Stealth Bastard, a game

November 7, 2011 1:13 PM

Stealth Bastard: Technical Espionage Asshole is a sidescrolling stealth game for Windows that is part puzzle platformer and part Super Meat Boy. It also has a level editor and is inexplicably free. Go play!

Developed by Curve studios, who's also behind Explodemon!, which just got a PC release. Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

posted by The Devil Tesla (13 comments total)

he kinda looks like asavage.
posted by fetamelter at 1:18 PM on November 7, 2011

windows only :-P
posted by leotrotsky at 1:29 PM on November 7, 2011

From the licence agreement:

5.2 Further, you agree that you will not create, transfer, share, send, submit or upload any content that:
5.2.1 is protected by copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret or otherwise subject to third-party proprietary rights, including but not limited to rights of privacy and publicity (unless you are or have permission from the rightful owner); 5.2.2 contains fraudulent statements or misrepresentations that could damage “CURVE” or any third party; 5.2.3 contains any statements or materials that disparage, ridicule or scorn “CURVE” or any third party;? 5.2.4 is obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, predatory, **bleep**ographic, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages conduct that would violate any law or is otherwise inappropriate;?

I don't know what **bleep**ographic content is, but I'm curious to find out.
posted by zamboni at 1:30 PM on November 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

It appears you have to create and login to an online account to play, and then you possibly have to download levels to play. I say possibly, since I couldn't find any levels to download, and have summarily given up on the whole thing.
posted by zamboni at 1:45 PM on November 7, 2011

I don't know what **bleep**ographic content is, but I'm curious to find out.

You mean, other than pornographic?

I'll assume we don't need another generic tater joke here.
posted by arm's-length at 2:42 PM on November 7, 2011

I don't know what **bleep**ographic content is, but I'm curious to find out.

Logographic. If communicating in Korean, Hangul is fine but Hanja is prohibited.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:39 PM on November 7, 2011

Yeah, anyone figure out how this thing works? I can't seem to make or download levels either.
posted by Oxydude at 3:51 PM on November 7, 2011

I'm now tending towards the theory that all it does is steal your passwords and bank details.
posted by zamboni at 4:42 PM on November 7, 2011

Has anybody managed to get any gameplay out of this thing? Anything beyond the title screen just hangs/crashes for me. I think I'm beginning to figure out why this is a free game...
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:09 PM on November 7, 2011

Okay, just got it to work by running as administrator. Not a bad little game, but the overall packaging could definitely use some work.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:51 PM on November 7, 2011

So far, it's been worth every penny I paid for it.
posted by fredludd at 10:29 PM on November 7, 2011

Stealth Bastard

Technical Espionage Asshole

inexplicably free

just got it to work by running as administrator

Those look like dots worth joining, to me. Anybody bothered to check this thing with procmon and see why it wants admin rights?
posted by flabdablet at 8:46 AM on November 8, 2011

I'm running it fine on XP; it's pretty fun, though difficult in some parts. The maker dropped a note on the RPS article that people having trouble might find useful:

Hi, my name is Bidds and I made this.

I thought I’d take a break from poaching eggs to mention a few things.

- Yes, there’s an account system, but it’s only used to differentiate you from the other players on the leaderboards and for when you create and upload a level (think of it like a Little Big Planet thingy). There’s nothing personal, no email address. The password is just so no one pretends to be you!

- Our lawyer wrote our EULA, so it’s aimed lawyer-to-lawyer really, a cover-your-ass situation. We read that some people thought 3.3 was strongly worded, so we changed it to be less harsh-sounding. (Really, to me, the idea that I would want your data, or would even know how to get your data, is a bit laughable. What would I do with all your data?! Seriously, I have enough on my plate as it is…)

- I thought pointing the install to the default Program Files location would be pretty safe. However! It appears that UAC prevents programs from modifying files in that directory (looking something like this http://yfrog.com/oc72779124j). Changing it to something like C:\Games\StealthBastard solves that problem.

- Likewise, run the game as an admin, since it needs to be able to create save files and whatnot.

I just made this in Game Maker in my spare time, so I’m not really a PC coder (hence it’s free, and hence some of these installation issues!).

If you’re having trouble, I hope you persevere and end up liking the game. Really it’s just a labour of love made for people to enjoy!

Back to my eggs…

posted by Rhaomi at 12:54 AM on November 12, 2011