This is a 90s retro-style stealth gameplay game in which players will play as a scavenger, handling the many murdered bodies for the gang, cleaning up murder evidence objects, and cleaning the murder scene environment in the murder scene again and again. In short, destroying the corpse for the gangster, completely destroying the murder scene, and finally escaping the scene smoothly is the whole content of a game.
This scavenger is not easy
At the beginning of the game "Serial Scavenger", I actually thought of two titles that have stealth elements and require players to dispose of corpses, the "Dishonored" series and the "Party Hard" series. In the "Dishonored" series, after assassinating an enemy, players need to deal with the enemy to a certain extent to avoid the enemy killed by the character assassination (matchless) being discovered by other NPCs, resulting in a situation where the enemy's vigilance increases greatly. From simply dragging into hidden places such as grass and horns, to throwing corpse lakes and dumpsters, to using skills to summon mice, and even using thin lines to hang corpses into the air, players can handle corpses in a variety of ways. In the "Party Hard" series, players combine various murder methods to achieve the purpose of grooming all the characters in the party scene by arranging various traps, traps, strategies, etc., or directly avoiding the crowd to kill themselves. The corpses left after the death of NPCs should also reduce the chance of being found by other NPCs as much as possible, and the form of disposing of corpses in this game is relatively simple, dragging the corpse to the corresponding hiding place (garbage bin, sewer and other fixed places), or directly dragged to a corner that few people pass by.
Although the above two games have links in stealth and disposal of corpses, their core is still the word "assassination". The "Serial Scavenger" abandons the word "assassination" in stealth gameplay, and changes the game's stealth core gameplay to the direction of "processing". Players no longer need and cannot assassinate the NPCs in the scene, instead need to avoid the gaze of NPCs, use various terrain, NPC action routes, noise lamps and other content, in the NPC perspective blind area, destroy corpses, and deal with crime scenes.
The game's level consists of three conditions: handling the body, cleaning up the evidentiary items, and cleaning up the blood stains at the crime scene. First, to dispose of corpses, the player needs to move all corpses to a fixed processing point. Second, to clean up the evidence items, the player needs to find all the evidence items in the scene and recycle them, of which the small evidence items only need to be picked up, while the large evidence items need to be moved to a fixed processing point for recycling like the corpse. Third, clean the blood stains, the player uses a vacuum cleaner to process the blood stains on the ground, and after the blood stains of the entire crime scene are cleaned to a certain extent, it meets the minimum "cleaning value", of course, if all the blood stains on the scene are emptied, it is counted as a perfect cleaning and can achieve considerable achievements.
In the design mechanism of this game, more encourages the player to stealth and minimize the frontal conflict with NPCs (police and passers-by), which is very obvious in the completion of the three mission objectives in each level. In fact, players have some aggressive behaviors towards NPCs, such as hitting when running fast, smashing objects (large evidence items, limbs, fire extinguishers, etc.) into each other, opening and closing doors, etc., which can cause NPCs to temporarily vertigo, which is not long, but it is not an instant return to consciousness, which can satisfy the player's few actions. After the stun, the enemy will take out the weapon to strengthen the guard, and a similar attack police logo in GTA will appear, and the player will no longer contact the police for a certain period of time, the logo will disappear, but once the total of three logos, the police will permanently hold the gun and maintain high vigilance. Stun enemies are already the player's biggest means of attack, and in the face of stun NPCs, some maps will appear where NPCs in the stun state are held, but they are only one-time, and after imprisoning an NPC, they will not be used again in this game. In addition, passers-by NPCs on the street will also act as the eyes of the police, once they find some unreasonable behavior of the player character, they will call the police after watching for a period of time, and then more police officers will appear in the scene to patrol.
Since players are too passive in the face of NPCs, even "murderer" characters with chainsaws cannot actively kill NPCs, so staying stealthy at all times and minimizing contact with NPCs is the guarantee to complete the goal and successfully escape. Use the terrain to avoid enemies, use occlusion to jam the field of view, avoid enemies through hiding points, observe the basic fixed movement trajectory of NPCs, and use lights and noise to attract enemies reasonably. In a level map, players can take advantage of a lot of "geographical advantage" content, but in contrast, the AI action mechanism of NPCs is not completely fixed. Subtle changes in the position of the corpse, changes in the opening and closing of the door, changes in the light and darkness of the lights, changes in blood stains on the ground, etc., even if it is only some very slight changes, will attract the attention of NPCs (NPCs will have a question mark on their heads after discovering it, very puzzled, and will carefully look at the changed places, but there is a touch of cuteness).
Four scavengers, each different
In the game, this is an organization of four scavengers, each with their own story, and the plot also unfolds in different scavenger stories, introducing the right and wrong between them. Different scavengers will also have their own unique skills when cleaning the crime scene. The boss Bob, the orthodox scavenger, can pack the body into a body bag, there will be no more blood during the transfer process, and the abilities are relatively average, with no special shortcomings but no specialties. Viper, a high-level hacker, can clear the console to invade the power system, remotely turn off the lights, electronic equipment to make noise and other operations, as well as be able to drill ventilation ducts, the disadvantage is that the strength is small and can only drag the body away. The murderer, who can use the chainsaw he carries to divide the corpse limb sister into 2 parts, can easily carry a part of the limb away each time, and the police will be stunned by the bloody horror of the scene when they see the limb sister process, in addition, the murderer has a throwing specialty, throwing items to knock down the enemy's kung fu is first-class, the disadvantage is that the sound is very loud when using the chainsaw and it is easy to attract NPCs, and the process is splashed with blood everywhere, which is very troublesome to clean. Letty, a special parkour, can climb ladders, climb walls, jump obstacles, etc., and can also move the position of some obstacles, in addition, he carries spray paint to disguise the role of good people.
The design of the level corresponding to each character is also quite exquisite, and a map has been specially developed to match each of the four scavengers' respective specialty characteristics, and the various roads, trails, shortcuts, special paths, etc. on these maps are also intricate and intersecting. As the so-called "all roads lead to Rome", players in the same map, the way to successfully complete various objectives is not the only way, there are many ways, but many small actions of the player may cause NPCs to have different actions, so this also requires the player's ability to adapt.
The game is fun, but there are some flaws
The overall gameplay of "Serial Scavenger" personally feels that the experience is still very good, the game's stealth mechanism and map design, is indeed very ingenious, but the game also has some flaws. First, the player turning off the light can have a very limited effect, in the dark environment, NPCs can still easily see the player, and NPCs will immediately turn on the lights after finding that the lights are dim. Second, the noise has a limited interference effect, as long as it is quite close, NPCs will attract it. Third, the speed of NPC police is too fast, players basically enter the door to go to the police, scavengers shouldn't deal with the crime scene before the police, and then calmly leave. Fourth, as long as it is not in the NPC's line of sight, even if they are close, they can't see it, but if they appear in the straight line of their field of view, they can see you from a long distance. Fifth, as long as the NPC finds the player and starts the process of pursuit, if there is no special terrain, it is basically quickly caught up and then knocked to death with a stick.
summary
"Serial Scavenger" is a stealth game based on cleaning the crime scene and destroying corpses, where players experience 3D modeling content from a top-down perspective. In terms of level production, it can make very reasonable use of the characteristics of the characters, and design an intricate multi-level network structure in the area of a small map, which is very exquisite. However, the work is slightly deficient in the AI of NPCs, and there are some flaws. The overall quality of the game is good, and players who like stealth strategy are worth checking out.