Coming up with new video game ideas is hard. That's not an insult to the many struggling indie developers out there. It's just a fact. Every great genre and mechanic has been done before. This leaves the developers of today with a few options. They could go the Kojima route by passing off a bunch of nonsense as a brand new genre. They could just copy an already-established game and use different visuals. But that rarely works out. One of the best options seems to be to mix together a few successful ideas to make something sort of new. That's what Shadowy Contracts is doing.

Shadowy Contracts is an Early Access Steam game. Its own Steam page refers to it as a "stealth and RPG hybrid." That makes it sound like the recent Assassin's Creed games. In reality, it's more like a medieval version of Hitman. Which is great. It's a mashup that makes for a lot of fun and player choice. Or at least it will once the game undergoes a lot of work.

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Just Go Kill Some Dudes

via: Steam

Story does not seem to be the main concern of Shadowy Contracts. The player is given simple character creation options at the start – human, dwarf, or half-giant – and told that they're poor. It turns out King Arthur is actually not that great of a king, so regular citizens have to do extreme things like join an assassin's guild to survive. With that bit of context, it's off to take on some contracts of the shadowy kind.

Contracts are the game's main form of gameplay. The player is given a target, and will be given gold once they kill that target. As it's a stealth game, the optimal style of play is to sneak around and kill only the primary targets once they're vulnerable. There's a stealth attack for that, as well as bows. Bows are amazing. In fact, sniping is almost too good. Since this isn't Call of Duty, they'll probably be fine-tuned at a later date so they don't hit with the precision of a scoped sniper rifle.

The other major part of gameplay is battle. As with most stealth games, one enemy finding the player means every enemy in the vicinity is alerted. Then they hunt the player down with dogged persistence. Again, this is no Assassin's Creed. One can't just parry their way to victory after being surrounded by five guards. What Shadowy Contracts does give is magic. That's where the RPG mechanics come into play. Players have a very rudimentary skill tree. They could just pour experience points into magic to make bigger, more explosive spells. Then stealth becomes somewhat unnecessary. There's also a separate battle mode where players can lead an army against an enemy army. It's not a very deep mode, what with this being a stealth game. Really it's just there to give players a way to annihilate swarms with their magic and feel cool.

What About The Rest Of The Game?

via: Steam

Here's where the Early Access part comes in. Shadowy Contracts launched with seven contracts and four battle levels with promises of more to come periodically. Even though it costs a low $13.99, there's still not too much game to it. One can max out all their skill after a few hours of play. There is is the promise of loot, but that's also somewhat half-baked at the moment. Collecting better armor and weapons is always nice, but there's no way to sell loot. Like leveling, it eventually loses its meaning.

There's also the issue of bugs. As an Early Access game, Shadowy Contracts is subject to quite a few bugs and visual glitches. Fortunately there's nothing game-breaking. It's just a lot of annoying things like awkward character movement or objects not interacting with the space like they should.

All that said, this game has its moments. These little flashes of brilliance where the main concept shines through. Sneaking around a medieval setting and then unleashing a devastating magical blast on unsuspecting guards feels empowering. Being a stealthy bow sniper never stops being fun. Hidden intrigue in King Arthur's court would make for a great game story, if the creator decides to tell it. Bugs and all, this game has potential. If the developer sticks with Shadowy Contracts, TheGamer might be writing a much more positive piece about it next year.

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