poly games go for.
Here is some inspiration for the low poly art style (But not the palette)

Lee Griffith

Lee Griffith

Low poly is a great art style to use if there is no dedicated artist on a project (Such as this); as there
are many low poly asset packs out there, and a lot of them fit together quite nicely, allowing for a
wide variety of differing assets in the project.

Asset Packs

As there is no artist working on this project, all of the assets used within the game are going to be
coming from third parties. Most, if not all will be sourced from the Unreal Marketplace.

Lee Griffith

Here is a list of the packs used within the game.
POLYGON – Fantasy Kingdom
The majority of the assets within this game are going to coming from this huge asset pack. The poor
district, noble area, and the target mansion will be built with assets using this pack.

Infinity Blade: Effects
The main purpose of this pack is to use a beam particle effect, that will be used in sections of the
level to be used as a magical gate, which will push the player back if they walk into it.

Water Materials
As the city of North Shore looks out across the ocean, the player will be able to see the ocean in the
distance, so materials were needed to get good looking water.

Lee Griffith

Soul: City
There is a particle effect that will be used from this asset pack; that being the falling leaves particle,
which will be used across sections of the game.

GOOD SKY
There will be two different sky boxes used within the game. Both are going to be taken from this
pack.

Lee Griffith

Level Design Documentation

‘Areas’ map

This map splits the level into a series of ‘areas’. These are for the reader of this document, so that
they can reference back to these names and understand the context.

Focal point
The main focal point of the map is the mansion on the cliffs. The mansion has been designed on the
inside and outside using architectural design philosophies to give off the sense of wealth and power.
It is positioned high up on the cliff to give people climbing up to it a sense that they’re climbing to
something that has a higher purpose.
The building is overly scaled and large compared to everything surrounding, as a sign of the owner’s
obvious wealth.

Lee Griffith

Points of interest/landmarks

Exterior
A series of landmarks have been labelled on this map. Most of these landmarks do feature a
purpose;
Sewer – The entry point to the level, and the exit.
Church – Hiding one of the collectables
Wizard’s House – The centre of the map
Tunnel Entrance/Exit – The Tunnel that allows players to bypass No Man’s Land
Jousting Rounds – A large landmark, however this area has no functionality
Hedge Maze – One of the collectables waits here.
Snogglebottom Mansion – The target that the player must break into.

Interior ground floor
Lee Griffith

Interior upper floor

Pickups

There are two different types of pickups within this game.
The first of these is the main objective, which the player must pick up to be able to complete the
mission. You can see below there is only one of these on the maps.
The second collectable is a small necklace collectable. There are six of these scattered around the
map in areas that are not necessary for the player to explore. The placement of these is to
encourage explorer and achiever type players to explore further.

Lee Griffith

As this level takes place near the start of the game, there also shouldn’t be too many collectables, as
to not overwhelm the player. Instead, let them ease into the game more, and to learn what to
expect for the placement of these collectables, and where to look for them.
Exterior

Interior ground floor

Lee Griffith

Interior upper floor

Enemies and traps

Whilst not your traditional traps, such as arrows firing out of hidden spots in walls, there are a few
traps in this level meant to block the player.
The first of these is the magic barrier. These are not meant to block the player specifically, but to
provide an extra facet for the player to consider whilst approaching the areas with these traps.
The second of these traps are used to keep the player within the map. They are wooden stakes that
will damage the player if they touch them, making it so that attempting to escape the map will result
in death.
Traps exterior

Lee Griffith

Enemies Exterior
The enemies in this level are the city guards. They will patrol up and down their specified paths.
However, they have orders to attack people breaking the curfew (Or breaking and entering) on sight,
and will pursue the player and attack them with their swords if they catch them.

Enemies interior ground floor

Lee Griffith

Enemies interior upper floor

Paths

Due to the nature of the game, and how player agency is something that the game has been
inherently designed around, there is no ‘main path’ for the player to take. The player of course has
an objective that they must reach, but there are multiple different ways to get there, and the player
is more than welcome to use all of the playable space to reach the objective.

Lee Griffith

So because of this, the below map simply shows a few ‘recommended’ paths through the exterior
part of the level. The red path takes the player through the streets for the majority, requiring the
player to climb over a gate at one point. The red path however is the most dangerous. The green
path has the player climbing over rooftops, before teleporting into the noble district. They will still
be pursued by guards here, but less than if they had taken the red path. The blue path is the safest.
There is an underground tunnel in the slum district that can allow the player to bypass the section
known as No Man’s Land, and emerge in the Noble district, skipping a handful of the guards.
(Rewarding exploration).

Storyline Elements

This level, due to it being what would be the second level in a full game, still hasn’t introduced the
player to the main story. The artefact that the player steals is the catalyst to joining the main
storyline of the game.
The purpose of being somewhat light on plot here is to ease the player into the mechanics and
gameplay of the game, before introducing the story on top of that.
Large elements of the player character’s inner thoughts will also come from the pre-mission journal
entries, as opposed to in game.
The purpose of this journals is to give the player a few moments of downtime where they can collect
their thoughts, alongside the player character.

Lee Griffith

Character

The player takes on the role of Carver; a human thief who had spent some time at a magical
academy before being thrown out for causing trouble.
Applying some of the knowledge he learned at this academy, Carver is able to teleport short
distances, allowing him to access areas and bypass traps and enemies that any other mundane
humanoid would not.

Player Movement

The player character’s ground speed is set to 800U per second. The character has been purposely
made to be slightly faster than the guards, so that they can escape if they need to, however if they
get surrounded or boxed in by the guards then they will be in trouble.
It makes sense from a realistic sense as opposed to design that the PC would be faster also, as they
are a thief wearing light sneaking gear, whilst the guards are wearing armour and carry swords.

Player Jump + Mantle

The player character here has a jump Z velocity of 420. This equates to a clearance rate of around
110U, which is around the size of a wooden crate. The decision in making the jump be of this height,
is to allow the player to easily be able to access higher areas through the use of jumping and
climbing, as if it were lower then the player would not be able to use their mantle ability, if the rest
of the world was to be kept to scale.
On the jump event, the mantle checks if the player is able to do the mantle with a timer that fires a
trace from the player character’s head level. If that trace hits an object, a capsule trace will then be
drawn in front of the player to check how thick the hit object is. If it is thick enough to stand on, then
a second capsule will be fired above it, to make sure there is enough headroom to be able to climb
up. If there is, then the player will be moved up to this second capsule via lerp. If there is not enough
room however, the player will simply jump instead.

Lee Griffith

Player Teleport

Besides running, jumping, and mantling, the player has another movement mechanic to access. The
teleport, or blink is a powerful ability that will allow the player to reach otherwise inaccessible areas.
The teleport system works by creating a particle effect at the end of a line trace. The particle effect
works to show the player where they would teleport to (1250U range). Once the player releases the
teleport button, a lerp will move the player to the position at the end of the line trace, along with a
field of view changing effect to give a sense of instantaneous movement. (90degrees FOV –
120degrees FOV, then resets to 90.)
After this, the teleport will go on a 5 second cooldown, in which it cannot be used again. This
cooldown is reflecting in the player heads up display, near their health.

Player Hiding

There are a handful of spots within the map that allow the player to hide from the vision of guards,
due to the darkness of the area. They are not particularly prevalent on this map due to it being quite
light for the majority of the map, however in a darker level they would be placed more frequently.
These hiding spots work by blocking the enemy’s perception into the area specified by a collision
box. So long as the player is within the box, they are essentially invisible to the enemy. An element
will appear on the player heads up display when they are inside one of these boxes to let them know
that they are hidden. The boxes are also completely scalable, allowing the map designer to make
them as large, or small as they wish.

Lee Griffith

Player Camera

The field of view is set to 90 degrees for Among Thieves. 90-100 degrees is the standard for first
person gaming, allowing for a health compromise between player vision, and game stability (The
higher the FOV the more needs to be rendered, as the player can see more).

Whilst the player character has no model in the game, the camera height is set at head height
related to the scale of everything else within Among Thieves. This is around 180U. The camera is
locked at this position, meaning the player is essentially always looking forwards, as is standard in
First Person games.

Lee Griffith

Player Controls

Among thieves is playable with mouse and keyboard. The control scheme is quite simple as there are
not a lot of inputs for the game. Below is a chart for the control scheme.

Player UI

The user interface whilst in game has been designed to be extremely simple, and nonintrusive.
For the majority of the time in game, there will only be three prompts on the HUD. Those will be the
player’s health, the mission objective, and the cooldown time for the teleport.

When the player is close to an object they can interact with, such as a door, or an item they can pick
up, they will receive an addition to their HUD in the centre, telling them they can interact.

Lee Griffith

You can see here from this shot how this user interface is reflected in game.
The game also features a dialogue system. When the player enters an invisible collision around
specific characters within the world, their view will be set to face the character, and a dialogue
widget will spawn in the player HUD, allowing them to interact with these NPCs.

Here we see the dialogue system in use, with the player receiving tips for the mission from another
thief.

Lee Griffith

Pickups

The pickups in the game work in an extremely simple manor. They objects themselves have a sphere
collision around them. Once the player steps into this sphere, they will receive a prompt on their UI
telling them that they can interact.
Once they do, the item will be added to an interface within the player, and deleted from the game
world. If this item is one of the collectable pieces, then they will also receive an update on their UI
that alerts them to how many of these collectables they have currently, and how many there are
total in the level.

If the item that is picked up is the main objective of the mission; in this instance that being the
artefact, then instead of adding to an interface then a Boolean is set instead, allowing the player to
then access the end of the level, instead of being told that they still need to steal the item.
Other than this Boolean, the principle is exactly the same, with the collision that allows the player to
take the item.

Enemy

The North Shore guardsman is the enemy that players will encounter within this level. Whilst not the
cream of the crop, they will follow out their orders.
The guards regularly patrol between multiple target points on the map, moving from one to another,
and then back. If they spot the player with their perception, then they will begin to chase.
Once within a range of 300U of the player, they will play their attack animation, swinging their
sword. A collision box is attached to the sword which causes damage to the player if they overlap.
If a guard loses sight of the player, they will pick a random spot within 500U, and move to it. They
will repeat this 4 times, before returning to their original patrol path. This is to give the impression
that the guard is searching for the player, as opposed to instantly forgetting about them.

Traps

The two traps within this level, as mentioned previously are the magic barrier, and the wooden
stakes.

Lee Griffith

The magic barrier works with a collision box around it. Once the player touches the collision box,
they are launched 400U backwards. This barrier does not cause damage to the player, but it does
block them from walking through it. Guards, however, are free to cross these barriers.

The wooden stake traps work a little differently. Their main purpose is to prevent the players from
attempting to break out of the map boundaries, as opposed to an invisible wall.
The stakes have a collision box at the top of them that will apply damage (25 out of 100 max) to the
player if they enter it. The damage will be continuously applied to the player so long as they stay
within the box, so as to deter further attempts to go through the stakes.

Codex

The main menu of the game features a page that allows the player to look through a codex of
information pertaining to the world.

Lee Griffith

The information will be displayed on the player’s screen through a widget and allow them to move
through various different pages and menus.

The information within this codex can be found within the lore document for this project.

Game Conditions

How do you lose?

There is no fixed loss condition for Among Thieves. Whilst the player character can die, there is no
game over system; allowing the player to simply restart the level and go through again.
Most games of this genre don’t feature a strict loss condition such as lives and game-overs, as this is
more of an arcade-like feature that you may expect in platforming games.
There are no checkpoints within the level from which you will respawn, as the size of the level does
not require them. This also has the added benefit of encouraging looking for other paths through the
level, if the previous one the player took resulted in their untimely demise.

Can you die?

Yes, the player character can die. The player character can take four instances of damage before
dying and having to restart the level.
There are a few different causes of damage, those being the wooden stakes that boarder a lot of the
map, the attacks from the enemies, and fall damage.
It isn’t supposed to be particularly easy to die, as this level would only be the second in the full game
and the difficulty hasn’t started to ramp up by this point.

How do you succeed?

The aim of this level is for the player to steal an artefact stored in a Nobleman’s manor. The player
must make their way to this manor, before collecting the artefact.

Lee Griffith

After they have taken the artefact, they need to exfiltrate the area. This is done by returning to
where they started the mission, where they will be able to interact with the sewer entrance and end
the game. In a full game, this would take them to the next journal entry, which would then lead into
the following mission.

Bartle’s Taxonomy of player types

https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/bartles-taxonomy-of-player-types-and-why-it-
doesnt-apply-to-everything--gamedev-4173
As mentioned previously near the start of this document, the main audiences for this game would
fall under the Achiever or Explorer player type, if using Bartle’s Taxonomy.

Achiever

There is actually quite a lot of overlap here with what the Achiever type player would enjoy in this
game, with what the Explorer type would, however they would differ at some points.
They would both enjoy searching for the collectables, as this falls under the purview of both.
However, the achiever would generally wish to put less time into searching for these sorts of items.
They would also be more focused on completing the game in the ‘best’ way possible, such as not
alerting any guards, or completing the game within a certain timeframe.
People who play single-player games competitively, such as Speedrunners are often of the Achiever
type, and both Dishonored and Deus Ex are quite popular in the speedrunning community,
suggesting that a game like Among Thieves could also become popular within this community.
Speedrunning is also a fantastic way for old games to stay alive and relevant in the modern day and
age.

Explorer

The explorer would differ from the Achiever as they would prefer to spend more time searching
around the level and making sure that they find all of the hidden bonuses and/or easter eggs. These
players would generally be slower paced with their gameplay, opting to take their time.
These types of players would also generally experiment with the mechanics of the game more than
others, and are the type more likely to discover shortcuts or skips that the Achiever type players
could then employ in their speedruns.

Lee Griffith