Hello everyone,
My name is Simon Nowak and I am the solo developer on Spirited Thief, a game I have been working on for about two years and a half. It's been quite an adventure and I got to learn lots of new things along the way!
First, allow me to introduce you to Spirited Thief, a tactical stealth game where you need to steal treasures by playing a Spirit and a Thief (thus the name!).
The first phase with the spirit (Trin) lets you explore the place. When the infiltration begins with the thief (Elaj), use the information you gathered with Trin to avoid the guards and steal everything you need in order to complete your mission. Each level is a mission, with its own objective(s) and motivations.
Making a stealth game
The stealth genre is truly something I love and whenever I can, I always play stealthy characters in games that allow it. However, I can get frustrated when stealth gameplay often translates to "never get seen or you lose". I feel like there is more to it than restarting or reloading every single time something unexpected happens.
To me, stealth games is about information. You need to know as much as possible about your enemy if you want to avoid direct confrontation: where they are, what they do, what they may do... while preventing them from doing the same about you!
But this is also true on a strategic level: where do I have to go, which places should I avoid, what should I do, where is my target, what are the biggest obstacles... I feel that this is not often the spotlight in stealth games. Yet, crafting your plans to pull off a heist despite dauting security measures is one of the most satisfying things to do!
Unsurprisingly, this is one of the main focuses in Spirited Thief. Because Trin's a spirit, you can explore the map entirely at your pace before starting your infiltration but there's a catch: you better make good use of this headstart, because you're gonna need it when you run out of time!
What to expect from Spirited Thief?
A lot of challenges! The story of Elaj and Trin is divided into three Acts and will explore their strength, shortcomings, friendships and how they play the cards they are dealt with. You will face multiple enemies, boss fights, puzzles, and strange security devices... that you may be able to turn to your advantage!
One important thing to me is to encourage players to experiment things, because this is how you learn to play Spirited Thief. Of course, things will go wrong and this is totally fine! Small mishaps can be dealt with and you can even salvage big fiascos (to a certain extent of course). Play with your limits! One of the core values of Spirited Thief is to allow the player to tailor the game's difficulty to their need: the sweetspot where it's rewarding and not too punishing.
In addition to that, at any moment you can adapt the difficulty of the game to your needs: either by choosing a preset or by changing a few specific things.
Thank you for reading! You can wishlist Spirited Thief, follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/