Invisible Inc. was one of the complimentary games for PlayStation+ subscribers in the PlayStation store in December of 2016. Like so many other games given there, I get them into my game library, and then from time to time I download a bunch of them and try each one to see if there's anything good. A good portion of those games end up being on the boring side, but sometimes there are real gems among them.Invisible Inc. is a turn-based tactical stealth game with procedurally generated levels.
Yes, that last part sounds like a real turn-off. I'm one of the biggest skeptics in terms of procedurally generated content in video games. They tend to be boring, and usually suffer from a lack of design, a lack of a core idea behind the level design. When people design game levels manually, they tend to have some higher-level ideas about what the level should be like; there might be some kind of theme, there might be some story, there may be some fitting puzzles. Especially things like buildings tend to look like designed by humans, and be functional. Or at the very least show some level of intent and purpose. If there are puzzles of some kind within the levels, they show clear signs that they have been thought out by somebody.
Procedurally generated content, however, tends to be too random and pointless, without the creativity and ideas that a human designer has.
Thus I was quite skeptical about and prejudiced against this game. But like all the games I get from PS+, I wanted to give it a fair try. At least 10 to 15 minutes of play. I was expecting to be just bored with it in that time, delete it, and move to the next game in the list.
However, I found myself still playing the game two hours later.
The next day I was thinking if I should continue. Maybe the beginning was ok, and somewhat addictive, but it didn't feel like it could hold that interest for much longer. I was seriously considering just deleting it. But I gave it another try. And several hours later I was still playing the game.
This game is surprisingly addictive. And the levels are really, really surprisingly good.
The procedural generation in this game is something out of this world. I have never seen anything of this level ever before. If somebody told me that the levels were fully designed by somebody, and that there was no procedural generation of any kind, I would have believed them.
In retrospect there may indeed by quite a lot of randomness in the level design. It's just that it doesn't feel random. Somehow the gameplay, the enemy behavior, the tactics you have to use in order to pass the level... they fit just perfectly in these levels. It feels exactly like the levels were designed intentionally for the kind of gameplay that this game uses.
I have no idea what kind of procedural generation this game uses, and how random the levels really are. Oftentimes it feels like there is an intentional overall design to a level, decided by a developer for that particular level. I don't know if that's indeed so, and that only the details inside the rooms, and some of the overall map layout is procedurally generated, or whether the entire level is just one big product of random chance, but oftentimes I have a hard time believing it's just the latter.
For example, in one level the mission was to find a laboratory where the agents could get a couple of augmentations for free. Said laboratory was right at the beginning of the level, right next door to the starting room. Thus I got the augmentations right away. However, the real challenge was that the exit was on the other side of the level, and there were tons of guards, drones and cameras along the way, and I had to tactically devise a way to get through all that alive.
It really felt like the level was purposefully designed like that. In other words, you get the mission target right away, and the real challenge is to get out alive. I have no idea if the level was intentionally designed like that (with just the details being randomly generated), or whether it was just by pure chance that it was like that.
Another level started with a guard facing away from your agents, apparently just using a console. And the direction he's facing is the only path to advance. While there were some covers here and there, it was impossible to avoid him seeing the agents if they just tried to walk past him. And, of course, the guard was armored so he couldn't be taken out. It was a real challenge to figure out how to proceed in the level without getting killed. Again, it really, really felt like it had been purposefully designed like that, rather than being randomly generated.
You also quickly grow emotional attachment to the two agents that you control. They can die, if shot. And they will be permanently dead if not saved. I grew so attached to them that I really didn't want them to die, and in some levels went to extreme lengths to have both reach the exit safe and sound. And when I succeeded, it felt like a real accomplishment.
Overall, the level design, as random is might be, just fits the gameplay perfectly, and doesn't feel random and pointless at all. And the game itself is enormously addictive. It might not be for everybody, but it certainly was for me.
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