G.E.A.R: Project Clover

CINEMATIC TRAILER ONLINE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKx96AczxcA

G.E.A.R = Global Emergency Anti-terrorist Response
This game used to be "ProjectX: The brotherhood of the four-leaved clover! The game is the same, but the name has changed.

Info on the project and brief history:
G.E.A.R is a stealth shooter, heavily inspired by Metal Gear Solid, that will try to immitate the gameplay and feel of the early titles (MGS1 and MGS2) of said series. The story was designed to be similar to the MGS story, but has nothing to do with MGS. In other words this is more of a clone than a fangame (I still refer to it as a fangame sometimes though since MGS is obviously the biggest inspiration behind it). I started working on it in RM2k3 during the summer of 2007 but soon realized it was holding me down code-wise, so I switched to Game maker 7 sometime around easter 2008 (after having tried to make fast pathfinding in RM2k3 for almost 6 months!) and have worked on the latest version ever since. During the summer of 2008 I was joined by a friend who took over story, dialogue and level design.




Note that the low framerates displayed in some of the screenshots are not caused by the game running slow, they are caused by me pausing the game prior to taking the shots!



The story starts out with the kidnapping of the American ambassador in Germany. The official story (and the one that the secret service and the berlin police are falling for) is that he was captured by islamic terrorists with the intention of damaging relations between the two countries. Therefore the search is directed to the middle east. However G.E.A.R (Global Emergency Anti-Terrorist Response), a top secret organisation founded by the American government, has other thoughts. After careful research they have learned that during the last couple of years several disappearances have occured in Berlin, and in all of these the victim's last known location was within a one mile radius of the main office building of a German biochemistry company known as Clover Corporation. This was the case for the ambassador as well. 28 hours after the disappearance was first reported, they get the green lights from the president himself. Knowing what is at stake Colonel Jonathan Svensk sends his best man, codename Zach, to infiltrate the Clover Corporation main office building and search for any clues to the whereabouts of the ambassador.

The operation commences without any complications arising, but soon escalates into a world-encompassing catastrophe when Zach uncovers information that a terrorist organisation that was believed to be disbanded several decades earlier is in fact still active, and has the will and the means to create a new world order. It is now up to Zach to stop them. The mission will take him through cities, forests, caves and military bases. And just when it seems nothing can get any worse, a past event is revealed that will forever change the way historians around the world think of the outcome of World War II.

• MGS style inventory system
  
  
• MGS style radar
  
  
• MGS style gameplay with decent guard AI trying to imitate the AI of MGS2 (see the gameplay section further down)
  
  
• MGS style codec communications with original facesets
  
  
• Story twists
  
  
• All characters have bios that will relate to the story
  
  
• Many minigames and puzzles
  
  
• Pixelblood!
  
  
• Multiple endings
  
  
• compiled pathfinding, way faster than any script you'll ever see
  
  
• Options menu in which you can change voice volume, sound volume and music volume. You can also turn off shadows and dynamic lighting to speed the game up if your computer is old, and enter minimalistic mode if you're one of those who think the HUD takes too much place. Once in minimalistic mode there's no HUD and information such as HP is only displayed if the engine deems it necessary (like if you're taking damage or are in a fight).
  
  
• Guards display blue question marks and red exclamation marks when something happens!
  
  
• Amazing 3D graphics rendered in realtime by the powerful MGS4 engine
  
  
• Fully voice acted, this includes all enemies and bosses.
  
  
• Dynamic lighting system with shadows that are drawn in realtime.Lights do not go through walls
  
  
• Cool particle effects (see videos)
  

The gameplay is quite important in this kind of game, so I will give a brief explanation of how it all works here so that those who haven't played MGS will have a fair shot at understanding this game! Basically you will be walking around trying to get wherever you're supposed to get. The problem with getting there is that most of the areas in the game will be patrolled by guards who do not want you to get there. If they see you the game will enter alert mode. This means that your radar will get jammed and all the guards will come running to the location where you were seen and try to kill you. For it to leave alert mode you have to get rid of the guards by either killing them (hard cuz they make a lot of damage) or outrunning them by running somewhere that is not an obvious hiding place (cuz they might check these if they are close to where you were last seen) or running somewhere where you can find lockers or toilet booths to hide in (don't try to hide when they see you though cuz they'll just open the door and kill you). When you have finally managed to shake them the game will enter caution mode and the radar will return to normal. In caution mode all the guards that were killed prior to the ending of the alert mode will be replaced by new ones that will come walking from the exit and then take over their patrolling routes, also search teams will be dispatched to look for you. The search teams will consist of three guards each, and split up to search different parts of the area by opening toilet booths and lockers (so now is a good time to leave that booth of yours). If the searching teams find you the game will re-enter alert mode. If they don't find you they will leave and the game will be back to normal infiltration mode. Elevators are powered down during alert mode.

We're hoping to release a demo before the end of 09.

Comments/criticism is appreciated.