Spy DNA Windows game

Spy DNA is a tactical squad RPG that combines turn-based game mechanics with realistic combat simulation.

The game plays about 70 years in the future, and the player controls a squad of genetically-enhanced superspies with unique talents.

When the genetic enhancement research is stolen from the lab, it is your character's task to recover it and prevent a rogue nation from creating an army of super-soldiers. In the course of the game, you will face a variety of baddies, such as endangered animal traffickers, unethical researchers, and rogue military organizations.

We are greatly inspired by the RPGs of the past that made the genre popular in the first place: Jagged Alliance, Silent Storm, and the original XCOM.

The player controls 1-4 characters from a bird’s eye 3rd person view. A player is not in direct control of a character. Instead, the characters are controlled by giving them orders which they execute based on their abilities.

Spy DNA will be available to play on Windows PCs.

Technology

Spy DNA uses C++ as the development environment. The codebase is medium sized at a couple hundred C++ files. We do not use an editor based scripting language.

The story and game database is created and stored with a 3rd party tool called Articy Draft.Nevigo.com We use their C++ library, Articy Access, to read the database feom the game engine.

The cover system in Spy DNA is based on line-of-sight. To visualize this for the player we provide two extra views using Render Targets. One is the gunsight view allowing them to specify how to make their attack. The other is the body cam view which shows the eye view of the currently selected character.

Level design

Spy DNA has two forms of levels. The first are hand generated levels such as the player base. These are created in the editor, very similar to a normal game.

The second type are procedural maps. Most of the mission in the game will take place on maps that are generated at level launch. This allows us to generate a much more varied experience for the player and provide an increase replay value. The terrain is generated using a midpoint displacement and then the building and other items are added in a second pass.