Imposter is a top-down, real-time, sci-fi stealth game that combines Hitman-style mission freedom with the readability of top-down action games. Playing as a super-spy for hire, the player infiltrates secure criminal bases and futuristic labs to quietly complete their goals through stealth, high-tech tools, and copying the appearances of enemies.
Superspies are solo agents who win through stealth, pre-planning, and careful improvisation while appearing professional and in control. Players should feel clever when using stealth and slip-ups should be recoverable. Stealth and deception should be encouraged with direct violence as a risky, last resort.
Stealth games are inherently strategy games, because they’re structured around the player finding solutions to overcome the set obstacles. Each mission should reflect this with a compact, purpose-made level design containing guards, civilians, turrets, doors, and other obstacles with multiple solutions. And once the player has completed the mission they have to pass through it all again to escape.
To help achieve their goals the player can:
- Knock out and impersonate enemies.
- Hack terminals, doors, cameras, and alarms.
- Sneak through blind spots, patrol routes, and vent systems.
- Use gadgets to distract enemies.
- Perform silent takedowns (lethal and nonlethal).
- Move and hide bodies.
- Steal items, money, and information.
- Use weapons to fight enemies when detected.
1. Choose Mission
- Select mission, adjust difficulty, and equip a custom loadout from a list of unlocked gadgets and tools.
2. Scout the Level
- Stealthily observe camera positions, guard patrols, locked doors, and objective locations.
- Use gadgets and tools to access enemy cameras, see power lines, or lure enemies
3. Infiltrate
- Sneak through missions, neutralize enemies, assume false identities, steal keys, hack vulnerabilities, and bypass security.
4. Complete the objective
- Steal target items, copy enemy plans, save hostages, plant surveillance tools, or kill enemy leaders.
5. Escape
- Finish any side objectives and escape the level.
The game is structured around self-contained missions that unlock linearly. To encourage replayability each mission should have: multiple ways to complete them, unique set pieces or puzzles to distinguish missions from each other, contain optional secondary objectives, and controlled variation to keep repeat runs engaging.
Like Hitman, the world should reward the player for engaging with it. Bringing specific items, listening to NPC dialogue, taking certain disguises, and completing side objectives should reveal unique solutions and challenges. Hitman is a memorable series because it allows for strange and varied assassinations on their targets, Imposter should do the same but for theft.
Mission Name: Targeted Withdrawal
Objective: Empty the criminal’s deposit box and retrieve the client’s stolen documents.
Brief: Your client has had key research documents stolen by an ex-employee. If not returned soon, internal delays will cost their company billions in lost deals. The bank manager is assisting the thief and hid the documents under a fake name. Discover what deposit box the documents are hidden in and return them to their rightful owner.
- Sneak into the manager’s office and use their computer records to identify the fake name and deposit box.
- Lure the manager to an isolated place and make them tell you where the documents are hidden.
- Review vault security camera logs to see where the manager moved the documents.
- Hack the vault’s sprinkler system, forcing the employees to open the vault to see what happened.
- Make a phone call to the manager bragging that you’ve already stolen the documents back to make him open the vault to check.
- Impersonate the manager to access the vault for a last-minute deposit.
Stealth over violence
- The player should be most powerful when undetected.
- Lethal takedowns of civilian and innocent guards should penalize the player to discourage such behavior.
- Small mistakes should be recoverable, but larger ones should be punished.
Real-time tension
- Enemies, cameras, and patrols should be predictable, but also mobile and reactive, to properly challenge the player.
- Enemy movement must provide the player opportunities and openings.
Multi-faceted and replayable
- Every objective should be completable or accessible in multiple ways.
- Player exploration and engagement should be rewarded.
- Mission objectives should be puzzles to solve.
- Optional objectives should be challenges.
A degree of variation should be included to prevent each run from being exactly the same. Patrol variations, alternative item placements, and randomized puzzle solutions keep the game familiar, but unpredictable and interesting.
