What makes or breaks a stealth game?

I think the most important thing for a stealth game is giving the player an incentive to be stealthy.

Making combat really hard is a must, in my opinion,
but you also need to reward players for being stealthy, for example by letting them overhear important conversations.

If you're planning on making a stealth game, have a look at early stealth games like the original Castle Wolfenstein and Metal Gear I and II.
Especially Metal Gear II.

Waiting is boring. Make succesful stealth about planning things and doing fancy shit instead of just memorizing patrol routes and waiting.

Good movement.

Thief works because it's movement system is so fucking good.

I think it's more a matter of the way YOU approach things, rather than the gameplay you insert in it.

You have to realize, stealth games are a niche. Work for the niche. Don't try to give it wide appeal.

Don't forget to make competent AI. Nothing ruins a stealth game like brain-dead AI.

>>379648359
what he said
stealth is only interesting if it is the strongest weapon at your disposal. For example in dishonored the stealth wasn't terrible but they gave all the fun tools and powers to combat prowess.

>passion project
>can't even decide on a genre
That being said, dungeon crawlers are easy to make. If you create a solid combat and progression system, you're done, just just sprinkle the enemies here and there with a bunch of loot and minibosses. Stealth is quantum mechanics of game design, there are like 5 stealth games in history of vidya that actually worked. At the very best you'll make a one evening meme like Mark of the Ninja

>>379649359
>length is an indicator of qualiy

found the poorfag

>>379649042
of course I wouldn't part of what makes me want to do a stealth game is because of how much I love the old thief games. I haven't seen anything that captures what i really enjoyed about it so I figured i might as well try my best to come up with something that does.

>>379649251
Not really. Every AI is easy to break if thats your goal, for example in Thief AI instantly goes full retard if you get under the table, or you can just run around the castle and aggro every single guard, then just knock them all out with flash bombs, but why would you do any of that? Stealth is at it's most fun when you ghost it.