Of Guards and Thieves Preview

Let’s make a comparison here: Of Mice and Men is a modern masterpiece read the world over that explores themes of fate, freedom and the nature of man, all while challenging societal norms at the time in which it was written. Of Guards and Thieves is an indie videogame in which two opposing teams, the overtly named guards and thieves, play hide and seek in an online multiplayer environment all while shooting at each other. And some people say videogames aren’t art. Then again, maybe Subvert Games thought Of Guards and Thieves was a fun title for their enjoyable little stealth action game, and didn’t really care about the comparison. In which case it’s a little pointless to poke fun at the studio for it, and... I should probably get on with the preview.

Of Guards and Thieves is an inventive game that takes a lot of inspiration from similar titles on the indie scene. The concept is simple, but well executed: the thieves are tasked with stealing one of a variety of items hidden somewhere on the map, while the guards must defend that item without knowing which of the available treasures is the real target. That’s not especially original, but what makes Of Guards and Thieves more than a basic top-down multiplayer shooter is the incorporation of lighting into the game mechanics. It’s not only a fun idea, but one on which the whole game depends.

Essentially, the whole map during a game is shrouded in darkness, however, each room (give or take a few unusual areas) has its own source of light and every player has a torch on their weapon. The guards can only see where light touches, so any thieves shuffling around in the darkness will be out of sight of their opposition. Those thieves, however, came prepared and are wearing night vision goggles, allowing them to see everything within their field of view. Now while that sounds as though the robbers have a massive advantage, they are also much more vulnerable to fire, and must rely on quick movement and stealth to succeed.

This all leads to matches that have a tendency to work very differently to most games of this ilk. For guards, the aim of the game is keep things illuminated - each room has a single or a couple of light switches which can reveal the moving thieves. It’s the guard’s job to keep the lights on and ensure they have as good vision as possible. Their torches help with this, but with a limited range, they can’t be relied on for spotting enemies. There’s always a slight fear that a thief is lingering in the shadows around you, but the extra strength of the guards makes them highly able on the offence, ensuring you always feel like an unstoppable force.

Since as a thief it’s very tricky to take on a guard one to one, you generally want to avoid that kind of situation. Turning off lights is the key to success, ensuring that your route to the target provides you with complete invisibility (given the occasional lucky torch discovery). Playing a thief is often much more tense than playing as their counterparts; the hairy moments where you're hiding in a bush as a guard searches around the area are wonderfully nail-biting. Although the more experienced players do seem to know all the best hiding spots by now and will hunt you down very effectively.

There are a fair few experienced players knocking around too. The game was only recently released on Steam Early Access, but a trimmed-down free web version of the game has been available for a while on Kongregate. Which means there’s a fairly active community in the game already, although it’s worth noting that a large proportion of that community seems to be Italian and speak in Italian only for some reason. On the whole though, it’s a good community that regulate the game quite well with the help of the developers.

Of course, a good community would be pointless without all-round fun gameplay to back it up, and while the aforementioned concept is very good and generally fun, the execution could be improved on. Movement and gunplay isn’t especially satisfying, not because of the cartoony visuals, but largely due to a lack of connection between action and reaction. Shooting lacks impact and movement can often feel horribly slow to a point at which it hinders gameplay. I can’t help but feel as though speeding up the whole game would improve it in many ways. At the moment, the actual mechanics feel incredibly generic and slightly boring because of this. Of course, with the game still being developed, this could easily change.

So there are some problems with the basic blueprints, but other elements of the game do almost make up for these early issues. There’s a decent amount of variety to be found including game modes, maps and classes. The maps could perhaps do with a few extras, but the ones currently available are all very good and support the light vs shadow gameplay incredibly well. They also look excellent. The game runs on Unity both with Steam and in the browser version, Subvert has made full use of the flexibility of this engine incorporating some top-notch lighting that helps to promote the game’s unique selling point. The cartoon style also looks ace despite its relative simplicity.

While the standard guards and thieves game mode will attract most players, there are a few other options to distract those who want to invest a bit more time in the game. A team deathmatch mode is included and works well to provide a bit of variety, although the asymmetrical gameplay isn’t great for fair fights in this mode. There’s a much more successful and amusing zombie game mode in which the thieves are replaced by a horde of brain munching shamblers who must break into and eat a giant brain while the guards fight them off. It’s another excellent mode that also uses light and darkness well.

Plus, in the spirit of the 1914 Christmas truce, there’s a game mode in which the guards and thieves lay down their arms and play a game of footy using the very same game mechanics of the standard modes. It’s actually a fairly workable mode that’s fun for about 20 minutes. It was obviously designed as an amusing distraction, and certainly works on that front. In fact, it’s a good representation of the charm that can be found throughout much of the game from the bobble-headed characters to the names of the target items including ‘the HL3 source-code’ and ‘Notch’s secret plan’ amongst others. It’s always nice to see a developer insert a bit of personality into their projects.

With a decent pool of classes and a functional ranking system, there’s plenty of options for customisation and improvement. With the developers consistently updating the game too, you can bet that it’s going to keep improving. New modes, classes and other extras are being implemented on a regular basis, so this is undoubtedly a game worth keeping an eye on. Of Guards and Thieves is a clever little game just like Of Mice and Men is a clever little book. It’s exciting at times, mellow at others but generally entertaining on the whole. It has moments of brilliance as well as huge gaping flaws (namely the impactless mechanic feedback), making it an experience worth trying but only if you’ve got the patience to get over those shortcomings. You know what, all of those things could be used to describe Of Mice and Men too, maybe they thought the name through after all.