[commandos]
okay.

[team play]
Those are all good ideas.

[subversion]
Hmm, I wonder if they have a youtube video. Hate checking .avi videos.

“Subversion is going to be set in a modern High Tech environment, with you taking “mission control” over a team of skilled operatives in a hostile High Security building. You will be using Sabotage, Social Engineering and Grifting, custom Electrical and Mechanical devices, Distractions, Hacking, Stealth, Acrobatics, Precision demolitions, Trickery, whatever gets the job done.”

Sounds pretty interesting, and probably different from where I’m heading to. Thanks again for this link too.

Commandos: somehwat small maps, but later on, they are larger and even more difficult. Managed to play through until mission 14 or so, couldn’t get the timing right for that one. Haven’t played Commandos 2 yet, maybe maps are larger here.

Team play: Sounds absolutely good. Maybe team players should each have an area of specific expertise, so one is stronger and the other better with arrows or long range weapons, while another one can find traps more easily? But all players have basic skills in all areas…

Which reminds me of one of the things that make Thief such a good game. When you play it, you learn how to hide, how to aim and all that. So after a while you become a better Thief, and it’s your very own skill, not determined by some artificial system like in most RPG’s. I like that very much actually.

Got a hint to Subversion today, which is an upcoming game from the makers of Darwinia etc. Seems that it will be a stealth-tactics game, so it might be interesting to have a look at what they do?
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewforum.php?f=4

commandos: good point on multiple characters, that might be one reason. Also one reason might be the fact that in Thief you are free to move to places you want, in a large area. In commandos, you have a relatively small map to complete. (At least in the demo I tested, if I recall correctly)

team play:
I’m thinking something like where both player characters could contribute to the stuff needed to get out of the prison, and so that in certain places one guy needs to stay alert while the other tries to find a key from a restricted area…

Commandos: Maybe you’re right, somehow… it might be the different perspective, or the fact that you control several characters in Commandos vs. only one in Thief.

Imagine you have to complete your goal without killing or knocking out more than a few guards, then it’s about timing, sneaking to the next dark spot, maybe distract one guard to pass behind another. That kind of gameplay seems quite similar in Thief and Commandos (except for one vs. a few characters). Commandos (apart from perspective) might be a model for team play, somehow.

[Commandos]
In my mind it’s more puzzle than for example Thief. In Thief I have this feeling “am I going to get spotted.. and I even hold my breath”. But in Commandos it was bit more like “guards go there, I go here, solution is like this”. To me it felt a different experience.

[prison]
Prison thing indeed works pretty much in any setting. That’s true.

Yep, Commandos is much like a puzzle. But nevertheless I think that if you make a stealth game hard (difficult), you’ll end up with puzzle-like situations… forcing the player to think about viable tactics to get past some guards or traps or whatever.

Medieval is sort of a pet-peeve for me, but excape from prison or infiltrate a castle can be done in almost any setting. Greek mythology for example, or you find a way into the ancient Rome to find and assassinate Caesar.

Regarding Thief:
“I’m playing a mission which has several teams and you steal their respective team icons, with increasing difficulty to find and gather those things.”

How the stealth aspect works in this? Is it so that each team members need not to get spotted by NPC guards – or do teams interact with each other?

Regarding Commandos: to me Commandos always felt some sort of puzzle game rather than a stealth game.

I had forgot Desperados, good point.

I’m open to hear about medieval setting but since Thief has done that (and I know one other indie team working on medieval stealth game) I feel I’d want to do different. Perhaps.

@Sargon: I was under the impression that cavemen hunted them to extinction.